They all jumbled themselves into grotesque combinations, the things of to-day and the things of endless yesterdays, as Esther slept in the narrow little bed next to Dutch Debby, who squeezed herself into the wall, pretending to revel in exuberant spaciousness. It was long before she could get to sleep. The excitement of the day had brought on her headache; she was depressed by restriking the courses of so many narrow lives; the glow of her new-found mission had already faded in the thought that she was herself a pauper, and she wished she had let the dead past lie in its halo, not peered into the crude face of reality. But at bottom she felt a subtle melancholy joy in understanding herself at last, despite Hannah's scepticism, in penetrating the secret of her pessimism, in knowing herself a Child of the Ghetto.
And yet Pesach Weingott played the fiddle merrily enough when she went to Becky's engagement-party in her dreams, and galloped with Shosshi Shmendrik, disregarding the terrible eyes of the bride to be; when Hannah, wearing an aureole like a bridal veil, paired off with Meckish, frothing at the mouth with soap, and Mrs. Belcovitch, whirling a medicine-bottle, went down the middle on a pair of huge stilts, one a thick one and one a thin one, while Malka spun round like a teetotum, throwing Ezekiel in long-clothes through a hoop! what time Moses Ansell waltzed superbly with the dazzling Addie Leon, quite cutting out Levi and Miriam Hyams, and Raphael awkwardly twisted the Widow Finkelstein to the evident delight of Sugarman the Shadchan, who had effected the introduction. It was wonderful how agile they all were, and how dexterously they avoided treadingon her brother Benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great novel, while Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stooped down to pat his brown hair patronisingly.
Esther thought it very proper of the gratefulGreenersto go about offering the dancers rum from Dutch Debby's tea-kettle, and very selfish of Sidney to stand in a corner refusing to join in the dance and making cynical remarks about the whole thing for the amusement of the earnest little figure she had met on the stairs.
Esther woke early, little refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should arouse Debby. To open one's eyes on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. Esther felt this disagreeable duty could no longer be shirked. Malka's words rang in her ears. How, indeed, could she earn a living? Literature had failed her; with journalism she had no point of contact save theFlag of Judah, and that journal was out of the question. Teaching—the last resort of the hopeless—alone remained. Maybe even in the Ghetto there were parents who wanted their children to learn the piano; and who would find Esther's mediocre digital ability good enough. She might teach as of old in an elementary school. But she would not go back to her own—all the human nature in her revolted at the thought of exposing herself to the sympathy of her former colleagues. Nothing was to be gained by lying sleepless in bed, gazing at the discoloured wall-paper and the forlorn furniture. She slipped out gently and dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. It was not easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. Her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. When Debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in bed—an unprecedented luxury which she received with infinite consternation and pleasure.
'Why, it's like the duchesses who have lady's-maids,' she said, 'and read French novels before getting up.' To complete the picture, her hand dived underneath the bed and extracted aLondon Journalat the risk of upsetting the tea. 'But it's you who ought to be in bed, not me.'
'I've been a sluggard too often,' laughed Esther, catching the contagion of good spirits from Debby's radiant delight. Perhaps the capacity for simple pleasures would come back to her, too.
At breakfast they discussed the situation.
'I'm afraid the bed's too small,' said Esther, when Debby kindly suggested a continuance of hospitality.
'Perhaps I took up too much room,' said the hostess.
'No, dear; you took up too little. We should have to have a wider bed, and, as it is, the bed is almost as big as the room.'
'There's the back-garret overhead! It's bigger, and it looks on the back-yard just as well. I wouldn't mind moving there,' said Debby, 'though I wouldn't let old Guggenheim know that I value the view of the back-yard, or else he'd raise the rent.'
'You forget theGreenerswho moved in yesterday.'
'Oh, so I do!' answered Debby, with a sigh.
'Strange,' said Esther musingly, 'that I should have shut myself out of my own home.'
The postman's knuckles rapping at the door interrupted her reflections. In Royal Street the poor postmen had to mount to each room separately; fortunately the tenants got few letters. Debby was intensely surprised to get one.
'It isn't for me at all,' she cried at last, after a protracted examination of the envelope; 'it's for you, care of me.'
'But that's stranger still,' said Esther. 'Nobody in the world knows my address.'
The mystery was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded herthat it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called. She betook herself to their office, walking. The day was bright, but Esther walked in gloom, scarcely daring to think of her position. She entered the office, apathetically hopeless. The junior partner welcomed her heartily.
'I suppose you've come about your account,' he said. 'I have been intending to send it you for some months, but we are so busy bringing out new things before the dead summer season comes on.' He consulted his books. 'Perhaps you would rather not be bothered,' he said, 'with a formal statement. I have it all clearly here—the book's been doing fairly well—let me write you a cheque at once!'
She murmured assent, her cheeks blanching, her heart throbbing with excitement and surprise.
'There you are—sixty-two pounds ten,' he said. 'Our profits are just one hundred and twenty-five. If you'll endorse it, I'll send a clerk to the bank round the corner and get it cashed for you at once.'
The pen scrawled an agitated autograph that would not have been accepted at the foot of a cheque, if Esther had had a banking account of her own.
'But I thought you said the book was a failure,' she said.
'So it was,' he answered cheerfully, 'so it was at first. But gradually, as its nature leaked out, the demand increased. I understand from Mudie's that it was greatly asked for by their Jewish clients. You see, when there's a run on a three-volume book, the profits are pretty fair. I believed in it myself, or I should never have given you such good terms nor printed five hundred copies. I shouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves able to bring it out in one-volume form in the autumn. We shall always be happy to consider any further work of yours; something on the same lines I should recommend.'
The recommendation did not convey any definite meaning to her at the moment. Still in a pleasant haze, she stuffed the twelve five-pound notes and the three gold-pieces into her purse, scribbled a receipt, and departed.Afterwards the recommendation rang mockingly in her ears. She felt herself sterile, written out already. As for writing again on the same lines, she wondered what Raphael would think if he knew of the profits she had reaped by bespattering his people. But there! Raphael was a prig like the rest. It was no use worrying abouthisopinions. Affluence had come to her—that was the one important and exhilarating fact. Besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed her book? A new wave of emotion swept over her—again she felt strong enough to defy the whole world.
