The weeks went on and Passover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with strange things to eat and drink, and a comparative plenty of them--stranger still. Lack of appetite was the chief dietary want now. Nobody had any best clothes to put on in a world where everything was for the best in the way of clothes. Except for the speckled Passover cakes, there was hardly any external symptom of the sacred Festival. While the Ghetto was turning itself inside out, the Kensington Terrace was calm in the dignity of continuous cleanliness. Nor did Henry Goldsmith himself go prowling about the house in quest of vagrant crumbs. Mary O'Reilly attended to all that, and the Goldsmiths had implicit confidence in her fidelity to the traditions of their faith. Wherefore, the evening of the day before Passover, instead of being devoted to frying fish and provisioning, was free for more secular occupations; Esther, for example, had arranged to go to see the _debut_ of a new Hamlet with Addie. Addie had asked her to go, mentioned that Raphael, who was taking her, had suggested that she should bring her friend. For they had become great friends, had Addie and Esther, ever since Esther had gone to take that cup of tea, with the chat that is more essential than milk or sugar.
The girls met or wrote every week. Raphael, Esther never met nor heard from directly. She found Addie a sweet, lovable girl, full of frank simplicity and unquestioning piety. Though dazzlingly beautiful, she had none of the coquetry which Esther, with a touch of jealousy, had been accustomed to associate with beauty, and she had little of the petty malice of girlish gossip. Esther summed her up as Raphael's heart without his head. It was unfair, for Addie's own head was by no means despicable. But Esther was not alone in taking eccentric opinions as the touchstone of intellectual vigor. Anyhow, she was distinctly happier since Addie had come into her life, and she admired her as a mountain torrent might admire a crystal pool--half envying her happier temperament.
The Goldsmiths were just finishing dinner, when the expected ring came. To their surprise, the ringer was Sidney. He was shown into the dining-room.
Good evening, all, he said. "I've come as a substitute for Raphael."
Esther grew white. "Why, what has happened to him?" she asked.
Nothing, I had a telegram to say he was unexpectedly detained in the city, and asking me to take Addie and to call for you.
Esther turned from white to red. How rude of Raphael! How disappointing not to meet him, after all! And did he think she could thus unceremoniously be handed over to somebody else? She was about to beg to be excused, when it struck her a refusal would look too pointed. Besides, she did not fear Sidney now. It would be a test of her indifference. So she murmured instead, "What can detain him?"
Charity, doubtless. Do you know, that after he is fagged out with upholding the _Flag_ from early morning till late eve, he devotes the later eve to gratuitous tuition, lecturing and the like.
No, said Esther, softened. "I knew he came home late, but I thought he had to report communal meetings."
That, too. But Addie tells me he never came home at all one night last week. He was sitting up with some wretched dying pauper.
He'll kill himself, said Esther, anxiously.
People are right about him. He is quite hopeless, said Percy Saville, the solitary guest, tapping his forehead significantly.
Perhaps it is we who are hopeless, said Esther, sharply.
I wish we were all as sensible, said Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, turning on the unhappy stockbroker with her most superior air. "Mr. Leon always reminds me of Judas Maccabaeus."
He shrank before the blaze of her mature beauty, the fulness of her charms revealed by her rich evening dress, her hair radiating strange, subtle perfume. His eye sought Mr. Goldsmith's for refuge and consolation.
That is so, said Mr. Goldsmith, rubbing his red chin. "He is an excellent young man."
May I trouble you to put on your things at once, Miss Ansell? said Sidney. "I have left Addie in the carriage, and we are rather late. I believe it is usual for ladies to put on 'things,' even when in evening dress. I may mention that there is a bouquet for you in the carriage, and, however unworthy a substitute I may be for Raphael, I may at least claim he would have forgotten to bring you that."
Esther smiled despite herself as she left the room to get her cloak. She was chagrined and disappointed, but she resolved not to inflict her ill-humor on her companions.
She had long since got used to carriages, and when they arrived at the theatre, she took her seat in the box without heart-fluttering. It was an old discovery now that boxes had no connection with oranges nor stalls with costers' barrows.
The house was brilliant. The orchestra was playing the overture.
I wish Mr. Shakspeare would write a new play, grumbled Sidney. "All these revivals make him lazy. Heavens! what his fees must tot up to! If I were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, I should no more survive the fifth act than most of the characters. Why don't they brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?"
Yes, I suppose you blessed Mr. Leon when you got his telegram, said Esther. "What a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!"
Awful! admitted Sidney gravely. "Besides, it interferes with my work."
Work? said Addie. "You know you only work by sunlight."
Yes, that's the best of my profession--in England. It gives you such opportunities of working--at other professions.
Why, what do you work at? inquired Esther, laughing.
Well, there's amusement, the most difficult of all things to achieve! Then there's poetry. You don't know what a dab I am at rondeaux and barcarolles. And I write music, too, lovely little serenades to my lady-loves and reveries that are like dainty pastels.
All the talents! said Addie, looking at him with a fond smile. "But if you have any time to spare from the curling of your lovely silken moustache, which is entirely like a delicate pastel, will you kindly tell me what celebrities are present?"
Yes, do, added Esther, "I have only been to two first nights, and then I had nobody to point out the lions."
Well, first of all I see a very celebrated painter in a box--a man who has improved considerably on the weak draughtsmanship displayed by Nature in her human figures, and the amateurishness of her glaring sunsets.
Who's that? inquired Addie and Esther eagerly.
I think he calls himself Sidney Graham--but that of course is only a _nom de pinceau_.
Oh! said, the girls, with a reproachful smile.
Do be serious! said Esther. "Who is that stout gentleman with the bald head?" She peered down curiously at the stalls through her opera-glass.
What, the lion without the mane? That's Tom Day, the dramatic critic of a dozen papers. A terrible Philistine. Lucky for Shakspeare he didn't flourish in Elizabethan times.
He rattled on till the curtain rose and the hushed audience settled down to the enjoyment of the tragedy.
This looks as if it is going to be the true Hamlet, said Esther, after the first act.
What do you mean by the true Hamlet? queried Sidney cynically.
The Hamlet for whom life is at once too big and too little, said Esther.
And who was at once mad and sane, laughed Sidney. "The plain truth is that Shakspeare followed the old tale, and what you take for subtlety is but the blur of uncertain handling. Aha! You look shocked. Have I found your religion at last?"
No; my reverence for our national bard is based on reason, rejoined Esther seriously. "To conceive Hamlet, the typical nineteenth-century intellect, in that bustling picturesque Elizabethan time was a creative feat bordering on the miraculous. And then, look at the solemn inexorable march of destiny in his tragedies, awful as its advance in the Greek dramas. Just as the marvels of the old fairy-tales were an instinctive prevision of the miracles of modern science, so this idea of destiny seems to me an instinctive anticipation of the formulas of modern science. What we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness and free will."
What you want to-night, Miss Ansell, is black coffee, said Sidney, "and I'll tell the attendant to get you a cup, for I dragged you away from dinner before the crown and climax of the meal; I have always noticed myself that when I am interrupted in my meals, all sorts of bugbears, scientific or otherwise, take possession of my mind."
He called the attendant.
Esther has the most nonsensical opinions, said Addie gravely. "As if people weren't responsible for their actions! Do good and all shall be well with thee, is sound Bible teaching and sound common sense."
Yes, but isn't it the Bible that says, 'The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the teeth of the children are set on edge'? Esther retorted.
Addie looked perplexed. "It sounds contradictory," she said honestly.
Not at all, Addie, said Esther. "The Bible is a literature, not a book. If you choose to bind Tennyson and Milton in one volume that doesn't make them a book. And you can't complain if you find contradictions in the text. Don't you think the sour grape text the truer, Mr. Graham?"
Don't ask me, please. I'm prejudiced against anything that appears in the Bible.
In his flippant way Sidney spoke the truth. He had an almost physical repugnance for his fathers' ways of looking at things.
I think you're the two most wicked people in the world, exclaimed Addie gravely.
We are, said Sidney lightly. "I wonder you consent to sit in the same box with us. How you can find my company endurable I can never make out."
Addie's lovely face flushed and her lip quivered a little.
It's your friend who's the wickeder of the two, pursued Sidney. "For she's in earnest and I'm not. Life's too short for us to take the world's troubles on our shoulders, not to speak of the unborn millions. A little light and joy, the flush of sunset or of a lovely woman's face, a fleeting strain of melody, the scent of a rose, the flavor of old wine, the flash of a jest, and ah, yes, a cup of coffee--here's yours, Miss Ansell--that's the most we can hope for in life. Let us start a religion with one commandment: 'Enjoy thyself.'"
That religion has too many disciples already, said Esther, stirring her coffee.
Then why not start it if you wish to reform the world, asked Sidney. "All religions survive merely by being broken. With only one commandment to break, everybody would jump at the chance. But so long as you tell people they mustn't enjoy themselves, they will, it's human nature, and you can't alter that by Act of Parliament or Confession of Faith. Christ ran amuck at human nature, and human nature celebrates his birthday with pantomimes."
Christ understood human nature better than the modern young man, said Esther scathingly, "and the proof lies in the almost limitless impress he has left on history."
Oh, that was a fluke, said Sidney lightly. "His real influence is only superficial. Scratch the Christian and you find the Pagan--spoiled."
He divined by genius what science is slowly finding out, said Esther, "when he said, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do'!--"
Sidney laughed heartily. "That seems to be your King Charles's head--seeing divinations of modern science in all the old ideas. Personally I honor him for discovering that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Strange he should have stopped half-way to the truth!"
What is the truth? asked Addie curiously.
Why, that morality was made for man, not man for morality, said Sidney. "That chimera of meaningless virtue which the Hebrew has brought into the world is the last monster left to slay. The Hebrew view of life is too one-sided. The Bible is a literature without a laugh in it. Even Raphael thinks the great Radical of Galilee carried spirituality too far."
Yes, he thinks he would have been reconciled to the Jewish doctors and would have understood them better, said Addie, "only he died so young."
That's a good way of putting it! said Sidney admiringly. "One can see Raphael is my cousin despite his religious aberrations. It opens up new historical vistas. Only it is just like Raphael to find excuses for everybody, and Judaism in everything. I am sure he considers the devil a good Jew at heart; if he admits any moral obliquity in him, he puts it down to the climate."
This made Esther laugh outright, even while there were tears for Raphael in the laugh. Sidney's intellectual fascination reasserted itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him on the free heights that left all the clogging vapors and fogs of moral problems somewhere below; where the sun shone and the clear wind blew and talk was a game of bowls with Puritan ideals for ninepins. He went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory of Mohammedology which he was working at. Just as for the Christian Apologist the Old Testament was full of hints of the New, so he contended was the New Testament full of foreshadowings of the Koran, and he cited as a most convincing text, "In Heaven, there shall be no marrying, nor giving in marriage." He professed to think that Mohammedanism was the dark horse that would come to the front in the race of religions and win in the west as it had won in the east.
There's a man staring dreadfully at you, Esther, said Addie, when the curtain fell on the second act.
Nonsense! said Esther, reluctantly returning from the realities of the play to the insipidities of actual life. "Whoever it is, it must be at you."
She looked affectionately at the great glorious creature at her side, tall and stately, with that winning gentleness of expression which spiritualizes the most voluptuous beauty. Addie wore pale sea-green, and there were lilies of the valley at her bosom, and a diamond star in her hair. No man could admire her more than Esther, who felt quite vain of her friend's beauty and happy to bask in its reflected sunshine. Sidney followed her glance and his cousin's charms struck him with almost novel freshness. He was so much with Addie that he always took her for granted. The semi-unconscious liking he had for her society was based on other than physical traits. He let his eyes rest upon her for a moment in half-surprised appreciation, figuring her as half-bud, half-blossom. Really, if Addie had not been his cousin and a Jewess! She was not much of a cousin, when he came to cipher it out, but then she was a good deal of a Jewess!
I'm sure it's you he's staring at, persisted Addie.
Don't be ridiculous, persisted Esther. "Which man do you mean?"
There! The fifth row of stalls, the one, two, four, seven, the seventh man from the end! He's been looking at you all through, but now he's gone in for a good long stare. There! next to that pretty girl in pink.
Do you mean the young man with the dyed carnation in his buttonhole and the crimson handkerchief in his bosom?
Yes, that's the one. Do you know him?
No, said Esther, lowering her eyes and looking away. But when Addie informed her that the young man had renewed his attentions to the girl in pink, she levelled her opera-glass at him. Then she shook her head.
There seems something familiar about his face, but I cannot for the life of me recall who it is.
