"No, thou art better than the whole world," protested Shosshi Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.
"Who spoke to thee?" demanded Belcovitch, incensed.
"Who spoke to thee?" echoed Becky. And when Shosshi, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at Shosshi's expense. But Esther's curiosity was satisfied. She seemed to see the whole future of this domestic group: Belcovitch accumulating gold-pieces and Mrs. Belcovitch medicine-bottles till they died, and the lucky but henpecked Shosshi gathering up half the treasure on behalf of the buxom Becky. Refusing the glass of rum, she escaped.
The dinner which Debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of viands from the beloved old cook-shop, the potatoes and rice of childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise knives and forks. Esther was anxious to experience again the magic taste and savor of the once coveted delicacies. Alas! the preliminary sniff failed to make her mouth water, the first bite betrayed the inferiority of the potatoes used. Even so the unattainable tart of infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. But she concealed her disillusionment bravely.
"Do you know," said Debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, "I can hardly believe my eyes. It seems a dream that you are sitting at dinner with me. Pinch me, will you?"
"You have been pinched enough," said Esther sadly. Which shows that one can pun with a heavy heart. This is one of the things Shakspeare knew and Dr. Johnson didn't.
In the afternoon, Esther went round to Zachariah Square. She did not meet any of the old faces as she walked through the Ghetto, though a little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely spectators of an epileptic performance by Meckisch. Esther turned away, in amused disgust. She wondered whether Mrs. Meckisch still flaunted it in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether Meckisch had divorced her, or survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. Hard by the old Ruins (which she found "ruined" by a railway) Esther was almost run over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that irresistibly recalled Malka's.
"Is your grandmother in town?" she said at a venture.
"Y—e—s," said the driver wonderingly. "She is over in her own house."
Esther did not hasten towards it.
"Your name's Ezekiel, isn't it?"
"Yes," replied the boy; and then Esther was sure it was the Redeemed Son of whom her father had told her.
"Are your mother and father well?"
"Father's away travelling." Ezekiel's tone was a little impatient, his feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop.
"How's your aunt—your aunt—I forget her name."
"Aunt Leah. She's gone to Liverpool."
"What for?"
"She lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business.Who are you?" concluded Ezekiel candidly.
"You won't remember me," said Esther. "Tell me, your aunt is called Mrs.Levine, isn't she?"
"Oh yes, but," with a shade of contempt, "she hasn't got any children."
"How many brothers and sisters haveyougot?" said Esther with a little laugh.
"Heaps. Oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school, most of 'em."
"And why aren't you at school?"
The Redeemed Son became scarlet. "I've got a bad leg," ran mechanically off his tongue. Then, administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of it. "It's no good calling on mother," he yelled back, turning his head unexpectedly. "She ain't in."
Esther walked into the Square, where the same big-headed babies were still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on trays in the sun. From several doorways came the reek of fish frying. The houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. Esther wondered how she could ever have conceived this a region of opulence; still more how she could ever have located Malka and her family on the very outskirt of the semi-divine classes. But the semi-divine persons themselves had long since shrunk and dwindled.
She found Malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the clothes-brush. The great events of a crowded decade of European history had left Malka's domestic interior untouched. The fall of dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog from its place; she had not turned a hair of her wig; the black silk bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. Time had written a few more lines on the tan-colored equine face, but his influence had been only skin deep. Everybody grows old: few people grow. Malka was of the majority.
It was only with difficulty that she recollected Esther, and she was visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance.
"It's very good of you to come and see an old woman," she said in her mixed dialect, which skipped irresponsibly from English to Yiddish and back again. "It's more than my ownKinderdo. I wonder they let you come across and see me."
"I haven't been to see them yet," Esther interrupted.
"Ah, that explains it," said Malka with satisfaction. "They'd have told you, 'Don't go and see the old woman, she'smeshuggah, she ought to be in the asylum.' I bring children into the world and buy them husbands and businesses and bed-clothes, and this is my profit. The other day my Milly—the impudent-face! I would have boxed her ears if she hadn't been suckling Nathaniel. Let her tell me again that ink isn't good for the ring-worm, and my five fingers shall leave a mark on her face worse than any of Gabriel's ring-worms. But I have washed my hands of her; she can go her way and I'll go mine. I've taken an oath I'll have nothing to do with her and her children—no, not if I live a thousand years. It's all through Milly's ignorance she has had such heavy losses."
"What! Mr. Phillips's business been doing badly? I'm so sorry."
"No, no! my family never does bad business. It's my Milly's children. She lost two. As for my Leah, God bless her, she's been more unfortunate still; I always said that old beggar-woman had the Evil Eye! I sent her to Liverpool with her Sam."
"I know," murmured Esther.
"But she is a good daughter. I wish I had a thousand such. She writes to me every week and my little Ezekiel writes back; English they learn them in that heathen school," Malka interrupted herself sarcastically, "and it was I who had to learn him to begin a letter properly with 'I write you these few lines hoping to find you in good health as, thank God, it leaves me at present;' he used to begin anyhow—"
She came to a stop, having tangled the thread of her discourse and bethought herself of offering Esther a peppermint. But Esther refused and bethought herself of inquiring after Mr. Birnbaum.
"My Michael is quite well, thank God," said Malka, "though he is still pig-headed in business matters! He buys so badly, you know; gives a hundred pounds for what's not worth twenty."
"But you said business was all right?"
