Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. She had walked in cold sunny weather from the British Museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like ear. In her left hand she held a roll of manuscript. It contained her criticisms of the May Exhibitions. Whereby hung a tale.
In the dark days that followed the scene with Levi, Esther's resolution had gradually formed. The position had become untenable. She could no longer remain aSchnorrer; abusing the bounty of her benefactors into the bargain. She must leave the Goldsmiths, and at once. That was imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken the first. And yet she postponed taking the first. Once she drifted out of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future, could not be certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to Raphael to sit in judgment upon the Academy and other picture galleries that bloomed in May. At any rate, once she had severed connection with the Goldsmith circle, she would not care to renew it, even in the case of Raphael. No, it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution. Addie amused her by reading extracts from Sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to Norway the morning after thedébutof the new Hamlet. Esther felt that it might be as well if she stayed on to see how the drama of these two lives developed. These things she told herself in the reaction from the first impulse of instant flight.
Raphael put down his pipe at the sight of her and a frank smile of welcome shone upon his flushed face.
"This is so kind of you!" he said; "who would have thought of seeing you here? I am so glad. I hope you are well. You look better." He was wringing her little gloved hand violently as he spoke.
"I feel better, too, thank you. The air is so exhilarating. I'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living. Addie has told me of your debauches of work."
"Addie is foolish. I never felt better. Come inside. Don't be afraid of walking on the papers. They're all old."
"I always heard literary people were untidy," said Esther smiling. "Youmust be a regular genius."
"Well, you see we don't have many ladies coming here," said Raphael deprecatingly, "though we have plenty of old women."
"It's evident you don't. Else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit."
"Never mind that now, Miss Ansell. Sit down, won't you? You must be tired. Take the editorial chair. Allow me a minute." He removed some books from it.
"Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?" She sat down. "Dear me! It's quite comfortable. You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. But where is your fighting-editor? It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? It isn't safe for me to remain in this chair."
"Oh, yes it is! We've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day," he assured her.
She looked curiously round. "Please pick up your pipe. It's going out. I don't mind smoke, indeed I don't. Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den."
Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully.
"I wonder though you don't set the place on fire," Esther rattled on, "with all this mass of inflammable matter about."
"It is very dry, most of it," he admitted, with a smile.
"Why don't you have a real fire? It must be quite cold sitting here all day. What's that great ugly picture over there?"
"That steamer! It's an advertisement."
"Heavens! What a decoration. I should like to have the criticism of that picture. I've brought you those picture-galleries, you know; that's what I've come for."
"Thank you! That's very good of you. I'll send it to the printers at once." He took the roll and placed it in a pigeon-hole, without taking his eyes off her face.
"Why don't you throw that awful staring thing away?" she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination, "and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colors hung up and put a vase of flowers on your desk. I wish I had the control of the office for a week."
"I wish you had," he said gallantly. "I can't find time to think of those things. I am sure you are brightening it up already."
The little blush on her cheek deepened. Compliment was unwonted with him; and indeed, he spoke as he felt. The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum; the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts, such as he had scarce known before. The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal.
"I hope you are speaking the truth," replied Esther with a little laugh. "You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine." She spoke in airy accents, with an undercurrent of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.
"Why, I haven'tlookedat your manuscript yet," he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. The leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. It was but the dream of a second—the dingy walls closed round him again, the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. But the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. And when she spoke again, it was as if the music that filled the visionary glades was a reality, too.
"It's all very well your treating reproof as a jest," she said, more gravely. "Can't you see that it's false economy to risk a break-down even if you use yourself purely for others? You're looking far from well. You are overtaxing human strength. Come now, admit my sermon is just. Remember I speak not as a Pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself—a fellow-sinner." She turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him.
"I—I—don't sleep very well," he admitted, "but otherwise I assure youI feel all right."
It was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. The blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. The gentle anxious face seemed to grow angelic. Could she really care if his health gave way? Again he felt a rash of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. He was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. He wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before.
"And you used to sleep so well," said Esther, slily, remembering Addie's domestic revelations. "My stupid manuscript should come in useful."
"Oh, forgive my stupid joke!" he said remorsefully.
"Forgive mine!" she answered. "Sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. Again I speak as one who knows."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that!" he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude.
"Never mind me; I am a woman and can take care of myself. Why don't you go over to Norway and join Mr. Graham?"
"That's quite out of the question," he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. "I can't leave the paper."
"Oh, men always say that. Haven't you let your pipe go out? I don't see any smoke."
He started and laughed. "Yes, there's no more tobacco in it." He laid it down.
"No, I insist on your going on or else I shall feel uncomfortable.Where's your pouch?"
He felt all over his pockets. "It must be on the table."
She rummaged among the mass of papers. "Ha! There are your scissors'" she said scornfully, turning them up. She found the pouch in time and handed it to him. "I ought to have the management of this office for a day," she remarked again.
"Well, fill my pipe for me," he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill.
"Now you must crown your work," he said. "The matches are somewhere about."