The something familiar about his face is his nose, said Addie laughing, "for it is emphatically Jewish."
At that rate, said Sidney, "nearly half the theatre would be familiar, including a goodly proportion of the critics, and Hamlet and Ophelia themselves. But I know the fellow."
You do? Who is he? asked the girls eagerly.
I don't know. He's one of the mashers of the _Frivolity_. I'm another, and so we often meet. But we never speak as we pass by. To tell the truth, I resent him.
It's wonderful how fond Jews are of the theatre, said Esther, "and how they resent other Jews going."
Thank you, said Sidney. "But as I'm not a Jew the arrow glances off."
Not a Jew? repeated Esther in amaze.
No. Not in the current sense. I always deny I'm a Jew.
How do you justify that? said Addie incredulously.
Because it would be a lie to say I was. It would be to produce a false impression. The conception of a Jew in the mind of the average Christian is a mixture of Fagin, Shylock, Rothschild and the caricatures of the American comic papers. I am certainly not like that, and I'm not going to tell a lie and say I am. In conversation always think of your audience. It takes two to make a truth. If an honest man told an old lady he was an atheist, that would be a lie, for to her it would mean he was a dissolute reprobate. To call myself 'Abrahams' would be to live a daily lie. I am not a bit like the picture called up by Abrahams. Graham is a far truer expression of myself.
Extremely ingenious, said Esther smiling. "But ought you not rather to utilize yourself for the correction of the portrait of Abrahams?"
Sidney shrugged his shoulders. "Why should I subject myself to petty martyrdom for the sake of an outworn creed and a decaying sect?"
We are not decaying, said Addie indignantly.
Personally you are blossoming, said Sidney, with a mock bow. "But nobody can deny that our recent religious history has been a series of dissolving views. Look at that young masher there, who is still ogling your fascinating friend; rather, I suspect, to the annoyance of the young lady in pink, and compare him with the old hard-shell Jew. When I was a lad named Abrahams, painfully training in the way I wasn't going to go, I got an insight into the lives of my ancestors. Think of the people who built up the Jewish prayer-book, who added line to line and precept to precept, and whose whole thought was intertwined with religion, and then look at that young fellow with the dyed carnation and the crimson silk handkerchief, who probably drives a drag to the Derby, and for aught I know runs a music hall. It seems almost incredible he should come of that Puritan old stock."
Not at all, said Esther. "If you knew more of our history, you would see it is quite normal. We were always hankering after the gods of the heathen, and we always loved magnificence; remember our Temples. In every land we have produced great merchants and rulers, prime-ministers, viziers, nobles. We built castles in Spain (solid ones) and palaces in Venice. We have had saints and sinners, free livers and ascetics, martyrs and money-lenders. Polarity, Graetz calls the self-contradiction which runs through our history. I figure the Jew as the eldest-born of Time, touching the Creation and reaching forward into the future, the true _blase_ of the Universe; the Wandering Jew who has been everywhere, seen everything, done everything, led everything, thought everything and suffered everything."
Bravo, quite a bit of Beaconsfieldian fustian, said Sidney laughing, yet astonished. "One would think you were anxious to assert yourself against the ancient peerage of this mushroom realm."
It is the bare historical truth, said Esther, quietly. "We are so ignorant of our own history--can we wonder at the world's ignorance of it? Think of the part the Jew has played--Moses giving the world its morality, Jesus its religion, Isaiah its millennial visions, Spinoza its cosmic philosophy, Ricardo its political economy, Karl Marx and Lassalle its socialism, Heine its loveliest poetry, Mendelssohn its most restful music, Rachael its supreme acting--and then think of the stock Jew of the American comic papers! There lies the real comedy, too deep for laughter."
Yes, but most of the Jews you mention were outcasts or apostates, retorted Sidney. "There lies the real tragedy, too deep for tears. Ah, Heine summed it up best: 'Judaism is not a religion; it is a misfortune.' But do you wonder at the intolerance of every nation towards its Jews? It is a form of homage. Tolerate them and they spell 'Success,' and patriotism is an ineradicable prejudice. Since when have you developed this extraordinary enthusiasm for Jewish history? I always thought you were an anti-Semite."
Esther blushed and meditatively sniffed at her bouquet, but fortunately the rise of the curtain relieved her of the necessity far a reply. It was only a temporary relief, however, for the quizzical young artist returned to the subject immediately the act was over.
I know you're in charge of the aesthetic department of the _Flag_, he said. "I had no idea you wrote the leaders."
Don't be absurd! murmured Esther.
I always told Addie Raphael could never write so eloquently; didn't I, Addie? Ah, I see you're blushing to find it fame, Miss Ansell.
Esther laughed, though a bit annoyed. "How can you suspect me of writing orthodox leaders?" she asked.
Well, who else _is_ there? urged Sidney, with mock _naivete_. "I went down there once and saw the shanty. The editorial sanctum was crowded. Poor Raphael was surrounded by the queerest looking set of creatures I ever clapped eyes on. There was a quaint lunatic in a check suit, describing his apocalyptic visions; a dragoman with sore eyes and a grievance against the Board of Guardians; a venerable son of Jerusalem with a most artistic white beard, who had covered the editorial table with carved nick-nacks in olive and sandal-wood; an inventor who had squared the circle and the problem of perpetual motion, but could not support himself; a Roumanian exile with a scheme for fertilizing Palestine; and a wild-eyed hatchet-faced Hebrew poet who told me I was a famous patron of learning, and sent me his book soon after with a Hebrew inscription which I couldn't read, and a request for a cheque which I didn't write. I thought I just capped the company of oddities, when in came a sallow red-haired chap, with the extraordinary name of Karlkammer, and kicked up a deuce of a shine with Raphael for altering his letter. Raphael mildly hinted that the letter was written in such unintelligible English that he had to grapple with it for an hour before he could reduce it to the coherence demanded of print. But it was no use; it seems Raphael had made him say something heterodox he didn't mean, and he insisted on being allowed to reply to his own letter! He had brought the counter-blast with him; six sheets of foolscap with all the t's uncrossed, and insisted on signing it with his own name. I said, 'Why not? Set a Karlkammer to answer to a Karlkammer.' But Raphael said it would make the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that and the consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite unhappy. He treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in another newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. Of course, nobody has a bit of consideration for him or his time or his purse."
Poor Raphael! murmured Esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images conjured up by Sidney's description.
I go down there now whenever I want models, concluded Sidney gravely.
Well, it is only right to hear what those poor people have to say, Addie observed. "What is a paper for except to right wrongs?"
Primitive person! said Sidney. "A paper exists to make a profit."
Raphael's doesn't, retorted Addie.
Of course not, laughed Sidney. "It never will, so long as there's a conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters nobody and reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal advertisements. Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about representing to the unwary Christian that the _Flag_ has a circulation of fifteen hundred."
Dear me! said Addie, a smile of humor lighting up her beautiful features.
Yes, said Sidney, "I think he salves his conscience by an extra hour's slumming in the evening. Most religious folks do their moral book-keeping by double entry. Probably that's why he's not here to-night."
It's too bad! said Addie, her face growing grave again. "He comes home so late and so tired that he always falls asleep over his books."
I don't wonder, laughed Sidney. "Look what he reads! Once I found him nodding peacefully over Thomas a Kempis."
Oh, he often reads that, said Addie. "When we wake him up and tell him to go to bed, he says he wasn't sleeping, but thinking, turns over a page and falls asleep again."
They all laughed.
Oh, he's a famous sleeper, Addie continued. "It's as difficult to get him out of bed as into it. He says himself he's an awful lounger and used to idle away whole days before he invented time-tables. Now, he has every hour cut and dried--he says his salvation lies in regular hours."
Addie, Addie, don't tell tales out of school, said Sidney.
Why, what tales? asked Addie, astonished. "Isn't it rather to his credit that he has conquered his bad habits?"
Undoubtedly; but it dissipates the poetry in which I am sure Miss Ansell was enshrouding him. It shears a man of his heroic proportions, to hear he has to be dragged out of bed. These things should be kept in the family.
Esther stared hard at the house. Her cheeks glowed as if the limelight man had turned his red rays on them. Sidney chuckled mentally over his insight. Addie smiled.
Oh, nonsense. I'm sure Esther doesn't think less of him because he keeps a time-table.
You forget your friend has what you haven't--artistic instinct. It's ugly. A man should be a man, not a railway system. If I were you, Addie, I'd capture that time-table, erase lecturing and substitute 'cricketing.' Raphael would never know, and every afternoon, say at 2 P.M., he'd consult his time-table, and seeing he had to cricket, he'd take up his stumps and walk to Regent's Park.
Yes, but he can't play cricket, said Esther, laughing and glad of the opportunity.
Oh, can't he? Sidney whistled. "Don't insult him by telling him that. Why, he was in the Harrow eleven and scored his century in the match with Eton; those long arms of his send the ball flying as if it were a drawing-room ornament."
Oh yes, affirmed Addie. "Even now, cricket is his one temptation."
Esther was silent. Her Raphael seemed toppling to pieces. The silence seemed to communicate itself to her companions. Addie broke it by sending Sidney to smoke a cigarette in the lobby. "Or else I shall feel quite too selfish," she said. "I know you're just dying to talk to some sensible people. Oh, I beg your pardon, Esther."
The squire of dames smiled but hesitated.
Yes, do go, said Esther. "There's six or seven minutes more interval. This is the longest wait."
Ladies' will is my law, said Sidney, gallantly, and, taking a cigarette case from his cloak, which was hung on a peg at the back of a box, he strolled out. "Perhaps," he said, "I shall skip some Shakspeare if I meet a congenial intellectual soul to gossip with."
He had scarce been gone two minutes when there came a gentle tapping at the door and, the visitor being invited to come in, the girls were astonished to behold the young gentleman with the dyed carnation and the crimson silk handkerchief. He looked at Esther with an affable smile.
Don't you remember me? he said. The ring of his voice woke some far-off echo in her brain. But no recollection came to her.
I remembered you almost at once, he went on, in a half-reproachful tone, "though I didn't care about coming up while you had another fellow in the box. Look at me carefully, Esther."
The sound of her name on the stranger's lips set all the chords of memory vibrating--she looked again at the dark oval face with the aquiline nose, the glittering eyes, the neat black moustache, the close-shaved cheeks and chin, and in a flash the past resurged and she murmured almost incredulously, "Levi!"
The young man got rather red. "Ye-e-s!" he stammered. "Allow me to present you my card." He took it out of a little ivory case and handed it to her. It read, "Mr. Leonard James."
An amused smile flitted over Esther's face, passing into one of welcome. She was not at all displeased to see him.
Addie, she said. "This is Mr. Leonard James, a friend I used to know in my girlhood."
Yes, we were boys together, as the song says, said Leonard James, smiling facetiously.
Addie inclined her head in the stately fashion which accorded so well with her beauty and resumed her investigation of the stalls. Presently she became absorbed in a tender reverie induced by the passionate waltz music and she forgot all about Esther's strange visitor, whose words fell as insensibly on her ears as the ticking of a familiar clock. But to Esther, Leonard James's conversation was full of interest. The two ugly ducklings of the back-pond had become to all appearance swans of the ornamental water, and it was natural that they should gabble of auld lang syne and the devious routes by which they had come together again.
You see, I'm like you, Esther, explained the young man. "I'm not fitted for the narrow life that suits my father and mother and my sister. They've got no ideas beyond the house, and religion, and all that sort of thing. What do you think my father wanted me to be? A minister! Think of it! Ha! ha! ha! Me a minister! I actually did go for a couple of terms to Jews' College. Oh, yes, you remember! Why, I was there when you were a school-teacher and got taken up by the swells. But our stroke of fortune came soon after yours. Did you never hear of it? My, you must have dropped all your old acquaintances if no one ever told you that! Why, father came in for a couple of thousand pounds! I thought I'd make you stare. Guess who from?"
I give it up, said Esther.
Thank you. It was never yours to give, said Leonard, laughing jovially at his wit. "Old Steinwein--you remember his death. It was in all the papers; the eccentric old buffer, who was touched in the upper story, and used to give so much time and money to Jewish affairs, setting up lazy old rabbis in Jerusalem to shake themselves over their Talmuds. You remember his gifts to the poor--six shillings sevenpence each because he was seventy-nine years old and all that. Well, he used to send the pater a basket of fruit every _Yomtov_. But he used to do that to every Rabbi, all around, and my old man had not the least idea he was the object of special regard till the old chap pegged out. Ah, there's nothing like Torah, after all."
You don't know what you may have lost through not becoming a minister, suggested Esther slily.