"Ah, that's different. Of course he sells at a good profit,—thank God. If I wanted to provoke Providence I could keep my carriage like any of your grand West-End ladies. But that doesn't make him a good buyer. And the worst of it is he always thinks he has got a bargain. He won't listen to reason, at all," said Malka, shaking her head dolefully. "He might be a child of mine, instead of my husband. If God didn't send him such luck and blessing, we might come to want bread, coal, and meat tickets ourselves, instead of giving them away. Do you know I found out that Mrs. Isaacs, across the square, only speculates her guinea in the drawings to give away the tickets she wins to her poor relations, so that she gets all the credit of charity and her name in the papers, while saving the money she'd have to give to her poor relations all the same! Nobody can say I give my tickets to my poor relations. You should just see how much my Michael vows away atShool—he's beenParnassfor the last twelve years straight off; all the members respect him so much; it isn't often you see a business man with such fear of Heaven. Wait! my Ezekiel will beBarmitzvahin a few years; then you shall see what I will do for thatShool. You shall see what an example ofYiddshkeitI will give to alinkgeneration. Mrs. Benjamin, of the Ruins, purified her knives and forks for Passover by sticking them between the boards of the floor. Would you believe she didn't make them red hot first? I gave her a bit of my mind. She said she forgot. But not she! She's no cat's head. She's a regular Christian, that's what she is. I shouldn't wonder if she becomes one like that blackguard, David Brandon; I always told my Milly he was not the sort of person to allow across the threshold. It was Sam Levine who brought him. You see what comes of having the son of a proselyte in the family! Some say Reb Shemuel's daughter narrowly escaped being engaged to him. But that story has a beard already. I suppose it's the sight of you brings upOlov Hashotomtimes. Well, and howareyou?" she concluded abruptly, becoming suddenly conscious of imperfect courtesy.
"Oh, I'm very well, thank you," said Esther.
"Ah, that's right. You're looking very well,imbeshreer. Quite a grand lady. I always knew you'd be one some day. There was your poor mother, peace be upon him! She went and married your father, though I warned her he was aSchnorrerand only wanted her because she had a rich family; he'd have sent you out with matches if I hadn't stopped it. I remember saying to him, 'That little Esther has Aristotle's head—let her learn all she can, as sure as I stand here she will grow up to be a lady; I shall have no need to be ashamed of owning her for a cousin.' He was not so pig-headed as your mother, and you see the result."
She surveyed the result with an affectionate smile, feeling genuinely proud of her share in its production. "If my Ezekiel were only a few years older," she added musingly.
"Oh, but I am not a great lady," said Esther, hastening to disclaim false pretensions to the hand of the hero of the hoop, "I've left the Goldsmiths and come back to live in the East End."
"What!" said Malka. "Left the West End!" Her swarthy face grew darker; the skin about her black eyebrows was wrinkled with wrath.
"Are youMeshuggah?" she asked after an awful silence. "Or have you, perhaps, saved up a tidy sum of money?"
Esther flushed and shook her head.
"There's no use coming to me. I'm not a rich woman, far from it; and I have been blessed withKinderwho are helpless without me. It's as I always said to your father. 'Méshe,' I said, 'you're aSchnorrerand your children'll grow upSchnorrers.'"
Esther turned white, but the dwindling of Malka's semi-divinity had diminished the old woman's power of annoying her.
"I want to earn my own living," she said, with a smile that was almost contemptuous. "Do you call that being aSchnorrer?"
"Don't argue with me. You're just like your poor mother, peace be upon him!" cried the irate old woman. "You God's fool! You were provided for in life and you have no right to come upon the family."
"But isn't itSchnorringto be dependent on strangers?" inquiredEsther with bitter amusement.
"Don't stand there with your impudence-face!" cried Malka, her eyes blazing fire. "You know as well as I do that aSchnorreris a person you give sixpences to. When a rich family takes in a motherless girl like you and clothes her and feeds her, why it's mocking Heaven to run away and want to earn your own living. Earn your living. Pooh! What living can you earn, you with your gloves? You're all by yourself in the world now; your father can't help you any more. He did enough for you when you were little, keeping you at school when you ought to have been out selling matches. You'll starve and come to me, that's what you'll do."
"I may starve, but I'll never come to you," said Esther, now really irritated by the truth in Malka's words. What living, indeed, could she earn! She turned her back haughtily on the old woman; not without a recollection of a similar scene in her childhood. History was repeating itself on a smaller scale than seemed consistent with its dignity. When she got outside she saw Milly in conversation with a young lady at the door of her little house, diagonally opposite. Milly had noticed the strange visitor to her mother, for the rival camps carried on a system of espionage from behind their respective gauze blinds, and she had come to the door to catch a better glimpse of her when she left. Esther was passing through Zachariah Square without any intention of recognizing Milly. The daughter's flaccid personality was not so attractive as the mother's; besides, a visit to her might be construed into a mean revenge on the old woman. But, as if in response to a remark of Milly's, the young lady turned her face to look at Esther, and then Esther saw that it was Hannah Jacobs. She felt hot and uncomfortable, and half reluctant to renew acquaintance with Levi's family, but with another impulse she crossed over to the group, and went through the inevitable formulae. Then, refusing Milly's warm-hearted invitation to have a cup of tea, she shook hands and walked away.
"Wait a minute, Miss Ansell," said Hannah. "I'll come with you."
Milly gave her a shilling, with a facetious grimace, and she rejoinedEsther.
"I'm collecting money for a poor family ofGreenersjust landed," she said. "They had a few roubles, but they fell among the usual sharks at the docks, and the cabman took all the rest of their money to drive them to the Lane. I left them all crying and rocking themselves to and fro in the street while I ran round to collect a little to get them a lodging."
"Poor things!" said Esther.
"Ah, I can see you've been away from the Jews," said Hannah smiling. "In the olden days you would have saidAchi-nebbich."
"Should I?" said Esther, smiling in return and beginning to like Hannah. She had seen very little of her in those olden days, for Hannah had been an adult and well-to-do as long as Esther could remember; it seemed amusing now to walk side by side with her in perfect equality and apparently little younger. For Hannah's appearance had not aged perceptibly, which was perhaps why Esther recognized her at once. She had not become angular like her mother, nor coarse and stout like other mothers. She remained slim and graceful, with a virginal charm of expression. But the pretty face had gained in refinement; it looked earnest, almost spiritual, telling of suffering and patience, not unblent with peace.
Esther silently extracted half-a-crown from her purse and handed it toHannah.
"I didn't mean to ask you, indeed I didn't," said Hannah.
"Oh, I am glad you told me," said Esther tremulously.
The idea ofhergiving charity, after the account of herself she had just heard, seemed ironical enough. She wished the transfer of the coin had taken place within eyeshot of Malka; then dismissed the thought as unworthy.
"You'll come in and have a cup of tea with us, won't you, after we've lodged theGreeners?" said Hannah. "Now don't say no. It'll brighten up my father to see 'Reb Moshe's little girl.'"
Esther tacitly assented.
"I heard of all of you recently," she said, when they had hurried on a little further. "I met your brother at the theatre."
Hannah's face lit up.