She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire.
"They're safety matches, I think," he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe.
"But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to seeHamletin lieu of the night you disappointed us."
"Disappointed myself, you mean," he said with a retrospective consciousness of folly. "No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short."
"Then, why waste it?"
"Oh come, I can't admit I waste it," he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. "You mustn't take such material views of life." Almost in a whisper he quoted: "To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added," and went on: "Socialism is at least as important as Shakspeare."
"Socialism," she repeated. "Are you a Socialist, then?"
"Of a kind," he answered. "Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings; land nationalization and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses."
"What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?"
"It requires no seeking."
"Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found every thing in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or at least I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it."
"I hope so," he said gravely. "But have you Socialistic sympathies?"
She hesitated. As a girl she had felt the crude Socialism which is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. When the higher sphere has welcomed the Socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. Esther had gone through the second phase and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain.
"I used to be a red-hot Socialist once," she said. "To-day I doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. High thinking is compatible with the plainest living. 'The soul is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it, but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them."
The conversation had drifted into seriousness. Raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast, but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions.
"Ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory," he said. "But what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't even get the plainest living? You should just see the sights I have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. Of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations."
Esther smiled almost Imperceptibly. The idea of Raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, tellingherto examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed among the same scenes as his. It seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that Raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others, while she who had known both had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. Perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. Well, that would test her theories at any rate.
"Who is taking material views of life now?" she asked.
"It is by perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law that the kingdom of God is to be brought about on earth," he answered. "And in spirit, orthodox Judaism is undoubtedly akin to Socialism." His enthusiasm set him pacing the room as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill.
Esther shook her head. "Well, give me Shakspeare," she said. "I had rather seeHamletthan a world of perfect prigs." She laughed at the oddity of her own comparison and added, still smiling: "Once upon a time I used to think Shakspeare a fraud. But that was merely because he was an institution. It is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis."
"Perhaps you will find the Bible turn out like that," he said hopefully.
"Ihavefound it. Within the last few months I have read it right through again—Old and New. It is full of sublime truths, noble apophthegms, endless touches of nature, and great poetry. Our tiny race may well be proud of having given humanity its greatest as well as its most widely circulated books. Why can't Judaism take a natural view of things and an honest pride in its genuine history, instead of building its synagogues on shifting sand?"
"In Germany, later in America, the reconstruction of Judaism has been attempted in every possible way; inspiration has been sought not only in literature, but in archaeology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. You see your scepticism is not even original." He smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. His complacency grated upon her. She jumped up. "We always seem to get into religion, you and I," she said. "I wonder why. It is certain we shall never agree. Mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but I cannot help feeling Mr. Graham is right when he points out its limitations. Where would the art of the world be if the second Commandment had been obeyed? Is there any such thing as an absolute system of morality? How is it the Chinese have got on all these years without religion? Why should the Jews claim the patent in those moral ideas which you find just as well in all the great writers of antiquity? Why—?" she stopped suddenly, seeing his smile had broadened.
"Which of all these objections am I to answer?" he asked merrily. "SomeI'm sure you don't mean."
"I mean all those you can't answer. So please don't try. After all, you're not a professional explainer of the universe, that I should heckle you thus."
"Oh, but I set up to be," he protested.
"No, you don't. You haven't called me a blasphemer once. I'd better go before you become really professional. I shall be late for dinner."
"What nonsense! It is only four o'clock," he pleaded, consulting an old-fashioned silver watch.
"As late as that!" said Esther in horrified tones. "Good-bye! Take care to go through my 'copy' in case any heresies have filtered into it."
"Your copy? Did you give it me?" he inquired.
"Of course I did. You took it from me. Where did you put it? Oh, I hope you haven't mixed it up with those papers. It'll be a terrible task to find it," cried Esther excitedly.
"I wonder if I could have put it in the pigeon-hole for 'copy,'" he said. "Yes! what luck!"
Esther laughed heartily. "You seem tremendously surprised to find anything in its right place."
The moment of solemn parting had come, yet she found herself laughing on. Perhaps she was glad to find the farewell easier than she had foreseen, it had certainly been made easier by the theological passage of arms, which brought out all her latent antagonism to the prejudiced young pietist. Her hostility gave rather a scornful ring to the laugh, which ended with a suspicion of hysteria.
"What a lot of stuff you've written," he said. "I shall never be able to get this into one number."
"I didn't intend you should. It's to be used in instalments, if it's good enough. I did it all in advance, because I'm going away."
"Going away!" he cried, arresting himself in the midst of an inhalation of smoke. "Where?"
"I don't know," she said wearily.
He looked alarm and interrogation.
"I am going to leave the Goldsmiths," she said. "I haven't decided exactly what to do next."
"I hope you haven't quarrelled with them."
"No, no, not at all. In fact they don't even know I am going. I only tell you in confidence. Please don't say anything to anybody. Good-bye. I may not come across you again. So this may be a last good-bye." She extended her hand; he took it mechanically.