Ah, but I know what I've gained. Do you think I could stand having my hands and feet tied with phylacteries? asked Leonard, becoming vividly metaphoric in the intensity of his repugnance to the galling bonds of orthodoxy. "Now, I do as I like, go where I please, eat what I please. Just fancy not being able to join fellows at supper, because you mustn't eat oysters or steak? Might as well go into a monastery at once. All very well in ancient Jerusalem, where everybody was rowing in the same boat. Have you ever tasted pork, Esther?"
No, said Esther, with a faint smile.
I have, said Leonard. "I don't say it to boast, but I have had it times without number. I didn't like it the first time--thought it would choke me, you know, but that soon wears off. Now I breakfast off ham and eggs regularly. I go the whole hog, you see. Ha! ha! ha!"
If I didn't see from your card you're not living at home, that would have apprised me of it, said Esther.
Of course, I couldn't live at home. Why the guvnor couldn't bear to let me shave. Ha! ha! ha! Fancy a religion that makes you keep your hair on unless you use a depilatory. I was articled to a swell solicitor. The old man resisted a long time, but he gave in at last, and let me live near the office.
Ah, then I presume you came in for some of the two thousand, despite your non-connection with Torah?
There isn't much left of it now, said Leonard, laughing. "What's two thousand in seven years in London? There were over four hundred guineas swallowed up by the premium, and the fees, and all that."
Well, let us hope it'll all come back in costs.
Well, between you and me, said Leonard, seriously, "I should be surprised if it does. You see, I haven't yet scraped through the Final; they're making the beastly exam. stiffer every year. No, it isn't to that quarter I look to recoup myself for the outlay on my education."
No? said Esther.
No. Fact is--between you and me--I'm going to be an actor.
Oh! said Esther.
Yes. I've played several times in private theatricals; you know we Jews have a knack for the stage; you'd be surprised to know how many pros are Jews. There's heaps of money to be made now-a-days on the boards. I'm in with lots of 'em, and ought to know. It's the only profession where you don't want any training, and these law books are as dry as the Mishna the old man used to make me study. Why, they say to-night's 'Hamlet' was in a counting-house four years ago.
I wish you success, said Esther, somewhat dubiously. "And how is your sister Hannah? Is she married yet?"
Married! Not she! She's got no money, and you know what our Jewish young men are. Mother wanted her to have the two thousand pounds for a dowry, but fortunately Hannah had the sense to see that it's the man that's got to make his way in the world. Hannah is always certain of her bread and butter, which is a good deal in these hard times. Besides, she's naturally grumpy, and she doesn't go out of her way to make herself agreeable to young men. It's my belief she'll die an old maid. Well, there's no accounting for tastes.
And your father and mother?
They're all right, I believe. I shall see them to-morrow night--Passover, you know. I haven't missed a single _Seder_ at home, he said, with conscious virtue. "It's an awful bore, you know. I often laugh to think of the chappies' faces if they could see me leaning on a pillow and gravely asking the old man why we eat Passover cakes." He laughed now to think of it. "But I never miss; they'd cut up rough, I expect, if I did."
Well, that's something in your favor, murmured Esther gravely.
He looked at her sharply; suddenly suspecting that his auditor was not perfectly sympathetic. She smiled a little at the images passing through her mind, and Leonard, taking her remark for badinage, allowed his own features to relax to their original amiability.
You're not married, either, I suppose, he remarked.
No, said Esther. "I'm like your sister Hannah."
He shook his head sceptically.
Ah, I expect you'll be looking very high, he said.
Nonsense, murmured Esther, playing with her bouquet.
A flash passed across his face, but he went on in the same tone. "Ah, don't tell me. Why shouldn't you? Why, you're looking perfectly charming to-night."
Please, don't, said Esther, "Every girl looks perfectly charming when she's nicely dressed. Who and what am I? Nothing. Let us drop the subject."
All right; but you _must_ have grand ideas, else you'd have sometimes gone to see my people as in the old days.
When did I visit your people? You used to come and see me sometimes. A shadow of a smile hovered about the tremulous lips. "Believe me, I didn't consciously drop any of my old acquaintances. My life changed; my family went to America; later on I travelled. It is the currents of life, not their wills, that bear old acquaintances asunder."
He seemed pleased with her sentiments and was about to say something, but she added: "The curtain's going up. Hadn't you better go down to your friend? She's been looking up at us impatiently."
Oh, no, don't bother about her. said Leonard, reddening a little. "She--she won't mind. She's only--only an actress, you know, I have to keep in with the profession in case any opening should turn up. You never know. An actress may become a lessee at any moment. Hark! The orchestra is striking up again; the scene isn't set yet. Of course I'll go if you want me to!"
No, stay by all means if you want to, murmured Esther. "We have a chair unoccupied."
Do you expect that fellow Sidney Graham back?
Yes, sooner or later. But how do you know his name? queried Esther in surprise.
Everybody about town knows Sidney Graham, the artist. Why, we belong to the same club--the Flamingo--though he only turns up for the great glove-fights. Beastly cad, with all due respect to your friends, Esther. I was introduced to him once, but he stared at me next time so haughtily that I cut him dead. Do you know, ever since then I've suspected he's one of us; perhaps you can tell me, Esther? I dare say he's no more Sidney Graham than I am.
Hush! said Esther, glancing warningly towards Addie, who, however, betrayed no sign of attention.
Sister? asked Leonard, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Esther shook her head. "Cousin; but Mr. Graham is a friend of mine as well and you mustn't talk of him like that."
Ripping fine girl! murmured Leonard irrelevantly. "Wonder at his taste." He took a long stare at the abstracted Addie.
What do you mean? said Esther, her annoyance increasing. Her old friend's tone jarred upon her.
Well, I don't know what he could see in the girl he's engaged to.
Esther's face became white. She looked anxiously towards the unconscious Addie.
You are talking nonsense, she said, in a low cautious tone. "Mr. Graham is too fond of his liberty to engage himself to any girl."
Oho! said Leonard, with a subdued whistle. "I hope you're not sweet on him yourself."
Esther gave an impatient gesture of denial. She resented Leonard's rapid resumption of his olden familiarity.
Then take care not to be, he said. "He's engaged privately to Miss Hannibal, a daughter of the M.P. Tom Sledge, the sub-editor of the _Cormorant_, told me. You know they collect items about everybody and publish them at what they call the psychological moment. Graham goes to the Hannibals' every Saturday afternoon. They're very strict people; the father, you know, is a prominent Wesleyan and she's not the sort of girl to be played with."
For Heaven's sake speak more softly, said Esther, though the orchestra was playing _fortissimo_ now and they had spoken so quietly all along that Addie could scarcely have heard without a special effort. "It can't be true; you are repeating mere idle gossip."
Why, they know everything at the _Cormorant_, said Leonard, indignantly. "Do you suppose a man can take such a step as that without its getting known? Why, I shall be chaffed--enviously--about you two to-morrow! Many a thing the world little dreams of is an open secret in Club smoking-rooms. Generally more discreditable than Graham's, which must be made public of itself sooner or later."
To Esther's relief, the curtain rose. Addie woke up and looked round, but seeing that Sidney had not returned, and that Esther was still in colloquy with the invader, she gave her attention to the stage. Esther could no longer bend her eye on the mimic tragedy; her eyes rested pityingly upon Addie's face, and Leonard's eyes rested admiringly upon Esther's. Thus Sidney found the group, when he returned in the middle of the act, to his surprise and displeasure. He stood silently at the back of the box till the act was over. Leonard James was the first to perceive him; knowing he had been telling tales about him, he felt uneasy under his supercilious gaze. He bade Esther good-bye, asking and receiving permission to call upon her. When he was gone, constraint fell upon the party. Sidney was moody; Addie pensive, Esther full of stifled wrath and anxiety. At the close of the performance Sidney took down the girls' wrappings from the pegs. He helped Esther courteously, then hovered over his cousin with a solicitude that brought a look of calm happiness into Addie's face, and an expression of pain into Esther's. As they moved slowly along the crowded corridors, he allowed Addie to get a few paces in advance. It was his last opportunity of saying a word to Esther alone.
If I were you, Miss Ansell, I would not allow that cad to presume on any acquaintance he may have.
All the latent irritation in Esther's breast burst into flame at the idea of Sidney's constituting himself a judge.
If I had not cultivated his acquaintance I should not have had the pleasure of congratulating you on your engagement, she replied, almost in a whisper. To Sidney it sounded like a shout. His color heightened; he was visibly taken aback.
What are you talking about? he murmured automatically.
About your engagement to Miss Hannibal.
That blackguard told you! he whispered angrily, half to himself. "Well, what of it? I am not bound to advertise it, am I? It's my private business, isn't it? You don't expect me to hang a placard round my breast like those on concert-room chairs--'Engaged'!"
Certainly not, said Esther. "But you might have told your friends, so as to enable them to rejoice sympathetically."
You turn your sarcasm prettily, he said mildly, "but the sympathetic rejoicing was just what I wanted to avoid. You know what a Jewish engagement is, how the news spreads like wildfire from Piccadilly to Petticoat Lane, and the whole house of Israel gathers together to discuss the income and the prospects of the happy pair. I object to sympathetic rejoicing from the slums, especially as in this case it would probably be exchanged for curses. Miss Hannibal is a Christian, and for a Jew to embrace a Christian is, I believe, the next worse thing to his embracing Christianity, even when the Jew is a pagan." His wonted flippancy rang hollow. He paused suddenly and stole a look at his companion's face, in search of a smile, but it was pale and sorrowful. The flush on his own face deepened; his features expressed internal conflict. He addressed a light word to Addie in front. They were nearing the portico; it was raining outside and a cold wind blew in to meet them; he bent his head down to the delicate little face at his side, and his tones were changed.
Miss Ansell, he said tremulously, "if I have in any way misled you by my reticence, I beg you to believe it was unintentionally. The memory of the pleasant quarters of an hour we have spent together will always--"
Good God! said Esther hoarsely, her cheeks flaming, her ears tingling. "To whom are you apologising?" He looked at her perplexed. "Why have you not told Addie?" she forced herself to say.
In the press of the crowd, on the edge of the threshold, he stood still. Dazzled as by a flash of lightning, he gazed at his cousin, her beautifully poised head, covered with its fleecy white shawl, dominating the throng. The shawl became an aureole to his misty vision.
Have you told her? he whispered with answering hoarseness.
No, said Esther.
Then don't tell her, he whispered eagerly.
I must. She must hear it soon. Such things must ooze out sooner or later.
Then let it be later. Promise me this.
No good can come of concealment.
Promise me, for a little while, till I give you leave.
His pleading, handsome face was close to hers. She wondered how she could ever have cared for a creature so weak and pitiful.
So be it, she breathed.
Miss Leon's carriage, bawled the commissionaire. There was a confusion of rain-beaten umbrellas, gleaming carriage-lamps, zigzag rejections on the black pavements, and clattering omnibuses full inside. But the air was fresh.
Don't go into the rain, Addie, said Sidney, pressing forwards anxiously. "You're doing all my work to-night. Hallo! where did _you_ spring from?"
It was Raphael who had elicited the exclamation. He suddenly loomed upon the party, bearing a decrepit dripping umbrella. "I thought I should be in time to catch you--and to apologize," he said, turning to Esther.
Don't mention it, murmured Esther, his unexpected appearance completing her mental agitation.
Hold the umbrella over the girls, you beggar, said Sidney.
Oh, I beg your pardon, said Raphael, poking the rim against a policeman's helmet in his anxiety to obey.
Don't mention it, said Addie smiling.
All right, sir, growled the policeman good-humoredly.
Sidney laughed heartily.
Quite a general amnesty, he said. "Ah! here's the carriage. Why didn't you get inside it out of the rain or stand in the entrance--you're wringing wet."
I didn't think of it, said Raphael. "Besides, I've only been here a few minutes. The 'busses are so full when it rains I had to walk all the way from Whitechapel."
You're incorrigible, grumbled Sidney. "As if you couldn't have taken a hansom."
Why waste money? said Raphael. They got into the carriage.
Well, did you enjoy yourselves? he asked cheerfully.
Oh yes, thoroughly, said Sidney. "Addie wasted two pocket-handkerchiefs over Ophelia; almost enough to pay for that hansom. Miss Ansell doated on the finger of destiny and I chopped logic and swopped cigarettes with O'Donovan. I hope you enjoyed yourself equally."
Raphael responded with a melancholy smile. He was seated opposite Esther, and ever and anon some flash of light from the street revealed clearly his sodden, almost shabby, garments and the weariness of his expression. He seemed quite out of harmony with the dainty pleasure-party, but just on that account the more in harmony with Esther's old image, the heroic side of him growing only more lovable for the human alloy. She bent towards him at last and said: "I am sorry you were deprived of your evening's amusement. I hope the reason didn't add to the unpleasantness."