"How long was that ago?" she said anxiously.
"I remember exactly. It was the night before the firstSedernight."
"Was he well?"
"Perfectly."
"Oh, I am so glad."
She told Esther of Levi's strange failure to appear at the annual family festival. "My father went out to look for him. Our anxiety was intolerable. He did not return until half-past one in the morning. He was in a terrible state. 'Well,' we asked, 'have you seen him?' 'I have seen him,' he answered. 'He is dead.'"
Esther grew pallid. Was this the sequel to the strange episode in Mr.Henry Goldsmith's library?
"Of course he wasn't really dead," pursued Hannah to Esther's relief. "My father would hardly speak a word more, but we gathered he had seen him doing something very dreadful, and that henceforth Levi would be dead to him. Since then we dare not speak his name. Please don't refer to him at tea. I went to his rooms on the sly a few days afterwards, but he had left them, and since then I haven't been able to hear anything of him. Sometimes I fancy he's gone off to the Cape."
"More likely to the provinces with a band of strolling players. He told me he thought of throwing up the law for the boards, and I know you cannot make a beginning in London."
"Do you think that's it?" said Hannah, looking relieved in her turn.
"I feel sure that's the explanation, if he's not in London. But what inHeaven's name can your father have seen him doing?"
"Nothing very dreadful, depend upon it," said Hannah, a slight shade of bitterness crossing her wistful features. "I know he's inclined to be wild, and he should never have been allowed to get the bit between his teeth, but I dare say it was only some ceremonial crime Levi was caught committing."
"Certainly. That would be it," said Esther. "He confessed to me that he was verylink. Judging by your tone, you seem rather inclined that way yourself," she said, smiling and a little surprised.
"Do I? I don't know," said Hannah, simply. "Sometimes I think I'm veryfroom."
"Surely you know what you are?" persisted Esther. Hannah shook her head.
"Well, you know whether you believe in Judaism or not?"
"I don't know what I believe. I do everything a Jewess ought to do, I suppose. And yet—oh, I don't know."
Esther's smile faded; she looked at her companion with fresh interest. Hannah's face was full of brooding thought, and she had unconsciously come to a standstill. "I wonder whether anybody understands herself," she said reflectively. "Do you?"
Esther flushed at the abrupt question without knowing why. "I—I don't know," she stammered.
"No, I don't think anybody does, quite," Hannah answered. "I feel sure I don't. And yet—yes, I do. I must be a good Jewess. I must believe my life."
Somehow the tears came into her eyes; her face had the look of a saint. Esther's eyes met hers in a strange subtle glance. Then their souls were knit. They walked on rapidly.
"Well, I do hope you'll hear from him soon," said Esther.
"It's cruel of him not to write," replied Hannah, knowing she meantLevi; "he might easily send me a line in a disguised hand. But then, asMiriam Hyams always says, brothers are so selfish."
"Oh, how is Miss Hyams? I used to be in her class."
"I could guess that from your still calling her Miss," said Hannah with a gentle smile.
"Why, is she married?"
"No, no; I don't mean that. She still lives with her brother and his wife; he married Sugarman theShadchan'sdaughter, you know."
"Bessie, wasn't it?"
"Yes; they are a devoted couple, and I suspect Miriam is a little jealous; but she seems to enjoy herself anyway. I don't think there is a piece at the theatres she can't tell you about, and she makes Daniel take her to all the dances going."
"Is she still as pretty?" asked Esther. "I know all her girls used to rave over her and throw her in the faces of girls with ugly teachers. She certainly knew how to dress."
"She dresses better than ever," said Hannah evasively.
"That sounds ominous," observed Esther, laughingly.
"Oh, she's good-looking enough! Her nose seems to have turned up more; but perhaps that's an optical illusion; she talks so sarcastically now-a-days that I seem to see it." Hannah smiled a little. "She doesn't think much of Jewish young men. By the way, are you engaged yet, Esther?"
"What an idea!" murmured Esther, blushing beneath her spotted veil.
"Well, you're very young," said Hannah, glancing down at the smaller figure with a sweet matronly smile.
"I shall never marry," Esther said in low tones.
"Don't be ridiculous, Esther! There's no happiness for a woman without it. You needn't talk like Miriam Hyams—at least not yet. Oh yes, I know what you're thinking—"
"No, I'm not," faintly protested Esther
"Yes, you are," said Hannah, smiling at the paradoxical denial. "But who'd haveme? Ah, here are theGreeners!" and her smile softened to angelic tenderness.
It was a frowzy, unsightly group that sat on the pavement, surrounded by a semi-sympathetic crowd—the father in a long grimy coat, the mother covered, as to her head, with a shawl, which also contained the baby. But the elders were naively childish and the children uncannily elderly; and something in Esther's breast seemed to stir with a strange sense of kinship. The race instinct awoke to consciousness of itself. Dulled by contact with cultured Jews, transformed almost to repulsion by the spectacle of the coarsely prosperous, it leaped into life at the appeal of squalor and misery. In the morning the Ghetto had simply chilled her; her heart had turned to it as to a haven, and the reality was dismal. Now that the first ugliness had worn off, she felt her heart warming. Her eyes moistened. She thrilled from head to foot with the sense of a mission—of a niche in the temple of human service which she had been predestined to fill. Who could comprehend as she these stunted souls, limited in all save suffering? Happiness was not for her; but service remained. Penetrated by the new emotion, she seemed to herself to have found the key to Hannah's holy calm.
With the money now in hand, the two girls sought a lodging for the poor waifs. Esther suddenly remembered the empty back garret in No. 1 Royal Street, and here, after due negotiations with the pickled-herring dealer next door, the family was installed. Esther's emotions at the sight of the old place were poignant; happily the bustle of installation, of laying down a couple of mattresses, of borrowing Dutch Debby's tea-things, and of getting ready a meal, allayed their intensity. That little figure with the masculine boots showed itself but by fits and flashes. But the strangeness of the episode formed the undercurrent of all her thoughts; it seemed to carry to a climax the irony of her initial gift to Hannah.