"I have no right to pry into your confidence," he said anxiously, "but you make me very uneasy." He did not let go her hand, the warm touch quickened his sympathy. He felt he could not part with her and let her drift into Heaven knew what. "Won't you tell me your trouble?" he went on. "I am sure it is some trouble. Perhaps I can help you. I should be so glad if you would give me the opportunity."
The tears struggled to her eyes, but she did not speak. They stood in silence, with their hands still clasped, feeling very near to each other, and yet still so far apart.
"Cannot you trust me?" he asked. "I know you are unhappy, but I had hoped you had grown cheerfuller of late. You told me so much at our first meeting, surely you might trust me yet a little farther."
"I have told you enough," she said at last "I cannot any longer eat the bread of charity; I must go away and try to earn my own living."
"But what will you do?"
"What do other girls do? Teaching, needlework, anything. Remember, I'm an experienced teacher and a graduate to boot." Her pathetic smile lit up the face with tremulous tenderness.
"But you would be quite alone in the world," he said, solicitude vibrating in every syllable.
"I am used to being quite alone in the world."
The phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning.
"But suppose you fail?"
"If I fail—" she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug. It was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of Moses Ansell; only his was the shrug of faith in Providence, hers of despair. It filled Raphael's heart with deadly cold and his soul with sinister forebodings. The pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable.
"No, no, this must not be!" he cried, and his hand gripped hers fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force. He was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing profound and novel emotions. Their eyes met; in one and the same instant the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose to play the woman he was hers, and life a Paradisian dream. The sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire. But the next instant she was chilled as by a gray cold fog. The realities of things came back, a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. Who was she to aspire to such a match? Had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than that? TheSchnorrer'sdaughter setting her cap at the wealthy Oxford man, forsooth! What would people say? And what would they say if they knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion to pitch a tale of woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook momentarily for love? The image of Levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude view be right? Suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? Knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing. Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.
"What right, have you to say it must not be?" she inquired haughtily. "Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to protect me or to help me?"
"No—I—I—only mean—" he stammered in infinite distress, feeling himself somehow a blundering brute.
"Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the worst that life can offer. I can stand alone, yes, and face the whole world. Perhaps you don't know that I wroteMordecai Josephs, the book you burlesqued so mercilessly!"
"Youwrote it!"
"Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I wrote it and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out 'The picture is false,' I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going to cut myself free. From them and from you and all your petty prejudices and interests. Good-bye, for ever."
She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true colors at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.
The editor ofThe Flag of Judahstood for some minutes as if petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started readingMordecai Josephs, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passage suffused his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences; he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How blind he had been! How could he have missed seeing? Esther stared at him from every page. She was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero, too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the masculine. The whole book was Esther, the whole Esther and nothing but Esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of Esther's soul against mean and evil things. He turned to the great love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting further than the chapter.
No need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. Esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to Raphael; there was no seething of the blood to nerve her to face Mrs. Henry Goldsmith. She retired to her room soon after dinner on the plea (which was not a pretext) of a headache. Then she wrote:
"When you read this, I shall have left your house, never to return. It would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. I could not hope to make you see through my eyes. Suffice it to say that I cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that I feel I have abused your favor by writing that Jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. I never intended to keep the secret from you, after publication. I thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time I dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and I have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. With my temperament, I see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody, but the mistake was made in my girlhood when I knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. Nevertheless, I wish you to believe, dear Mrs. Goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen I put upon my own shoulders, and that I have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses I have received at your hands. I beg you not to think that I make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, I shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that I have made you so poor a return for your generosity and incessant thoughtfulness. But the sphere in which you move is too high for me; I cannot assimilate with it and I return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. With kindest regards and best wishes,
"I am,
"Yours ever gratefully,
There were tears in Esther's eyes when she finished, and she was penetrated with admiration of her own generosity in so freely admitting Mrs. Goldsmith's and in allowing that her patron got nothing out of the bargain. She was doubtful whether the sentence about the high sphere was satirical or serious. People do not know what they mean almost as often as they do not say it.
Esther put the letter into an envelope and placed it on the open writing-desk she kept on her dressing-table. She then packed a few toilette essentials in a little bag, together with some American photographs of her brother and sisters in various stages of adolescence. She was determined to go back empty-handed as she came, and was reluctant to carry off the few sovereigns of pocket-money in her purse, and hunted up a little gold locket she had received, while yet a teacher, in celebration of the marriage of a communal magnate's daughter. Thrown aside seven years ago, it now bade fair to be the corner-stone of the temple; she had meditated pledging it and living on the proceeds till she found work, but when she realized its puny pretensions to cozen pawnbrokers, it flashed upon her that she could always repay Mrs. Goldsmith the few pounds she was taking away. In a drawer there was a heap of manuscript carefully locked away; she took it and looked through it hurriedly, contemptuously. Some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. At last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good Mary O'Reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, with scornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. Rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray manuscript she should leave her soul naked behind her, she came upon a forgotten faded rose. The faint fragrance was charged with strange memories of Sidney. The handsome young artist had given it her in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship. To Esther to-night it seemed to belong to a period infinitely more remote than her childhood. When the shrivelled rose had been further crumpled into a little ball and then picked to bits, it only remained to inquire where to go; what to do she could settle when there. She tried to collect her thoughts. Alas! it was not so easy as collecting her luggage. For a long time she crouched on the fender and looked into the fire, seeing in it only fragmentary pictures of the last seven years—bits of scenery, great Cathedral interiors arousing mysterious yearnings, petty incidents of travel, moments with Sidney, drawing-room episodes, strange passionate scenes with herself as single performer, long silent watches of study and aspiration, like the souls of the burned manuscripts made visible. Even that very afternoon's scene with Raphael was part of the "old unhappy far-off things" that could only live henceforwards in fantastic arcades of glowing coal, out of all relation to future realities. Her new-born love for Raphael appeared as ancient and as arid as the girlish ambitions that had seemed on the point of blossoming when she was transplanted from the Ghetto. That, too, was in the flames, and should remain there.
At last she started up with a confused sense of wasted time and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. But they wandered back to her first night in the fine house, when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. But she was more afraid of appearing a great baby, and so no one in the world ever knew what the imaginative little creature had lived down.
In the middle of brushing her hair she ran to the door and locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. She had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. She had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. She looked and looked at them and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. She seemed to be lying in Victoria Park, looking up with innocent mystic rapture and restfulness at the brooding blue sky. The blood-and-thunder boys' story she had borrowed from Solomon had fallen from her hand and lay unheeded on the grass. Solomon was tossing a ball to Rachel, which he had acquired by a colossal accumulation of buttons, and Isaac and Sarah were rolling and wrangling on the grass. Oh, why had she deserted them? What were they doing now, without her mother-care, out and away beyond the great seas? For weeks together, the thought of them had not once crossed her mind; to-night she stretched her arms involuntarily towards her loved ones, not towards the shadowy figures of reality, scarcely less phantasmal than the dead Benjamin, but towards the childish figures of the past. What happy times they had had together in the dear old garret!
In her strange half-waking hallucination, her outstretched arms were clasped round little Sarah. She was putting her to bed and the tiny thing was repeating after her, in broken Hebrew, the children's night-prayer: "Suffer me to lie down in peace, and let me rise up in peace. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," with its unauthorized appendix in baby English: "Dod teep me, and mate me a dood dirl, orways."
She woke to full consciousness with a start; her arms chilled, her face wet. But the problem was solved.
She would go back to them, back to her true home, where loving faces waited to welcome her, where hearts were open and life was simple and the weary brain could find rest from the stress and struggle of obstinate questionings of destiny. Life was so simple at bottom; it was she that was so perversely complex. She would go back to her father whose naïve devout face swam glorified upon a sea of tears; yea, and back to her father's primitive faith like a tired lost child that spies its home at last. The quaint, monotonous cadence of her father's prayers rang pathetically in her ears; and a great light, the light that Raphael had shown her, seemed to blend mystically with the once meaningless sounds. Yea, all things were from Him who created light and darkness, good and evil; she felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine Love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights shedding visible consecration and blessing!
Yes, she would go back to her loved ones, back from this dainty room, with its white laces and perfumed draperies, back if need be to a Ghetto garret. And in the ecstasy of her abandonment of all worldly things, a great peace fell upon her soul.
In the morning the nostalgia of the Ghetto was still upon her, blent with a passion of martyrdom that made her yearn for a lower social depth than was really necessary. But the more human aspects of the situation were paramount in the gray chillness of a bleak May dawn. Her resolution to cross the Atlantic forthwith seemed a little hasty, and though she did not flinch from it, she was not sorry to remember that she had not money enough for the journey. She must perforce stay in London till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the old simplicities of existence.
She dressed herself in her plainest apparel, though she could not help her spring bonnet being pretty. She hesitated between a hat and a bonnet, but decided that her solitary position demanded as womanly an appearance as possible. Do what she would, she could not prevent herself looking exquisitely refined, and the excitement of adventure had lent that touch of color to her face which made it fascinating. About seven o'clock she left her room noiselessly and descended the stairs cautiously, holding her little black bag in her hand.
"Och, be the holy mother, Miss Esther, phwat a turn you gave me," said Mary O'Reilly, emerging unexpectedly from the dining-room and meeting her at the foot of the stairs. "Phwat's the matther?"
"I'm going out, Mary," she said, her heart beating violently.
"Sure an' it's rale purty ye look, Miss Esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk, it looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday."
"Oh, but I must go, Mary."
"Ah, the saints bliss your kind heart!" said Mary, catching sight of the bag. "Sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. I mind me how my blissed old masther, Mr. Goldsmith's father,Olov Hasholom, who's gone to glory, used to walk toShoolin all winds and weathers; sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin' and I used to get up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he wint toSelichoth; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. Ah the Holy Vargin be kind to him!"
"And may she be kind to you, Mary," said Esther. And she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward, for Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall door and passed into the silent streets, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky.
For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her pace slackened; she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet. When they commenced, she would take one to Whitechapel. The signs of awakening labor stirred her with new emotions; the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch-package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these years, amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves, aloof from realities?
The first 'bus overtook her half-way and bore her back to the Ghetto.
* * * * *
The Ghetto was all astir, for it was half-past eight of a work-a-day morning. But Esther had not walked a hundred yards before her breast was heavy with inauspicious emotions. The well-known street she had entered was strangely broadened. Instead of the dirty picturesque houses rose an appalling series of artisans' dwellings, monotonous brick barracks, whose dead, dull prose weighed upon the spirits. But, as in revenge, other streets, unaltered, seemed incredibly narrow. Was it possible it could have taken even her childish feet six strides to cross them, as she plainly remembered? And they seemed so unspeakably sordid and squalid. Could she ever really have walked them with light heart, unconscious of the ugliness? Did the gray atmosphere that overhung them ever lift, or was it their natural and appropriate mantle? Surely the sun could never shine upon these slimy pavements, kissing them to warmth and life.
Great magic shops where all things were to be had; peppermints and cotton, china-faced dolls and lemons, had dwindled into the front windows of tiny private dwelling-houses; the black-wigged crones, the greasy shambling men, were uglier and greasier than she had ever conceived them. They seemed caricatures of humanity; scarecrows in battered hats or draggled skirts. But gradually, as the scene grew upon her, she perceived that in spite of the "model dwellings" builder, it was essentially unchanged. No vestige of improvement had come over Wentworth Street: the narrow noisy market street, where serried barrows flanked the reeking roadway exactly as of old, and where Esther trod on mud and refuse and babies. Babies! They were everywhere; at the breasts of unwashed women, on the knees of grandfathers smoking pipes, playing under the barrows, sprawling in the gutters and the alleys. All the babies' faces were sickly and dirty with pathetic, childish prettinesses asserting themselves against the neglect and the sallowness. One female mite in a dingy tattered frock sat in an orange-box, surveying the bustling scene with a preternaturally grave expression, and realizing literally Esther's early conception of the theatre. There was a sense of blankness in the wanderer's heart, of unfamiliarity in the midst of familiarity. What had she in common with all this mean wretchedness, with this semi-barbarous breed of beings? The more she looked, the more her heart sank. There was no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no drunkenness, only the squalor of an oriental city without its quaintness and color. She studied the posters and the shop-windows, and caught old snatches of gossip from the groups in the butchers' shops—all seemed as of yore. And yet here and there the hand of Time had traced new inscriptions. For Baruch Emanuel the hand of Time had written a new placard. It was a mixture of German, bad English and Cockneyese, phonetically spelt in Hebrew letters:
Mens Solen Und Eelen, 2/6Lydies Deeto, 1/6Kindersche Deeto, 1/6Hier wird gemachtAller Hant SleepersFur TrebbelersZu De Billigsten Preissen.
Baruch Emanuel had prospered since the days when he wanted "lasters and riveters" without being able to afford them. He no longer gratuitously advertisedMordecai Schwartzin envious emulation, for he had several establishments and owned five two-story houses, and was treasurer of his little synagogue, and spoke of Socialists as an inferior variety of Atheists. Not that all this bourgeoning was to be counted to leather, for Baruch had developed enterprises in all directions, having all the versatility of Moses Ansell without his catholic capacity for failure.
The hand of Time had also constructed a "working-men's Métropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing a public meeting, she learned of the existence of an off-shoot of the Holy Land League—"The Flowers of Zion Society—established by East-End youths for the study of Hebrew and the propagation of the Jewish National Idea." Side by side with this, as if in ironic illustration of the other side of the life of the Ghetto, was a seeming royal proclamation headed V.R., informing the public that by order of the Secretary of State for War a sale of wrought-and cast-iron, zinc, canvas, tools and leather would take place at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.
As she wandered on, the great school-bell began to ring; involuntarily, she quickened her step and joined the chattering children's procession. She could have fancied the last ten years a dream. Were they, indeed, other children, or were they not the same that jostled her when she picked her way through this very slush in her clumsy masculine boots? Surely those little girls in lilac print frocks were her classmates! It was hard to realize that Time's wheel had been whirling on, fashioning her to a woman; that, while she had been living and learning and seeing the manners of men and cities, the Ghetto, unaffected by her experiences, had gone on in the same narrow rut. A new generation of children had arisen to suffer and sport in room of the old, and that was all. The thought overwhelmed her, gave her a new and poignant sense of brute, blind forces; she seemed to catch in this familiar scene of childhood the secret of the gray atmosphere of her spirit, it was here she had, all insensibly, absorbed those heavy vapors that formed the background of her being, a permanent sombre canvas behind all the iridescent colors of joyous emotion.Whathad she in common with all this mean wretchedness? Why, everything. This it was with which her soul had intangible affinities, not the glory of sun and sea and forest, "the palms and temples of the South."