It was nothing, he murmured awkwardly. "A little unexpected work. One can always go to the theatre."
Ah, I am afraid you overwork yourself too much. You mustn't. Think of your own health.
His look softened. He was in a harassed, sensitive state. The sympathy of her gentle accents, the concern upon the eager little face, seemed to flood his own soul with a self-compassion new to him.
My health doesn't matter, he faltered. There were sweet tears in his eyes, a colossal sense of gratitude at his heart. He had always meant to pity her and help her; it was sweeter to be pitied, though of course she could not help him. He had no need of help, and on second thoughts he wondered what room there was for pity.
No, no, don't talk like that, said Esther. "Think of your parents--and Addle."
The next morning Esther sat in Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's boudoir, filling up some invitation forms for her patroness, who often took advantage of her literary talent in this fashion. Mrs. Goldsmith herself lay back languidly upon a great easy-chair before an asbestos fire and turned over the leaves of the new number of the _Acadaeum_. Suddenly she uttered a little exclamation.
What is it? said Esther.
They've got a review here of that Jewish novel.
Have they? said Esther, glancing up eagerly. "I'd given up looking for it."
You seem very interested in it, said Mrs. Goldsmith, with a little surprise.
Yes, I--I wanted to know what they said about it, explained Esther quickly; "one hears so many worthless opinions."
Well, I'm glad to see we were all right about it, said Mrs. Goldsmith, whose eye had been running down the column. "Listen here. 'It is a disagreeable book at best; what might have been a powerful tragedy being disfigured by clumsy workmanship and sordid superfluous detail. The exaggerated unhealthy pessimism, which the very young mistake for insight, pervades the work and there are some spiteful touches of observation which seem to point to a woman's hand. Some of the minor personages have the air of being sketched from life. The novel can scarcely be acceptable to the writer's circle. Readers, however, in search of the unusual will find new ground broken in this immature study of Jewish life.'"
There, Esther, isn't that just what I've been saying in other words?
It's hardly worth bothering about the book now, said Esther in low tones, "it's such a long time ago now since it came out. I don't know what's the good of reviewing it now. These literary papers always seem so cold and cruel to unknown writers."
Cruel, it isn't half what he deserves, said Mrs. Goldsmith, "or ought I to say she? Do you think there's anything, Esther, in that idea of its being a woman?"
Really, dear, I'm sick to death of that book, said Esther. "These reviewers always try to be very clever and to see through brick walls. What does it matter if it's a he, or a she?"
It doesn't matter, but it makes it more disgraceful, if it's a woman. A woman has no business to know the seamy side of human nature.
At this instant, a domestic knocked and announced that Mr. Leonard James had called to see Miss Ansell. Annoyance, surprise and relief struggled to express themselves on Esther's face.
Is the gentleman waiting to see me? she said.
Yes, miss, he's in the hall.
Esther turned to Mrs. Goldsmith. "It's a young man I came across unexpectedly last night at the theatre. He's the son of Reb Shemuel, of whom you may have heard. I haven't met him since we were boy and girl together. He asked permission to call, but I didn't expect him so soon."
Oh, see him by all means, dear. He is probably anxious to talk over old times.
May I ask him up here?
No--unless you particularly want to introduce him to me. I dare say he would rather have you to himself. There was a touch of superciliousness about her tone, which Esther rather resented, although not particularly anxious for Levi's social recognition.
Show him into the library, she said to the servant. "I will be down in a minute." She lingered a few indifferent remarks with her companion and then went down, wondering at Levi's precipitancy in renewing the acquaintance. She could not help thinking of the strangeness of life. That time yesterday she had not dreamed of Levi, and now she was about to see him for the second time and seemed to know him as intimately as if they had never been parted.
Leonard James was pacing the carpet. His face was perturbed, though his stylishly cut clothes were composed and immaculate. A cloak was thrown loosely across his shoulders. In his right hand he held a bouquet of Spring flowers, which he transferred to his left in order to shake hands with her.
Good afternoon, Esther, he said heartily. "By Jove, you have got among tip-top people. I had no idea. Fancy you ordering Jeames de la Pluche about. And how happy you must be among all these books! I've brought you a bouquet. There! Isn't it a beauty? I got it at Covent Garden this morning."
It's very kind of you, murmured Esther, not so pleased as she might have been, considering her love of beautiful things. "But you really ought not to waste your money like that."
What nonsense, Esther! Don't forget I'm not in the position my father was. I'm going to be a rich man. No, don't put it into a vase; put it in your own room where it will remind you of me. Just smell those violets, they are awfully sweet and fresh. I flatter myself, it's quite as swell and tasteful as the bouquet you had last night. Who gave you that. Esther? The "Esther" mitigated the off-handedness of the question, but made the sentence jar doubly upon her ear. She might have brought herself to call him "Levi" in exchange, but then she was not certain he would like it. "Leonard" was impossible. So she forbore to call him by any name.
I think Mr. Graham brought it. Won't you sit down? she said indifferently.
Thank you. I thought so. Luck that fellow's engaged. Do you know, Esther. I didn't sleep all night.
No? said Esther. "You seemed quite well when I saw you."
So I was, but seeing you again, so unexpectedly, excited me. You have been whirling in my brain ever since. I hadn't thought of you for years--
I hadn't thought of you, Esther echoed frankly.
No, I suppose not, he said, a little ruefully. "But, anyhow, fate has brought us together again. I recognized you the moment I set eyes on you, for all your grand clothes and your swell bouquets. I tell you I was just struck all of a heap; of course, I knew about your luck, but I hadn't realized it. There wasn't any one in the whole theatre who looked the lady more--'pon honor; you'd have no cause to blush in the company of duchesses. In fact I know a duchess or two who don't look near so refined. I was quite surprised. Do you know, if any one had told me you used to live up in a garret--"
Oh, please don't recall unpleasant things, interrupted Esther, petulantly, a little shudder going through her, partly at the picture he called up, partly at his grating vulgarity. Her repulsion to him was growing. Why had he developed so disagreeably? She had not disliked him as a boy, and he certainly had not inherited his traits of coarseness from his father, whom she still conceived as a courtly old gentleman.
Oh well, if you don't like it, I won't. I see you're like me; I never think of the Ghetto if I can help it. Well, as I was saying, I haven't had a wink of sleep since I saw you. I lay tossing about, thinking all sorts of things, till I could stand it no longer, and I got up and dressed and walked about the streets and strayed into Covent Garden Market, where the inspiration came upon me to get you this bouquet. For, of course, it was about you that I had been thinking.
About me? said Esther, turning pale.
Yes, of course. Don't make _Schnecks_--you know what I mean. I can't help using the old expression when I look at you; the past seems all come back again. They were happy days, weren't they, Esther, when I used to come up to see you in Royal Street; I think you were a little sweet on me in those days, Esther, and I know I was regular mashed on you.
He looked at her with a fond smile.
I dare say you were a silly boy, said Esther, coloring uneasily under his gaze. "However, you needn't reproach yourself now."
Reproach myself, indeed! Never fear that. What I have been reproaching myself with all night is never having looked you up. Somehow, do you know, I kept asking myself whether I hadn't made a fool of myself lately, and I kept thinking things might have been different if--
Nonsense, nonsense, interrupted Esther with an embarrassed laugh. "You've been doing very well, learning to know the world and studying law and mixing with pleasant people."
Ah, Esther, he said, shaking his head, "it's very good of you to say that. I don't say I've done anything particularly foolish or out of the way. But when a man is alone, he sometimes gets a little reckless and wastes his time, and you know what it is. I've been thinking if I had some one to keep me steady, some one I could respect, it would be the best thing that could happen to me."
Oh, but surely you ought to have sense enough to take care of yourself. And there is always your father. Why don't you see more of him?
Don't chaff a man when you see he's in earnest. You know what I mean. It's you I am thinking of.
Me? Oh well, if you think my friendship can be of any use to you I shall be delighted. Come and see me sometimes and tell me of your struggles.
You know I don't mean that, he said desperately. "Couldn't we be more than friends? Couldn't we commence again--where we left off"
How do you mean? she murmured.
Why are you so cold to me? he burst out. "Why do you make it so hard for me to speak? You know I love you, that I fell in love with you all over again last night. I never really forgot you; you were always deep down in my breast. All that I said about steadying me wasn't a lie. I felt that, too. But the real thing I feel is the need of you. I want you to care for me as I care for you. You used to, Esther; you know you did."
I know nothing of the kind, said Esther, "and I can't understand why a young fellow like you wants to bother his head with such ideas. You've got to make your way in the world--"
I know, I know; that's why I want you. I didn't tell you the exact truth last night, Esther, but I must really earn some money soon. All that two thousand is used up, and I only get along by squeezing some money out of the old man every now and again. Don't frown; he got a rise of screw three years ago and can well afford it. Now that's what I said to myself last night; if I were engaged, it would be an incentive to earning something.
For a Jewish young man, you are fearfully unpractical, said Esther, with a forced smile. "Fancy proposing to a girl without even prospects of prospects."
Oh, but I _have_ got prospects. I tell you I shall make no end of money on the stage.
Or no beginning, she said, finding the facetious vein easiest.
No fear. I know I've got as much talent as Bob Andrews (he admits it himself), and _he_ draws his thirty quid a week.
Wasn't that the man who appeared at the police-court the other day for being drunk and disorderly?
Y-e-es, admitted Leonard, a little disconcerted. "He is a very good fellow, but he loses his head when he's in liquor."
I wonder you can care for society of that sort, said Esther.
Perhaps you're right. They're not a very refined lot. I tell you what--I'd like to go on the stage, but I'm not mad on it, and if you only say the word I'll give it up. There! And I'll go on with my law studies; honor bright, I will.
I should, if I were you, she said.
Yes, but I can't do it without encouragement. Won't you say 'yes'? Let's strike the bargain. I'll stick to law and you'll stick to me.
She shook her head. "I am afraid I could not promise anything you mean. As I said before, I shall be always glad to see you. If you do well, no one will rejoice more than I."
Rejoice! What's the good of that to me? I want you to care for me; I want to took forward to your being my wife.
Really, I cannot take advantage of a moment of folly like this. You don't know what you're saying. You saw me last night, after many years, and in your gladness at seeing an old friend you flare up and fancy you're in love with me. Why, who ever heard of such foolish haste? Go back to your studies, and in a day or two you will find the flame sinking as rapidly as it leaped up.
No, no! Nothing of the kind! His voice was thicker and there was real passion in it. She grew dearer to him as the hope of her love receded. "I couldn't forget you. I care for you awfully. I realized last night that my feeling for you is quite unlike what I have ever felt towards any other girl. Don't say no! Don't send me away despairing. I can hardly realize that you have grown so strange and altered. Surely you oughtn't to put on any side with me. Remember the times we have had together."
I remember, she said gently. "But I do not want to marry any one: indeed, I don't."
Then if there is no one else in your thoughts, why shouldn't it be me? There! I won't press you for an answer now. Only don't say it's out of the question.
I'm afraid I must.
No, you mustn't, Esther, you mustn't, he exclaimed excitedly. "Think of what it means for me. You are the only Jewish girl I shall ever care for; and father would be pleased if I were to marry you. You know if I wanted to marry a _Shiksah_ there'd be awful rows. Don't treat me as if I were some outsider with no claim upon you. I believe we should get on splendidly together, you and me. We've been through the same sort of thing in childhood, we should understand each other, and be in sympathy with each other in a way I could never be with another girl and I doubt if you could with another fellow."
The words burst from him like a torrent, with excited foreign-looking gestures. Esther's headache was coming on badly.
What would be the use of my deceiving you? she said gently. "I don't think I shall ever marry. I'm sure I could never make you--or any one else--happy. Won't you let me be your friend?"
Friend! he echoed bitterly. "I know what it is; I'm poor. I've got no money bags to lay at your feet. You're like all the Jewish girls after all. But I only ask you to wait; I shall have plenty of money by and by. Who knows what more luck my father might drop in for? There are lots of rich religious cranks. And then I'll work hard, honor bright I will."
Pray be reasonable, said Esther quietly. "You know you are talking at random. Yesterday this time you had no idea of such a thing. To-day you are all on fire. To-morrow you will forget all about it."
Never! Never! he cried. "Haven't I remembered you all these years? They talk of man's faithlessness and woman's faithfulness. It seems to me, it's all the other way. Women are a deceptive lot."