Escaping from the blessings of theGreeners, she accompanied her new friend to Reb Shemuel's. She was shocked to see the change in the venerable old man; he looked quite broken up. But he was chivalrous as of yore: the vein of quiet humor was still there, though his voice was charged with gentle melancholy. The Rebbitzin's nose had grown sharper than ever; her soul seemed to have fed on vinegar. Even in the presence of a stranger the Rebbitzin could not quite conceal her dominant thought. It hardly needed a woman to divine how it fretted Mrs. Jacobs that Hannah was an old maid; it needed a woman like Esther to divine that Hannah's renunciation was voluntary, though even Esther could not divine her history nor understand that her mother's daily nagging was the greater because the pettier part of her martyrdom.
* * * * *
They all jumbled themselves into grotesque combinations, the things of to-day and the things of endless yesterdays, as Esther slept in the narrow little bed next to Dutch Debby, who squeezed herself into the wall, pretending to revel in exuberant spaciousness. It was long before she could get to sleep. The excitement of the day had brought on her headache; she was depressed by restriking the courses of so many narrow lives; the glow of her new-found mission had already faded in the thought that she was herself a pauper, and she wished she had let the dead past lie in its halo, not peered into the crude face of reality. But at bottom she felt a subtle melancholy joy in understanding herself at last, despite Hannah's scepticism; in penetrating the secret of her pessimism, in knowing herself a Child of the Ghetto.
And yet Pesach Weingott played the fiddle merrily enough when she went to Becky's engagement-party in her dreams, and galoped with Shosshi Shmendrik, disregarding the terrible eyes of the bride to be: when Hannah, wearing an aureole like a bridal veil, paired off with Meckisch, frothing at the mouth with soap, and Mrs. Belcovitch, whirling a medicine-bottle, went down the middle on a pair of huge stilts, one a thick one and one a thin one, while Malka spun round like a teetotum, throwing Ezekiel in long clothes through a hoop; what time Moses Ansell waltzed superbly with the dazzling Addie Leon, quite cutting out Levi and Miriam Hyams, and Raphael awkwardly twisted the Widow Finkelstein, to the evident delight of Sugarman theShadchan, who had effected the introduction. It was wonderful how agile they all were, and how dexterously they avoided treading on her brother Benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great novel, while Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stooped down to pat his brown hair patronizingly.
Esther thought it very proper of the gratefulGreenersto go about offering the dancers rum from Dutch Debby's tea-kettle, and very selfish of Sidney to stand in a corner, refusing to join in the dance and making cynical remarks about the whole thing for the amusement of the earnest little figure she had met on the stairs.
Esther woke early, little refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should arouse Debby. To open one's eyes on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. Esther felt this disagreeable duty could no longer be shirked. Malka's words rang in her ears. How, indeed, could she earn a living? Literature had failed her; with journalism she had no point of contact saveThe Flag of Judah, and that journal was out of the question. Teaching—the last resort of the hopeless—alone remained. Maybe even in the Ghetto there were parents who wanted their children to learn the piano, and who would find Esther's mediocre digital ability good enough. She might teach as of old in an elementary school. But she would not go back to her own—all the human nature in her revolted at the thought of exposing herself to the sympathy of her former colleagues. Nothing was to be gained by lying sleepless in bed, gazing at the discolored wallpaper and the forlorn furniture. She slipped out gently and dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. It was not easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. Her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. When Debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in bed—an unprecedented luxury, which she received with infinite consternation and pleasure.
"Why, it's like the duchesses who have lady's-maids," she said, "and read French novels before getting up." To complete the picture, her hand dived underneath the bed and extracted aLondon Journal, at the risk of upsetting the tea. "But it's you who ought to be in bed, not me."
"I've been a sluggard too often," laughed Esther, catching the contagion of good spirits from Debby's radiant delight. Perhaps the capacity for simple pleasures would come back to her, too.
At breakfast they discussed the situation.
"I'm afraid the bed's too small," said Esther, when Debby kindly suggested a continuance of hospitality.
"Perhaps I took up too much room," said the hostess.
"No, dear; you took up too little. We should have to have a wider bed and, as it is, the bed is almost as big as the room."
"There's the back garret overhead! It's bigger, and it looks on the back yard just as well. I wouldn't mind moving there," said Debby, "though I wouldn't let old Guggenheim know that I value the view of the back yard, or else he'd raise the rent."
"You forget theGreenerswho moved in yesterday."
"Oh, so I do!" answered Debby with a sigh.
"Strange," said Esther, musingly, "that I should have shut myself out of my old home."
The postman's knuckles rapping at the door interrupted her reflections. In Royal Street the poor postmen had to mount to each room separately; fortunately, the tenants got few letters. Debby was intensely surprised to get one.
"It isn't for me at all," she cried, at last, after a protracted examination of the envelope; "it's for you, care of me."
"But that's stranger still." said Esther. "Nobody in the world knows my address."
The mystery was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded her that it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called. She betook herself to their offices, walking. The day was bright, but Esther walked in gloom, scarcely daring to think of her position. She entered the office, apathetically hopeless. The junior partner welcomed her heartily.
"I suppose you've come about your account," he said. "I have been intending to send it you for some months, but we are so busy bringing out new things before the dead summer season comes on." He consulted his books. "Perhaps you would rather not be bothered," he said, "with a formal statement. I have it all clearly here—the book's doing fairly well—let me write you a cheque at once!"
She murmured assent, her cheeks blanching, her heart throbbing with excitement and surprise.
"There you are—sixty-two pounds ten," he said. "Our profits are just one hundred and twenty-five. If you'll endorse it, I'll send a clerk to the bank round the corner and get it cashed for you at once."
The pen scrawled an agitated autograph that would not have been accepted at the foot of a cheque, if Esther had had a banking account of her own.
"But I thought you said the book was a failure," she said.
"So it was," he answered cheerfully, "so it was at first. But gradually, as its nature leaked out, the demand increased. I understand from Mudie's that it was greatly asked for by their Jewish clients. You see, when there's a run on a three-volume book, the profits are pretty fair. I believed in it myself, or I should never have given you such good terms nor printed seven hundred and fifty copies. I shouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves able to bring it out in one-volume form in the autumn. We shall always be happy to consider any further work of yours; something on the same lines, I should recommend."