When she got 'home,' Debby said, 'Hannah Jacobs called to see you.'
'Oh, indeed; what did she want?'
'I don't know, but from something she said I believe I can guess who sent the half-sovereign.'
'Not Reb Shemuel?' said Esther, astonished.
'No, your cousin Malka. It seems that she saw Hannah leaving Zachariah Square with you, and so went to her house last night to get your address.'
Esther did not know whether to laugh or to be angry; she compromised by crying. People were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to her. It was only a little April shower of tears, and soon she was smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to theGreeners. It would have been ungracious to return it to Malka, and she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually obtainable only by professional almoners.
Then she told Debby of her luck with the publishers. Profound was Debby's awe at the revelation that Esther was able to write stories equal to those in theLondon Journal. After that Debby gave up the idea of Esther living or sleeping with her; she would as soon have thought of offering a share of her bed to the authoresses of the tales under it. Debby suffered scarce any pang when her one-night companion transferred herself to Reb Shemuel's.
For it was to suggest this that Hannah had called. The idea was her father's; it came to him when she told him ofEsther's strange position. But Esther said she was going to America forthwith, and she only consented on condition of being allowed to pay for her keep during her stay. The haggling was hard, but Esther won. Hannah gave up her room to Esther, and removed her own belongings to Levi's bedroom, which, except at Festival seasons, had been unused for years, though the bed was always kept ready for him. Latterly the women had had to make the bed from time to time, and air the room, when Reb Shemuel was at synagogue. Esther sent her new address to her brothers and sisters, and made inquiries as to the prospects of educated girls in the States. In reply she learnt that Rachel was engaged to be married. Her correspondents were too taken up with this gigantic fact to pay satisfactory attention to her inquiries. The old sense of protecting motherhood came back to Esther when she learnt the news. Rachel was only eighteen, but at once Esther felt middle-aged. It seemed of the fitness of things that she should go to America and resume her interrupted maternal duties. Isaac and Sarah were still little more than children, perhaps they had not yet ceased bickering about their birthdays. She knew her little ones would jump for joy, and Isaac still volunteer sleeping accommodation in his new bed, even though the necessity for it had ceased. She cried when she received the cutting from the American Jewish paper; under other circumstances she would have laughed. It was one of a batch headed 'Personals,' and ran: 'Sam Wiseberg, the handsome young drummer of Cincinnati, has become engaged to Rachel Ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old typewriter and daughter of Moses Ansell, a well-known Chicago Hebrew. Life's sweetest blessings on the pair! The marriage will take place in the Fall.' Esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. It is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark. There was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage; nay, her arrival just in time for it would clinch the festivities. Meantime she attached herself to Hannah's charitable leading-strings, alternately attracted to the Children of the Ghetto by their misery,and repulsed by their failings. She seemed to see them now in their true perspective, correcting the vivid impressions of childhood by the insight born of wider knowledge of life. The accretion of pagan superstition was greater than she had recollected. Mothers averted fever by a murmured charm and an expectoration, children in new raiment carried bits of coal or salt in their pockets to ward off the evil-eye. On the other hand, there was more resourcefulness, more pride of independence. Her knowledge of Moses Ansell had misled her into too sweeping a generalisation. And she was surprised to realise afresh how much illogical happiness flourished amid penury, ugliness, and pain. After school-hours the muggy air vibrated with the joyous laughter of little children, tossing their shuttlecocks, spinning their tops, turning their skipping-ropes, dancing to barrel-organs or circling hand-in-hand in rings to the sound of the merry traditional chants of childhood. Esther often purchased a pennyworth of exquisite pleasure by enriching some sad-eyed urchin. Hannah (whose own scanty surplus was fortunately augmented by an anonymous West-End Reform Jew who employed her as his agent) had no prepossessions to correct; no pendulum-oscillations to distract her, no sentimental illusions to sustain her. She knew the Ghetto as it was; neither expected gratitude from the poor, nor feared she might 'pauperise them,' knowing that the poor Jew never exchanges his self-respect for respect for his benefactor, but takes by way of rightful supplement to his income. She did not drive families into trickery, like the ladies of the West, by being horrified to find them eating meat. If she presided at a stall at a charitable sale of clothing, she was not disheartened if articles were snatched from under her hand, nor did she refuse loans because borrowers sometimes merely used them to evade the tallyman by getting their jewellery at cash prices. She not only gave alms to the poor, but made them givers, organising their own farthings into a powerful auxiliary of the institutions which helped them. Hannah's sweet patience soothed Esther, who had no natural aptitude for personal philanthropy; the primitive ordered pieties ofthe Reb's household helping to give her calm. Though she accepted the inevitable and had laughed in melancholy mockery at the exaggerated importance given to love by the novelists (including her cruder self), she dreaded meeting Raphael Leon. It was very unlikely her whereabouts would penetrate to the West; and she rarely went outside the Ghetto by day, or even walked within it in the evening. In the twilight, unless prostrated by headache, she played on Hannah's disused old-fashioned grand piano. It had one cracked note which nearly always spoiled the melody; she would not have the note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic analogy between the instrument and herself. On Friday nights after the Sabbath-hymns she read theFlag of Judah. She was not surprised to find Reb Shemuel beginning to look askance at his favourite paper. She noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of Judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by spasm of popular Christianity. Once Kingsley's line, 'Do noble things, not dream them all day long,' was put forth as 'JudaismversusChristianity in a nutshell' and the writer added, 'for so thy dreams shall become noble, too.' Sometimes she fancied phrases and lines of argument were aimed at her. Was it the editor's way of keeping in touch with her, using his leaders as a medium of communication—a subtly sweet secret known only to him and her? Was it fair to his readers? Then she would remember his joke about the paper being started merely to convert her, and she would laugh. Sometimes he repeated what he had already said to her privately, so that she seemed to hear him talking.
Then she would shake her head, and say, 'I love you for your blindness, but I have the terrible gift of vision.'
Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's newest seaside resort had the artistic charm which characterised everything she selected. It was a straggling, hilly, leafy village, full of archaic relics—human as well as architectural—sloping down to a gracefully curved bay, where the blue waves broke in whispers, for on summer days a halcyon calm overhung this magic spot, and the great sea stretched away, unwrinkled, ever young. There were no neutral tones in the colours of this divine picture—the sea was sapphire, the sky amethyst. There were dark red houses nestling amid foliage, and green-haired monsters of grey stone squatted about on the yellow sand, which was strewn with quaint shells and mimic earth-worms, cunningly wrought by the waves. Half a mile to the east a blue river rippled into the bay. The white bathing-tents which Mrs. Goldsmith had pitched stood out picturesquely, in harmonious contrast with the rich boscage that began to climb the hills in the background.
Mrs. Goldsmith's party lived in the manse; it was pretty numerous, and gradually overflowed into the bedrooms of the neighbouring cottages. Mr. Goldsmith only came down on Saturday, returning on Monday. One Friday Mr. Percy Saville, who had been staying for the week, left suddenly for London, and next day the beautiful hostess poured into her husband's projecting ears a tale that made him gnash his projecting teeth, and cut the handsome stockbroker off his visiting-list for ever. It was only an indiscreet word that the susceptible stockbroker had spoken—under the poetic influences of the scene. His bedroom came in handy for Sidney, unexpectedly dropped down from Norway,viâLondon, on the very Friday. The poetic influences of the scene soon infected thenewcomer, too. On the Saturday he was lost for hours, and came up smiling, with Addie on his arm. On the Sunday afternoon the party went boating up the river—a picturesque medley of flannels and parasols. Once landed, Sidney and Addie did not return for tea, prior to re-embarking. While Mr. Montagu Samuels was gallantly handing round the sugar, they were sitting somewhere along the bank, half covered with leaves like babes in the wood. The sunset burnt behind the willows—a fiery rhapsody of crimson and orange. The gay laughter of the picnic-party just reached their ears, otherwise an almost solemn calm prevailed—not a bird twittered, not a leaf stirred.
'It'll be all over London to-morrow,' said Sidney in a despondent tone.
'I'm afraid so,' said Addie, with a delicious laugh.
The sweet English meadows over which her humid eyes wandered were studded with simple wild-flowers. Addie vaguely felt the angels had planted such in Eden. Sidney could not take his eyes off his terrestrial angel clad in appropriate white. Confessed love had given the last touch to her intoxicating beauty. She gratified his artistic sense almost completely. But she seemed to satisfy deeper instincts, too. As he looked into her limpid, trustful eyes, he felt he had been a weak fool. An irresistible yearning to tell her all his past and crave forgiveness swept over him.
'Addie,' he said, 'isn't it funny I should be marrying a Jewish girl, after all?'
He wanted to work round to it like that, to tell her of his engagement to Miss Hannibal at least, and how, on discovering with whom he was really in love, he had got out of it simply by writing to the Wesleyan M.P. that he was a Jew—a fact sufficient to disgust the disciple of Dissent and the clamant champion of religious liberty. But Addie only smiled at the question.
'You smile,' he said: 'I see you do think it funny.'
'That's not why I am smiling.'
'Then why are you smiling?' The lovely face piqued him; he kissed the lips quickly with a bird-like peck.
'Oh—I—no, you wouldn't understand.'
'That meansyoudon't understand. But there! I suppose, when a girl is in love, she's not accountable for her expression. All the same, it is strange. You know, Addie dear, I have come to the conclusion that Judaism exercises a strange centrifugal and centripetal effect on its sons—sometimes it repulses them, sometimes it draws them; only it never leaves them neutral. Now, here had I deliberately made up my mind not to marry a Jewess.'
'Oh! Why not?' said Addie, pouting.
'Merely because she would be a Jewess. It's a fact.'
'And why have you broken your resolution?' she said, looking up naïvely into his face, so that the scent of her hair thrilled him.
'I don't know,' he said frankly, scarcely giving the answer to be expected. 'C'est plus fort que moi.I've struggled hard, but I'm beaten. Isn't there something of the kind in Esther—in Miss Ansell's book? I know I've read it somewhere—and anything that's beastly subtle I always connect with her.'
'Poor Esther!' murmured Addie.
Sidney patted her soft warm hand, and smoothed the finely-curved arm, and did not seem disposed to let the shadow of Esther mar the moment, though he would ever remain grateful to her for the hint which had simultaneously opened his eyes to Addie's affection for him, and to his own answering affection so imperceptibly grown up. The river glided on softly, glorified by the sunset.
'It makes one believe in a dogged destiny,' he grumbled, 'shaping the ends of the race, and keeping it together, despite all human volition. To think that I should be doomed to fall in love, not only with a Jewess, but with a pious Jewess! But clever men always fall in love with conventional women. I wonder what makes you so conventional, Addie.'
Addie, still smiling, pressed his hand in silence, and gazed at him in fond admiration.
'Ah, well, since you are so conventional, you may as well kiss me.'
Addie's blush deepened, her eyes sparkled ere shelowered them, and subtly fascinating waves of expression passed across the lovely face.
'They'll be wondering what on earth has become of us,' she said.
'It shall be nothing on earth—something in heaven,' he answered. 'Kiss me, or I shall call you unconventional.'
She touched his cheek hurriedly with her soft lips.
'A very crude and amateur kiss,' he said critically. 'However, after all, I have an excuse for marrying you—which all clever Jews who marry conventional Jewesses haven't got—you're a fine model. That is another of the many advantages of my profession. I suppose you'll be a model wife, in the ordinary sense, too. Do you know, my darling, I begin to understand that I could not love you so much if you were not so religious, if you were not so curiously like a Festival Prayer-Book, with gilt edges and a beautiful binding.'
'Ah, I am so glad, dear, to hear you say that,' said Addie, with the faintest suspicion of implied past disapproval.
'Yes,' he said musingly; 'it adds the last artistic touch to your relation to me.'
'But you will reform!' said Addie, with girlish confidence.
'Do you think so? I might commence by becoming a vegetarian—that would prevent me eating forbidden flesh. Have I ever told you my idea that vegetarianism is the first step in a great secret conspiracy for gradually converting the world to Judaism? But I'm afraid I can't be caught as easily as the Gentiles, Addie dear. You see, a Jewish sceptic beats all others.Corruptio optimi pessima, probably. Perhaps you would like me to marry in a synagogue?'
'Why, of course! Where else?'
'Heavens!' said Sidney, in comic despair. 'I feared it would come to that. I shall become a pillar of the synagogue when I am married, I suppose.'
'Well, you'll have to take a seat,' said Addie seriously, 'because otherwise you can't get buried.'
'Gracious, what ghoulish thoughts for an embryo bride! Personally, I have no objection to haunting the Council of the United Synagogue till they give me a decently comfortable grave. But I see what it will be! I shall be whitewashed by the Jewish press, eulogised by platform orators as a shining light in Israel, the brilliant impressionist painter, and all that. I shall pay my synagogue bill and never go. In short, I shall be converted to Philistinism, and die in the odour of respectability. And Judaism will continue to flourish. Oh, Addie, Addie, if I had thought of all that, I should never have asked you to be my wife.'
'I am glad you didn't think of it,' laughed Addie ingenuously.
'There! You never will take me seriously!' he grumbled. 'Nobody ever takes me seriously—I suppose because I speak the truth. The only time you ever took me seriously in my life was a few minutes ago. So you actually think I'm going to submit to the benedictions of a Rabbi.'
'You must,' said Addie.
'I'm blest if I do,' he said.
'Of course you will,' said Addie, laughing merrily.
'Thanks—I'm glad you appreciate my joke. You perhaps fancy it's yours. However, I'm in earnest. I won't be a respectable high-hatted member of the community—not even for your sake, dear. Why, I might as well go back to my ugly real name, Samuel Abrahams, at once.'
'So you might, dear,' said Addie boldly; and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity.
'Ah, well, I think it'll be quite enough ifyouchange your name,' he said, smiling back.
'It's just as easy for me to change it to Abrahams as to Graham,' she said with charming obstinacy.
He contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. Then he looked up at the sky—the brilliant colour harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence.
'I'll tell you what I will do. I'll join the Asmoneans. There! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices.But you must make a concession to mine. You know how I hate the Jewish canvassing of engagements. Let us keep ours entirelyentre nousa fortnight—so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. I wonder why you're so conventional,' he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. 'You had the advantage of Esther—of Miss Ansell's society.'
'Call her Esther if you like;Idon't mind,' said Addie.
'I wonder Esther didn't convert you,' he went on musingly. 'But I suppose you had Raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. And so you really don't know what's become of her?'
'Nothing beyond what I wrote to you. Mrs. Goldsmith discovered she had written the nasty book, and sent her packing. I have never liked to broach the subject myself to Mrs. Goldsmith, knowing how unpleasant it must be to her. Raphael's version is that Esther went away of her own accord; but I can't see what grounds he has for judging.'
'I would rather trust Raphael's version,' said Sidney, with an adumbration of a wink in his left eyelid. 'But didn't you look for her?'
'Where? If she's in London, she's swallowed up. If she's gone to another place, it's still more difficult to find her.'
'There's the Agony Column!'
'If Esther wanted us to know her address, what can prevent her sending it?' asked Addie with dignity.
'I'd find her soon enough, if I wanted to,' murmured Sidney.
'Yes; but I'm not sure we want to. After all, she cannot be so nice as I thought. She certainly behaved very ungratefully to Mrs. Goldsmith. You see what comes of wild opinions.'
'Addie! Addie!' said Sidney reproachfully, 'howcanyou be so conventional?'
'I'mnotconventional,' protested Addie, provoked at last. 'I always liked Esther very much. Even now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have herfor a bridesmaid. But I can't help feeling she deceived us all.'
'Stuff and nonsense!' said Sidney warmly. 'An author has a right to be anonymous. Don't you think I'd paint anonymously if I dared? Only, if I didn't put my name to my things, no one would buy them. That's another of the advantages of my profession. Once make your name as an artist, and you can get a colossal income by giving up art.'
'It was a vulgar book!' persisted Addie, sticking to the point.
'Fiddlesticks! It was an artistic book—bungled.'
'Oh, well!' said Addie, as the tears welled from her eyes, 'if you're so fond of unconventional girls, you'd better marry them.'
'I would,' said Sidney, 'but for the absurd restriction against polygamy.'
Addie got up with an indignant jerk. 'You think I'm a child to be played with!'
She turned her back upon him. His face changed instantly; he stood still a moment, admiring the magnificent pose. Then he recaptured her reluctant hand.
'Don't be jealous already, Addie,' he said. 'It's a healthy sign of affection, is a storm-cloud; but don't you think it's just a wee, tiny, weeny bit too previous?'
A pressure of the hand accompanied each of the little adjectives. Addie sat down again, feeling deliciously happy. She seemed to be lapped in a great drowsy ecstasy of bliss.
The sunset was fading into sombre greys before Sidney broke the silence; then his train of thought revealed itself.
'If you're so down on Esther, I wonder how you can put up with me! How is it?'
Addie did not hear the question.
'You think I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy,' he insisted. 'Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?'
'I'm sure tea must be over long ago,' said Addie anxiously.
'Answer me,' said Sidney inexorably.
'Don't bother. Aren't they cooeying for us?'
'Answer me.'
'I do believe that was a water-rat. Look! the water is still eddying.'
'I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy. Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?'
'You are there, too,' she breathed at last, and then Sidney forgot her beauty for an instant, and lost himself in unaccustomed humility. It seemed passing wonderful to him—that he should be the deity of such a spotless shrine. Could any man deserve the trust of this celestial soul?
Suddenly the thought that he had not told her about Miss Hannibal, after all, gave him a chilling shock. But he rallied quickly. Was it really worth while to trouble the clear depths of her spirit with his turbid past? No; wiser to inhale the odour of the rose at her bosom, sweeter to surrender himself to the intoxicating perfume of her personality, to the magic of a moment that must fade like the sunset, already grown grey.
So Addie never knew.
On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. He was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiences of theFlag of Judahin the matter of news, his organisation for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of Little Sampson. Fortunately to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of theFlaginto mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the opposition paper.
The arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison.
'Ah, Strelitski!' cried Raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. 'What an age it is since I've seen you!' He shook the black-gloved hand of the fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden recollection. 'I suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion class?' he said; 'but Ihavebeen so busy. My conscience has kept up a dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. You're such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the sensation, and even I can't understand why one submits to this undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one to. But I suppose it's human nature.' He puffed at his pipe in humorous sadness.
'I suppose it is,' said Strelitski wearily.
'But of course I'll come. You know that, my dear fellow. When my conscience was noisy, theadvocatusdiaboliused to silence it by saying, "Oh, Strelitski'll take it for granted." You can never catch theadvocatus diaboliasleep,' concluded Raphael, laughing.
'No,' assented Strelitski. But he did not laugh.
'Oh!' said Raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing long. 'Perhaps the prize-distribution is over?'
Strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really occurred to Raphael that he might have missed the great event. But before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an event that made 'copy,' and Little Sampson would have arranged with him as to the reporting thereof.
'No; it's Sunday week. But I didn't come to talk about my religion class at all,' he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. 'I came to ask if you know anything about Miss Ansell.'
Raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly:
'How should I know anything about Miss Ansell?'
'I thought you would,' said Strelitski, without much disappointment in his tone.
'Why?'
'Wasn't she your art-critic?'
'Who told you that?'
'Mrs. Henry Goldsmith.'
'Oh!' said Raphael.
'I thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as I was passing, I thought I'd drop in and inquire. Hasn't anything been heard of her? Where is she? Perhaps one could help her.'
'I'm sorry, I really know nothing, nothing at all,' said Raphael gravely. 'I wish I did. Is there any particular reason why you want to know?'
As he spoke a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into his head. He had been looking the whole time at Strelitski's face with his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. Now, as in a suddenflash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. The eyes were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there was a streak or two of grey easily visible against the intense sable. What change had come over him? Why this new-born interest in Esther? Raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with distress at Strelitski's discomposure.
'No; I don't know that there is anyparticularreason why I want to know,' answered his friend slowly. 'She was a member of my congregation. I always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge that she was the author of that sensational novel. I think it was cruel of Mrs. Henry Goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the effervescence of genius.'
'Who told you Mrs. Henry Goldsmith turned her adrift?' asked Raphael hotly.
'Mrs. Henry Goldsmith,' said Strelitski with a slight accent of wonder.
'Then it's a lie!' Raphael exclaimed, thrusting out his arms in intense agitation. 'A mean, cowardly lie! I shall never go to see that woman again, unless it is to let her know what I think of her.'
'Ah then, you do know something about Miss Ansell?' said Strelitski, with growing surprise. Raphael in a rage was a new experience. There were those who asserted that anger was not among his gifts.
'Nothing about her life since she left Mrs. Goldsmith; but I saw her before, and she told me it was her intention to cut herself adrift. Nobody knew about her authorship of the book; nobody would have known to this day if she had not chosen to reveal it.'
The minister was trembling.
'She cut herself adrift?' he repeated interrogatively. 'But why?'
'I will tell you,' said Raphael in low tones. 'I don't think it will be betraying her confidence to say that she found her position of dependence extremely irksome; it seemed to cripple her soul. Now I see what Mrs.Goldsmith is, I can understand better what life in her society meant for a girl like that.'
'And what has become of her?' asked the Russian. His face was agitated, the lips were almost white.
'I do not know,' said Raphael, almost in a whisper, his voice failing in a sudden upwelling of tumultuous feeling. The ever-whirling wheel of journalism—that modern realisation of the labour of Sisyphus—had carried him round and round without giving him even time to remember that time was flying. Day had slipped into week and week into month without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken.
'She is quite alone in the world, poor thing!' he said after a pause. 'She must be earning her own living, somehow. By journalism, perhaps. But she prefers to live her own life. I am afraid it will be a hard one.' His voice trembled again. The minister's breast, too, was labouring with emotion that checked his speech, but after a moment utterance came to him—a strange choked utterance, almost blasphemous from those clerical lips.
'By God!' he gasped. 'That little girl!'
He turned his back upon his friend and covered his face with his hands, and Raphael saw his shoulders quivering. Then his own vision grew dim. Conjecture, resentment, wonder, self-reproach, were lost in a new and absorbing sense of the pathos of the poor girl's position.
Presently the minister turned round, showing a face that made no pretence of calm.
'That was bravely done,' he said brokenly. 'To cut herself adrift! She will not sink; strength will be given her even as she gives others strength. If I could only see her and tell her! But she never liked me; she always distrusted me. I was a hollow windbag in her eyes—a thing of shams and cant—she shuddered to look at me. Was it not so? You are a friend of hers, you know what she felt.'
'I don't think it was you she disliked,' said Raphael in wondering pity. 'Only your office.'
'Then, by God, she was right!' cried the Russian hoarsely. 'It was this—this that made me the target of her scorn!' He tore off his white tie madly as he spoke, threw it on the ground, and trampled upon it. 'She and I were kindred in suffering; I read it in her eyes, averted as they were at the sight of this accursed thing! You stare at me—you think I have gone mad. Leon, you are not as other men. Can you not guess that this damnable white tie has been choking the life and manhood out of me? But it is over now. Take your pen, Leon, as you are my friend, and write what I shall dictate.'
Silenced by the stress of a great soul, half dazed by the strange, unexpected revelation, Raphael seated himself, took his pen, and wrote:
'We understand that the Rev. Joseph Strelitski has resigned his position in the Kensington Synagogue.'
Not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm his soul.
'But you will not do this?' he said, looking up almost incredulously at the popular minister.
'I will; the position has become impossible. Leon, do you not understand? I am not what I was when I took it. I have lived, and life is change. Stagnation is death. Surely you can understand, for you, too, have changed. Cannot I read between the lines of your leaders?'
'Cannot you read in them?' said Raphael, with a wan smile. 'I have modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but I have disguised none.'
'Not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought.'
'Perhaps I do not listen to it,' said Raphael, half to himself. 'But you—whatever your change—you have not lost faith in primaries?'
'No; not in what I consider such.'
'Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good? You are loved, venerated.'
Strelitski placed his palms over his ears.
'Don't! don't!' he cried. 'Don't you be theadvocatus diaboli! Do you think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times? Do you think I have not tried every kind of opiate? No, no; be silent, if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am I not weak enough already? Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—in six days I shall change a hundred times. Swear to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended. Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel it.'
'But——' began Raphael.
Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.
'My God!' he cried hoarsely. 'Leon, listen to me,' he said, turning round suddenly. 'Do you realise what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? Do you realise how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate, that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of theShulchan Aruch(a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres.' He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. 'How can Judaism—and it alone—escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognise, and it is, unfortunately, as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive—while they kill Judaism.'
'Oh, I can't quite admit that,' said Raphael. 'I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism. Purified—and your sermons are doing something to purify it—orthodoxy——'
'Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words,' interrupted Strelitski vehemently. 'Orthodoxyis inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern.'
'But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. Ceremony is the casket of religion.'
'More often its coffin,' said Strelitski dryly. 'Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in arigor mortis. It is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and Pharisees. All cast-iron laws and dogmas do. Not that I share the Christian sneer at Jewish legalism. Add the Statute Book to the New Testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the Christian. No; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy. The Mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it.'
'That is just the flaw of the modern world, to keep life and religion apart,' protested Raphael; 'to have one set of principles for week-days and another for Sundays; to grind the inexorable mechanism of supply and demand on pagan principles, and make it up out of the poor-box.'
Strelitski shook his head.
'We must make broad our platform, not our phylacteries. It is because I am with you in admiring the Rabbis that I would undo much of their work. Theirs was a wonderful statesmanship, and they built wiser than they knew; just as the patient labours of the superstitious zealots who counted every letter of the Law preserved the text unimpaired for the benefit of modern scholarship. The Rabbis constructed a casket, if you will, which kept the jewel safe, though at the cost of concealing its lustre. But the hour has come now to wear the jewel on our breasts before all the world. The Rabbis worked for their time—we must work for ours. Judaism was before the Rabbis. Scientific criticism shows its thoughts widening with the process of the suns—even as its God, Yahweh, broadened from a local patriotic Deity to the ineffable Name. For Judaism was worked out from within—Abraham asked, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"—the thunders of Sinai were but the righteous indignation of the developedmoral consciousness. In every age our great men have modified and developed Judaism. Why should it not be trimmed into concordance with the culture of the time? Especially when the alternative is death. Yes, death! We babble about petty minutiæ of ritual while Judaism is dying! We are like the crew of a sinking ship, holy-stoning the deck instead of being at the pumps. No, I must speak out; I cannot go on salving my conscience by unsigned letters to the press. Away with all this anonymous apostleship!'
He moved about restlessly with animated gestures, as he delivered his harangue at tornado speed, speech bursting from him like some dynamic energy which had been accumulating for years, and could no longer be kept in. It was an upheaval of the whole man under the stress of pent forces. Raphael was deeply moved. He scarcely knew how to act in this unique crisis. Dimly he foresaw the stir and pother there would be in the community. Conservative by instinct, apt to see the elements of good in attacked institutions—perhaps, too, a little timid when it came to take action in the tremendous realm of realities—he was loth to help Strelitski to so decisive a step, though his whole heart went out to him in brotherly sympathy.
'Do not act so hastily,' he pleaded. 'Things are not so black as you see them—you are almost as bad as Miss Ansell. Don't think that I see them rosy; I might have done that three months ago. But don't you—don't all idealists—overlook the quieter phenomena? Is orthodoxy either so inefficacious or so moribund as you fancy? Is there not a steady, perhaps semi-conscious, stream of healthy life, thousands of cheerful, well-ordered households of people neither perfect nor cultured, but more good than bad? You cannot expect saints and heroes to grow like blackberries.'
'Yes; but look what Jews set up to be—God's witnesses!' interrupted Strelitski. 'This mediocrity may pass in the rest of the world.'
'And does lack of modern lights constitute ignorance?' went on Raphael, disregarding the interruption. He began walking up and down, and thrashing the air with hisarms. Hitherto he had remained comparatively quiet, dominated by Strelitski's superior restlessness. 'I cannot help thinking there is a profound lesson in the Bible story of the oxen who, unguided, bore safely the Ark of the Covenant. Intellect obscures more than it illumines.'
'Oh, Leon, Leon, you'll turn Catholic soon!' said Strelitski reprovingly.
'Not with a capital C,' said Raphael, laughing a little. 'But I am so sick of hearing about culture, I say more than I mean. Judaism is so human—that's why I like it. No abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of living the common life, sanctified by the centuries. Culture is all very well—doesn't the Talmud say the world stands on the breath of the school-children?—but it has become a cant. Too often it saps the moral fibre.'
'You have all the old Jewish narrowness,' said Strelitski.
'I'd rather have that than the new Parisian narrowness—the cant of decadence. Look at my cousin Sidney. He talks as if the Jew only introduced moral headache into the world—in face of the corruptions of paganism which are still flagrant all over Asia and Africa and Polynesia—the idol worship, the abominations, the disregard of human life, of truth, of justice.'
'But is the civilised world any better? Think of the dishonesty of business, the self-seeking of public life, the infamies and hypocrisies of society, the prostitution of soul and body! No, the Jew has yet to play a part in history. Supplement his Hebraism by what Hellenic ideals you will, but the Jew's ideals must ever remain the indispensable ones,' said Strelitski, becoming exalted again. 'Without righteousness a kingdom cannot stand. The world is longing for a broad, simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer. People are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and Mahatmas. Now, for the first time in history, is the hour of Judaism. Only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive. Judaism is but a specialised form of Hebraism; even if Jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only Hebraism—the pure spiritual kernel—that they can offer the world.'
'But that is quite the orthodox Jewish idea on the subject,' said Raphael.
'Yes, but orthodox ideas have a way of remaining ideas,' retorted Strelitski. 'Where I am heterodox is in thinking the time has come to work them out. Also in thinking that the monotheism is not the element that needs the most accentuation. The formula of the religion of the future will be a Jewish formula—Character, not Creed. The provincial period of Judaism is over, though even its Dark Ages are still lingering on in England. It must become cosmic, universal. Judaism is too timid, too apologetic, too deferential. Doubtless this is the result of persecution, but it does not tend to diminish persecution. We may as well try the other attitude. It is the world the Jewish preacher should address, not a Kensington congregation. Perhaps, when the Kensington congregation sees the world is listening, it will listen, too,' he said, with a touch of bitterness.
'But it listens to you now,' said Raphael.
'A pleasing illusion which has kept me too long in my false position. With all its love and reverence, do you think it forgets I am its hireling? I may perhaps have a little more prestige than the bulk of my fellows—though even that is partly due to my congregants being rich and fashionable—but at bottom everybody knows I am taken like a house—on a three years' agreement. And I dare not speak, I cannot, while I wear the badge of office; it would be disloyal; my own congregation would take alarm. The position of a minister is like that of a judicious editor—which, by the way, you are not; he is led, rather than leads. He has to feel his way, to let in light wherever he sees a chink, a cranny. But let them get another man to preach to them the echo of their own voices; there will be no lack of candidates for the salary. For my part, I am sick of this petty Jesuitry; in vain I tell myself it is spiritual statesmanship like that of so many Christian clergyman who are silently bringing Christianity back to Judaism.'
'But itisspiritual statesmanship,' asserted Raphael.
'Perhaps. You are wiser, deeper, calmer than I. Youare an Englishman, I am a Russian. I am all for action, action, action! In Russia I should have been a Nihilist, not a philosopher. I can only go by my feelings, and I feel choking. When I first came to England, before the horror of Russia wore off, I used to go about breathing in deep breaths of air, exulting in the sense of freedom. Now I am stifling again. Do you not understand? Have you never guessed it? And yet I have often said things to you that should have opened your eyes. I must escape from the house of bondage—must be master of myself, of my word and thought. Oh, the world is so wide, so wide—and we are so narrow! Only gradually did the web mesh itself about me. At first my fetters were flowery bands, for I believed all I taught and could teach all I believed. Insensibly the flowers changed to iron chains, because I was changing as I probed deeper into life and thought, and saw my dreams of influencing English Judaism fading in the harsh daylight of fact. And yet at moments the iron links would soften to flowers again. Do you think there is no sweetness in adulation, in prosperity—no subtle cajolery that soothes the conscience and coaxes the soul to take its pleasure in a world of make-believe? Spiritual statesmanship forsooth!' He made a gesture of resolution. 'No, the Judaism of you English weighs upon my spirits. It is so parochial. Everything turns on finance; the United Synagogue keeps your community orthodox because it has the funds and owns the burying-grounds. Truly a dismal allegory—a creed whose strength lies in its cemeteries. Money is the sole avenue to distinction and to authority; it has its coarse thumb over education, worship, society. In my country—even in your own Ghetto—the Jews do not despise money, but at least piety and learning are the titles to position and honour. Here the scholar is classed with theSchnorrer; if an artist or an author is admired, it is for his success. You are right; it is oxen that carry your Ark of the Covenant—fat oxen. You admire them, Leon; you are an Englishman, and cannot stand outside it all. But I am stifling under this weight of moneyed mediocrity, thisrégimeof dull respectability. I want the atmosphere of ideas and ideals.'
He tore at his high clerical collar as though suffocating literally.
Raphael was too moved to defend English Judaism. Besides, he was used to these jeremiads now—had he not often heard them from Sidney? Had he not read them in Esther's book? Nor was it the first time he had listened to the Russian's tirades, though he had lacked the key to the internal conflict that embittered them.
'But how will you live?' he asked, tacitly accepting the situation. 'You will not, I suppose, go over to the Reform Synagogue?'
'That fossil, so proud of its petty reforms half a century ago that it has stood still ever since to admire them! It is a synagogue for snobs—who never go there.'
Raphael smiled faintly. It was obvious that Strelitski on the war-path did not pause to weigh his utterances.
'I am glad you are not going over, anyhow. Your congregation would——'
'Crucify me between two money-lenders?'
'Never mind. But how will you live?'
'How does Miss Ansell live? I can always travel with cigars—I know the line thoroughly.' He smiled mournfully. 'But probably I shall go to America—the idea has been floating in my mind for months. There Judaism is grander, larger, nobler. There is room for all parties. The dead bones are not worshipped as relics. Free-thought has its vent-holes—it is not repressed into hypocrisy as among us. There is care for literature, for national ideals. And one deals with millions, not petty thousands. This English community, with its squabbles about rituals, its four Chief Rabbis all in love with one another, its stupid Sephardim, its narrow-minded Reformers, its fatuous self-importance, its invincible ignorance, is but an ant-hill, a negligible quantity in the future of the faith. Westward the course of Judaism, as of empire, takes its way—from the Euphrates and Tigris it emigrated to Cordova and Toledo, and the year that saw its expulsion from Spain was the year of the discovery of America.Ex Oriente lux. Perhaps it will return to you here by way of the Occident. Russia and Americaare the two strongholds of the race, and Russia is pouring her streams into America, where they will be made free men and free thinkers. It is in America, then, that the last great battle of Judaism will be fought out; amid the temples of the New World it will make its last struggle to survive. It is there that the men who have faith in its necessity must be, so that the physical force conserved at such a cost may not radiate uselessly away. Though Israel has sunk low, like a tree once green and living, and has become petrified and blackened, there is stored-up sunlight in him. Our racial isolation is a mere superstition unless turned to great purposes. We have done nothingas Jewsfor centuries, though our Old Testament has always been an arsenal of texts for the European champions of civil and religious liberty. We have been unconsciously pioneers of modern commerce, diffusers of folk-lore and what not. Cannot we be a conscious force, making for nobler ends? Could we not, for instance, be the link of federation among the nations, acting everywhere in favour of Peace? Could we not be the centres of new sociologic movements in each country, as a few American Jews have been the centre of the Ethical Culture movement?'
'You forget,' said Raphael, 'that, wherever the old Judaism has not been overlaid by the veneer of Philistine civilisation, we are already sociological object-lessons in good fellowship, unpretentious charity, domestic poetry, respect for learning, disrespect for respectability. Our social system is a bequest from the ancient world by which the modern may yet benefit. The demerits you censure in English Judaism are all departures from the old way of living. Why should we not revive or strengthen that, rather than waste ourselves on impracticable novelties? And in your prognostications of the future of the Jews have you not forgotten the all-important factor of Palestine?'
'No; I simply leave it out of count. You know how I have persuaded the Holy Land League to co-operate with the movements for directing the streams of the persecuted towards America. I have alleged with truth thatPalestine is impracticable for the movement. I have not said what I have gradually come to think—that the salvation of Judaism is not in the national idea at all. That is the dream of visionaries—and young men,' he added, with a melancholy smile. 'May we not dream nobler dreams than political independence? For, after all, political independence is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, as it might easily become, and as it appears to other nations. To be merely one among the nations—that is not, despite George Eliot, so satisfactory an ideal. The restoration to Palestine, or the acquisition of a national centre, may be a political solution, but it is not a spiritual idea. We must abandon it—it cannot be held consistently with our professed attachment to the countries in which our lot is cast—and we have abandoned it. We have fought and slain one another in the Franco-German War, and in the war of the North and the South. Your whole difficulty with your pauper immigrants arises from your effort to keep two contradictory ideals going at once. As Englishmen, you may have a right to shelter the exile; but not as Jews. Certainly, if the nations cast us out, we could draw together and form a nation as of yore. But persecution, expulsion, is never simultaneous; our dispersal has saved Judaism, and it may yet save the world. For I prefer the dream that we are divinely dispersed to bless it, wind-sown seeds to fertilise its waste places. To be a nation without a fatherland, yet with a mother-tongue, Hebrew—there is the spiritual originality, the miracle of history. Such has been the real kingdom of Israel in the past—we have been "sons of the Law" as other men have been sons of France, of Italy, of Germany. Such may our fatherland continue, with "the higher life" substituted for "the Law"—a kingdom not of space, not measured by the vulgar meteyard of an Alexander, but a great spiritual Republic, as devoid of material form as Israel's God, and congruous with his conception of the Divine. And the conquest of this kingdom needs no violent movement—if Jews only practised what they preach, it would be achieved to-morrow; for all expressions of Judaism, even to the lowest, have commonsublimities. And this kingdom—as it has no space, so it has no limits; it must grow till all mankind are its subjects. The brotherhood of Israel will be the nucleus of the brotherhood of man.'
'It is magnificent,' said Raphael; 'but it is not Judaism. If the Jews have the future you dream of, the future will have no Jews. America is already decimating them with Sunday-Sabbaths and English Prayer-Books. Your Judaism is as eviscerated as the Christianity I found in vogue when I was at Oxford, which might be summed up: There is no God, but Jesus Christ is His Son. George Eliot was right. Men are men, not pure spirit. A fatherland focusses a people. Without it we are but the gipsies of religion. All over the world, at every prayer, every Jew turns towards Jerusalem. We must not give up the dream. The countries we live in can never be more than "step-fatherlands" to us. Why, if your visions were realised, the prophecy of Genesis, already practically fulfilled, "Thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," would be so remarkably consummated that we might reasonably hope to come to our own again according to the promises.'
'Well, well,' said Strelitski good-humouredly, 'so long as you admit it is not within the range of practical politics now.'
'It is your own dream that is premature,' retorted Raphael; 'at any rate, the cosmic part of it. You are thinking of throwing open the citizenship of your Republic to the world. But to-day's task is to make its citizens by blood worthier of their privilege.'
'You will never do it with the old generation,' said Strelitski. 'My hope is in the new. Moses led the Jews forty years through the wilderness merely to eliminate the old. Give me young men, and I will move the world.'
'You will do nothing by attempting too much,' said Raphael; 'you will only dissipate your strength. For my part, I shall be content to raise Judea an inch.'
'Go on, then,' said Strelitski. 'That will give me abarley-corn. But I've wasted too much of your time, I fear. Good-bye. Remember your promise.'
He held out his hand. He had grown quite calm, now his decision was taken.
'Good-bye,' said Raphael, shaking it warmly. 'I think I shall cable to America, "Behold, Joseph the dreamer cometh."'
'Dreams are our life,' replied Strelitski. 'Lessing was right—aspiration is everything.'
'And yet you would rob the orthodox Jew of his dream of Jerusalem! Well, if you must go, don't go without your tie,' said Raphael, picking it up, and feeling a stolid, practical Englishman in presence of this enthusiast. 'It is dreadfully dirty, but you must wear it a little longer.'
'Only till the New Year, which is bearing down upon us,' said Strelitski, thrusting it into his pocket. 'Cost what it may, I shall no longer countenance the ritual and ceremonial of the season of Repentance. Good-bye again. If you should be writing to Miss Ansell, I should like her to know how much I owe her.'
'But I tell you I don't know her address,' said Raphael, his uneasiness reawakening.
'Surely you can write to her publishers?'
And the door closed upon the Russian dreamer, leaving the practical Englishman dumfounded at his never having thought of this simple expedient. But before he could adopt it the door was thrown open again by Pinchas, who had got out of the habit of knocking through Raphael being too polite to reprimand him. The poet tottered in, dropped wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands, letting an extinct cigar-stump slip through his fingers on to the literature that carpeted the floor.
'What is the matter?' inquired Raphael in alarm.
'I am miserable—vairy miserable.'
'Has anything happened?'
'Nothing. But I have been thinking vat have I come to after all these years, all these vanderings? Nothing! Vat vill be my end? Oh, I am so unhappy.'
'But you are better off than you ever were in your life. You no longer live amid the squalor of the Ghetto; youare clean and well dressed; you yourself admit that you can afford to give charity now. That looks as if you'd come to something—not nothing.'
'Yes,' said the poet, looking up eagerly, 'and I am famous through the world.Metatoron's Flamesvill shine eternally.' His head drooped again. 'I have all I vant, and you are the best man in the vorld. But I am the most miserable.'
'Nonsense! cheer up,' said Raphael.
'I can never cheer up any more. I vill shoot myself. I have realised the emptiness of life. Fame, money, love—all is Dead Sea Fruit.'
His shoulders heaved convulsively; he was sobbing. Raphael stood by helpless, his respect for Pinchas as a poet and for himself as a practical Englishman returning. He pondered over the strange fate that had thrown him among three geniuses—a male idealist, a female pessimist, and a poet who seemed to belong to both sexes and categories. And yet there was not one of the three to whom he seemed able to be of real service. A letter brought in by the office-boy rudely snapped the thread of reflection. It contained three enclosures. The first was an epistle; the hand was the hand of Mr. Goldsmith, but the voice was the voice of his beautiful spouse.