You know you have no right whatever to talk like that to me, said Esther, her sympathy beginning to pass over into annoyance. "To-morrow you will be sorry. Hadn't you better go before you give yourself--and me--more cause for regret?"
Ho, you're sending me away, are you? he said in angry surprise.
I am certainly suggesting it as the wisest course.
Oh, don't give me any of your fine phrases! he said brutally. "I see what it is--I've made a mistake. You're a stuck-up, conceited little thing. You think because you live in a grand house nobody is good enough for you. But what are you after all? a _Schnorrer_--that's all. A _Schnorrer_ living on the charity of strangers. If I mix with grand folks, it is as an independent man and an equal. But you, rather than marry any one who mightn't be able to give you carriages and footmen, you prefer to remain a _Schnorrer_."
Esther was white and her lips trembled. "Now I must ask you to go," she said.
All right, don't flurry yourself! he said savagely. "You don't impress me with your airs. Try them on people who don't know what you were--a _Schnorrer's_ daughter. Yes, your father was always a _Schnorrer_ and you are his child. It's in the blood. Ha! Ha! Ha! Moses Ansell's daughter! Moses Ansell's daughter--a peddler, who went about the country with brass jewelry and stood in the Lane with lemons and _schnorred_ half-crowns of my father. You took jolly good care to ship him off to America, but 'pon my honor, you can't expect others to forget him as quickly as you. It's a rich joke, you refusing me. You're not fit for me to wipe my shoes on. My mother never cared for me to go to your garret; she said I must mix with my equals and goodness knew what disease I might pick up in the dirt; 'pon my honor the old girl was right."
She _was_ right, Esther was stung into retorting. "You must mix only with your equals. Please leave the room now or else I shall."
His face changed. His frenzy gave way to a momentary shock of consternation as he realized what he had done.
No, no, Esther. I was mad, I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't mean it. Forget it.
I cannot. It was quite true, she said bitterly. "I am only a _Schnorrer's_ daughter. Well, are you going or must I?"
He muttered something inarticulate, then seized his hat sulkily and went to the door without looking at her.
You have forgotten something, she said.
He turned; her forefinger pointed to the bouquet on the table. He had a fresh access of rage at the sight of it, jerked it contemptuously to the floor with a sweep of his hat and stamped upon it. Then he rushed from the room and an instant after she heard the hall door slam.
She sank against the table sobbing nervously. It was her first proposal! A _Schnorrer_ and the daughter of a _Schnorrer_. Yes, that-was what she was. And she had even repaid her benefactors with deception! What hopes could she yet cherish? In literature she was a failure; the critics gave her few gleams of encouragement, while all her acquaintances from Raphael downwards would turn and rend her, should she dare declare herself. Nay, she was ashamed of herself for the mischief she had wrought. No one in the world cared for her; she was quite alone. The only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she, that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue; "a little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches." Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right. She ought to think herself lucky to get him. Again, she asked herself what had existence to offer her. Gradually her sobs ceased; she remembered to-night would be _Seder_ night, and her thoughts, so violently turned Ghetto-wards, went back to that night, soon after poor Benjamin's death, when she sat before the garret fire striving to picture the larger life of the future. Well, this was the future.
The same evening Leonard James sat in the stalls of the Colosseum Music Hall, sipping champagne and smoking a cheroot. He had not been to his chambers (which were only round the corner) since the hapless interview with Esther, wandering about in the streets and the clubs in a spirit compounded of outraged dignity, remorse and recklessness. All men must dine; and dinner at the _Flamingo Club_ soothed his wounded soul and left only the recklessness, which is a sensation not lacking in agreeableness. Through the rosy mists of the Burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which had hovered before him all the afternoon like a tantalizing phantom; at the Chartreuse stage he began to wonder what hallucination, what aberration of sense had overcome him, that he should have been stirred to his depths and distressed so hugely. Warmer faces were these that swam before him, faces fuller of the joy of life. The devil take all stuck-up little saints!
About eleven o'clock, when the great ballet of _Venetia_ was over, Leonard hurried round to the stage-door, saluted the door-keeper with a friendly smile and a sixpence, and sent in his card to Miss Gladys Wynne, on the chance that she might have no supper engagement. Miss Wynne was only a humble _coryphee_, but the admirers of her talent were numerous, and Leonard counted himself fortunate in that she was able to afford him the privilege of her society to-night. She came out to him in a red fur-lined cloak, for the air was keen. She was a majestic being with a florid complexion not entirely artificial, big blue eyes and teeth of that whiteness which is the practical equivalent of a sense of humor in evoking the possessor's smiles. They drove to a restaurant a few hundred yards distant, for Miss Wynne detested using her feet except to dance with. It was a fashionable restaurant, where the prices obligingly rose after ten, to accommodate the purses of the supper-_clientele_. Miss Wynne always drank champagne, except when alone, and in politeness Leonard had to imbibe more of this frothy compound. He knew he would have to pay for the day's extravagance by a week of comparative abstemiousness, but recklessness generally meant magnificence with him. They occupied a cosy little corner behind a screen, and Miss Wynne bubbled over with laughter like an animated champagne bottle. One or two of his acquaintances espied him and winked genially, and Leonard had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not dissipating his money without purchasing enhanced reputation. He had not felt in gayer spirits for months than when, with Gladys Wynne on his arm and a cigarette in his mouth, he sauntered out of the brilliantly-lit restaurant into the feverish dusk of the midnight street, shot with points of fire.
Hansom, sir!
_Levi_!
A great cry of anguish rent the air--Leonard's cheeks burned. Involuntarily he looked round. Then his heart stood still. There, a few yards from him, rooted to the pavement, with stony staring face, was Reb Shemuel. The old man wore an unbrushed high hat and an uncouth unbuttoned overcoat. His hair and beard were quite white now, and the strong countenance lined with countless wrinkles was distorted with pain and astonishment. He looked a cross between an ancient prophet and a shabby street lunatic. The unprecedented absence of the son from the _Seder_ ceremonial had filled the Reb's household with the gravest alarm. Nothing short of death or mortal sickness could be keeping the boy away. It was long before the Reb could bring himself to commence the _Hagadah_ without his son to ask the time-honored opening question; and when he did he paused every minute to listen to footsteps or the voice of the wind without. The joyous holiness of the Festival was troubled, a black cloud overshadowed the shining table-cloth, at supper the food choked him. But _Seder_ was over and yet no sign of the missing guest; no word of explanation. In poignant anxiety, the old man walked the three miles that lay between him and tidings of the beloved son. At his chambers he learned that their occupant had not been in all day. Another thing he learned there, too; for the _Mezuzah_ which he had fixed up on the door-post when his boy moved in had been taken down, and it filled his mind with a dread suspicion that Levi had not been eating at the _kosher_ restaurant in Hatton Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighborhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside the Ghetto, and the radius of his life was proportionately narrow,--with the intensity that narrowness forces on a big soul. The streets dazzled him, he looked blinkingly hither and thither in the despairing hope of finding his boy. His lips moved in silent prayer; he raised his eyes beseechingly to the cold glittering heavens. Then, all at once--as the clocks pointed to midnight--he found him. Found him coming out of an unclean place, where he had violated the Passover. Found him--fit climax of horror--with the "strange woman" of _The Proverbs_, for whom the faithful Jew has a hereditary hatred.
His son--his. Reb Shemuel's! He, the servant of the Most High, the teacher of the Faith to reverential thousands, had brought a son into the world to profane the Name! Verily his gray hairs would go down with sorrow to a speedy grave! And the sin was half his own; he had weakly abandoned his boy in the midst of a great city. For one awful instant, that seemed an eternity, the old man and the young faced each other across the chasm which divided their lives. To the son the shock was scarcely less violent than to the father. The _Seder_, which the day's unwonted excitement had clean swept out of his mind, recurred to him in a flash, and by the light of it he understood the puzzle of his father's appearance. The thought of explaining rushed up only to be dismissed. The door of the restaurant had not yet ceased swinging behind him--there was too much to explain. He felt that all was over between him and his father. It was unpleasant, terrible even, for it meant the annihilation of his resources. But though he still had an almost physical fear of the old man, far more terrible even than the presence of his father was the presence of Miss Gladys Wynne. To explain, to brazen it out, either course was equally impossible. He was not a brave man, but at that moment he felt death were preferable to allowing her to be the witness of such a scene as must ensue. His resolution was taken within a few brief seconds of the tragic rencontre. With wonderful self-possession, he nodded to the cabman who had put the question, and whose vehicle was drawn up opposite the restaurant. Hastily he helped the unconscious Gladys into the hansom. He was putting his foot on the step himself when Reb Shemuel's paralysis relaxed suddenly. Outraged by this final pollution of the Festival, he ran forward and laid his hand on Levi's shoulder. His face was ashen, his heart thumped painfully; the hand on Levi's cloak shook as with palsy.
Levi winced; the old awe was upon him. Through a blinding whirl he saw Gladys staring wonderingly at the queer-looking intruder. He gathered all his mental strength together with a mighty effort, shook off the great trembling hand and leaped into the hansom.
Drive on! came in strange guttural tones from his parched throat.
The driver lashed the horse; a rough jostled the old man aside and slammed the door to; Leonard mechanically threw him a coin; the hansom glided away.
Who was that, Leonard? said Miss Wynne, curiously.
Nobody; only an old Jew who supplies me with cash.
Gladys laughed merrily--a rippling, musical laugh.
She knew the sort of person.
The _Flag of Judah_, price one penny, largest circulation of any Jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze and its communal contemporaries. At Passover there had been an illusive augmentation of advertisements proclaiming the virtues of unleavened everything. With the end of the Festival, most of these fell out, staying as short a time as the daffodils. Raphael was in despair at the meagre attenuated appearance of the erst prosperous-looking pages. The weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience.
We shall never succeed, said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic hair, "till we run it for the Upper Ten. These ten people can make the paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance."
But they must surely reckon with us sooner or later, said Raphael.
It will he a long reckoning. I fear: you take my advice and put in more butter. It'll be _kosher_ butter, coming from us. The little Bohemian laughed as heartily as his eyeglass permitted.
No; we must stick to our guns. After all, we have had some very good things lately. Those articles of Pinchas's are not bad either.
They're so beastly egotistical. Still his theories are ingenious and far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of Henry Goldsmith, which you will put in.
Raphael flushed a little and began to walk up and down the new and superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his pipe The appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted with old newspapers and scraps of letters. A huge picture of an Atlantic Liner, the gift of a Steamship Company, leaned cumbrously against a wall.
Still, all our literary excellencies, pursued Sampson, "are outweighed by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages and deaths. We are gravelled for lack of that sort of matter What is the use of your elaborate essay on the Septuagint, when the public is dying to hear who's dead?"
Yes, I am afraid it is so. said Raphael, emitting a huge volume of smoke.
I'm sure it is so. If you would only give me a freer hand, I feel sure I could work up that column. We can at least make a better show: I would avoid the danger of discovery by shifting the scene to foreign parts. I could marry some people in Born-bay and kill some in Cape Town, redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at Cairo and Cincinnati. Our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but we should take the shine out of them in cosmopolitanism.
No, no; remember that _Meshumad_ said Raphael, smiling.
He was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse, we should have been saved that _contretemps_. We have one 'death' this week fortunately, and I am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. But we haven't had a 'birth' for three weeks running; it's just ruining our reputation. Everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile lot, and it looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. Ta ra ra ta! Now you must really let me have a 'birth.' I give you my word, nobody'll suspect it isn't genuine. Come now. How's this? He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Raphael, who read:
BIRTH, on the 15th inst. at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife of Joseph Samuels of a son.
There! said Sampson proudly, "Who would believe the little beggar had no existence? Nobody lives in Kennington, and that East Stuart Lane is a master-stroke. You might suspect Stuart Lane, but nobody would ever dream there's no such place as _East_ Stuart Lane. Don't say the little chap must die. I begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. May I announce him? Don't be too scrupulous. Who'll be a penny the worse for it?" He began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody.
Raphael hesitated: his moral fibre had been weakened. It is impossible to touch print and not be denied.
Suddenly Sampson ceased to whistle and smote his head with his chubby fist. "Ass that I am!" he exclaimed.
What new reasons have you discovered to think so? said Raphael.
Why, we dare not create boys. We shall be found out; boys must be circumcised and some of the periphrastically styled 'Initiators into the Abrahamic Covenant' may spot us. It was a girl that Mrs. Joseph Samuels was guilty of. He amended the sex.
Raphael laughed heartily. "Put it by; there's another day yet; we shall see."