The heavy vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; Esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards—to Royal Street. Her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for wizened old apples, but Esther passed her by heedless of her stare, and ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted passage.
The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. She was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit. She was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object—morbidly drawn towards the old home. The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side. After a tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead—the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be loved by God, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good Jewess always. Satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots, and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair.
All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. The figure vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing. She sank against the door, beating passionately at the panels. It was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall. A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. Esther could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. Stay—what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? Was it not theLondon Journal? Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's face. A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.
"Debby!" she cried hysterically. A great flood of joy swamped her soul. She was not alone in the world, after all! Dutch Debby uttered a little startled scream. "I've come back, Debby, I've come back," and the next moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's arms.
Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly and drinking tea out of Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no spare cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and Esther was of course seated on the other. Her bonnet and cloak were on the bed.
"And where is Bobby?" inquired the young lady visitor.
Debby's joyous face clouded.
"Bobby is dead," she said softly. "He died four years ago, come nextShevuos."
"I'm so sorry," said Esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang of genuine emotion. "At first I was afraid of him, but that was before I knew him."
"There never beat a kinder heart on God's earth," said Debby, emphatically. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."
Esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile.
"I buried him secretly in the back yard," Debby confessed. "See! there, where the paving stone is loose."
Esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into the sloppy enclosure where washing hung. She noticed a cat sauntering quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have felt had it known it was walking over the grave of an hereditary enemy.
"So I don't feel as if he was far away," said Debby. "I can always look out and picture him squatting above the stone instead of beneath it."
"But didn't you get another?"
"Oh, how can you talk so heartlessly?"
"Forgive me, dear; of course you couldn't replace him. And haven't you had any other friends?"
"Who would make friends with me, Miss Ansell?" Debby asked quietly.
"I shall 'make out friends' with you, Debby, if you call me that," said Esther, half laughing, half crying. "What was it we used to say in school? I forget, but I know we used to wet our little fingers in our mouths and jerk them abruptly toward the other party. That's what I shall have to do with you."
"Oh well, Esther, don't be cross. But you do look such a real lady. I always said you would grow up clever, didn't I, though?"
"You did, dear, you did. I can never forgive myself for not having looked you up."
"Oh, but you had so much to do, I have no doubt," said Debby magnanimously, though she was not a little curious to hear all Esther's wonderful adventures and to gather more about the reasons of the girl's mysterious return than had yet been vouchsafed her. All she had dared to ask was about the family in America.
"Still, it was wrong of me," said Esther, in a tone that brooked no protest. "Suppose you had been in want and I could have helped you?"
"Oh, but you know I never take any help," said Debby stiffly.
"I didn't know that," said Esther, touched. "Have you never taken soup at the Kitchen?"
"I wouldn't dream of such a thing. Do you ever remember me going to the Board of Guardians? I wouldn't go there to be bullied, not if I was starving. It's only the cadgers who don't want it who get relief. But, thank God, in the worst seasons I have always been able to earn a crust and a cup of tea. You see I am only a small family," concluded Debby with a sad smile, "and the less one has to do with other people the better."
Esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this lonely soul.
"But surely you would have taken help of me," she said. Debby shook her head obstinately.
"Well, I'm not so proud," said Esther with a tremulous smile, "for see,I have come to take help of you."
Then the tears welled forth and Debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice bristling with pin-heads. Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea.
"Are the same people living here?" she said.
"Not altogether. The Belcovitches have gone up in the world. They live on the first floor now."
"Not much of a rise that," said Esther smiling, for the Belcovitches had always lived on the third floor.
"Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether," explainedDebby, "only Mr. Belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van."
"Then, Sugarman theShadchanmust have moved, too," said Esther. "He used to have the first floor."
"Yes, he's got the third now. You see, people get tired of living in the same place. Then Ebenezer, who became very famous through writing a book (so he told me), went to live by himself, so they didn't want to be so grand. The back apartment at the top of the house you used once to inhabit,"—Debby put it as delicately as she could—"is vacant. The last family had the brokers in."
"Are the Belcovitches all well? I remember Fanny married and went toManchester before I left here."
"Oh yes, they are all well."
"What? Even Mrs. Belcovitch?"
"She still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever."
"Becky married yet?"
"Oh no, but she has won two breach of promise cases."
"She must be getting old."
"She is a fine young woman, but the young men are afraid of her now."
"Then they don't sit on the stairs in the morning any more?"
"No, young men seem so much less romantic now-a-days," said Debby, sighing. "Besides there's one flight less now and half the stairs face the street door. The next flight was so private."
"I suppose I shall look in and see them all," said Esther, smiling. "But tell me. Is Mrs. Simons living here still?"
"No."
"Where, then? I should like to see her. She was so very kind to littleSarah, you know. Nearly all our fried fish came from her."
