"Did he write the Psalms?" said Hamburg quietly, with a smile.
"No—not so loud! Of course he didn't! The Psalms were written by Judas Maccabaeus, as I proved in the last issue of the StuttgardZeitschrift. But that only makes my analogy more forcible. You shall see how I will gird on sword and armor, and I shall yet see even you in the forefront of the battle. I will be treasurer, you shall vote for me, Hamburg, for I and you are the only two people who know the Holy Tongue grammatically, and we must work shoulder to shoulder and see that the balance sheets are drawn up in the language of our fathers."
In like manner did Melchitsedek Pinchas approach Hiram Lyons and Simon Gradkoski, the former a poverty-stricken pietist who added day by day to a furlong of crabbed manuscript, embodying a useless commentary on the first chapter of Genesis; the latter the portly fancy-goods dealer in whose warehouse Daniel Hyams was employed. Gradkoski rivalled Reb Shemuel in his knowledge of the exactlociof Talmudical remarks—page this, and line that—and secretly a tolerant latitudinarian, enjoyed the reputation of a bulwark of orthodoxy too well to give it up. Gradkoski passed easily from writing an invoice to writing a learned article on Hebrew astronomy. Pinchas ignored Joseph Strelitski whose raven curl floated wildly over his forehead like a pirate's flag, though Hamburg, who was rather surprised to see the taciturn young man at a meeting, strove to draw him into conversation. The man to whom Pinchas ultimately attached himself was only a man in the sense of having attained his religious majority. He was a Harrow boy named Raphael Leon, a scion of a wealthy family. The boy had manifested a strange premature interest in Jewish literature and had often seen Gabriel Hamburg's name in learned foot-notes, and, discovering that he was in England, had just written to him. Hamburg had replied; they had met that day for the first time and at the lad's own request the old scholar brought him on to this strange meeting. The boy grew to be Hamburg's one link with wealthy England, and though he rarely saw Leon again, the lad came in a shadowy way to take the place he had momentarily designed for Joseph Strelitski. To-night it was Pinchas who assumed the paternal manner, but he mingled it with a subtle obsequiousness that made the shy simple lad uncomfortable, though when he came to read the poet's lofty sentiments which arrived (with an acrostic dedication) by the first post next morning, he conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the neglected genius.
The rest of the "remnant" that were met to save Israel looked more commonplace—a furrier, a slipper-maker, a locksmith, an ex-glazier (Mendel Hyams), a confectioner, aMelammedor Hebrew teacher, a carpenter, a presser, a cigar-maker, a small shop-keeper or two, and last and least, Moses Ansell. They were of many birthplaces—Austria, Holland, Poland, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain—yet felt themselves of no country and of one. Encircled by the splendors of modern Babylon, their hearts turned to the East, like passion-flowers seeking the sun. Palestine, Jerusalem, Jordan, the Holy Land were magic syllables to them, the sight of a coin struck in one of Baron Edmund's colonies filled their eyes with tears; in death they craved no higher boon than a handful of Palestine earth sprinkled over their graves.
But Guedalyah the greengrocer was not the man to encourage idle hopes. He explained his scheme lucidly—without highfalutin. They were to rebuild Judaism as the coral insect builds its reefs—not as the prayer went, "speedily and in our days."
They had brought themselves up to expect more and were disappointed. Some protested against peddling little measures—like Pinchas they were for high, heroic deeds. Joseph Strelitski, student and cigar commission agent, jumped to his feet and cried passionately in German: "Everywhere Israel groans and travails—must we indeed wait and wait till our hearts are sick and strike never a decisive blow? It is nigh two thousand years since across the ashes of our Holy Temple we were driven into the Exile, clanking the chains of Pagan conquerors. For nigh two thousand years have we dwelt on alien soils, a mockery and a byword for the nations, hounded out from every worthy employ and persecuted for turning to the unworthy, spat upon and trodden under foot, suffusing the scroll of history with our blood and illuminating it with the lurid glare of the fires to which our martyrs have ascended gladly for the Sanctification of the Name. We who twenty centuries ago were a mighty nation, with a law and a constitution and a religion which have been the key-notes of the civilization of the world, we who sat in judgment by the gates of great cities, clothed in purple and fine linen, are the sport of peoples who were then roaming wild in woods and marshes clothed in the skins of the wolf and the bear. Now in the East there gleams again a star of hope—why shall we not follow it? Never has the chance of the Restoration flamed so high as to-day. Our capitalists rule the markets of Europe, our generals lead armies, our great men sit in the Councils of every State. We are everywhere—a thousand thousand stray rivulets of power that could be blent into a mighty ocean. Palestine is one if we wish—the whole house of Israel has but to speak with a mighty unanimous voice. Poets will sing for us, journalists write for us, diplomatists haggle for us, millionaires pay the price for us. The sultan would restore our land to us to-morrow, did we but essay to get it. There are no obstacles—but ourselves. It is not the heathen that keeps us out of our land—it is the Jews, the rich and prosperous Jews—Jeshurun grown fat and sleepy, dreaming the false dream of assimilation with the people of the pleasant places in which their lines have been cast. Give us back our country; this alone will solve the Jewish question. Our paupers shall become agriculturists, and like Antaeus, the genius of Israel shall gain fresh strength by contact with mother earth. And for England it will help to solve the Indian question—Between European Russia and India there will be planted a people, fierce, terrible, hating Russia for her wild-beast deeds. Into the Exile we took with us, of all our glories, only a spark of the fire by which our Temple, the abode of our great One was engirdled, and this little spark kept us alive while the towers of our enemies crumbled to dust, and this spark leaped into celestial flame and shed light upon the faces of the heroes of our race and inspired them to endure the horrors of the Dance of Death and the tortures of theAuto-da-fé. Let us fan the spark again till it leap up and become a pillar of flame going before us and showing us the way to Jerusalem, the City of our sires. And if gold will not buy back our land we must try steel. As the National Poet of Israel, Naphtali Herz Imber, has so nobly sung (here he broke into the HebrewWacht Am Rhein, of which an English version would run thus):
"Like the crash of the thunderWhich splitteth asunderThe flame of the cloud,On our ears ever falling,A voice is heard callingFrom Zion aloud:'Let your spirits' desiresFor the land of your siresEternally burn.From the foe to deliverOur own holy river,To Jordan return.'Where the soft flowing streamMurmurs low as in dream,There set we our watch.Our watchword, 'The swordOf our land and our Lord'—By the Jordan then set we our watch.
"Rest in peace, lovèd land,For we rest not, but stand,Off shaken our sloth.When the boils of war rattleTo shirk not the battle,We make thee our oath.As we hope for a Heaven,Thy chains shall be riven,Thine ensign unfurled.And in pride of our raceWe will fearlessly faceThe might of the world.When our trumpet is blown,And our standard is flown,Then set we our watch.Our watchword, 'The swordOf our land and our Lord'—By Jordan then set we our watch.