Very well, said Sampson resignedly. "Perhaps by to-morrow we shall be in luck and able to sing 'unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.' By the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that quotation, on the ground it was from the New Testament?"
Yes, said Raphael smiling. "Of course the man doesn't know his Old Testament, but I trace his misconception to his having heard Handel's Messiah. I wonder he doesn't find fault with the Morning Service for containing the Lord's Prayer, or with Moses for saying 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'"
Still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for, said the sub-editor. "And we don't. We have cut down our Provincial Notes to a column. My idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives. Every man's name we mention means at least one copy sold. Why can't we drag in a couple of thousand names every week?"
That would make our circulation altogether nominal, laughed Raphael, not taking the suggestion seriously.
Little Sampson was not only the Mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting Raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as Sweeney Todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted as news or as advertisements, against the self-puffers and the axe-grinders. He also taught Raphael how to commence interesting correspondence and how to close awkward. The _Flag_ played a part in many violent discussions. Little Sampson was great in inventing communal crises, and in getting the public to believe it was excited. He also won a great victory over the other party every three weeks; Raphael did not wish to have so many of these victories, but little Sampson pointed out that if he did not have them, the rival newspaper would annex them. One of the earliest sensations of the _Flag_ was a correspondence exposing the misdeeds of some communal officials; but in the end the very persons who made the allegations ate humble pie. Evidently official pressure had been brought to bear, for red tape rampant might have been the heraldic device of Jewish officialdom. In no department did Jews exhibit more strikingly their marvellous powers of assimilation to their neighbors.
Among the discussions which rent the body politic was the question of building a huge synagogue for the poor. The _Flag_ said it would only concentrate them, and its word prevailed. There were also the grave questions of English and harmoniums in the synagogue, of the confirmation of girls and their utilization in the choir. The Rabbinate, whose grave difficulties in reconciling all parties to its rule, were augmented by the existence of the _Flag_, pronounced it heinous to introduce English excerpts into the liturgy; if, however, they were not read from the central platform, they were legitimate; harmoniums were permissible, but only during special services; and an organization of mixed voices was allowable, but not a mixed choir; children might be confirmed, but the word "confirmation" should be avoided. Poor Rabbinate! The politics of the little community were extremely complex. What with rabid zealots yearning for the piety of the good old times, spiritually-minded ministers working with uncomfortable earnestness for a larger Judaism, radicals dropping out, moderates clamoring for quiet, and schismatics organizing new and tiresome movements, the Rabbinate could scarcely do aught else than emit sonorous platitudes and remain in office.
And beneath all these surface ruffles was the steady silent drift of the new generation away from the old landmarks. The synagogue did not attract; it spoke Hebrew to those whose mother-tongue was English; its appeal was made through channels which conveyed nothing to them; it was out of touch with their real lives; its liturgy prayed for the restoration of sacrifices which they did not want and for the welfare of Babylonian colleges that had ceased to exist. The old generation merely believed its beliefs; if the new as much as professed them, it was only by virtue of the old home associations and the inertia of indifference. Practically, it was without religion. The Reform Synagogue, though a centre of culture and prosperity, was cold, crude and devoid of magnetism. Half a century of stagnant reform and restless dissolution had left Orthodoxy still the Established Doxy. For, as Orthodoxy evaporated in England, it was replaced by fresh streams from Russia, to be evaporated and replaced in turn, England acting as an automatic distillery. Thus the Rabbinate still reigned, though it scarcely governed either the East End or the West. For the East End formed a Federation of the smaller synagogues to oppose the dominance of the United Synagogue, importing a minister of superior orthodoxy from the Continent, and the _Flag_ had powerful leaders on the great struggle between plutocracy and democracy, and the voice of Mr. Henry Goldsmith was heard on behalf of Whitechapel. And the West, in so far as it had spiritual aspirations, fed them on non-Jewish literature and the higher thought of the age. The finer spirits, indeed, were groping for a purpose and a destiny, doubtful even, if the racial isolation they perpetuated were not an anachronism. While the community had been battling for civil and religious liberty, there had been a unifying, almost spiritualizing, influence in the sense of common injustice, and the question _cui bono_ had been postponed. Drowning men do not ask if life is worth living. Later, the Russian persecutions came to interfere again with national introspection, sending a powerful wave of racial sympathy round the earth. In England a backwash of the wave left the Asmonean Society, wherein, for the first time in history, Jews gathered with nothing in common save blood--artists, lawyers, writers, doctors--men who in pre-emancipation times might have become Christians like Heine, but who now formed an effective protest against the popular conceptions of the Jew, and a valuable antidote to the disproportionate notoriety achieved by less creditable types. At the Asmonean Society, brilliant free-lances, each thinking himself a solitary exception to a race of bigots, met one another in mutual astonishment. Raphael alienated several readers by uncompromising approval of this characteristically modern movement. Another symptom of the new intensity of national brotherhood was the attempt towards amalgamating the Spanish and German communities, but brotherhood broke down under the disparity of revenue, the rich Spanish sect displaying once again the exclusiveness which has marked its history.
Amid these internal problems, the unspeakable immigrant was an added thorn. Very often the victim of Continental persecution was assisted on to America, but the idea that he was hurtful to native labor rankled in the minds of Englishmen, and the Jewish leaders were anxious to remove it, all but proving him a boon. In despair, it was sought to 'anglicize him by discourses in Yiddish. With the Poor Alien question was connected the return to Palestine. The Holy Land League still pinned its faith to Zion, and the _Flag_ was with it to the extent of preferring the ancient father-land, as the scene of agricultural experiments, to the South American soils selected by other schemes. It was generally felt that the redemption of Judaism lay largely in a return to the land, after several centuries of less primitive and more degrading occupations. When South America was chosen, Strelitski was the first to counsel the League to co-operate in the experiment, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. But, for the orthodox the difficulties of regeneration by the spade were enhanced by the Sabbatical Year Institute of the Pentateuch, ordaining that land must lie fallow in the seventh year. It happened that this septennial holiday was just going on, and the faithful Palestine farmers were starving in voluntary martyrdom. The _Flag_ raised a subscription for their benefit. Raphael wished to head the list with twenty pounds, but on the advice of little Sampson he broke it up into a variety of small amounts, spread over several weeks, and attached to imaginary names and initials. Seeing so many other readers contributing, few readers felt called upon to tax themselves. The _Flag_ received the ornate thanks of a pleiad of Palestine Rabbis for its contribution of twenty-five guineas, two of which were from Mr. Henry Goldsmith. Gideon, the member for Whitechapel, remained callous to the sufferings of his brethren in the Holy Land. In daily contact with so many diverse interests, Raphael's mind widened as imperceptibly as the body grows. He learned the manners of many men and committees--admired the genuine goodness of some of the Jewish philanthropists and the fluent oratory of all; even while he realized the pettiness of their outlook and their reluctance to face facts. They were timorous, with a dread of decisive action and definitive speech, suggesting the differential, deprecatory corporeal wrigglings of the mediaeval few. They seemed to keep strict ward over the technical privileges of the different bodies they belonged to, and in their capacity of members of the Fiddle-de-dee to quarrel with themselves as members of the Fiddle-de-dum, and to pass votes of condolence or congratulation twice over as members of both. But the more he saw of his race the more he marvelled at the omnipresent ability, being tempted at times to allow truth to the view that Judaism was a successful sociological experiment, the moral and physical training of a chosen race whose very dietary had been religiously regulated.
And even the revelations of the seamy side of human character which thrust themselves upon the most purblind of editors were blessings in disguise. The office of the _Flag_ was a forcing-house for Raphael; many latent thoughts developed into extraordinary maturity. A month of the _Flag_ was equal to a year of experience in the outside world. And not even little Sampson himself was keener to appreciate the humors of the office when no principle was involved; though what made the sub-editor roar with laughter often made the editor miserable for the day. For compensation, Raphael had felicities from which little Sampson was cut off; gladdened by revelations of earnestness and piety in letters that were merely bad English to the sub-editor.
A thing that set them both laughing occurred on the top of their conversation about the reader who objected to quotations from the Old Testament. A package of four old _Flags_ arrived, accompanied by a letter. This was the letter:
"DEAR SIR: Your man called upon me last night, asking for payment for four advertisements of my Passover groceries. But I have changed my mind about them and do not want them; and therefore beg to return the four numbers sent me You will see I have not opened them or soiled them in any way, so please cancel the claim in your books.
" "Yours truly, ISAAC WOLLBERG.""
"He evidently thinks the vouchers sent him _are_ the advertisements, screamed little Sampson.
But if he is as ignorant as all that, how could he have written the letter? asked Raphael.
Oh, it was probably written for him for twopence by the Shalotten _Shammos_, the begging-letter writer.
This is almost as funny as Karlkammer! said Raphael.
Karlkammer had sent in a long essay on the Sabbatical Year question, which Raphael had revised and published with Karlkammer's title at the head and Karlkammer's name at the foot. Yet, owing to the few rearrangements and inversions of sentences, Karlkammer never identified it as his own, and was perpetually calling to inquire when his article would appear. He brought with him fresh manuscripts of the article as originally written. He was not the only caller; Raphael was much pestered by visitors on kindly counsel bent or stern exhortation. The sternest were those who had never yet paid their subscriptions. De Haan also kept up proprietorial rights of interference. In private life Raphael suffered much from pillars of the Montagu Samuels type, who accused him of flippancy, and no communal crisis invented by little Sampson ever equalled the pother and commotion that arose when Raphael incautiously allowed him to burlesque the notorious _Mordecai Josephs_ by comically exaggerating its exaggerations. The community took it seriously, as an attack upon the race. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith were scandalized, and Raphael had to shield little Sampson by accepting the whole responsibility for its appearance.
Talking of Karlkammer's article, are you ever going to use up Herman's scientific paper? asked little Sampson.
I'm afraid so, said Raphael; "I don't know how we can get out of it. But his eternal _kosher_ meat sticks in my throat. We are Jews for the love of God, not to be saved from consumption bacilli. But I won't use it to-morrow; we have Miss Cissy Levine's tale. It's not half bad. What a pity she has the expenses of her books paid! If she had to achieve publication by merit, her style might be less slipshod."
I wish some rich Jew would pay the expenses of my opera tour, said little Sampson, ruefully. "My style of doing the thing would be improved. The people who are backing me up are awfully stingy, actually buying up battered old helmets for my chorus of Amazons."
Intermittently the question of the sub-editor's departure for the provinces came up: it was only second in frequency to his "victories." About once a month the preparations for the tour were complete, and he would go about in a heyday of jubilant vocalization; then his comic prima-donna would fall ill or elope, his conductor would get drunk, his chorus would strike, and little Sampson would continue to sub-edit _The Flag of Judah_.
Pinchas unceremoniously turned the handle of the door and came in. The sub-editor immediately hurried out to get a cup of tea. Pinchas had fastened upon him the responsibility for the omission of an article last week, and had come to believe that he was in league with rival Continental scholars to keep Melchitsedek Pinchas's effusions out of print, and so little Sampson dared not face the angry savant. Raphael, thus deserted, cowered in his chair. He did not fear death, but he feared Pinchas, and had fallen into the cowardly habit of bribing him lavishly not to fill the paper. Fortunately, the poet was in high feather.
Don't forget the announcement that I lecture at the Club on Sunday. You see all the efforts of Reb Shemuel, of the Rev. Joseph Strelitski, of the Chief Rabbi, of Ebenezer vid his blue spectacles, of Sampson, of all the phalanx of English Men-of-the-Earth, they all fail. Ab, I am a great man.
I won't forget, said Raphael wearily. "The announcement is already in print."
Ah, I love you. You are the best man in the vorld. It is you who have championed me against those who are thirsting for my blood. And now I vill tell you joyful news. There is a maiden coming up to see you--she is asking in the publisher's office--oh such a lovely maiden!
Pinchas grinned all over his face, and was like to dig his editor in the ribs.
What maiden?
I do not know; but vai-r-r-y beaudiful. Aha, I vill go. Have you not been good to _me_? But vy come not beaudiful maidens to _me_?
No, no, you needn't go, said Raphael, getting red.
Pinchas grinned as one who knew better, and struck a match to rekindle a stump of cigar. "No, no, I go write my lecture--oh it vill be a great lecture. You vill announce it in the paper! You vill not leave it out like Sampson left out my article last week." He was at the door now, with his finger alongside his nose.
Raphael shook himself impatiently, and the poet threw the door wide open and disappeared.
For a full minute Raphael dared not look towards the door for fear of seeing the poet's cajoling head framed in the opening. When he did, he was transfixed to see Esther Ansell's there, regarding him pensively.