"She is dead. She died of cancer. She suffered a great deal."
"Oh!" Esther put her cup down and sat back with face grown white.
"I am afraid to ask about any one else," she said at last. "I suppose the Sons of the Covenant are getting on all right;theycan't be dead, at least not all of them."
"They have split up," said Debby gravely, "into two communities. Mr. Belcovitch and the ShalottenShammosquarrelled about the sale of theMitzvahsat the Rejoicing of the Law two years ago. As far as I could gather, the carrying of the smallest scroll of the Law was knocked down to the ShalottenShammos, for eighteenpence, but Mr. Belcovitch, who had gone outside a moment, said he had bought up the privilege in advance to present to Daniel Hyams, who was a visitor, and whose old father had just died in Jerusalem. There was nearly a free fight in theShool. So the ShalottenShammosseceded with nineteen followers and their wives and set up a rivalChevrahround the corner. The other twenty-five still come here. The deserters tried to take Greenberg theChazanwith them, but Greenberg wanted a stipulation that they wouldn't engage an extra Reader to do his work during the High Festivals; he even offered to do it cheaper if they would let him do all the work, but they wouldn't consent. As a compromise, they proposed to replace him only on the Day of Atonement, as his voice was not agreeable enough for that. But Greenberg was obstinate. Now I believe there is a movement for the Sons of the Covenant to connect theirChevrahwith the Federation of minor synagogues, but Mr. Belcovitch says he won't join the Federation unless the term 'minor' is omitted. He is a great politician now."
"Ah, I dare say he readsThe Flag of Judah," said Esther, laughing, though Debby recounted all this history quite seriously. "Do you ever see that paper?"
"I never heard of it before," said Debby simply. "Why should I waste money on new papers when I can always forget theLondon journalsufficiently?" Perhaps Mr. Belcovitch buys it: I have seen him with a Yiddish paper. The 'hands' say that instead of breaking off suddenly in the middle of a speech, as of old, he sometimes stops pressing for five minutes together to denounce Gideon, the member for Whitechapel, and to say that Mr. Henry Goldsmith is the only possible saviour of Judaism in the House of Commons."
"Ah, then he does readThe flag of Judah! His English must have improved."
"I was glad to hear him say that," added Debby, when she had finished struggling with the fit of coughing brought on by too much monologue, "because I thought it must be the husband of the lady who was so good to you. I never forgot her name."
Esther took up theLondon Journalto hide her reddening cheeks.
"Oh, read some of it aloud," cried Dutch Debby. "It'll be like old times."
Esther hesitated, a little ashamed of such childish behavior. But, deciding to fall in for a moment with the poor woman's humor, and glad to change the subject, she read: "Soft scents steeped the dainty conservatory in delicious drowsiness. Reclining on a blue silk couch, her wonderful beauty rather revealed than concealed by the soft clinging draperies she wore, Rosaline smiled bewitchingly at the poor young peer, who could not pluck up courage to utter the words of flame that were scorching his lips. The moon silvered the tropical palms, and from the brilliant ball-room were wafted the sweet penetrating strains of the 'Blue Danube' waltz—"
Dutch Debby heaved a great sigh of rapture.
"And you have seen such sights!" she said in awed admiration.
"I have been in brilliant ball-rooms and moonlit conservatories," said Esther evasively. She did not care to rob Dutch Debby of her ideals by explaining that high life was not all passion and palm-trees.
"I am so glad," said Debby affectionately. "I have often wished to myself, only a make-believe wish, you know, not a real wish, if you understand what I mean, for of course I know it's impossible. I sometimes sit at that window before going to bed and look at the moon as it silvers the swaying clothes-props, and I can easily imagine they are great tropical palms, especially when an organ is playing round the corner. Sometimes the moon shines straight down on Bobby's tombstone, and then I am glad. Ah, now you're smiling. I know you think me a crazy old thing."
"Indeed, indeed, dear, I think you're the darlingest creature in the world," and Esther jumped up and kissed her to hide her emotion. "But I mustn't waste your time," she said briskly. "I know you have your sewing to do. It's too long to tell you my story now; suffice it to say (as theLondon Journalsays) that I am going to take a lodging in the neighborhood. Oh, dear, don't make those great eyes! I want to live in the East End."
"You want to live here like a Princess in disguise. I see."
"No you don't, you romantic old darling. I want to live here like everybody else. I'm going to earn my own living."
"Oh, but you can never live by yourself."
"Why not? Now from romantic you become conventional.You'velived by yourself."
"Oh, but I'm different," said Debby, flushing.
"Nonsense, I'm just as good as you. But if you think it improper," hereEsther had a sudden idea, "come and live with me."
"What, be your chaperon!" cried Debby in responsive excitement; then her voice dropped again. "Oh, no, how could I?"
"Yes, yes, you must," said Esther eagerly.
Debby's obstinate shake of the head repelled the idea. "I couldn't leaveBobby," she said. After a pause, she asked timidly: "Why not stay here?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Esther answered. Then she examined the bed. "Two couldn't sleep here," she said.