"Yea, as long as there heBirds in air, fish in sea,And blood in our veins;And the lions in might.Leaping down from the height,Shake, roaring, their manes;And the dew nightly lavesThe forgotten old gravesWhere Judah's sires sleep,—We swear, who are living,To rest not in striving,To pause not to weep.Let the trumpet be blown,Let the standard be flown,Now set we our watch.Our watchword, 'The swordOf our land and our Lord'—In Jordan NOW set we our watch."
He sank upon the rude, wooden bench, exhausted, his eyes glittering, his raven hair dishevelled by the wildness of his gestures. He had said. For the rest of the evening he neither moved nor spake. The calm, good-humored tones of Simon Gradkoski followed like a cold shower.
"We must be sensible," he said, for he enjoyed the reputation of a shrewd conciliatory man of the world as well as of a pillar of orthodoxy. "The great people will come to us, but not if we abuse them. We must flatter them up and tell them they are the descendants of the Maccabees. There is much political kudos to be got out of leading such a movement—this, too, they will see. Rome was not built in a day, and the Temple will not be rebuilt in a year. Besides, we are not soldiers now. We must recapture our land by brain, not sword. Slow and sure and the blessing of God over all."
After such wise Simon Gradkoski. But Gronovitz, the Hebrew teacher, crypto-atheist and overt revolutionary, who read a Hebrew edition of the "Pickwick Papers" in synagogue on the Day of Atonement, was with Strelitski, and a bigot whose religion made his wife and children wretched was with the cautious Simon Gradkoski. Froom Karlkammer followed, but his drift was uncertain. He apparently looked forward to miraculous interpositions. Still he approved of the movement from one point of view. The more Jews lived in Jerusalem the more would be enabled to die there—which was the aim of a good Jew's life. As for the Messiah, he would come assuredly—in God's good time. Thus Karlkammer at enormous length with frequent intervals of unintelligibility and huge chunks of irrelevant quotation and much play of Cabalistic conceptions. Pinchas, who had been fuming throughout this speech, for to him Karlkammer stood for the archetype of all donkeys, jumped up impatiently when Karlkammer paused for breath and denounced as an interruption that gentleman's indignant continuance of his speech. The sense of the meeting was with the poet and Karlkammer was silenced. Pinchas was dithyrambic, sublime, with audacities which only genius can venture on. He was pungently merry over Imber's pretensions to be the National Poet of Israel, declaring that his prosody, his vocabulary, and even his grammar were beneath contempt. He, Pinchas, would write Judaea a real Patriotic Poem, which should be sung from the slums of Whitechapel to theVeldtsof South Africa, and from theMellahof Morocco to theJudengassenof Germany, and should gladden the hearts and break from the mouths of the poor immigrants saluting the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. When he, Pinchas, walked in Victoria Park of a Sunday afternoon and heard the band play, the sound of a cornet always seemed to him, said he, like the sound of Bar Cochba's trumpet calling the warriors to battle. And when it was all over and the band played "God save the Queen," it sounded like the paean of victory when he marched, a conqueror, to the gates of Jerusalem. Wherefore he, Pinchas, would be their leader. Had not the Providence, which concealed so many revelations in the letters of the Torah, given him the name Melchitsedek Pinchas, whereof one initial stood for Messiah and the other for Palestine. Yes, he would be their Messiah. But money now-a-days was the sinews of war and the first step to Messiahship was the keeping of the funds. The Redeemer must in the first instance be the treasurer. With this anti-climax Pinchas wound up, his childishness andnaïvetéconquering his cunning.
Other speakers followed but in the end Guedalyah the greengrocer prevailed. They appointed him President and Simon Gradkoski, Treasurer, collecting twenty-five shillings on the spot, ten from the lad Raphael Leon. In vain Pinchas reminded the President they would need Collectors to make house to house calls; three other members were chosen to trisect the Ghetto. All felt the incongruity of hanging money bags at the saddle-bow of Pegasus. Whereupon Pinchas re-lit his cigar and muttering that they were all fool-men betook himself unceremoniously without.
Gabriel Hamburg looked on throughout with something like a smile on his shrivelled features. Once while Joseph Strelitski was holding forth he blew his nose violently. Perhaps he had taken too large a pinch of snuff. But not a word did the great scholar speak. He would give up his last breath to promote the Return (provided the Hebrew manuscripts were not left behind in alien museums); but the humors of the enthusiasts were part of the great comedy in the only theatre he cared for. Mendel Hyams was another silent member. But he wept openly under Strelitski's harangue.
When the meeting adjourned, the lank unhealthy swaying creature in the corner, who had been mumbling the tractate Baba Kama out of courtesy, now burst out afresh in his quaint argumentative recitative.
"What then does it refer to? To his stone or his knife or his burden which he has left on the highway and it injured a passer-by. How is this? If he gave up his ownership, whether according to Rav or according to Shemuel, it is a pit, and if he retained his ownership, if according to Shemuel, who holds that all are derived from 'his pit,' then it is 'a pit,' and if according to Rav, who holds that all are derived from 'his ox,' then it is 'an ox,' therefore the derivatives of 'an ox' are the same as 'an ox' itself."
He had been at it all day, and he went on far into the small hours, shaking his body backwards and forwards without remission.
Meckisch was aChasid, which in the vernacular is a saint, but in the actual a member of the sect of theChasidimwhose centre is Galicia. In the eighteenth century Israel Baal Shem, "the Master of the Name," retired to the mountains to meditate on philosophical truths. He arrived at a creed of cheerful and even stoical acceptance of the Cosmos in all its aspects and a conviction that the incense of an enjoyed pipe was grateful to the Creator. But it is the inevitable misfortune of religious founders to work apocryphal miracles and to raise up an army of disciples who squeeze the teaching of their master into their own mental moulds and are ready to die for the resultant distortion. It is only by being misunderstood that a great man can have any influence upon his kind. Baal Shem was succeeded by an army of thaumaturgists, and the wonder-working Rabbis of Sadagora who are in touch with all the spirits of the air enjoy the revenue of princes and the reverence of Popes. To snatch a morsel of such a Rabbi's SabbathKuggol, or pudding, is to insure Paradise, and the scramble is a scene to witness.Chasidismis the extreme expression of Jewish optimism. The Chasidim are the Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In England their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy jubilant services in theirChevrah, the worshippers dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating their heads against the wall as they will, and frisking like happy children in the presence of their Father.
Meckisch also danced at home and sang "Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, toi, toi, ta," varied by "Rom, pom, pom" and "Bim, bom" in a quaint melody to express his personal satisfaction with existence. He was a weazened little widower with a deep yellow complexion, prominent cheek bones, a hook nose and a scrubby, straggling little beard. Years of professional practice as a mendicant had stamped his face with an anguished suppliant conciliatory grin, which he could not now erase even after business hours. It might perhaps have yielded to soap and water but the experiment had not been tried. On his head he always wore a fur cap with lappets for his ears. Across his shoulders was strung a lemon-basket filled with grimy, gritty bits of sponge which nobody ever bought. Meckisch's merchandise was quite other. He dealt in sensational spectacle. As he shambled along with extreme difficulty and by the aid of a stick, his lower limbs which were crossed in odd contortions appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance had attracted attention, his legs would give way and he would find himself with his back on the pavement, where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic spectators shedding silver and copper. After an indefinite number of performances Meckisch would hurry home in the darkness to dance and sing "Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, bim, bom."