His heart beat painfully at the shock; the room seemed flooded with sunlight.
May I come in? she said, smiling.
Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. She had walked in cold sunny weather from the British Museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like ear. In her left hand she held a roll of manuscript. It contained her criticisms of the May Exhibitions. Whereby hung a tale.
In the dark days that followed the scene with Levi, Esther's resolution had gradually formed. The position had become untenable. She could no longer remain a _Schnorrer_; abusing the bounty of her benefactors into the bargain. She must leave the Goldsmiths, and at once. That was imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken the first. And yet she postponed taking the first. Once she drifted out of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future, could not be certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to Raphael to sit in judgment upon the Academy and other picture galleries that bloomed in May. At any rate, once she had severed connection with the Goldsmith circle, she would not care to renew it, even in the case of Raphael. No, it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution. Addie amused her by reading extracts from Sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to Norway the morning after the _debut_ of the new Hamlet. Esther felt that it might be as well if she stayed on to see how the drama of these two lives developed. These things she told herself in the reaction from the first impulse of instant flight.
Raphael put down his pipe at the sight of her and a frank smile of welcome shone upon his flushed face.
This is so kind of you! he said; "who would have thought of seeing you here? I am so glad. I hope you are well. You look better." He was wringing her little gloved hand violently as he spoke.
I feel better, too, thank you. The air is so exhilarating. I'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living. Addie has told me of your debauches of work.
Addie is foolish. I never felt better. Come inside. Don't be afraid of walking on the papers. They're all old.
I always heard literary people were untidy, said Esther smiling. "_You_ must be a regular genius."
Well, you see we don't have many ladies coming here, said Raphael deprecatingly, "though we have plenty of old women."
It's evident you don't. Else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit.
Never mind that now, Miss Ansell. Sit down, won't you? You must be tired. Take the editorial chair. Allow me a minute. He removed some books from it.
Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review? She sat down. "Dear me! It's quite comfortable. You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. But where is your fighting-editor? It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? It isn't safe for me to remain in this chair."
Oh, yes it is! We've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day, he assured her.
She looked curiously round. "Please pick up your pipe. It's going out. I don't mind smoke, indeed I don't. Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den."
Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully.
I wonder though you don't set the place on fire, Esther rattled on, "with all this mass of inflammable matter about."
It is very dry, most of it, he admitted, with a smile.
Why don't you have a real fire? It must be quite cold sitting here all day. What's that great ugly picture over there?
That steamer! It's an advertisement.
Heavens! What a decoration. I should like to have the criticism of that picture. I've brought you those picture-galleries, you know; that's what I've come for.
Thank you! That's very good of you. I'll send it to the printers at once. He took the roll and placed it in a pigeon-hole, without taking his eyes off her face.
Why don't you throw that awful staring thing away? she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination, "and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colors hung up and put a vase of flowers on your desk. I wish I had the control of the office for a week."
I wish you had, he said gallantly. "I can't find time to think of those things. I am sure you are brightening it up already."
The little blush on her cheek deepened. Compliment was unwonted with him; and indeed, he spoke as he felt. The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum; the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts, such as he had scarce known before. The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal.
I hope you are speaking the truth, replied Esther with a little laugh. "You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine." She spoke in airy accents, with an undercurrent of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.
Why, I haven't _looked_ at your manuscript yet, he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. The leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. It was but the dream of a second--the dingy walls closed round him again, the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. But the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. And when she spoke again, it was as if the music that filled the visionary glades was a reality, too.
It's all very well your treating reproof as a jest, she said, more gravely. "Can't you see that it's false economy to risk a break-down even if you use yourself purely for others? You're looking far from well. You are overtaxing human strength. Come now, admit my sermon is just. Remember I speak not as a Pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself--a fellow-sinner." She turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him.
I--I--don't sleep very well, he admitted, "but otherwise I assure you I feel all right."
It was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. The blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. The gentle anxious face seemed to grow angelic. Could she really care if his health gave way? Again he felt a rash of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. He was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. He wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before.
And you used to sleep so well, said Esther, slily, remembering Addie's domestic revelations. "My stupid manuscript should come in useful."
Oh, forgive my stupid joke! he said remorsefully.
Forgive mine! she answered. "Sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. Again I speak as one who knows."
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude.
Never mind me; I am a woman and can take care of myself. Why don't you go over to Norway and join Mr. Graham?
That's quite out of the question, he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. "I can't leave the paper."
Oh, men always say that. Haven't you let your pipe go out? I don't see any smoke.
He started and laughed. "Yes, there's no more tobacco in it." He laid it down.
No, I insist on your going on or else I shall feel uncomfortable. Where's your pouch?
He felt all over his pockets. "It must be on the table."
She rummaged among the mass of papers. "Ha! There are your scissors'" she said scornfully, turning them up. She found the pouch in time and handed it to him. "I ought to have the management of this office for a day," she remarked again.
Well, fill my pipe for me, he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill.
Now you must crown your work, he said. "The matches are somewhere about."
She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire.
They're safety matches, I think, he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe.
But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to see _Hamlet_ in lieu of the night you disappointed us.
Disappointed myself, you mean, he said with a retrospective consciousness of folly. "No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short."
Then, why waste it?
Oh come, I can't admit I waste it, he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. "You mustn't take such material views of life." Almost in a whisper he quoted: "To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added," and went on: "Socialism is at least as important as Shakspeare."
Socialism, she repeated. "Are you a Socialist, then?"
Of a kind, he answered. "Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings; land nationalization and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses."
What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?
It requires no seeking.
Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found every thing in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or at least I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it.
I hope so, he said gravely. "But have you Socialistic sympathies?"
She hesitated. As a girl she had felt the crude Socialism which is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. When the higher sphere has welcomed the Socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. Esther had gone through the second phase and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain.
I used to be a red-hot Socialist once, she said. "To-day I doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. High thinking is compatible with the plainest living. 'The soul is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it, but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them."
The conversation had drifted into seriousness. Raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast, but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions.
Ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory, he said. "But what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't even get the plainest living? You should just see the sights I have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. Of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations."
Esther smiled almost Imperceptibly. The idea of Raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, telling _her_ to examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed among the same scenes as his. It seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that Raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others, while she who had known both had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. Perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. Well, that would test her theories at any rate.
Who is taking material views of life now? she asked.
It is by perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law that the kingdom of God is to be brought about on earth, he answered. "And in spirit, orthodox Judaism is undoubtedly akin to Socialism." His enthusiasm set him pacing the room as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill.
Esther shook her head. "Well, give me Shakspeare," she said. "I had rather see _Hamlet_ than a world of perfect prigs." She laughed at the oddity of her own comparison and added, still smiling: "Once upon a time I used to think Shakspeare a fraud. But that was merely because he was an institution. It is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis."
Perhaps you will find the Bible turn out like that, he said hopefully.
I _have_ found it. Within the last few months I have read it right through again--Old and New. It is full of sublime truths, noble apophthegms, endless touches of nature, and great poetry. Our tiny race may well be proud of having given humanity its greatest as well as its most widely circulated books. Why can't Judaism take a natural view of things and an honest pride in its genuine history, instead of building its synagogues on shifting sand?
In Germany, later in America, the reconstruction of Judaism has been attempted in every possible way; inspiration has been sought not only in literature, but in archaeology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. You see your scepticism is not even original. He smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. His complacency grated upon her. She jumped up. "We always seem to get into religion, you and I," she said. "I wonder why. It is certain we shall never agree. Mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but I cannot help feeling Mr. Graham is right when he points out its limitations. Where would the art of the world be if the second Commandment had been obeyed? Is there any such thing as an absolute system of morality? How is it the Chinese have got on all these years without religion? Why should the Jews claim the patent in those moral ideas which you find just as well in all the great writers of antiquity? Why--?" she stopped suddenly, seeing his smile had broadened.
Which of all these objections am I to answer? he asked merrily. "Some I'm sure you don't mean."
I mean all those you can't answer. So please don't try. After all, you're not a professional explainer of the universe, that I should heckle you thus.
Oh, but I set up to be, he protested.
No, you don't. You haven't called me a blasphemer once. I'd better go before you become really professional. I shall be late for dinner.
What nonsense! It is only four o'clock, he pleaded, consulting an old-fashioned silver watch.
As late as that! said Esther in horrified tones. "Good-bye! Take care to go through my 'copy' in case any heresies have filtered into it."
Your copy? Did you give it me? he inquired.
Of course I did. You took it from me. Where did you put it? Oh, I hope you haven't mixed it up with those papers. It'll be a terrible task to find it, cried Esther excitedly.
I wonder if I could have put it in the pigeon-hole for 'copy,' he said. "Yes! what luck!"
Esther laughed heartily. "You seem tremendously surprised to find anything in its right place."
The moment of solemn parting had come, yet she found herself laughing on. Perhaps she was glad to find the farewell easier than she had foreseen, it had certainly been made easier by the theological passage of arms, which brought out all her latent antagonism to the prejudiced young pietist. Her hostility gave rather a scornful ring to the laugh, which ended with a suspicion of hysteria.
What a lot of stuff you've written, he said. "I shall never be able to get this into one number."
I didn't intend you should. It's to be used in instalments, if it's good enough. I did it all in advance, because I'm going away.
Going away! he cried, arresting himself in the midst of an inhalation of smoke. "Where?"
I don't know, she said wearily.
He looked alarm and interrogation.
I am going to leave the Goldsmiths, she said. "I haven't decided exactly what to do next."
I hope you haven't quarrelled with them.
No, no, not at all. In fact they don't even know I am going. I only tell you in confidence. Please don't say anything to anybody. Good-bye. I may not come across you again. So this may be a last good-bye. She extended her hand; he took it mechanically.
I have no right to pry into your confidence, he said anxiously, "but you make me very uneasy." He did not let go her hand, the warm touch quickened his sympathy. He felt he could not part with her and let her drift into Heaven knew what. "Won't you tell me your trouble?" he went on. "I am sure it is some trouble. Perhaps I can help you. I should be so glad if you would give me the opportunity."
The tears struggled to her eyes, but she did not speak. They stood in silence, with their hands still clasped, feeling very near to each other, and yet still so far apart.
Cannot you trust me? he asked. "I know you are unhappy, but I had hoped you had grown cheerfuller of late. You told me so much at our first meeting, surely you might trust me yet a little farther."
I have told you enough, she said at last "I cannot any longer eat the bread of charity; I must go away and try to earn my own living."
But what will you do?
What do other girls do? Teaching, needlework, anything. Remember, I'm an experienced teacher and a graduate to boot. Her pathetic smile lit up the face with tremulous tenderness.
But you would be quite alone in the world, he said, solicitude vibrating in every syllable.
I am used to being quite alone in the world.
The phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning.
But suppose you fail?
If I fail-- she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug. It was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of Moses Ansell; only his was the shrug of faith in Providence, hers of despair. It filled Raphael's heart with deadly cold and his soul with sinister forebodings. The pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable.
No, no, this must not be! he cried, and his hand gripped hers fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force. He was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing profound and novel emotions. Their eyes met; in one and the same instant the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose to play the woman he was hers, and life a Paradisian dream. The sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire. But the next instant she was chilled as by a gray cold fog. The realities of things came back, a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. Who was she to aspire to such a match? Had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than that? The _Schnorrer's_ daughter setting her cap at the wealthy Oxford man, forsooth! What would people say? And what would they say if they knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion to pitch a tale of woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook momentarily for love? The image of Levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude view be right? Suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? Knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing. Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.
What right, have you to say it must not be? she inquired haughtily. "Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to protect me or to help me?"
No--I--I--only mean-- he stammered in infinite distress, feeling himself somehow a blundering brute.
Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the worst that life can offer. I can stand alone, yes, and face the whole world. Perhaps you don't know that I wrote _Mordecai Josephs_, the book you burlesqued so mercilessly!
_You_ wrote it!
Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I wrote it and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out 'The picture is false,' I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going to cut myself free. From them and from you and all your petty prejudices and interests. Good-bye, for ever.
She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true colors at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.
The editor of _The Flag of Judah_ stood for some minutes as if petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started reading _Mordecai Josephs_, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passage suffused his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences; he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How blind he had been! How could he have missed seeing? Esther stared at him from every page. She was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero, too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the masculine. The whole book was Esther, the whole Esther and nothing but Esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of Esther's soul against mean and evil things. He turned to the great love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting further than the chapter.
No need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. Esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to Raphael; there was no seething of the blood to nerve her to face Mrs. Henry Goldsmith. She retired to her room soon after dinner on the plea (which was not a pretext) of a headache. Then she wrote:
"DEAR MRS. GOLDSMITH: When you read this, I shall have left your house, never to return. It would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. I could not hope to make you see through my eyes. Suffice it to say that I cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that I feel I have abused your favor by writing that Jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. I never intended to keep the secret from you, after publication. I thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time I dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and I have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. With my temperament, I see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody, but the mistake was made in my girlhood when I knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. Nevertheless, I wish you to believe, dear Mrs. Goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen I put upon my own shoulders, and that I have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses I have received at your hands. I beg you not to think that I make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, I shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that I have made you so poor a return for your generosity and incessant thoughtfulness. But the sphere in which you move is too high for me; I cannot assimilate with it and I return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. With kindest regards and best wishes,
" "I am, Yours ever gratefully,
"ESTHER ANSELL.
There were tears in Esther's eyes when she finished, and she was penetrated with admiration of her own generosity in so freely admitting Mrs. Goldsmith's and in allowing that her patron got nothing out of the bargain. She was doubtful whether the sentence about the high sphere was satirical or serious. People do not know what they mean almost as often as they do not say it.
Esther put the letter into an envelope and placed it on the open writing-desk she kept on her dressing-table. She then packed a few toilette essentials in a little bag, together with some American photographs of her brother and sisters in various stages of adolescence. She was determined to go back empty-handed as she came, and was reluctant to carry off the few sovereigns of pocket-money in her purse, and hunted up a little gold locket she had received, while yet a teacher, in celebration of the marriage of a communal magnate's daughter. Thrown aside seven years ago, it now bade fair to be the corner-stone of the temple; she had meditated pledging it and living on the proceeds till she found work, but when she realized its puny pretensions to cozen pawnbrokers, it flashed upon her that she could always repay Mrs. Goldsmith the few pounds she was taking away. In a drawer there was a heap of manuscript carefully locked away; she took it and looked through it hurriedly, contemptuously. Some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. At last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good Mary O'Reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, with scornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. Rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray manuscript she should leave her soul naked behind her, she came upon a forgotten faded rose. The faint fragrance was charged with strange memories of Sidney. The handsome young artist had given it her in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship. To Esther to-night it seemed to belong to a period infinitely more remote than her childhood. When the shrivelled rose had been further crumpled into a little ball and then picked to bits, it only remained to inquire where to go; what to do she could settle when there. She tried to collect her thoughts. Alas! it was not so easy as collecting her luggage. For a long time she crouched on the fender and looked into the fire, seeing in it only fragmentary pictures of the last seven years--bits of scenery, great Cathedral interiors arousing mysterious yearnings, petty incidents of travel, moments with Sidney, drawing-room episodes, strange passionate scenes with herself as single performer, long silent watches of study and aspiration, like the souls of the burned manuscripts made visible. Even that very afternoon's scene with Raphael was part of the "old unhappy far-off things" that could only live henceforwards in fantastic arcades of glowing coal, out of all relation to future realities. Her new-born love for Raphael appeared as ancient and as arid as the girlish ambitions that had seemed on the point of blossoming when she was transplanted from the Ghetto. That, too, was in the flames, and should remain there.
At last she started up with a confused sense of wasted time and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. But they wandered back to her first night in the fine house, when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. But she was more afraid of appearing a great baby, and so no one in the world ever knew what the imaginative little creature had lived down.
In the middle of brushing her hair she ran to the door and locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. She had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. She had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. She looked and looked at them and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. She seemed to be lying in Victoria Park, looking up with innocent mystic rapture and restfulness at the brooding blue sky. The blood-and-thunder boys' story she had borrowed from Solomon had fallen from her hand and lay unheeded on the grass. Solomon was tossing a ball to Rachel, which he had acquired by a colossal accumulation of buttons, and Isaac and Sarah were rolling and wrangling on the grass. Oh, why had she deserted them? What were they doing now, without her mother-care, out and away beyond the great seas? For weeks together, the thought of them had not once crossed her mind; to-night she stretched her arms involuntarily towards her loved ones, not towards the shadowy figures of reality, scarcely less phantasmal than the dead Benjamin, but towards the childish figures of the past. What happy times they had had together in the dear old garret!
In her strange half-waking hallucination, her outstretched arms were clasped round little Sarah. She was putting her to bed and the tiny thing was repeating after her, in broken Hebrew, the children's night-prayer: "Suffer me to lie down in peace, and let me rise up in peace. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," with its unauthorized appendix in baby English: "Dod teep me, and mate me a dood dirl, orways."
She woke to full consciousness with a start; her arms chilled, her face wet. But the problem was solved.
She would go back to them, back to her true home, where loving faces waited to welcome her, where hearts were open and life was simple and the weary brain could find rest from the stress and struggle of obstinate questionings of destiny. Life was so simple at bottom; it was she that was so perversely complex. She would go back to her father whose naive devout face swam glorified upon a sea of tears; yea, and back to her father's primitive faith like a tired lost child that spies its home at last. The quaint, monotonous cadence of her father's prayers rang pathetically in her ears; and a great light, the light that Raphael had shown her, seemed to blend mystically with the once meaningless sounds. Yea, all things were from Him who created light and darkness, good and evil; she felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine Love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights shedding visible consecration and blessing!
Yes, she would go back to her loved ones, back from this dainty room, with its white laces and perfumed draperies, back if need be to a Ghetto garret. And in the ecstasy of her abandonment of all worldly things, a great peace fell upon her soul.
In the morning the nostalgia of the Ghetto was still upon her, blent with a passion of martyrdom that made her yearn for a lower social depth than was really necessary. But the more human aspects of the situation were paramount in the gray chillness of a bleak May dawn. Her resolution to cross the Atlantic forthwith seemed a little hasty, and though she did not flinch from it, she was not sorry to remember that she had not money enough for the journey. She must perforce stay in London till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the old simplicities of existence.
She dressed herself in her plainest apparel, though she could not help her spring bonnet being pretty. She hesitated between a hat and a bonnet, but decided that her solitary position demanded as womanly an appearance as possible. Do what she would, she could not prevent herself looking exquisitely refined, and the excitement of adventure had lent that touch of color to her face which made it fascinating. About seven o'clock she left her room noiselessly and descended the stairs cautiously, holding her little black bag in her hand.
Och, be the holy mother, Miss Esther, phwat a turn you gave me, said Mary O'Reilly, emerging unexpectedly from the dining-room and meeting her at the foot of the stairs. "Phwat's the matther?"
I'm going out, Mary, she said, her heart beating violently.
Sure an' it's rale purty ye look, Miss Esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk, it looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday.
Oh, but I must go, Mary.
Ah, the saints bliss your kind heart! said Mary, catching sight of the bag. "Sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. I mind me how my blissed old masther, Mr. Goldsmith's father, _Olov Hasholom_, who's gone to glory, used to walk to _Shool_ in all winds and weathers; sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin' and I used to get up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he wint to _Selichoth_; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. Ah the Holy Vargin be kind to him!"
And may she be kind to you, Mary, said Esther. And she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward, for Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall door and passed into the silent streets, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky.
For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her pace slackened; she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet. When they commenced, she would take one to Whitechapel. The signs of awakening labor stirred her with new emotions; the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch-package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these years, amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves, aloof from realities?
The first 'bus overtook her half-way and bore her back to the Ghetto.
The Ghetto was all astir, for it was half-past eight of a work-a-day morning. But Esther had not walked a hundred yards before her breast was heavy with inauspicious emotions. The well-known street she had entered was strangely broadened. Instead of the dirty picturesque houses rose an appalling series of artisans' dwellings, monotonous brick barracks, whose dead, dull prose weighed upon the spirits. But, as in revenge, other streets, unaltered, seemed incredibly narrow. Was it possible it could have taken even her childish feet six strides to cross them, as she plainly remembered? And they seemed so unspeakably sordid and squalid. Could she ever really have walked them with light heart, unconscious of the ugliness? Did the gray atmosphere that overhung them ever lift, or was it their natural and appropriate mantle? Surely the sun could never shine upon these slimy pavements, kissing them to warmth and life.
Great magic shops where all things were to be had; peppermints and cotton, china-faced dolls and lemons, had dwindled into the front windows of tiny private dwelling-houses; the black-wigged crones, the greasy shambling men, were uglier and greasier than she had ever conceived them. They seemed caricatures of humanity; scarecrows in battered hats or draggled skirts. But gradually, as the scene grew upon her, she perceived that in spite of the "model dwellings" builder, it was essentially unchanged. No vestige of improvement had come over Wentworth Street: the narrow noisy market street, where serried barrows flanked the reeking roadway exactly as of old, and where Esther trod on mud and refuse and babies. Babies! They were everywhere; at the breasts of unwashed women, on the knees of grandfathers smoking pipes, playing under the barrows, sprawling in the gutters and the alleys. All the babies' faces were sickly and dirty with pathetic, childish prettinesses asserting themselves against the neglect and the sallowness. One female mite in a dingy tattered frock sat in an orange-box, surveying the bustling scene with a preternaturally grave expression, and realizing literally Esther's early conception of the theatre. There was a sense of blankness in the wanderer's heart, of unfamiliarity in the midst of familiarity. What had she in common with all this mean wretchedness, with this semi-barbarous breed of beings? The more she looked, the more her heart sank. There was no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no drunkenness, only the squalor of an oriental city without its quaintness and color. She studied the posters and the shop-windows, and caught old snatches of gossip from the groups in the butchers' shops--all seemed as of yore. And yet here and there the hand of Time had traced new inscriptions. For Baruch Emanuel the hand of Time had written a new placard. It was a mixture of German, bad English and Cockneyese, phonetically spelt in Hebrew letters:
Mens Solen Und Eelen, 2/6
Lydies Deeto, 1/6
Kindersche Deeto, 1/6
Hier wird gemacht
Aller Hant Sleepers
Fur Trebbelers
Zu De Billigsten Preissen.
Baruch Emanuel had prospered since the days when he wanted "lasters and riveters" without being able to afford them. He no longer gratuitously advertised _Mordecai Schwartz_ in envious emulation, for he had several establishments and owned five two-story houses, and was treasurer of his little synagogue, and spoke of Socialists as an inferior variety of Atheists. Not that all this bourgeoning was to be counted to leather, for Baruch had developed enterprises in all directions, having all the versatility of Moses Ansell without his catholic capacity for failure.
The hand of Time had also constructed a "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing a public meeting, she learned of the existence of an off-shoot of the Holy Land League--"The Flowers of Zion Society--established by East-End youths for the study of Hebrew and the propagation of the Jewish National Idea." Side by side with this, as if in ironic illustration of the other side of the life of the Ghetto, was a seeming royal proclamation headed V.R., informing the public that by order of the Secretary of State for War a sale of wrought-and cast-iron, zinc, canvas, tools and leather would take place at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.
As she wandered on, the great school-bell began to ring; involuntarily, she quickened her step and joined the chattering children's procession. She could have fancied the last ten years a dream. Were they, indeed, other children, or were they not the same that jostled her when she picked her way through this very slush in her clumsy masculine boots? Surely those little girls in lilac print frocks were her classmates! It was hard to realize that Time's wheel had been whirling on, fashioning her to a woman; that, while she had been living and learning and seeing the manners of men and cities, the Ghetto, unaffected by her experiences, had gone on in the same narrow rut. A new generation of children had arisen to suffer and sport in room of the old, and that was all. The thought overwhelmed her, gave her a new and poignant sense of brute, blind forces; she seemed to catch in this familiar scene of childhood the secret of the gray atmosphere of her spirit, it was here she had, all insensibly, absorbed those heavy vapors that formed the background of her being, a permanent sombre canvas behind all the iridescent colors of joyous emotion. _What_ had she in common with all this mean wretchedness? Why, everything. This it was with which her soul had intangible affinities, not the glory of sun and sea and forest, "the palms and temples of the South."
The heavy vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; Esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards--to Royal Street. Her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for wizened old apples, but Esther passed her by heedless of her stare, and ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted passage.
The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. She was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit. She was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object--morbidly drawn towards the old home. The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side. After a tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead--the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be loved by God, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good Jewess always. Satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots, and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair.
All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. The figure vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress--the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing. She sank against the door, beating passionately at the panels. It was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall. A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. Esther could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. Stay--what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? Was it not the _London Journal_? Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's face. A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.
Debby! she cried hysterically. A great flood of joy swamped her soul. She was not alone in the world, after all! Dutch Debby uttered a little startled scream. "I've come back, Debby, I've come back," and the next moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's arms.