The recommendation did not convey any definite meaning to her at the moment. Still in a pleasant haze, she stuffed the twelve five-pound notes and the three gold-pieces into her purse, scribbled a receipt, and departed. Afterwards the recommendation rang mockingly in her ears. She felt herself sterile, written out already. As for writing again on the same lines, she wondered what Raphael would think if he knew of the profits she had reaped by bespattering his people. But there! Raphael was a prig like the rest. It was no use worrying abouthisopinions. Affluence had come to her—that was the one important and exhilarating fact. Besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed her book? A new wave of emotion swept over her—again she felt strong enough to defy the whole world.
When she got "home," Debby said, "Hannah Jacobs called to see you."
"Oh, indeed, what did she want?"
"I don't know, but from something she said I believe I can guess who sent the half-sovereign."
"Not Reb Shemuel?" said Esther, astonished.
"No,yourcousin Malka. It seems that she saw Hannah leaving Zachariah Square with you, and so went to her house last night to get your address."
Esther did not know whether to laugh or be angry; she compromised by crying. People were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to her. It was only a little April shower of tears, and soon she was smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to theGreeners. It would have been ungracious to return it to Malka, and she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually obtainable only by professional almoners.
Then she told Debby of her luck with the publishers. Profound was Debby's awe at the revelation that Esther was able to write stories equal to those in theLondon Journal. After that, Debby gave up the idea of Esther living or sleeping with her; she would as soon have thought of offering a share of her bed to the authoresses of the tales under it. Debby suffered scarce any pang when her one-night companion transferred herself to Reb Shemuel's.
For it was to suggest this that Hannah had called. The idea was her father's; it came to him when she told him of Esther's strange position. But Esther said she was going to America forthwith, and she only consented on condition of being allowed to pay for her keep during her stay. The haggling was hard, but Esther won. Hannah gave up her room to Esther, and removed her own belongings to Levi's bedroom, which except at Festival seasons had been unused for years, though the bed was always kept ready for him. Latterly the women had had to make the bed from time to time, and air the room, when Reb Shemuel was at synagogue. Esther sent her new address to her brothers and sisters, and made inquiries as to the prospects of educated girls in the States. In reply she learned that Rachel was engaged to be married. Her correspondents were too taken up with this gigantic fact to pay satisfactory attention to her inquiries. The old sense of protecting motherhood came back to Esther when she learned the news. Rachel was only eighteen, but at once Esther felt middle-aged. It seemed of the fitness of things that she should go to America and resume her interrupted maternal duties. Isaac and Sarah were still little more than children, perhaps they had not yet ceased bickering about their birthdays. She knew her little ones would jump for joy, and Isaac still volunteer sleeping accommodation in his new bed, even though the necessity for it had ceased. She cried when she received the cutting from the American Jewish paper; under other circumstances she would have laughed. It was one of a batch headed "Personals," and ran: "Sam Wiseberg, the handsome young drummer, of Cincinnati, has become engaged to Rachel Ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old type-writer and daughter of Moses Ansell, a well-known Chicago Hebrew. Life's sweetest blessings on the pair! The marriage will take place in the Fall." Esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. It is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark. There was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage; nay, her arrival just in time for it would clench the festivities. Meantime she attached herself to Hannah's charitable leading-strings, alternately attracted to the Children of the Ghetto by their misery, and repulsed by their failings. She seemed to see them now in their true perspective, correcting the vivid impressions of childhood by the insight born of wider knowledge of life. The accretion of pagan superstition was greater than she had recollected. Mothers averted fever by a murmured charm and an expectoration, children in new raiment carried bits of coal or salt in their pockets to ward off the evil-eve. On the other hand, there was more resourcefulness, more pride of independence. Her knowledge of Moses Ansell had misled her into too sweeping a generalization. And she was surprised to realize afresh how much illogical happiness flourished amid penury, ugliness and pain. After school-hours the muggy air vibrated with the joyous laughter of little children, tossing their shuttlecocks, spinning their tops, turning their skipping-ropes, dancing to barrel-organs or circling hand-in-hand in rings to the sound of the merry traditional chants of childhood. Esther often purchased a pennyworth of exquisite pleasure by enriching some sad-eyed urchin. Hannah (whose own scanty surplus was fortunately augmented by an anonymous West-End Reform Jew, who employed her as his agent) had no prepossessions to correct, no pendulum-oscillations to distract her, no sentimental illusions to sustain her. She knew the Ghetto as it was; neither expected gratitude from the poor, nor feared she might "pauperize them," knowing that the poor Jew never exchanges his self-respect for respect for his benefactor, but takes by way of rightful supplement to his income. She did not drive families into trickery, like ladies of the West, by being horrified to find them eating meat. If she presided at a stall at a charitable sale of clothing, she was not disheartened if articles were snatched from under her hand, nor did she refuse loans because borrowers sometimes merely used them to evade the tallyman by getting their jewelry at cash prices. She not only gave alms to the poor, but made them givers, organizing their own farthings into a powerful auxiliary of the institutions which helped them. Hannah's sweet patience soothed Esther, who had no natural aptitude for personal philanthropy; the primitive, ordered pieties of the Reb's household helping to give her calm. Though she accepted the inevitable, and had laughed in melancholy mockery at the exaggerated importance given to love by the novelists (including her cruder self), she dreaded meeting Raphael Leon. It was very unlikely her whereabouts would penetrate to the West; and she rarely went outside of the Ghetto by day, or even walked within it in the evening. In the twilight, unless prostrated by headache, she played on Hannah's disused old-fashioned grand piano. It had one cracked note which nearly always spoiled the melody; she would not have the note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic analogy between the instrument and herself. On Friday nights after the Sabbath-hymns she readThe Flag of Judah. She was not surprised to find Reb Shemuel beginning to look askance at his favorite paper. She noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of Judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by spasm of popular Christianity. Once Kingsley's line, "Do noble things, not dream them all day long," was put forth as "JudaismversusChristianity in a nut-shell;" and the writer added, "for so thy dreams shall become noble, too." Sometimes she fancied phrases and lines of argument were aimed at her. Was it the editor's way of keeping in touch with her, using his leaders as a medium of communication—a subtly sweet secret known only to him and her? Was it fair to his readers? Then she would remember his joke about the paper being started merely to convert her, and she would laugh. Sometimes he repeated what he already said to her privately, so that she seemed to hear him talking.
Then she would shake her head, and say, "I love you for your blindness, but I have the terrible gift of vision."
Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's newest seaside resort had the artistic charm which characterized everything she selected. It was a straggling, hilly, leafy village, full of archaic relics—human as well as architectural—sloping down to a gracefully curved bay, where the blue waves broke in whispers, for on summer days a halcyon calm overhung this magic spot, and the great sea stretched away, unwrinkled, ever young. There were no neutral tones in the colors of this divine picture—the sea was sapphire, the sky amethyst. There were dark-red houses nestling amid foliage, and green-haired monsters of gray stone squatted about on the yellow sand, which was strewn with quaint shells and mimic earth-worms, cunningly wrought by the waves. Half a mile to the east a blue river rippled into the bay. The white bathing tents which Mrs. Goldsmith had pitched stood out picturesquely, in harmonious contrast with the rich boscage that began to climb the hills in the background.
Mrs. Goldsmith's party lived in the Manse; it was pretty numerous, and gradually overflowed into the bedrooms of the neighboring cottages. Mr. Goldsmith only came down on Saturday, returning on Monday. One Friday Mr. Percy Saville, who had been staying for the week, left suddenly for London, and next day the beautiful hostess poured into her husband's projecting ears a tale that made him gnash his projecting teeth, and cut the handsome stockbroker off his visiting-list for ever. It was only an indiscreet word that the susceptible stockbroker had spoken—under the poetic influences of the scene. His bedroom came in handy, for Sidney unexpectedly dropped down from Norway,viaLondon, on the very Friday. The poetic influences of the scene soon infected the newcomer, too. On the Saturday he was lost for hours, and came up smiling, with Addie on his arm. On the Sunday afternoon the party went boating up the river—a picturesque medley of flannels and parasols. Once landed, Sidney and Addie did not return for tea, prior to re-embarking. While Mr. Montagu Samuels was gallantly handing round the sugar, they were sitting somewhere along the bank, half covered with leaves, like babes in the wood. The sunset burned behind the willows—a fiery rhapsody of crimson and orange. The gay laughter of the picnic-party just reached their ears; otherwise, an almost solemn calm prevailed—not a bird twittered, not a leaf stirred.
"It'll be all over London to-morrow," said Sidney in a despondent tone.
"I'm afraid so," said Addie, with a delicious laugh.
The sweet English meadows over which her humid eyes wandered were studded with simple wild-flowers. Addie vaguely felt the angels had planted such in Eden. Sidney could not take his eyes off his terrestrial angel clad in appropriate white. Confessed love had given the last touch to her intoxicating beauty. She gratified his artistic sense almost completely. But she seemed to satisfy deeper instincts, too. As he looked into her limpid, trustful eyes, he felt he had been a weak fool. An irresistible yearning to tell her all his past and crave forgiveness swept over him.
"Addie," he said, "isn't it funny I should be marrying a Jewish girl, after all?"
He wanted to work round to it like that, to tell her of his engagement to Miss Hannibal at least, and how, on discovering with whom he was really in love, he had got out of it simply by writing to the Wesleyan M.P. that he was a Jew—a fact sufficient to disgust the disciple of Dissent and the claimant champion of religious liberty. But Addie only smiled at the question.
"You smile," he said: "I see you do think it funny."
"That's not why I am smiling."
"Then why are you smiling?" The lovely face piqued him; he kissed the lips quickly with a bird-like peck.
"Oh—I—no, you wouldn't understand."
"That meansyoudon't understand. But there! I suppose when a girl is in love, she's not accountable for her expression. All the same, it is strange. You know, Addie dear, I have come to the conclusion that Judaism exercises a strange centrifugal and centripetal effect on its sons—sometimes it repulses them, sometimes it draws them; only it never leaves them neutral. Now, here had I deliberately made up my mind not to marry a Jewess."
"Oh! Why not?" said Addie, pouting.
"Merely because she would be a Jewess. It's a fact."
"And why have you broken your resolution?" she said, looking up naively into his face, so that the scent of her hair thrilled him.
"I don't know." he said frankly, scarcely giving the answer to be expected. "C'est plus fort que moi. I've struggled hard, but I'm beaten. Isn't there something of the kind in Esther—in Miss Ansell's book? I know I've read it somewhere—and anything that's beastly subtle I always connect with her."
"Poor Esther!" murmured Addie.
Sidney patted her soft warm hand, and smoothed the finely-curved arm, and did not seem disposed to let the shadow of Esther mar the moment, though he would ever remain grateful to her for the hint which had simultaneously opened his eyes to Addie's affection for him, and to his own answering affection so imperceptibly grown up. The river glided on softly, glorified by the sunset.
"It makes one believe in a dogged destiny," he grumbled, "shaping the ends of the race, and keeping it together, despite all human volition. To think that I should be doomed to fall in love, not only with a Jewess but with a pious Jewess! But clever men always fall in love with conventional women. I wonder what makes you so conventional, Addie."
Addie, still smiling, pressed his hand in silence, and gazed at him in fond admiration.
"Ah, well, since you are so conventional, you may as well kiss me."
Addie's blush deepened, her eyes sparkled ere she lowered them, and subtly fascinating waves of expression passed across the lovely face.
"They'll be wondering what on earth has become of us," she said.
"It shall be nothing on earth—something in heaven," he answered. "Kiss me, or I shall call you unconventional."
She touched his cheek hurriedly with her soft lips.
"A very crude and amateur kiss," he said critically. "However, after all, I have an excuse for marrying you—which all clever Jews who marry conventional Jewesses haven't got—you're a fine model. That is another of the many advantages of my profession. I suppose you'll be a model wife, in the ordinary sense, too. Do you know, my darling, I begin to understand that I could not love you so much if you were not so religious, if you were not so curiously like a Festival Prayer-Book, with gilt edges and a beautiful binding."
"Ah, I am so glad, dear, to hear you say that," said Addie, with the faintest suspicion of implied past disapproval.
"Yes," he said musingly. "It adds the last artistic touch to your relation to me."
"But you will reform!" said Addie, with girlish confidence.
"Do you think so? I might commence by becoming a vegetarian—that would prevent me eating forbidden flesh. Have I ever told you my idea that vegetarianism is the first step in a great secret conspiracy for gradually converting the world to Judaism? But I'm afraid I can't be caught as easily as the Gentiles, Addie dear. You see, a Jewish sceptic beats all others.Corruptio optimi pessima, probably. Perhaps you would like me to marry in a synagogue?"
