Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio, brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. It began 'Angel of God!'
He laughed bitterly. 'Just when I am at my most diabolical!' He did not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many begging-letters which were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist period. But he turned over the page to see the name of the Orientally effusive scribe. It was 'Nehemiah Silvermann, Dentist and Restaurateur.' His laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense of humour was still saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand the figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. He read the letter.
'3a, The Minories, E.'Angel of God,'I have the honour now to ask Your very kind humane merciful cordial nobility to assist me by Your clement philanthropical liberal relief in my veryhard troublesome sorrows and worries, on which I suffer violently. I lost all my fortune, and I am ruined by Russia. I am here at present without means and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really what to do in my actual very disgraceful mischief. I heard the people saying Your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably gracious. Thus I solicit and supplicate Your good very kind genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant request to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to respond me as soon as possible according to Your generous very philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty.'Your obedient servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Restaurateur.'
'3a, The Minories, E.
'Angel of God,
'I have the honour now to ask Your very kind humane merciful cordial nobility to assist me by Your clement philanthropical liberal relief in my veryhard troublesome sorrows and worries, on which I suffer violently. I lost all my fortune, and I am ruined by Russia. I am here at present without means and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really what to do in my actual very disgraceful mischief. I heard the people saying Your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably gracious. Thus I solicit and supplicate Your good very kind genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant request to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to respond me as soon as possible according to Your generous very philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty.
'Your obedient servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Restaurateur.'
Such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of Barstein's melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its cornucopia. 'It is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured, re-reading the letter with unction.
It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. He asked for details of Silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to the Russo-Jewish Fund, which existed to help such refugees from persecution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring Mansel Place?
Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors in Zionism, a pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the voluble little man now loomedsuddenly large as a possible authority upon his brother-dentist.
By return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the 'dictionary in distress.'
'3a, The Minories, E.'Most Honourable and Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,'I have the honour now to thank You for Your kind answer of my letter. I did not succeed here by my vital experience in the last of ten years. I got my livelihood a certain time by my dental practice so long there was not a hard violent competition, then I had never any efficacious relief, protection, then I have no relation, then we and the time are changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate position £4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had £15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had £30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection, no introduction, no recommendation for it. Poverty has very seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends. The people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes theimpossible competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility according to the universal good reputation of Your gracious goodness to reply me quick by some help now.'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Restaurateur.'
'3a, The Minories, E.
'Most Honourable and Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,
'I have the honour now to thank You for Your kind answer of my letter. I did not succeed here by my vital experience in the last of ten years. I got my livelihood a certain time by my dental practice so long there was not a hard violent competition, then I had never any efficacious relief, protection, then I have no relation, then we and the time are changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate position £4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had £15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had £30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection, no introduction, no recommendation for it. Poverty has very seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends. The people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes theimpossible competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility according to the universal good reputation of Your gracious goodness to reply me quick by some help now.
'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Restaurateur.'
This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation. Instead of being a victim of the Russian troubles, a recent refugee from massacre and robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London for ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by Russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. His ideas of his future seemed as hazy as his past. Four pounds would be a very present help; he could continue his London career. With fifteen pounds he was ready to start off anywhither. With thirty pounds he would end all his troubles in Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form, Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and repaired to the Minories. But he looked in vain for either a dentist or a restaurant at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence, trying to edge itself into the important street. At last, after wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby door. A frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said that the Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.
'What!' cried Barstein. 'Is he married?'
'I should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'He has eleven children at least.'
Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony. The family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back, which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silvermann had rushed thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded from it. But Mr. Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded, bewigged creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked curiously round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. But he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into a bedstead at night for half the family. But of a dentist's chair there was not even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-backed books—some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' He noted a Russo-German and a German-English. Then the sounds of frying penetrated more keenly to his brain.
'You are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired.
'Restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'Have I not enough cooking to do for my own family? And where shall I find money to keep a restaurant?'
'Your husband said——' murmured Barstein, as in guilty confusion.
A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile mob. From the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings. Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board. She placedit over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous.
'Where does your husband do his dentistry?' Barstein inquired, seating himself cautiously upon the board.
'Do I know?' said his wife. 'He goes out, he comes in.' At this moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in.
'Holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of Barstein's coat, and kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor, positively soaring heavenwards with rapture.
But Barstein inquired brutally: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'
'Never mind me,' replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 'Let me look on you!' And a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze.
But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'
The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no friends.'
The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the dictionarywashis fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze with large liquid eyes.
'But youhavemanaged to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed out.
'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once has He deserted me and my children.'
'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein.
The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes.
'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.
Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?'
'That is here.'
'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again.
'Where else? Here is a wide opening for akosherrestaurant. There are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around—poor young men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.'
'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'
'Naturally—a counsel that I have given myself.'
'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?'
Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.
'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!'
Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he wassoftened by noting how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands—they might well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?'
As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto Sicilian fashions were paralleled.
'I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' Nehemiah explained. 'But here is this great empty room. What am I to do with it? At night of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. Also I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a week from my friends in Russia and America, and one of which I even buy here. When I have read them these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given myself a counsel, if I would make here a reading-room they should come in the evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy to make them to eat and drink. First I will give to them only coffee and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all theDelicatessenof Poland. When our custom will become too large we shall take over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility——'
'But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted Barstein, alarmed.
'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,'said Nehemiah reassuringly. 'From you I ask nothing.'
'In that case,' replied Barstein drily, 'I must say I consider it an excellent plan. Your idea of building up from small foundations is most sensible—some of the young men may even have toothache—but I do not see where you need me—unless to supply a few papers.'
'Did I not say you were from heaven?' Nehemiah's eyes shone again. 'But I do not require the papers. It is enough for me that your holy feet have stood in my homestead. I thought you might send money. But to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able to tell I have spoken with him face to face!'
Barstein was touched. 'I think you will need a larger table for the reading-room,' he said.
The tall figure shook its tall hat. 'It is only gas that I need for my operations.'
'Gas!' repeated Barstein, astonished. 'Then you propose to continue your dentistry too.'
'It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated Nehemiah. 'Unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not come. But the penny gas is all I need.'
'Well, if it costs only a penny——' began Barstein.
'A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. 'But then there is the meter and the cost of the burners.' He calculated that four pounds would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all the homeless moths of the neighbourhood.
So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected with his first sense of solid foothold. After all Nehemiah had sustained his surprise visit fairlywell—he was obviously no Crœsus—and if four pounds would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the whole neighbourhood—
He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. It contained only three pounds ten. He rummaged his pockets for silver, finding only eight shillings.
'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he murmured.
'As if I couldn't trust you!' cried Nehemiah reproachfully, and as he lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw that he had no waistcoat.
About six months later, when Barstein had utterly forgotten the episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly recalled everything.
'To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor.'3a, The Minories, E.'Dear Sir,'I have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for Your grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable desperate necessitous need, wherein I am atpresent very poor indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical Russia, therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously, I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently £4 the same was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology, the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate Your charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to make me go away from here as soon as possible according to Your humane kind merciful clemency.'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
'To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor.
'To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor.
'3a, The Minories, E.
'Dear Sir,
'I have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for Your grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable desperate necessitous need, wherein I am atpresent very poor indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical Russia, therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously, I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently £4 the same was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology, the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate Your charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to make me go away from here as soon as possible according to Your humane kind merciful clemency.
'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant. Anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. Emigration appeared now the only salvation.
But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly Persia was meant. But why Persia? Wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in Persia? Nehemiah's original suggestion of Jerusalem had been much more intelligible. Perhaps it persisted still under the head of Turkey. Notleast characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious gloating over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.
For some days the sculptor went about weighed down by Nehemiah's misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the Minories. But he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell upon him.
'3a, The Minories, E.'I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about my decided and expecting departure. I must sue by my quite humble and very instant entreaty Your noble genteel cordial humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as possible according to Your clement magnanimous charitable mercy of £15 if not £25 among Your very estimable and respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another country even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. The great competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations, no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no good connecting acquaintance, in Russia I am ruined and I perish here, I am already desperate and despond entirely. I do not know what to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual urgent, extreme immense need. I am told by good many people, that the board of guardians is very seldom torescue by aid the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, and in the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and he is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit considerably Your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as possible quick according to Your very gracious mercy.'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
'3a, The Minories, E.
'I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about my decided and expecting departure. I must sue by my quite humble and very instant entreaty Your noble genteel cordial humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as possible according to Your clement magnanimous charitable mercy of £15 if not £25 among Your very estimable and respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another country even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. The great competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations, no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no good connecting acquaintance, in Russia I am ruined and I perish here, I am already desperate and despond entirely. I do not know what to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual urgent, extreme immense need. I am told by good many people, that the board of guardians is very seldom torescue by aid the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, and in the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and he is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit considerably Your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as possible quick according to Your very gracious mercy.
'Your obedient Servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein summoned a hansom and sped to the Minories.
Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the visitor. From chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.
But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss.
'Where is the gas?' he asked drily.
'Alas, the company removed the meter.'
'But the gas-brackets?'
'What else had we to eat?' said Nehemiah simply.
Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to theceiling. But a fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. He could not, however, recall whether the pipe had been there before or not.
'So the young men would not come?' he said.
'Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. Only they did not pay.'
'You should have made it a rule—cash down.'
Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and melancholy visage.
'And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where had those young men to turn but to me?'
Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. He hastened to change the conversation.
'And why do you want to go to Bursia?' he said.
'Why shall I want to go to Bursia?' Nehemiah replied.
'You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.
'Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. Always Sir Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to Russia.'
'He would,' said Barstein grimly. 'But where is Bursia?'
Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'Shall I know? My little Rebeccah was drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we lived two months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'
'Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'
'And do I not trust Him?' said Nehemiah fervently. 'Otherwise, burdened down as I am with a multitude of children——'
'You made your own burden,' Barstein could not help pointing out.
Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah hadcaught sight of feet of clay beneath Barstein's shining boots.
'"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' Nehemiah quoted in Hebrew. 'Is not that the very first commandment in the Bible?'
'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the sculptor evasively. 'I suppose you mean Palestine?'
'No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should ought to go, there to work for Palestine. Are not many of the Sultan's own officials Jews? If we can make ofthemhot-hearted Zionists——'
It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found himself sitting on the table to discuss it. The reverence with which Nehemiah listened to his views was touching and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror. Yet he could not suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of Zionism Nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe trembling on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of Palestine, and Barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity was repeated and re-enforced.
Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that Nehemiah himself would have scant opportunity of influential contact with Ottoman officials, and that the real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in Turkey. He mentioned the point.
Nehemiah waved it away. 'And cannot the Almighty support us in Turkey as well as in England?' he asked. 'Yes, even in Bursia itself the Guardian of Israel is not sleepy.'
It was then that the word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. He was an air-man, floating on facile wings through the æther. True, he spoke of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition. At worst they were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in common with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision. Never for a moment had Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had he lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely optimism in disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he, the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new child with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah lost his robustious faith in life, his belief in God, man, or himself.
Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was hisrespect for others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant humanity, by men become as Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he address one as 'Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his pole-stars. And what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible resilience! He had once been a dentist, and he still considered himself one. Before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the proprietor of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly between two gilded horizons. The superficial might call him shiftless, but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the art of living? Did he not incarnate the great Jewish gospel of the improvident lilies?
'You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a burst of artistic fervour. 'Thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small business here.'
Nehemiah stared at him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were distinctly audible.
Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest.
'But what business do you think you——?' he began.
'Shall I presume dictation to the angel?' asked Nehemiah with wet shining eyes.
'I am thinking that perhaps we might find somethingin which your children could help you. How old is the eldest?'
'I will ask my wife. Salome!' he cried. The dismal creature trotted in.
'How old is Moshelé?' he asked.
'And don't you remember he was twelve last Tabernacles?'
Nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'Merciful Heaven! He must soon begin to learn hisParshah(confirmation portion). What will it be? Where is myChumash(Pentateuch)?' Mrs. Silvermann drew it down from the row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future.
Barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'What business do you think your husband could set up here?'
'Is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply.
Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.
'Would you like to be a dentist again?'
'Ah, but how shall I find achers?'
'You put up a sign,' said Barstein. 'One of those cases of teeth. I daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door, especially if you take an extra room. I will buy you the instruments, furnish the room attractively. You will put in your newspapers—why, people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling.
Nehemiah addressed his wife. 'Did I not say he was a genteel archangel?' he cried ecstatically.
Barstein was sitting outside a café in Rome sipping vermouth with Rozenoffski, the Russo-Jewish pianist, and Schneemann the Galician-Jewish painter, when he next heard from Nehemiah.
He was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. So when the man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand. But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and recalled the forgottenLuftmensch. He threw the letter impatiently on the table.
'Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding.
'I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here, in this classical atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with the gaunt godly Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for the ne'er-do-well! Let his Providence look after him!
'Is she beautiful?' quizzed Schneemann.
Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was broken up. Nehemiah as a petticoated romance was too tickling.
'You shall read the letter,' he said.
Schneemann protested comically. 'No, no, that would be ungentlemanly—you read to us what the angel says.'
'It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he tore open the letter. He read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter at each eruption ofadjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.' Rozenoffski and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked with the mad foreigners.
'3a, The Minories, E.'Right Honourable Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent position in which I have no earn by my dental practice likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.'Your obedient servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
'3a, The Minories, E.
'Right Honourable Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,
'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent position in which I have no earn by my dental practice likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.
'Your obedient servant respectfully,'Nehemiah Silvermann,'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'
But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's comment was unexpected.
'Rosh Hashanahso near?' he said.
A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to work out the date of the Jewish New Year, that solemn period of earthly trumpets and celestial judgments.
'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski suddenly. The trio looked at one another with rueful humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily decreeing their life-or-death sentences!
Barstein raised his glass. 'Here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said.
The three men clinked glasses.
Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.
'Send that to the poor devil,' he said.
'Oho!' laughed Schneemann. 'You still believe "Charity delivers from death!" Well, I must be saved too!' And he threw down another hundred-lire note.
To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if an old superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann's laughter as behind Rozenoffski's donation.
'You will only make theLuftmenschbelieve still more obstinately in his Providence,' he said, as he gathered up the New Year gifts. 'Again will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!'
'Well, hasn't he?' laughed Schneemann.
'Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. 'Qui sa?'
When Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the match, always excepting Sugarman theShadchan(whom love matches shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered Fanny flighty and fond of finery).
'That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.
'He who marries Fannyisrich,' retorted Elias.
'"Pawn your hide, but get a bride,"' quoted the old lady savagely.
As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a relative.
'But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias protested.
'A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,' replied Sugarman indignantly.
But Elias was quite content with his own arrangement, for Fanny's glance was melting and her touch transporting. To deck that soft warm hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. It lit up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch, bent over hispress-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's badinage.
The course of true love seemed to run straight to the Canopy—Fanny had already worked the bridegroom's praying shawl—when suddenly a storm broke. At first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand—in fact, it was a man's hand. Elias espied it groping for Fanny's in the dim space between the two machines. As Fanny's fingers fluttered towards it, her other hand still guiding the cloth under the throbbing needle, Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, through and through. The very finger that held his costly ring lay in this alien paw gratis.
The shameless minx! Ah, his relatives were right. He snapped the scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw.
'Fanny, what dost thou?' he gasped in Yiddish.
Fanny's face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back.
'I thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed.
Elias snorted incredulously.
As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the engagement he flew to Elias, his blue bandanna streaming from his coat-tail.
'If you had come to me,' he crowed, 'I should have found you a more reliable article. However, Heaven has given you a second helping. A well-built wage-earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's daughter even.'
'I never wish to look upon a woman again,' Elias groaned.
'Schtuss!' said the great marriage-broker. 'Three days after the Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of Tabernacles. The Almighty, blessed be He, who created both light and darkness, has made obedientfemales as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' And he blew his nose emphatically into his bandanna.
'Yes; but she won't return me my ring,' Elias lamented.
'What!' Sugarman gasped. 'Then she considers herself still engaged to you.'
'Not at all. She laughs in my face.'
'And she has given you back your promise?'
'My promise—yes. The ring—no.'
'But on what ground?'
'She says I gave it to her.'
Sugarman clucked his tongue. 'Tututu! Better if we had followed our old custom, and the man had worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!'
'In the workshop,' Elias went on miserably, 'she flashes it in my eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh, the Jezebel!'
'I should summons her!'
'It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave her the ring?'
Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience was at fault. No maiden had ever refused to return his client's ring; rather had she flung it in the wooer's false teeth.
'This comes of your love matches!' he cried sternly. 'Next time there must be a proper contract.'
'Next time!' repeated Elias. 'Why how am I to afford a new ring? Fanny was ruinous in cups of chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre!'
'I should want my fee down!' said Sugarman sharply.
Elias shrugged his shoulders. 'If you bring me the ring.'
'I do not get old rings but new maidens,' Sugarman reminded him haughtily. 'However, as you are a customer——' and crying 'Five per cent. on the greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere Elias had time to dissent from the bargain.
Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts, Sugarman ploughed his way up the dark staircase to their room. His attire was wasted on the family, for Fanny herself opened the door.
'Peace to you,' he cried. 'I have come on behalf of Elias Goldenberg.'
'It is useless. I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried hastily.
Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The diamond glittered mockingly on it. Then she turned away giggling. 'But look at this photograph!' panted Sugarman desperately through the closing door.
Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She stared at the sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger.
'Four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter at S. Cohn's,' said Sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 'A good old English family; Benjamin Beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into Elias's shoes.'
'His feet are too large!' And she flicked the photograph floorwards with her bediamonded finger.
'But why waste the engagement-ring?' pleaded Sugarman, stooping to pick up the suitor.
'What an idea! A new man, a new ring!' And Fanny slammed the door.
'Impudence-face! Would you become a jewellery shop?' the baffledShadchanshrieked through the woodwork.
He returned to Elias, brooding darkly.
'Well?' queried Elias.
'O, your love matches!' And Sugarman shook them away with shuddersome palms.
'Then she won't——'
'No, she won't. Ah, how blessed you are to escape from that daughter of Satan! The greengrocer's daughter now——'
'Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.'
'I will get you one on the hire system.'
'A maiden?'
'Guard your tongue! A ring, of course.'
Elias shook an obdurate head. 'No. I must have the old ring back.'
'That is impossible—unless you marry her to get it back. Stay! Why should I not arrange that for you?'
'Leave me in peace! Heaven has opened my eyes.'
'Then see how economical she is!' urged Sugarman. 'A maiden who sticks to a ring like that is not likely to be wasteful of your substance.'
'You have not seen her swallow "stuffed monkeys,"' said Elias grimly. 'Make an end! I have done with her.'
'No, you have not! You can still give yourself a counsel.' And Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 'You may yet get back the ring.'
'How?'
'Of course, I have the next disposal of it?' said Sugarman.
'Yes, yes. Go on.'
'To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving glances all day long when she's not looking. When she catches you——'
'But she won't be looking!'
'Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you must blush.'
'But I can't blush at will,' Elias protested.
'I know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will be easier for you.'
'But why shall I look foolish?'
'To make her think you are in love with her after all.'
'I should look foolish if I were.'
'Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves the workshop in the evening follow her, and as she passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her if she will not eat a "stuffed monkey" for the sake of peace-be-upon-him times.'
'But she won't.'
'Why not? She is still in love.'
'With stuffed monkeys,' said Elias cynically.
'With you, too.'
Elias blushed quite easily. 'How do you know?'
'I offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!'
'You—you offered——' Elias stuttered angrily.
'Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He continued: 'Now, when she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side, and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say "My treasure" or "My angel," or whatever nonsense you modern young men babble to yourmaidens—with the results you see!—and while she is drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a sudden tug, and off comes the ring!'
Elias gazed at him in admiration. 'You are as crafty as Jacob, our father.'
'Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied Sugarman modestly. 'Be careful to seize the left hand.'
The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter.
Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually whenever his sheep's-eyes met Fanny's. He was so surprised to find his face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain.
They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to summon up courage for the final feint. He would get a good grip on the ring finger. The tug-of-war should be brief.
Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each other's eyes.
'The good-for-nothing!' thought Elias hotly. 'She will make the same eyes at the next man.'
And he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey' increasing his nervous tension. Her white teeth, biting recklessly into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery palled at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed, chattering with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew up even with her.
They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley, lit by one dull gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the critical moment. He felt like a footpad. Hither and thither he peered—nobodywas about. But—was he on the right side of her? 'The right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew her right hand from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of the diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon it.
But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. Fool that he had been to doubt that dear hand! And it was wearing his ring still—she could not part with it! O blundering male ingrate!
'My treasure! My angel!' he murmured ecstatically.