Thus Meckisch lived at peace with God and man, till one day the fatal thought came into his head that he wanted a second wife. There was no difficulty in getting one—by the aid of his friend, Sugarman the __ soon the little man found his household goods increased by the possession of a fat, Russian giantess. Meckisch did not call in the authorities to marry him. He had a "still wedding," which cost nothing. An artificial canopy made out of a sheet and four broomsticks was erected in the chimney corner and nine male friends sanctified the ceremony by their presence. Meckisch and the Russian giantess fasted on their wedding morn and everything was in honorable order.
But Meckisch's happiness and economies were short-lived. The Russian giantess turned out a tartar. She got her claws into his savings and decorated herself with Paisley shawls and gold necklaces. Nay more! She insisted that Meckisch must give her "Society" and keep open house. Accordingly the bed-sitting room which they rented was turned into asalonof reception, and hither one Friday night came Peleg Shmendrik and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Sugarman. Over the Sabbath meal the current of talk divided itself into masculine and feminine freshets. The ladies discussed bonnets and the gentlemen Talmud. All the three men dabbled, pettily enough, in stocks and shares, but nothing in the world would tempt them to transact any negotiation or discuss the merits of a prospectus on the Sabbath, though they were all fluttered by the allurements of the Sapphire Mines, Limited, as set forth in a whole page of advertisement in the "Jewish Chronicle, the organ naturally perused for its religious news on Friday evenings. The share-list would close at noon on Monday.
"But when Moses, our teacher, struck the rock," said Peleg Shmendrik, in the course of the discussion, "he was right the first time but wrong the second, because as the Talmud points out, a child may be chastised when it is little, but as it grows up it should be reasoned with."
"Yes," said Sugarman theShadchan, quickly; "but if his rod had not been made of sapphire he would have split that instead of the rock."
"Was it made of sapphire?" asked Meckisch, who was rather aMan-of-the-Earth.
"Of course it was—and a very fine thing, too," answered Sugarman.
"Do you think so?" inquired Peleg Shmendrik eagerly.
"The sapphire is a magic stone," answered Sugarman. "It improves the vision and makes peace between foes. Issachar, the studious son of Jacob, was represented on the Breast-plate by the sapphire. Do you not know that the mist-like centre of the sapphire symbolizes the cloud that enveloped Sinai at the giving of the Law?"
"I did not know that," answered Peleg Shmendrik, "but I know that Moses's Rod was created in the twilight of the first Sabbath and God did everything after that with this sceptre."
"Ah, but we are not all strong enough to wield Moses's Rod; it weighed forty seahs," said Sugarman.
"How many seahs do you think one could safely carry?" said Meckisch.
"Five or six seahs—not more," said Sugarman. "You see one might drop them if he attempted more and even sapphire may break—the First Tables of the Law were made of sapphire, and yet from a great height they fell terribly, and were shattered to pieces."
"Gideon, the M.P., may be said to desire a Rod of Moses, for his secretary told me he will take forty," said Shmendrik.
"Hush! what are you saying!" said Sugarman, "Gideon is a rich man, and then he is a director."
"It seems a good lot of directors," said Meckisch.
"Good to look at. But who can tell?" said Sugarman, shaking his head. "The Queen of Sheba probably brought sapphires to Solomon, but she was not a virtuous woman."
"Ah, Solomon!" sighed Mrs. Shmendrik, pricking up her ears and interrupting this talk of stocks and stones, "If he'd had a thousand daughters instead of a thousand wives, even his treasury couldn't have held out. I had only two girls, praised be He, and yet it nearly ruined me to buy them husbands. A dirtyGreenercomes over, without a shirt to his skin, and nothing else but he must have two hundred pounds in the hand. And then you've got to stick to his back to see that he doesn't take his breeches in his hand and off to America. In Poland he would have been glad to get a maiden, and would have said thank you."
"Well, but what about your own son?" said Sugarman; "Why haven't you asked me to find Shosshi a wife? It's a sin against the maidens of Israel. He must be long past the Talmudical age."
"He is twenty-four," replied Peleg Shmendrik.
"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" said Sugarman, clacking his tongue in horror, "have you perhaps an objection to his marrying?"
"Save us and grant us peace!" said the father in deprecatory horror. "Only Shosshi is so shy. You are aware, too, he is not handsome. Heaven alone knows whom he takes after."
"Peleg, I blush for you," said Mrs. Shmendrik. "What is the matter with the boy? Is he deaf, dumb, blind, unprovided with legs? If Shosshi is backward with the women, it is because he 'learns' so hard when he's not at work. He earns a good living by his cabinet-making and it is quite time he set up a Jewish household for himself. How much will you want for finding him aCalloh?"
"Hush!" said Sugarman sternly, "do you forget it is the Sabbath? Be assured I shall not charge more than last time, unless the bride has an extra good dowry."
On Saturday night immediately afterHavdalah, Sugarman went to Mr. Belcovitch, who was just about to resume work, and informed him he had the veryChosanfor Becky. "I know," he said, "Becky has a lot of young men after her, but what are they but a pack of bare-backs? How much will you give for a solid man?"
After much haggling Belcovitch consented to give twenty pounds immediately before the marriage ceremony and another twenty at the end of twelve months.
"But no pretending you haven't got it about you, when we're at theShool, no asking us to wait till we get home," said Sugarman, "or else I withdraw my man, even from under theChuppahitself. When shall I bring him for your inspection?"
"Oh, to-morrow afternoon, Sunday, when Becky will be out in the park with her young men. It's best I shall see him first!"
Sugarman now regarded Shosshi as a married man! He rubbed his hands and went to see him. He found him in a little shed in the back yard where he did extra work at home. Shosshi was busy completing little wooden articles—stools and wooden spoons and moneyboxes for sale in Petticoat Lane next day. He supplemented his wages that way.
"Good evening, Shosshi," said Sugarman.
"Good evening," murmured Shosshi, sawing away.
Shosshi was a gawky young man with a blotched sandy face ever ready to blush deeper with the suspicion that conversations going on at a distance were all about him. His eyes were shifty and catlike; one shoulder overbalanced the other, and when he walked, he swayed loosely to and fro. Sugarman was rarely remiss in the offices of piety and he was nigh murmuring the prayer at the sight of monstrosities. "Blessed art Thou who variest the creatures." But resisting the temptation he said aloud, "I have something to tell you."
Shosshi looked up suspiciously.
"Don't bother: I am busy," he said, and applied his plane to the leg of a stool.
"But this is more important than stools. How would you like to get married?"
Shosshi's face became like a peony.
"Don't make laughter," he said.
"But I mean it. You are twenty-four years old and ought to have a wife and four children by this time."
"But I don't want a wife and four children," said Shosshi.
"No, of course not. I don't mean a widow. It is a maiden I have in my eye."
"Nonsense, what maiden would have me?" said Shosshi, a note of eagerness mingling with the diffidence of the words.
"What maiden?Gott in Himmel! A hundred. A fine, strong, healthy young man like you, who can make a good living!"
Shosshi put down his plane and straightened himself. There was a moment of silence. Then his frame collapsed again into a limp mass. His head drooped over his left shoulder. "This is all foolishness you talk, the maidens make mock."
"Be not a piece of clay! I know a maiden who has you quite in affection!"
The blush which had waned mantled in a full flood. Shosshi stood breathless, gazing half suspiciously, half credulously at his strictly honorable Mephistopheles.
It was about seven o'clock and the moon was a yellow crescent in the frosty heavens. The sky was punctured with clear-cut constellations. The back yard looked poetic with its blend of shadow and moonlight.
"A beautiful fine maid," said Sugarman ecstatically, "with pink cheeks and black eyes and forty pounds dowry."
The moon sailed smilingly along. The water was running into the cistern with a soothing, peaceful sound. Shosshi consented to go and see Mr. Belcovitch.
Mr. Belcovitch made no parade. Everything was as usual. On the wooden table were two halves of squeezed lemons, a piece of chalk, two cracked cups and some squashed soap. He was not overwhelmed by Shosshi, but admitted he was solid. His father was known to be pious, and both his sisters had married reputable men. Above all, he was not a Dutchman. Shosshi left No. 1 Royal Street, Belcovitch's accepted son-in-law. Esther met him on the stairs and noted the radiance on his pimply countenance. He walked with his head almost erect. Shosshi was indeed very much in love and felt that all that was needed for his happiness was a sight of his future wife.
But he had no time to go and see her except on Sunday afternoons, and then she was always out. Mrs. Belcovitch, however, made amends by paying him considerable attention. The sickly-looking little woman chatted to him for hours at a time about her ailments and invited him to taste her medicine, which was a compliment Mrs. Belcovitch passed only to her most esteemed visitors. By and by she even wore her night-cap in his presence as a sign that he had become one of the family. Under this encouragement Shosshi grew confidential and imparted to his future mother-in-law the details of his mother's disabilities. But he could mention nothing which Mrs. Belcovitch could not cap, for she was a woman extremely catholic in her maladies. She was possessed of considerable imagination, and once when Fanny selected a bonnet for her in a milliner's window, the girl had much difficulty in persuading her it was not inferior to what turned out to be the reflection of itself in a side mirror.
"I'm so weak upon my legs," she would boast to Shosshi. "I was born with ill-matched legs. One is a thick one and one is a thin one, and so one goes about."
Shosshi expressed his sympathetic admiration and the courtship proceeded apace. Sometimes Fanny and Pesach Weingott would be at home working, and they were very affable to him. He began to lose something of his shyness and his lurching gait, and he quite looked forward to his weekly visit to the Belcovitches. It was the story of Cymon and Iphigenia over again. Love improved even his powers of conversation, for when Belcovitch held forth at length Shosshi came in several times with "So?" and sometimes in the right place. Mr. Belcovitch loved his own voice and listened to it, the arrested press-iron in his hand. Occasionally in the middle of one of his harangues it would occur to him that some one was talking and wasting time, and then he would say to the room, "Shah! Make an end, make an end," and dry up. But to Shosshi he was especially polite, rarely interrupting himself when his son-in-law elect was hanging on his words. There was an intimate tender tone about thesecauseries.
"I should like to drop down dead suddenly," he would say with the air of a philosopher, who had thought it all out. "I shouldn't care to lie up in bed and mess about with medicine and doctors. To make a long job of dying is so expensive."
"So?" said Shosshi.
"Don't worry, Bear! I dare say the devil will seize you suddenly," interposed Mrs. Belcovitch drily.
"It will not be the devil," said Mr. Belcovitch, confidently and in a confidential manner. "If I had died as a young man, Shosshi, it might have been different."
Shosshi pricked up his ears to listen to the tale of Bear's wild cubhood.
"One morning," said Belcovitch, "in Poland, I got up at four o'clock to go to Supplications for Forgiveness. The air was raw and there was no sign of dawn! Suddenly I noticed a black pig trotting behind me. I quickened my pace and the black pig did likewise. I broke into a run and I heard the pig's paws patting furiously upon the hard frozen ground. A cold sweat broke out all over me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the pig's eyes burning like red-hot coals in the darkness. Then I knew that the Not Good One was after me. 'Hear, O Israel,' I cried. I looked up to the heavens but there was a cold mist covering the stars. Faster and faster I flew and faster and faster flew the demon pig. At last theShoolcame in sight. I made one last wild effort and fell exhausted upon the holy threshold and the pig vanished."
"So?" said Shosshi, with a long breath.
"Immediately afterShoolI spake with the Rabbi and he said 'Bear, are thyTephillinin order?' So I said 'Yea, Rabbi, they are very large and I bought them of the pious scribe, Naphtali, and I look to the knots weekly.' But he said, 'I will examine them.' So I brought them to him and he opened the head-phylactery and lo! in place of the holy parchment he found bread crumbs."
"Hoi, hoi," said Shosshi in horror, his red hands quivering.
"Yes," said Bear mournfully, "I had worn them for ten years and moreover the leaven had denied all my Passovers."
Belcovitch also entertained the lover with details of the internal politics of the "Sons of the Covenant."
Shosshi's affection for Becky increased weekly under the stress of these intimate conversations with her family. At last his passion was rewarded, and Becky, at the violent instance of her father, consented to disappoint one of her young men and stay at home to meet her future husband. She put off her consent till after dinner though, and it began to rain immediately before she gave it.
The moment Shosshi came into the room he divined that a change had come over the spirit of the dream. Out of the corners of his eyes he caught a glimpse of an appalling beauty standing behind a sewing machine. His face fired up, his legs began to quiver, he wished the ground would open and swallow him as it did Korah.
"Becky," said Mr. Belcovitch, "this is Mr. Shosshi Shmendrik."
Shosshi put on a sickly grin and nodded his head affirmatively, as if to corroborate the statement, and the round felt hat he wore slid back till the broad rim rested on his ears. Through a sort of mist a terribly fine maid loomed.
Becky stared at him haughtily and curled her lip. Then she giggled.
Shosshi held out his huge red hand limply. Becky took no notice of it.
"Nu, Becky!" breathed Belcovitch, in a whisper that could have been heard across the way.
"How are you? All right?" said Becky, very loud, as if she thought deafness was among Shosshi's disadvantages.
Shosshi grinned reassuringly.
There was another silence.
Shosshi wondered whether theconvenanceswould permit him to take his leave now. He did not feel comfortable at all. Everything had been going so delightfully, it had been quite a pleasure to him to come to the house. But now all was changed. The course of true love never does run smooth, and the advent of this new personage into the courtship was distinctly embarrassing.
The father came to the rescue.
"A little rum?" he said.
"Yes," said Shosshi.
"Chayah!nu. Fetch the bottle!"
Mrs. Belcovitch went to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room and took from the top of it a large decanter. She then produced two glasses without feet and filled them with the home-made rum, handing one to Shosshi and the other to her husband. Shosshi muttered a blessing over it, then he leered vacuously at the company and cried, "To life!"
"To peace!" replied the older man, gulping down the spirit. Shosshi was doing the same, when his eye caught Becky's. He choked for five minutes, Mrs. Belcovitch thumping him maternally on the back. When he was comparatively recovered the sense of his disgrace rushed upon him and overwhelmed him afresh. Becky was still giggling behind the sewing machine. Once more Shosshi felt that the burden of the conversation was upon him. He looked at his boots and not seeing anything there, looked up again and grinned encouragingly at the company as if to waive his rights. But finding the company did not respond, he blew his nose enthusiastically as a lead off to the conversation.
Mr. Belcovitch saw his embarrassment, and, making a sign to Chayah, slipped out of the room followed by his wife. Shosshi was left alone with the terribly fine maid.
Becky stood still, humming a little air and looking up at the ceiling, as if she had forgotten Shosshi's existence. With her eyes in that position it was easier for Shosshi to look at her. He stole side-long glances at her, which, growing bolder and bolder, at length fused into an uninterrupted steady gaze. How fine and beautiful she was! His eyes began to glitter, a smile of approbation overspread his face. Suddenly she looked down and their eyes met. Shosshi's smile hurried off and gave way to a sickly sheepish look and his legs felt weak. The terribly fine maid gave a kind of snort and resumed her inspection of the ceiling. Gradually Shosshi found himself examining her again. Verily Sugarman had spoken truly of her charms. But—overwhelming thought—had not Sugarman also said she loved him? Shosshi knew nothing of the ways of girls, except what he had learned from the Talmud. Quite possibly Becky was now occupied in expressing ardent affection. He shuffled towards her, his heart beating violently. He was near enough to touch her. The air she was humming throbbed in his ears. He opened his mouth to speak—Becky becoming suddenly aware of his proximity fixed him with a basilisk glare—the words were frozen on his lips. For some seconds his mouth remained open, then the ridiculousness of shutting it again without speaking spurred him on to make some sound, however meaningless. He made a violent effort and there burst from his lips in Hebrew:
"Happy are those who dwell in thy house, ever shall they praise thee, Selah!" It was not a compliment to Becky. Shosshi's face lit up with joyous relief. By some inspiration he had started the afternoon prayer. He felt that Becky would understand the pious necessity. With fervent gratitude to the Almighty he continued the Psalm: "Happy are the people whose lot is thus, etc." Then he turned his back on Becky, with his face to the East wall, made three steps forwards and commenced the silent delivery of theAmidah. Usually he gabbled off the "Eighteen Blessings" in five minutes. To-day they were prolonged till he heard the footsteps of the returning parents. Then he scurried through the relics of the service at lightning speed. When Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch re-entered the room they saw by his happy face that all was well and made no opposition to his instant departure.
He came again the next Sunday and was rejoiced to find that Becky was out, though he had hoped to find her in. The courtship made great strides that afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch being more amiable than ever to compensate for Becky's private refusal to entertain the addresses of such aSchmuck. There had been sharp domestic discussions during the week, and Becky had only sniffed at her parents' commendations of Shosshi as a "very worthy youth." She declared that it was "remission of sins merely to look at him."
Next Sabbath Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch paid a formal visit to Shosshi's parents to make their acquaintance, and partook of tea and cake. Becky was not with them; moreover she defiantly declared she would never be at home on a Sunday till Shosshi was married. They circumvented her by getting him up on a weekday. The image of Becky had been so often in his thoughts now that by the time he saw her the second time he was quite habituated to her appearance. He had even imagined his arm round her waist, but in practice he found he could go no further as yet than ordinary conversation.
Becky was sitting sewing buttonholes when Shosshi arrived. Everybody was there—Mr. Belcovitch pressing coats with hot irons; Fanny shaking the room with her heavy machine; Pesach Weingott cutting a piece of chalk-marked cloth; Mrs. Belcovitch carefully pouring out tablespoonfuls of medicine. There were even some outside "hands," work being unusually plentiful, as from the manifestos of Simon Wolf, the labor-leader, the slop manufacturers anticipated a strike.
Sustained by their presence, Shosshi felt a bold and gallant wooer. He determined that this time he would not go without having addressed at least one remark to the object of his affections. Grinning amiably at the company generally, by way of salutation, he made straight for Becky's corner. The terribly fine lady snorted at the sight of him, divining that she had been out-manoeuvred. Belcovitch surveyed the situation out of the corners of his eyes, not pausing a moment in his task.
"Nu, how goes it, Becky?" Shosshi murmured.
Becky said, "All right, how are you?"
"God be thanked, I have nothing to complain of," said Shosshi, encouraged by the warmth of his welcome. "My eyes are rather weak, still, though much better than last year."
Becky made no reply, so Shosshi continued: "But my mother is always a sick person. She has to swallow bucketsful of cod liver oil. She cannot be long for this world."
"Nonsense, nonsense," put in Mrs. Belcovitch, appearing suddenly behind the lovers. "My children's children shall never be any worse; it's all fancy with her, she coddles herself too much."
"Oh, no, she says she's much worse than you," Shosshi blurted out, turning round to face his future mother-in-law.
"Oh, indeed!" said Chayah angrily. "My enemies shall have my maladies! If your mother had my health, she would be lying in bed with it. But I go about in a sick condition. I can hardly crawl around. Look at my legs—has your mother got such legs? One a thick one and one a thin one."
Shosshi grew scarlet; he felt he had blundered. It was the first real shadow on his courtship—perhaps the little rift within the lute. He turned back to Becky for sympathy. There was no Becky. She had taken advantage of the conversation to slip away. He found her again in a moment though, at the other end of the room. She was seated before a machine. He crossed the room boldly and bent over her.
"Don't you feel cold, working?"
Br-r-r-r-r-r-h!
It was the machine turning. Becky had set the treadle going madly and was pushing a piece of cloth under the needle. When she paused, Shosshi said:
"Have you heard Reb Shemuel preach? He told a very amusing allegory last—"
Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h!
Undaunted, Shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the noise of her machine prevented Becky hearing a word she found his conversation endurable. After several more monologues, accompanied on the machine by Becky, Shosshi took his departure in high feather, promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification.
On his next visit he arrived with his arms laden with choice morsels of carpentry. He laid them on the table for her admiration.
They were odd knobs and rockers for Polish cradles! The pink of Becky's cheeks spread all over her face like a blot of red ink on a piece of porous paper. Shosshi's face reflected the color in even more ensanguined dyes. Becky rushed from the room and Shosshi heard her giggling madly on the staircase. It dawned upon him that he had displayed bad taste in his selection.
"What have you done to my child?" Mrs. Belcovitch inquired.
"N-n-othing," he stammered; "I only brought her some of my work to see."
"And is this what one shows to a young girl?" demanded the mother indignantly.
"They are only bits of cradles," said Shosshi deprecatingly. "I thought she would like to see what nice workmanly things I turned out. See how smoothly these rockers are carved! There is a thick one, and there is a thin one!"
"Ah! Shameless droll! dost thou make mock of my legs, too?" said Mrs.Belcovitch. "Out, impudent face, out with thee!"
Shosshi gathered up his specimens in his arms and fled through the door. Becky was still in hilarious eruption outside. The sight of her made confusion worse confounded. The knobs and rockers rolled thunderously down the stairs; Shosshi stumbled after them, picking them up on his course and wishing himself dead.
All Sugarman's strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the goal—and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on Sundays in Petticoat Lane. They made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could never stand between them for a whole morning now, and have Attic salt put upon his wounds. He shifted his position, arranging to pay sixpence a time for the privilege of fixing himself outside Widow Finkelstein's shop, which stood at the corner of a street, and might be presumed to intercept two streams of pedestrians. Widow Finkelstein's shop was a chandler's, and she did a large business in farthing-worths of boiling water. There was thus no possible rivalry between her ware and Shosshi's, which consisted of wooden candlesticks, little rocking chairs, stools, ash-trays, etc., piled up artistically on a barrow.
But Shosshi's luck had gone with the change oflocus. Hisclientèlewent to the old spot but did not find him. He did not even make a hansel. At two o'clock he tied his articles to the barrow with a complicated arrangement of cords. Widow Finkelstein waddled out and demanded her sixpence. Shosshi replied that he had not taken sixpence, that the coign was not one of vantage. Widow Finkelstein stood up for her rights, and even hung on to the barrow for them. There was a short, sharp argument, a simultaneous jabbering, as of a pair of monkeys. Shosshi Shmendrik's pimply face worked with excited expostulation, Widow Finkelstein's cushion-like countenance was agitated by waves of righteous indignation. Suddenly Shosshi darted between the shafts and made a dash off with the barrow down the side street. But Widow Finkelstein pressed it down with all her force, arresting the motion like a drag. Incensed by the laughter of the spectators, Shosshi put forth all his strength at the shafts, jerked the widow off her feet and see-sawed her sky-wards, huddled up spherically like a balloon, but clinging as grimly as ever to the defalcating barrow. Then Shosshi started off at a run, the carpentry rattling, and the dead weight of his living burden making his muscles ache.
Right to the end of the street he dragged her, pursued by a hooting crowd. Then he stopped, worn out.
"Will you give me that sixpence, youGanef!"
"No, I haven't got it. You'd better go back to your shop, else you'll suffer from worse thieves."
It was true. Widow Finkelstein smote her wig in horror and hurried back to purvey treacle.
But that night when she shut up the shutters, she hurried off to Shosshi's address, which she had learned in the interim. His little brother opened the door and said Shosshi was in the shed.
He was just nailing the thicker of those rockers on to the body of a cradle. His soul was full of bitter-sweet memories. Widow Finkelstein suddenly appeared in the moonlight. For a moment Shosshi's heart beat wildly. He thought the buxom figure was Becky's.
"I have come for my sixpence."
Ah! The words awoke him from his dream. It was only the WidowFinkelstein.
And yet—! Verily, the widow, too, was plump and agreeable; if only her errand had been pleasant, Shosshi felt she might have brightened his back yard. He had been moved to his depths latterly and a new tenderness and a new boldness towards women shone in his eyes.
He rose and put his head on one side and smiled amiably and said, "Be not so foolish. I did not take a copper. I am a poor young man. You have plenty of money in your stocking."
"How know you that?" said the widow, stretching forward her right foot meditatively and gazing at the strip of stocking revealed.
"Never mind!" said Shosshi, shaking his head sapiently.
"Well, it's true," she admitted. "I have two hundred and seventeen golden sovereigns besides my shop. But for all that why should you keep my sixpence?" She asked it with the same good-humored smile.
The logic of that smile was unanswerable. Shosshi's mouth opened, but no sound issued from it. He did not even say the Evening Prayer. The moon sailed slowly across the heavens. The water flowed into the cistern with a soft soothing sound.
Suddenly it occurred to Shosshi that the widow's waist was not very unlike that which he had engirdled imaginatively. He thought he would just try if the sensation was anything like what he had fancied. His arm strayed timidly round her black-beaded mantle. The sense of his audacity was delicious. He was wondering whether he ought to sayShe-hechyoni—the prayer over a new pleasure. But the Widow Finkelstein stopped his mouth with a kiss. After that Shosshi forgot his pious instincts.
Except old Mrs. Ansell, Sugarman was the only person scandalized. Shosshi's irrepressible spirit of romance had robbed him of his commission. But Meckisch danced with Shosshi Shmendrik at the wedding, while theCallohfooted it with the Russian giantess. The men danced in one-half of the room, the women in the other.
"Beenah, hast thou heard aught about our Daniel?" There was a note of anxiety in old Hyams's voice.
"Naught, Mendel."
"Thou hast not heard talk of him and Sugarman's daughter?"
"No, is there aught between them?" The listless old woman spoke a little eagerly.
"Only that a man told me that his son saw our Daniel pay court to the maiden."
"Where?"
"At the Purim Ball."
"The man is a tool; a youth must dance with some maiden or other."
Miriam came in, fagged out from teaching. Old Hyams dropped from Yiddish into English.
"You are right, he must."
Beenah replied in her slow painful English.
"Would he not have told us?"
Mendel repeated:—"Would he not have told us?"
Each avoided the others eye. Beenah dragged herself about the room, laying Miriam's tea.
"Mother, I wish you wouldn't scrape your feet along the floor so. It gets on my nerves and Iamso worn out. Would he not have told you what? And who's he?"
Beenah looked at her husband.
"I heard Daniel was engaged," said old Hyams jerkily.
Miriam started and flushed.
"To whom?" she cried, in excitement.
"Bessie Sugarman."
"Sugarman's daughter?" Miriam's voice was pitched high.
"Yes."
Miriam's voice rose to a higher pitch.
"Sugarman theShadchan'sdaughter?"
"Yes."
Miriam burst into a fit of incredulous laughter.
"As if Daniel would marry into a miserable family like that!"
"It is as good as ours," said Mendel, with white lips.
His daughter looked at him astonished. "I thought your children had taught you more self-respect than that," she said quietly. "Mr. Sugarman is a nice person to be related to!"
"At home, Mrs. Sugarman's family was highly respected," quavered oldHyams.
"We are not at home now," said Miriam witheringly. "We're in England. A bad-tempered old hag!"
"That is what she thinks me," thought Mrs. Hyams. But she said nothing.
"Did you not see Daniel with her at the ball?" said Mr. Hyams, still visibly disquieted.
"I'm sure I didn't notice," Miriam replied petulantly. "I think you must have forgot the sugar, mother, or else the tea is viler than usual. Why don't you let Jane cut the bread and butter instead of lazing in the kitchen?"
"Jane has been washing all day in the scullery," said Mrs. Hyams apologetically.
"H'm!" snapped Miriam, her pretty face looking peevish and careworn. "Jane ought to have to manage sixty-three girls whose ignorant parents let them run wild at home, and haven't the least idea of discipline. As for this chit of a Sugarman, don't you know that Jews always engage every fellow and girl that look at each other across the street, and make fun of them and discuss their united prospects before they are even introduced to each other."
She finished her tea, changed her dress and went off to the theatre with a girl-friend. The really harassing nature of her work called for some such recreation. Daniel came in a little after she had gone out, and ate his supper, which was his dinner saved for him and warmed up in the oven. Mendel sat studying from an unwieldy folio which he held on his lap by the fireside and bent over. When Daniel had done supper and was standing yawning and stretching himself, Mendel said suddenly as if trying to bluff him:
"Why don't you ask your father to wish youMazzoltov?"
"Mazzoltov? What for?" asked Daniel puzzled.
"On your engagement."
"My engagement!" repeated Daniel, his heart thumping against his ribs.
"Yes—to Bessie Sugarman."
Mendel's eye, fixed scrutinizingly on his boy's face, saw it pass from white to red and from red to white. Daniel caught hold of the mantel as if to steady himself.
"But it is a lie!" he cried hotly. "Who told you that?"
"No one; a man hinted as much."
"But I haven't even been in her company."
"Yes—at the Purim Ball."
Daniel bit his lip.
"Damned gossips!" he cried. "I'll never speak to the girl again."
There was a tense silence for a few seconds, then old Hyams said:
"Why not? You love her."
Daniel stared at him, his heart palpitating painfully. The blood in his ears throbbed mad sweet music.
"You love her," Mendel repeated quietly. "Why do you not ask her to marry you? Do you fear she would refuse?"
Daniel burst into semi-hysterical laughter. Then seeing his father's half-reproachful, half-puzzled look he said shamefacedly:
"Forgive me, father, I really couldn't help it. The idea of your talking about love! The oddity of it came over me all of a heap."
"Why should I not talk about love?"
"Don't be so comically serious, father," said Daniel, smiling afresh. "What's come over you? What have you to do with love? One would think you were a romantic young fool on the stage. It's all nonsense about love. I don't love anybody, least of all Bessie Sugarman, so don't you go worrying your old head aboutmyaffairs. You get back to that musty book of yours there. I wonder if you've suddenly come across anything about love in that, and don't forget to use the reading glasses and not your ordinary spectacles, else it'll be a sheer waste of money. By the way, mother, remember to go to the Eye Hospital on Saturday to be tested. I feel sure it's time you had a pair of specs, too."
"Don't I look old enough already?" thought Mrs. Hyams. But she said,"Very well, Daniel," and began to clear away his supper.
"That's the best of being in the fancy," said Daniel cheerfully."There's no end of articles you can get at trade prices."
He sat for half an hour turning over the evening paper, then went to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Hyams's eyes sought each other involuntarily but they said nothing. Mrs. Hyams fried a piece ofWurstfor Miriam's supper and put it into the oven to keep hot, then she sat down opposite Mendel to stitch on a strip of fur, which had got unripped on one of Miriam's jackets. The fire burnt briskly, little flames leaped up with a crackling sound, the clock ticked quietly.
Beenah threaded her needle at the first attempt.
"I can still see without spectacles," she thought bitterly. But she said nothing.
Mendel looked up furtively at her several times from his book. The meagreness of her parchment flesh, the thickening mesh of wrinkles, the snow-white hair struck him with almost novel force. But he said nothing. Beenah patiently drew her needle through and through the fur, ever and anon glancing at Mendel's worn spectacled face, the eyes deep in the sockets, the forehead that was bent over the folio furrowed painfully beneath the blackKoppel, the complexion sickly. A lump seemed to be rising in her throat. She bent determinedly over her sewing, then suddenly looked up again. This time their eyes met. They did not droop them; a strange subtle flash seemed to pass from soul to soul. They gazed at each other, trembling on the brink of tears.
"Beenah." The voice was thick with suppressed sobs.
"Yes, Mendel."
"Thou hast heard?"
"Yes, Mendel."
"He says he loves her not."
"So he says."
"It is lies, Beenah."
"But wherefore should he lie?"
"Thou askest with thy mouth, not thy heart. Thou knowest that he wishes us not to think that he remains single for our sake. All his money goes to keep up this house we live in. It is the law of Moses. Sawest thou not his face when I spake of Sugarman's daughter?"
Beenah rocked herself to and fro, crying: "My poor Daniel, my poor lamb! Wait a little. I shall die soon. The All-High is merciful. Wait a little."
Mendel caught Miriam's jacket which was slipping to the floor and laid it aside.
"It helps not to cry," said he gently, longing to cry with her. "This cannot be. He must marry the maiden whom his heart desires. Is it not enough that he feels that we have crippled his life for the sake of our Sabbath? He never speaks of it, but it smoulders in his veins."
"Wait a little!" moaned Beenah, still rocking to and fro.
"Nay, calm thyself." He rose and passed his horny hand tenderly over her white hair. "We must not wait. Consider how long Daniel has waited."
"Yes, my poor lamb, my poor lamb!" sobbed the old woman.
"If Daniel marries," said the old man, striving to speak firmly, "we have not a penny to live upon. Our Miriam requires all her salary. Already she gives us more than she can spare. She is a lady, in a great position. She must dress finely. Who knows, too, but that we are in the way of a gentleman marrying her? We are not fit to mix with high people. But above all, Daniel must marry and I must earn your and my living as I did when the children were young."
"But what wilt thou do?" said Beenah, ceasing to cry and looking up with affrighted face. "Thou canst not go glaziering. Think of Miriam. What canst thou do, what canst thou do? Thou knowest no trade!"
"No, I know no trade," he said bitterly. "At home, as thou art aware, I was a stone-mason, but here I could get no work without breaking the Sabbath, and my hand has forgotten its cunning. Perhaps I shall get my hand back." He took hers in the meantime. It was limp and chill, though so near the fire. "Have courage." he said. "There is naught I can do here that will not shame Miriam. We cannot even go into an almshouse without shedding her blood. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is good. I will go away."
"Go away!" Beenah's clammy hand tightened her clasp of his. "Thou wilt travel with ware in the country?"
"No. If it stands written that I must break with my children, let the gap be too wide for repining. Miriam will like it better. I will go to America."
"To America!" Beenah's heartbeat wildly. "And leave me?" A strange sense of desolation swept over her.
"Yes—for a little, anyhow. Thou must not face the first hardships. I shall find something to do. Perhaps in America there are more Jewish stone-masons to get work from. God will not desert us. There I can sell ware in the streets—do as I will. At the worst I can always fall back upon glaziering. Have faith, my dove."
The novel word of affection thrilled Beenah through and through.
"I shall send thee a little money; then as soon as I can see my way dear I shall send for thee and thou shalt come out to me and we will live happily together and our children shall live happily here."
But Beenah burst into fresh tears.
"Woe! Woe!" she sobbed. "How wilt thou, an old man, face the sea and thestrange faces all alone? See how sorely thou art racked with rheumatism.How canst thou go glaziering? Thou liest often groaning all the night.How shalt thou carry the heavy crate on thy shoulders?"
"God will give me strength to do what is right." The tears were plain enough in his voice now and would not be denied. His words forced themselves out in a husky wheeze.
Beenah threw her arms round his neck. "No! No!" she cried hysterically."Thou shalt not go! Thou shalt not leave me!"
"I must go," his parched lips articulated. He could not see that the snow of her hair had drifted into her eyes and was scarce whiter than her cheeks. His spectacles were a blur of mist.
"No, no," she moaned incoherently. "I shall die soon. God is merciful. Wait a little, wait a little. He will kill us both soon. My poor lamb, my poor Daniel! Thou shalt not leave me."
The old man unlaced her arms from his neck.
"I must. I have heard God's word in the silence."
"Then I will go with thee. Wherever thou goest I will go."
"No, no; thou shall not face the first hardships, I will front them alone; I am strong, I am a man."
"And thou hast the heart to leave me?" She looked piteously into his face, but hers was still hidden from him in the mist. But through the darkness the flash passed again. His hand groped for her waist, he drew her again towards him and put the arms he had unlaced round his neck and stooped his wet cheek to hers. The past was a void, the forty years of joint housekeeping, since the morning each had seen a strange face on the pillow, faded to a point. For fifteen years they had been drifting towards each other, drifting nearer, nearer in dual loneliness; driven together by common suffering and growing alienation from the children they had begotten in common; drifting nearer, nearer in silence, almost in unconsciousness. And now they had met. The supreme moment of their lives had come. The silence of forty years was broken. His withered lips sought hers and love flooded their souls at last.
When the first delicious instants were over, Mendel drew a chair to the table and wrote a letter in Hebrew script and posted it and Beenah picked up Miriam's jacket. The crackling flames had subsided to a steady glow, the clock ticked on quietly as before, but something new and sweet and sacred had come into her life, and Beenah no longer wished to die.
When Miriam came home, she brought a little blast of cold air into the room. Beenah rose and shut the door and put out Miriam's supper; she did not drag her feet now.
"Was it a nice play, Miriam?" said Beenah softly.
"The usual stuff and nonsense!" said Miriam peevishly. "Love and all that sort of thing, as if the world never got any older."
At breakfast next morning old Hyams received a letter by the first post. He carefully took his spectacles off and donned his reading-glasses to read it, throwing the envelope carelessly into the fire. When he had scanned a few lines he uttered an exclamation of surprise and dropped the letter.
"What's the matter, father?" said Daniel, while Miriam tilted her snub nose curiously.
"Praised be God!" was all the old man could say.
"Well, what is it? Speak!" said Beenah, with unusual animation, while a flush of excitement lit up Miriam's face and made it beautiful.
"My brother in America has won a thousand pounds on the lotter_ee_ and he invites me and Beenah to come and live with him."
"Your brother in America!" repeated his children staring.
"Why, I didn't know you had a brother in America," added Miriam.
"No, while he was poor, I didn't mention him," replied Mendel, with unintentional sarcasm. "But I've heard from him several times. We both came over from Poland together, but the Board of Guardians sent him and a lot of others on to New York."
"But you won't go, father!" said Daniel.
"Why not? I should like to see my brother before I die. We were very thick as boys."
"But a thousand pounds isn't so very much," Miriam could not refrain from saying.
Old Hyams had thought it boundless opulence and was now sorry he had not done his brother a better turn.
"It will be enough for us all to live upon, he and Beenah and me. You see his wife died and he has no children."
"You don't really mean to go?" gasped Daniel, unable to grasp the situation suddenly sprung upon him. "How will you get the money to travel with?"
"Read here!" said Mendel, quietly passing him the letter. "He offers to send it."
"But it's written in Hebrew!" cried Daniel, turning it upside down hopelessly.
"You can read Hebrew writing surely," said his father.
"I could, years and years ago. I remember you taught me the letters. But my Hebrew correspondence has been so scanty—" He broke off with a laugh and handed the letter to Miriam, who surveyed it with mock comprehension. There was a look of relief in her eyes as she returned it to her father.
"He might have sent something to his nephew and his niece," she said half seriously.
"Perhaps he will when I get to America and tell him how pretty you are," said Mendel oracularly. He looked quite joyous and even ventured to pinch Miriam's flushed cheek roguishly, and she submitted to the indignity without a murmur.
"Whyyou'relooking as pleased as Punch too, mother," said Daniel, in half-rueful amazement. "You seem delighted at the idea of leaving us."
"I always wanted to see America," the old woman admitted with a smile. "I also shall renew an old friendship in New York." She looked meaningly at her husband, and in his eye was an answering love-light.
"Well, that's cool!" Daniel burst forth. "But she doesn't mean it, does she, father?"
"I mean it." Hyams answered.
"But it can't be true," persisted Daniel, in ever-growing bewilderment."I believe it's all a hoax."
Mendel hastily drained his coffee-cup.
"A hoax!" he murmured, from behind the cup.
"Yes, I believe some one is having a lark with you."
"Nonsense!" cried Mendel vehemently, as he put down his coffee-cup and picked up the letter from the table. "Don't I know my own brother Yankov's writing. Besides, who else would know all the little things he writes about?"
Daniel was silenced, but lingered on after Miriam had departed to her wearisome duties.
"I shall write at once, accepting Yankov's offer," said his father. "Fortunately we took the house by the week, so you can always move out if it is too large for you and Miriam. I can trust you to look after Miriam, I know, Daniel." Daniel expostulated yet further, but Mendel answered:
"He is so lonely. He cannot well come over here by himself because he is half paralyzed. After all, what have I to do in England? And the mother naturally does not care to leave me. Perhaps I shall get my brother to travel with me to the land of Israel, and then we shall all end our days in Jerusalem, which you know has always been my heart's desire."
Neither mentioned Bessie Sugarman.
"Why do you make so much bother?" Miriam said to Daniel in the evening. "It's the best thing that could have happened. Who'd have dreamed at this hour of the day of coming into possession of a relative who might actually have something to leave us. It'll be a good story to tell, too."