"Why, of course! Where else?"
"Heavens!" said Sidney, in comic despair. "I feared it would come to that. I shall become a pillar of the synagogue when I am married, I suppose."
"Well, you'll have to take a seat," said Addie seriously, "because otherwise you can't get buried."
"Gracious, what ghoulish thoughts for an embryo bride! Personally, I have no objection to haunting the Council of the United Synagogue till they give me a decently comfortable grave. But I see what it will be! I shall be whitewashed by the Jewish press, eulogized by platform orators as a shining light in Israel, the brilliant impressionist painter, and all that. I shall pay my synagogue bill and never go. In short, I shall be converted to Philistinism, and die in the odor of respectability. And Judaism will continue to flourish. Oh, Addie, Addie, if I had thought of all that, I should never have asked you to be my wife."
"I am glad you didn't think of it," laughed Addie, ingenuously.
"There! You never will take me seriously!" he grumbled. "Nobody ever takes me seriously—I suppose because I speak the truth. The only time you ever took me seriously in my life was a few minutes ago. So you actually think I'm going to submit to the benedictions of a Rabbi."
"You must," said Addie.
"I'll be blest If I do," he said.
"Of course you will," said Addie, laughing merrily.
"Thanks—I'm glad you appreciate my joke. You perhaps fancy it's yours. However, I'm in earnest. I won't be a respectable high-hatted member of the community—not even for your sake, dear. Why, I might as well go back to my ugly real name, Samuel Abrahams, at once."
"So you might, dear," said Addie boldly, and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity.
"Ah, well, I think it'll be quite enough ifyouchange your name," he said, smiling back.
"It's just as easy for me to change it to Abrahams as to Graham," she said with charming obstinacy.
He contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. Then he looked up at the sky—the brilliant color harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence.
"I'll tell you what I will do. Ill join the Asmoneans. There! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices. But you must make a concession to mine. You know how I hate the Jewish canvassing of engagements. Let us keep ours entirelyentre nousa fortnight—so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. I wonder why you're so conventional," he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. "You had the advantage of Esther—of Miss Ansell's society."
"Call her Esther if you like; I don't mind," said Addie.
"I wonder Esther didn't convert you," he went on musingly. "But I suppose you had Raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. And so you really don't know what's become of her?"
"Nothing beyond what I wrote to you. Mrs. Goldsmith discovered she had written the nasty book, and sent her packing. I have never liked to broach the subject myself to Mrs. Goldsmith, knowing how unpleasant it must be to her. Raphael's version is that Esther went away of her own accord; but I can't see what grounds he has for judging."
"I would rather trust Raphael's version," said Sidney, with an adumbration of a wink in his left eyelid. "But didn't you look for her?"
"Where? If she's in London, she's swallowed up. If she's gone to another place, it's still more difficult to find her."
"There's the Agony Column!"
"If Esther wanted us to know her address, what can prevent her sending it?" asked Addie, with dignity.
"I'd find her soon enough, if I wanted to," murmured Sidney.
"Yes; but I'm not sure we want to. After all, she cannot be so nice as I thought. She certainly behaved very ungratefully to Mrs. Goldsmith. You see what becomes of wild opinions."
"Addie! Addie!" said Sidney reproachfully, "howcanyou be so conventional?"
"I'mnotconventional!" protested Addie, provoked at last. "I always liked Esther very much. Even now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have her for a bridesmaid. But I can't help feeling she deceived us all."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sidney warmly. "An author has a right to be anonymous. Don't you think I'd paint anonymously if I dared? Only, if I didn't put my name to my things no one would buy them. That's another of the advantages of my profession. Once make your name as an artist, and you can get a colossal income by giving up art."
"It was a vulgar book!" persisted Addie, sticking to the point.
"Fiddlesticks! It was an artistic book—bungled."
"Oh, well!" said Addie, as the tears welled from her eyes, "if you're so fond of unconventional girls, you'd better marry them."
"I would," said Sidney, "but for the absurd restriction against polygamy."
Addie got up with an indignant jerk. "You think I'm a child to be played with!"
She turned her back upon him. His face changed instantly; he stood still a moment, admiring the magnificent pose. Then he recaptured her reluctant hand.
"Don't be jealous already, Addie," he said. "It's a healthy sign of affection, is a storm-cloud, but don't you think it's just a wee, tiny, weeny bit too previous?"
A pressure of the hand accompanied each of the little adjectives. Addie sat down again, feeling deliriously happy. She seemed to be lapped in a great drowsy ecstasy of bliss.
The sunset was fading into sombre grays before Sidney broke the silence; then his train of thought revealed itself.
"If you're so down on Esther, I wonder how you can put up with me! How is it?"
Addie did not hear the question.
"You think I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy," he insisted. "Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?"
"I'm sure tea must be over long ago," said Addie anxiously.
"Answer me," said Sidney inexorably.
"Don't bother. Aren't they cooeying for us?"
"Answer me."
"I do believe that was a water-rat. Look! the water is still eddying."
"I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy. Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?"
"You are there, too," she breathed at last, and then Sidney forgot her beauty for an instant, and lost himself in unaccustomed humility. It seemed passing wonderful to him—that he should be the deity of such a spotless shrine. Could any man deserve the trust of this celestial soul?
Suddenly the thought that he had not told her about Miss Hannibal after all, gave him a chilling shock. But he rallied quickly. Was it really worth while to trouble the clear depths of her spirit with his turbid past? No; wiser to inhale the odor of the rose at her bosom, sweeter to surrender himself to the intoxicating perfume of her personality, to the magic of a moment that must fade like the sunset, already grown gray.
So Addie never knew.
On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. He was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies ofThe Flag of Judahin the matter of news, his organization for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little Sampson. Fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of theFlaginto mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the opposition paper.
The arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison.
"Ah, Strelitski!" cried Raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. "What an age it is since I've seen you!" He shook the black-gloved hand of the fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden recollection. "I suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion class?" he said; "but Ihavebeen so busy. My conscience has kept up a dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. You're such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the sensation, and even I can't understand why one submits to this undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one to. But I suppose it's human nature." He puffed at his pipe in humorous sadness.
"I suppose it is," said Strelitski wearily.