"Oh yes, they could," said Debby, thoughtfully bisecting the blanket with her hand. "And the bed's quite clean or I wouldn't venture to ask you. Maybe it's not so soft as you've been used to."
Esther pondered; she was fatigued and she had undergone too many poignant emotions already to relish the hunt for a lodging. It was really lucky this haven offered itself. "I'll stay for to-night, anyhow," she announced, while Debby's face lit up as with a bonfire of joy. "To-morrow we'll discuss matters further. And now, dear, can I help you with your sewing?"
"No, Esther, thank you kindly. You see there's only enough for one," said Debby apologetically. "To-morrow there may be more. Besides you were never as clever with your needle as your pen. You always used to lose marks for needlework, and don't you remember how you herring-boned the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather-stitching them? Ha, ha, ha! I have often laughed at the recollection."
"Oh, that was only absence of mind," said Esther, tossing her head in affected indignation. "If my work isn't good enough for you, I think I'll go down and help Becky with her machine." She put on her bonnet, and, not without curiosity, descended a flight, of stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on behind it, she judged to be that of the work-room.
"Art thou a man or a woman?" came in Yiddish the well-remembered tones of the valetudinarian lady.
"A woman!" answered Esther in German. She was glad she learned German; it would be the best substitute for Yiddish in her new-old life.
"Herein!" said Mrs. Belcovitch, with sentry-like brevity.
Esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she found herself not in the work-room, but in the invalid's bedroom. She almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was always kept there. A coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer. Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber's block. Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist—and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts leaped out under the sudden shock.
"Becky, quick rub my leg with liniment, the thick one," she whispered inYiddish.
"It's only me, Esther Ansell!" cried the visitor.
"What! Esther!" cried Mrs. Belcovitch. "Gott in Himmel!"and, throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther's neck. "I have so often wanted to see you," cried the sickly-looking little woman who hadn't altered a wrinkle. "Often have I said to my Becky, where is little Esther?—gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther sees one not. Is it not so, Becky? Oh, how fine you look! Why, I mistook you for a lady! You are married—not? Ah well, you'll find wooers as thick as the street dogs. And how goes it with the father and the family in America?"
"Excellently," answered Esther. "How are you, Becky?"
Becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. Esther had an olden awe of Becky, and Becky was now a little impressed by Esther.
"I suppose Mr. Weingott is getting a good living now in Manchester?"Esther remarked cheerfully to Mrs. Belcovitch.
"No, he has a hard struggle," answered his mother-in-law, "but I have seven grandchildren, God be thanked, and I expect an eighth. If my poor lambkin had been alive now, she would have been a great-grandmother. My eldest grandchild, Hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. A gentleman is paying for his lessons, God be thanked. I suppose you have heard I won four pounds on the lotter_ee_. You see I have not tried thirty years for nothing! If I only had my health, I should have little to grumble at. Yes, four pounds, and what think you I have bought with it? You shall see it inside. A cupboard with glass doors, such as we left behind in Poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made loops for silver forks to rest in—it makes me feel as if I had just cut off my tresses. But then I look on my Becky and I remember that—go thou inside, Becky, my life! Thou makest it too hard for him. Give him a word while I speak with Esther."
Becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared through the door that led to the real workshop.
"A fine maid!" said the mother, her eyes following the girl with pride. "No wonder she is so hard to please. She vexes him so that he eats out his heart. He comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an orange or a fat Dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth."
"Who is it now?" inquired Esther in amusement.
"Shosshi Shmendrik."
"Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the WidowFinkelstein?"
"Yes—a very honorable and seemly youth. But she preferred her first husband," said Mrs. Belcovitch laughing, "and followed him only four years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money—a very seemly and honorable youth."
"But will it come to anything?"
"It is already settled. Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will not always be young. TheTanaimwill be held next Sunday. Perhaps you would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. The KovnaMaggidwill be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. Only she likes to tease, poor little thing. And then she is so shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with glass doors."
Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig.
The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with glass doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it. The master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. The "hands" were other, but then Mr. Belcovitch's hands were always changing. He never employed "union-men," and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang. Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days. Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. Evidently, to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. Mr. Belcovitch, whose hair was gray now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand (the right was wielding the pressing-iron) without moving another muscle.
"Nu, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old," he said gravely in Yiddish.
"Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy," repliedEsther in German.
"You were taken away to be educated, was it not?"
"Yes."
"And how many tongues do you know?"
"Four or five," said Esther, smiling.
"Four or five!" repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. "Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms where they have young women now."
"Don't be ridiculous, father," interposed Becky. "Clerks aren't so grand now-a-days as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerkship."
"I'm sure I wouldn't," said Esther.
"There! thou hearest!" said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction. "It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst throw over Shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides great matters. Three times has my name been printed inThe Flag of Judah. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him."
"Of course, everybody's better than me," said Becky petulantly, as she snatched her fingers away from Shosshi.