"But of course I'll come. You know that, my dear fellow. When my conscience was noisy, theadvocatus diaboliused to silence it by saying, 'Oh, Strelitski'll take it for granted.' You can never catch theadvocatus diaboliasleep," concluded Raphael, laughing.
"No," assented Strelitski. But he did not laugh.
"Oh!" said Raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing long. "Perhaps the prize-distribution is over?"
Strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really occurred to Raphael that he might have missed the great event. But before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an event that made "copy," and little Sampson would have arranged with him as to the reporting thereof.
"No; it's Sunday week. But I didn't come to talk about my religion class at all," he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. "I came to ask if you know anything about Miss Ansell."
Raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly;
"How should I know anything about Miss Ansell?"
"I thought you would," said Strelitski, without much disappointment in his tone.
"Why?"
"Wasn't she your art-critic?"
"Who told you that?"
"Mrs. Henry Goldsmith."
"Oh!" said Raphael.
"I thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as I was passing, I thought I'd drop in and inquire. Hasn't anything been heard of her? Where is she? Perhaps one could help her."
"I'm sorry, I really know nothing, nothing at all," said Raphael gravely. "I wish I did. Is there any particular reason why you want to know?"
As he spoke, a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into his head. He had been looking the whole time at Strelitski's face with his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. Now, as in a sudden flash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. The eyes were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there was a streak or two of gray easily visible against the intense sable. What change had come over him? Why this new-born interest in Esther? Raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with distress at Strelitski's discomposure.
"No; I don't know that there is anyparticularreason why I want to know," answered his friend slowly. "She was a member of my congregation. I always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge that she was the author of that sensational novel. I think it was cruel of Mrs. Henry Goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the effervescence of genius."
"Who told you Mrs. Henry Goldsmith turned her adrift?" asked Raphael hotly.
"Mrs. Henry Goldsmith," said Strelitski with a slight accent of wonder.
"Then it's a lie!" Raphael exclaimed, thrusting out his arms in intense agitation. "A mean, cowardly lie! I shall never go to see that woman again, unless it is to let her know what I think of her."
"Ah, then you do know something about Miss Ansell?" said Strelitski, with growing surprise. Raphael in a rage was a new experience. There were those who asserted that anger was not among his gifts.
"Nothing about her life since she left Mrs. Goldsmith; but I saw her before, and she told me it was her intention to cut herself adrift. Nobody knew about her authorship of the book; nobody would have known to this day if she had not chosen to reveal it."
The minister was trembling.
"She cut herself adrift?" he repeated interrogatively. "But why?"
"I will tell you," said Raphael in low tones. "I don't think it will be betraying her confidence to say that she found her position of dependence extremely irksome; it seemed to cripple her soul. Now I see what Mrs. Goldsmith is. I can understand better what life in her society meant for a girl like that."
"And what has become of her?" asked the Russian. His face was agitated, the lips were almost white.
"I do not know," said Raphael, almost in a whisper, his voice failing in a sudden upwelling of tumultuous feeling. The ever-whirling wheel of journalism—that modern realization of the labor of Sisyphus—had carried him round without giving him even time to remember that time was flying. Day had slipped into week and week into month, without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken.
"She is quite alone in the world, poor thing!" he said after a pause. "She must be earning her own living, somehow. By journalism, perhaps. But she prefers to live her own life. I am afraid it will be a hard one." His voice trembled again. The minister's breast, too, was laboring with emotion that checked his speech, but after a moment utterance came to him—a strange choked utterance, almost blasphemous from those clerical lips.
"By God!" he gasped. "That little girl!"
He turned his back upon his friend and covered his face with his hands, and Raphael saw his shoulders quivering. Then his own vision grew dim. Conjecture, resentment, wonder, self-reproach, were lost in a new and absorbing sense of the pathos of the poor girl's position.
Presently the minister turned round, showing a face that made no pretence of calm.
"That was bravely done," he said brokenly. "To cut herself adrift! She will not sink; strength will be given her even as she gives others strength. If I could only see her and tell her! But she never liked me; she always distrusted me. I was a hollow windbag in her eyes—a thing of shams and cant—she shuddered to look at me. Was it not so? You are a friend of hers, you know what she felt."
"I don't think it was you she disliked," said Raphael in wondering pity."Only your office."
"Then, by God, she was right!" cried the Russian hoarsely. "It was this—this that made me the target of her scorn." He tore off his white tie madly as he spoke, threw it on the ground, and trampled upon it. "She and I were kindred in suffering; I read it in her eyes, averted as they were at the sight of this accursed thing! You stare at me—you think I have gone mad. Leon, you are not as other men. Can you not guess that this damnable white tie has been choking the life and manhood out of me? But it is over now. Take your pen, Leon, as you are my friend, and write what I shall dictate."
Silenced by the stress of a great soul, half dazed by the strange, unexpected revelation, Raphael seated himself, took his pen, and wrote:
"We understand that the Rev. Joseph Strelitski has resigned his position in the Kensington Synagogue."
Not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm his soul.
"But you will not do this?" he said, looking up almost incredulously at the popular minister.
"I will; the position has become impossible. Leon, do you not understand? I am not what I was when I took it. I have lived, and life is change. Stagnation is death. Surely you can understand, for you, too, have changed. Cannot I read between the lines of your leaders?"
"Cannot you read in them?" said Raphael with a wan smile. "I have modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but I have disguised none."
"Not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought."
"Perhaps I do not listen to it," said Raphael, half to himself. "But you—whatever your change—you have not lost faith in primaries?"
"No; not in what I consider such."
"Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good? You are loved, venerated."
Strelitski placed his palms over his ears.
"Don't! don't!" he cried. "Don't you be theadvocatus diaboli! Do you think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times? Do you think I have not tried every kind of opiate? No, no, be silent if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am I not weak enough already? Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper. Saturday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—in six days I shall change a hundred times. Swear to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended. Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel it."
"But—" began Raphael.
Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.
"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "Leon, listen to me," he said, turning round suddenly. "Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of theShulcan Aruch(a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres." He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. "How can Judaism—and it alone—escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive—while they kill Judaism."
"Oh, I can't quite admit that," said Raphael. "I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism Purified—and your own sermons are doing something to purify it—orthodoxy—"
"Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words," interrupted Strelitski vehemently. "Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern."