'Dear Mr. Leon,'I have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency from the ideas with which theFlag of Judahwas started. It is obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasise the olden features of our faith—the questions ofkoshermeat, etc.—as forcibly as our readers desire. You no doubt cherish ideals which are neither practical nor within the grasp of the masses to whom we appeal. I fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you reluctant—in the dearth of genius and Hebrew learning—to saddle me with the task of finding a substitute, but I feel it is time for me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. I have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it might be possible for Mr. Pinchas, of whom you have always spokenso highly, to undertake the duties of editorship, Mr. Sampson remaining sub-editor as before. Of course I count on you to continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to remain in the background.'Yours sincerely,'Henry Goldsmith.'P.S.—On second thoughts I beg to enclose a cheque for four guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise enclosed herewith. Your sister seconds Mrs. Goldsmith in the hope that you will do so. Our tenancy of the Manse only lasts a few weeks longer, for of course we return for the New Year holidays.'
'Dear Mr. Leon,
'I have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency from the ideas with which theFlag of Judahwas started. It is obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasise the olden features of our faith—the questions ofkoshermeat, etc.—as forcibly as our readers desire. You no doubt cherish ideals which are neither practical nor within the grasp of the masses to whom we appeal. I fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you reluctant—in the dearth of genius and Hebrew learning—to saddle me with the task of finding a substitute, but I feel it is time for me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. I have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it might be possible for Mr. Pinchas, of whom you have always spokenso highly, to undertake the duties of editorship, Mr. Sampson remaining sub-editor as before. Of course I count on you to continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to remain in the background.
'Yours sincerely,'Henry Goldsmith.
'P.S.—On second thoughts I beg to enclose a cheque for four guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise enclosed herewith. Your sister seconds Mrs. Goldsmith in the hope that you will do so. Our tenancy of the Manse only lasts a few weeks longer, for of course we return for the New Year holidays.'
This was the last straw. It was not so much the dismissal that staggered him, but to be called a genius and an idealist himself—to have his own orthodoxy impugned—just at this moment, was a rough shock.
'Pinchas!' he said, recovering himself. Pinchas would not look up. His face was still hidden in his hands. 'Pinchas, listen! You are appointed editor of the paper instead of me. You are to edit the next number.'
Pinchas's head shot up like a catapult. He bounded to his feet, then bent down again to Raphael's coat-tail and kissed it passionately.
'Ah, my benefactor, my benefactor!' he cried in a joyous frenzy. 'Now vill I give it to English Judaism. She is in my power. Oh, my benefactor!'
'No, no,' said Raphael, disengaging himself. 'I have nothing to do with it.'
'But de paper—she is yours!' said the poet, forgetting his English in his excitement.
'No, I am only the editor. I have been dismissed, and you are appointed instead of me.'
Pinchas dropped back into his chair like a lump of lead. He hung his head again and folded his arms.
'Then they get not me for editor,' he said moodily.
'Nonsense, why not?' said Raphael, flushing.
'Vat you think me?' Pinchas asked indignantly. 'Do you think I have a stone for a heart like Gideon, M.P., or your English stockbrokers and Rabbis? No, you shall go on being editor. They think you are not able enough, not orthodox enough—they vant me—but do not fear. I shall not accept.'
'But then what will become of the next number?' remonstrated Raphael, touched. 'I must not edit it.'
'Vat you care? Let her die!' cried Pinchas in gloomy complacency. 'You have made her; vy should she survive you? It is not right another should valk in your shoes—least of all, I.'
'But I don't mind—I don't mind a bit,' Raphael assured him. Pinchas shook his head obstinately. 'If the paper dies, Sampson will have nothing to live upon,' Raphael reminded him.
'True, vairy true,' said the poet, patently beginning to yield. 'That alters things. Ve cannot let Sampson starve.'
'No, you see!' said Raphael. 'So you must keep it alive.'
'Yes, but,' said Pinchas, getting up thoughtfully, 'Sampson is going off soon on tour vith his comic opera. He vill not need theFlag.'
'Oh, well, edit it till then.'
'Be it so,' said the poet resignedly. 'Till Sampson's comic opera tour.'
'Till Sampson's comic opera tour,' repeated Raphael contentedly.
Raphael walked out of the office, a free man. Mountains of responsibility seemed to roll off his shoulders. His Messianic emotions were conscious of no laceration at the failure of this episode of his life; they were merged in greater. What a fool he had been to waste so much time, to make no effort to find the lonely girl! Surely, Esther must have expected him, if only as a friend, to give some sign that he did not share in the popular execration. Perchance she had already left London or the country, only to be found again by protracted knightly quest! He felt grateful to Providence for setting him free for her salvation. He made at once for the publishers' and asked for her address. The junior partner knew of no such person. In vain Raphael reminded him that they had publishedMordecai Josephs. That was by Mr. Edward Armitage. Raphael accepted the convention, and demanded this gentleman's address instead. That, too, was refused, but all letters would be forwarded. Was Mr. Armitage in England? All letters would be forwarded. Upon that the junior partner stood, inexpugnable.
Raphael went out, not uncomforted. He would write to her at once. He got letter-paper at the nearest restaurant and wrote 'Dear Miss Ansell.' The rest was a blank. He had not the least idea how to renew the relationship after what seemed an eternity of silence. He stared helplessly round the mirrored walls, seeing mainly his only helpless stare. The placard 'Smoking not permitted till 8P.M.' gave him a sudden shock. He felt for his pipe, and ultimately found it stuck, half-full of charred bird's-eye, in his breast-pocket. He had apparently not been smoking for some hours. That completed his perturbation. He felt he had undergone too much that day to be in a fit stateto write a judicious letter. He would go home and rest a bit, and write the letter—very diplomatically—in the evening. When he got home, he found to his astonishment it was Friday evening, when letter-writing is of the devil. Habit carried him to synagogue, where he sang the Sabbath hymn, 'Come, my beloved, to meet the bride,' with strange sweet tears and a complete indifference to its sacred allegorical signification. Next afternoon he haunted the publishers' doorstep with the brilliant idea that Mr. Armitage sometimes crossed it. In this hope, he didnotwrite the letter; his phrases, he felt, would be better for the inspiration of that gentleman's presence.
Meanwhile he had ample time to mature them, to review the situation in every possible light, to figure Esther under the most poetical images, to see his future alternately radiant and sombre. Four long summer days of espionage only left him with a heartache, and a specialist knowledge of the sort of persons who visit publishers. A temptation to bribe the office-boy he resisted as unworthy.
Not only had he not written that letter, but Mr. Henry Goldsmith's edict and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's invitation were still unacknowledged. On Thursday morning a letter from Addie indirectly reminded him both of his remissness to her hostess, and of the existence of theFlag of Judah. He remembered it was the day of going to press; a vision of the difficulties of the day flashed vividly upon his consciousness; he wondered if his ex-lieutenants were finding new ones. The smell of the machine-room was in his nostrils; it co-operated with the appeal of his good-nature to draw him to his successor's help. Virtue proved its own reward. Arriving at eleven o'clock, he found Little Sampson in great excitement, with the fountain of melody dried up on his lips.
'Thank God!' he cried. 'I thought you'd come when you heard the news.'
'What news?'
'Gideon the member for Whitechapel's dead. Died suddenly, early this morning.'
'How shocking!' said Raphael, growing white.
'Yes, isn't it?' said Little Sampson. 'If he had died yesterday, I shouldn't have minded it so much, while to-morrow would have given us a clear week. He hasn't even been ill,' he grumbled. 'I've had to send Pinchas to the Museum in a deuce of a hurry, to find out about his early life. I'm awfully upset about it, and what makes it worse is a wire from Goldsmith, ordering a page obituary at least with black rules, besides a leader. It's simply sickening. The proofs are awful enough as it is—my blessed editor has been writing four columns of his autobiography in his most original English, and he wants to leave out all the news pars to make room for 'em. In one way Gideon's death is a boon; even Pinchas'll see his stuff must be crowded out. It's frightful having to edit your editor. Why wasn't he made sub?'
'That would have been just as trying for you,' said Raphael, with a melancholy smile. He took up a galley-proof and began to correct it. To his surprise he came upon his own paragraph about Strelitski's resignation: it caused him fresh emotion. This great spiritual crisis had quite slipped his memory, so egoistic are the best of us at times. 'Please be careful that Pinchas's autobiography does not crowd that out,' he said.
Pinchas arrived late, when Little Sampson was almost in despair. 'It is all right,' he shouted, waving a roll of manuscript. 'I have him from the cradle—the stupid stockbroker, the Man-of-the-Earth, who sent me back my poesie, and vould not let me teach his boy Judaism. And vhile I had the inspiration I wrote the leader also in the Museum—it is here—oh, vairy beaudiful! Listen to the first sentence. "The Angel of Death has passed again over Judea; he has flown off with our visest and our best, but the black shadow of his ving vill long rest upon the House of Israel!" And the end is vordy of the beginning. "He is dead; but he lives for ever enshrined in the noble tribute to his genius inMetatoron's Flames."'
Little Sampson seized the 'copy' and darted with it to the composing-room, where Raphael was busy giving directions. By his joyful face Raphael saw the crisis was over. Little Sampson handed the manuscript to the foreman,then, drawing a deep breath of relief, he began to hum a sprightly march.
'I say, you're a nice chap!' he grumbled, cutting himself short with a staccato that was not in the music.
'What have I done?' asked Raphael.
'Done? You've got me into a nice mess. The guvnor—the new guvnor; the old guvnor, it seems—called the other day to fix things with me and Pinchas. He asked me if I was satisfied to go on at the same screw. I said he might make it two pound ten. "What, more than double?" says he. "No, only nine shillings extra," says I, "and for that I'll throw in some foreign telegrams the late editor never cared for." And then it came out that he only knew of a sovereign, and fancied I was trying it on.'
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' said Raphael, in deep scarlet distress.
'You must have been paying a guinea out of your own pocket!' said Little Sampson sharply.
Raphael's confusion increased. 'I—I—didn't want it myself,' he faltered. 'You see it was paid me just for form, and you really did the work. Which reminds me I have a cheque of yours now,' he ended boldly. 'That'll make it right for the coming month, anyhow.'
He hunted out Goldsmith's final cheque, and tendered it sheepishly.
'Oh no, I can't take it now,' said Little Sampson. He folded his arms, and drew his cloak around him like a toga. No August sun ever divested Little Sampson of his cloak.
'Has Goldsmith agreed to your terms, then?' inquired Raphael timidly.
'Oh no, not he. But——'
'Then I must go on paying the difference,' said Raphael decisively. 'I am responsible to you that you get the salary you're used to; it's my fault that things are changed, and I must pay the penalty.' He crammed the cheque forcibly into the pocket of the toga.
'Well, if you put it in that way,' said Little Sampson, 'I won't say I couldn't do with it. But only as a loan, mind.'
'All right,' murmured Raphael.
'And you'll take it back when my comic opera goes on tour. You won't back out?'
'No.'
'Give us your hand on it,' said Little Sampson huskily. Raphael gave him his hand, and Little Sampson swung it up and down like a baton.
'Hang it all! and that man calls himself a Jew!' he thought. Aloud he said: 'When my comic opera goes on tour.'
They returned to the editorial den, where they found Pinchas raging, a telegram in his hand.
'Ah, the Man-of-the-Earth!' he cried. 'All my beautiful peroration he spoils.' He crumpled up the telegram and threw it pettishly at Little Sampson, then greeted Raphael with effusive joy and hilarity. Little Sampson read the wire. It ran as follows:
'Last sentence of Gideon Leader. It is too early yet in this moment of grief to speculate as to his successor in the constituency. But, difficult as it will be to replace him, we may find some solace in the thought that it will not be impossible. The spirit of the illustrious dead would itself rejoice to acknowledge the special qualifications of one whose name will at once rise to every lip as that of a brother Jew whose sincere piety and genuine public spirit mark him out as the one worthy substitute in the representation of a district embracing so many of our poor Jewish brethren. Is it too much to hope that he will be induced to stand?—Goldsmith.'
'That's a cut above Henry,' murmured Little Sampson, who knew nearly everything, save the facts he had to supply to the public. 'He wired to the wife, and it's hers. Well, it saves him from writing his own puffs, anyhow. I suppose Goldsmith's only the signature, not intended to be the last word on the subject. Wants touching up, though; can't have "spirit" twice within four lines. How lucky for him Leon is just off the box-seat! That queer beggar would never have submitted to any dictation any more than the boss would have dared show his hand so openly.'
While the sub-editor mused thus, a remark droppedfrom the editor's lips, which turned Raphael whiter than the news of the death of Gideon had done.
'Yes, and in the middle of writing I look up and see the maiden—oh, vairy beaudiful! How she gives it to English Judaism sharp in that book—the stupid-heads, the Men-of-the-Earth! I could kiss her for it, only I have never been introduced. Gideon, he is there! Ho! ho!' he sniggered, with purely intellectual appreciation of the pungency.
'What maiden? What are you talking about?' asked Raphael, his breath coming painfully.
'Your maiden,' said Pinchas, surveying him with affectionate roguishness. 'The maiden that came to see you here. She vas reading; I valk by and see it is about America.'
'At the British Museum?' gasped Raphael. A thousand hammers beat 'Fool!' upon his brain. Why had he not thought of so likely a place for alittérateur?
He rushed out of the office and into a hansom. He put his pipe out in anticipation. In seven minutes he was at the gates, just in time—Heaven be thanked!—to meet her abstractedly descending the steps. His heart gave a great leap of joy. He studied the pensive little countenance for an instant before it became aware of him; its sadness shot a pang of reproach through him. Then a great light, as of wonder and joy, came into the dark eyes, and glorified the pale, passionate face. But it was only a flash that faded, leaving the cheeks more pallid than before, the lips quivering.
'Mr. Leon!' she muttered.
He raised his hat, then held out a trembling hand, that closed upon hers with a grip that hurt her.
'I'm so glad to see you again!' he said, with unconcealed enthusiasm. 'I have been meaning to write to you for days—care of your publishers. I wonder if you will ever forgive me!'
'You had nothing to write to me,' she said, striving to speak coldly.
'Oh yes, I had!' he protested.
She shook her head.
'Our journalistic relations are over—there were no others.'
'Oh!' he exclaimed reproachfully, feeling his heart grow chill. 'Surely we were friends?'
She did not answer.
'I wanted to write and tell you how much,' he began desperately, then stammered, and ended—'how much I likeMordecai Josephs.'
This time the reproachful 'Oh!' came from her lips. 'I thought better of you,' she said. 'You didn't say that in theFlag of Judah; writing it privately to me wouldn't do me any good in any case.'
He felt miserable; from the crude standpoint of facts there was no answer to give. He gave none.
'I suppose it is all about now?' she went on, seeing him silent.
'Pretty well,' he answered, understanding the question. Then, with an indignant accent, he said, 'Mrs. Goldsmith tells everybody she found it out, and sent you away.'
'I am glad she says that,' she remarked enigmatically. 'And, naturally, everybody detests me?'
'Not everybody,' he began threateningly.
'Don't let us stand on the steps,' she interrupted. 'People will be looking at us.' They moved slowly downwards, and into the hot, bustling streets. 'Why are you not at theFlag? I thought this was your busy day.' She did not add, 'And so I ventured to the Museum, knowing there was no chance of your turning up'; but such was the fact.
'I am not the editor any longer,' he replied.
'Not?' She almost came to a stop. 'So much for my critical faculty; I could have sworn to your hand in every number.'
'Your critical faculty equals your creative,' he began.
'Journalism has taught you sarcasm.'
'No, no! please do not be so unkind. I spoke in earnestness. I have only just been dismissed.'
'Dismissed!' she echoed incredulously. 'I thought theFlagwas your own?'
He grew troubled. 'I bought it—but for another. We—he—has dispensed with my services.'
'Oh, how shameful!'
The latent sympathy of her indignation cheered him again.
'I am not sorry,' he said. 'I'm afraid I really was outgrowing its original platform.'
'What?' she asked, with a note of mockery in her voice. 'You have left off being orthodox?'
'I don't say that. It seems to me, rather, that I have come to understand I never was orthodox in the sense that the orthodox understand the word. I had never come into contact with them before. I never realised how unfair orthodox writers are to Judaism. But I do not abate one word of what I have ever said or written, except, of course, on questions of scholarship, which are always open to revision.'
'But what is to become of me—of my conversion?' she said, with mock piteousness.
'You need no conversion!' he answered passionately, abandoning without a twinge all those criteria of Judaism for which he had fought with Strelitski. 'You are a Jewess not only in blood, but in spirit. Deny it as you may, you have all the Jewish ideals—they are implied in your attack on our society.'
She shook her head obstinately.
'You read all that into me, as you read your modern thought into the old naïve books.'
'I read what is in you. Your soul is in the right, whatever your brain says.' He went on, almost to echo Strelitski's words, 'Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion. In the language of our Hillel, this is the text of the Law; the rest is commentary. You and I are at one in believing that, despite all and after all, the world turns on righteousness, on justice'—his voice became a whisper—'on love.'
The old thrill went through her, as when first they met. Once again the universe seemed bathed in holy joy. But she shook off the spell almost angrily. Her face wasdefinitely set towards the life of the New World. Why should he disturb her anew?
'Ah, well, I'm glad you allow me a little goodness,' she said sarcastically. 'It is quite evident how you have drifted from orthodoxy. Strange result of theFlag of Judah! Started to convert me, it has ended by alienating you—its editor—from the true faith. Oh, the irony of circumstances! But don't look so glum. It has fulfilled its mission all the same: ithasconverted me—I will confess it to you.' Her face grew grave, her tones earnest. 'So I haven't an atom of sympathy with your broader attitude. I am full of longing for the old impossible Judaism.'
His face took on a look of anxious solicitude. He was uncertain whether she spoke ironically or seriously. Only one thing was certain—that she was slipping from him again. She seemed so complex, paradoxical, elusive—and yet growing every moment more dear and desirable.
'Where are you living?' he asked abruptly.
'It doesn't matter where,' she answered. 'I sail for America in three weeks.'
The world seemed suddenly empty. It was hopeless, then—she was almost in his grasp, yet he could not hold her. Some greater force was sweeping her into strange alien solitudes. A storm of protest raged in his heart—all he had meant to say to her rose to his lips, but he only said, 'Must you go?'
'I must. My little sister marries. I have timed my visit so as to arrive just for the wedding—like a fairy godmother.' She smiled wistfully.
'Then you will live with your people, I suppose?'
'I suppose so. I dare say I shall become quite good again. Ah, your new Judaisms will never appeal like the old, with all its imperfections. They will never keep the race together through shine and shade as that did. They do but stave off the inevitable dissolution. It is beautiful—that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the Messiah who even to you, I dare say, is a mere symbol.' Again the wistful look lit up her eyes.'That's what you rich people will never understand—it doesn't seem to go with dinner in seven courses, somehow.'
'Oh, but I do understand,' he protested. 'It's what I told Strelitski, who is all for intellect in religion. He is going to America, too,' he said, with a sudden pang of jealous apprehension.
'On a holiday?'
'No; he is going to resign his ministry here.'
'What! Has he got a better offer from America?'
'Still so cruel to him,' he said reprovingly. 'He is resigning for conscience' sake.'
'After all these years?' she queried sarcastically.
'Miss Ansell, you wrong him! He was not happy in his position. You were right so far. But he cannot endure his shackles any longer. And it is you who have inspired him to break them.'
'I?' she exclaimed, startled.
'Yes, I told him why you had left Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's—it seemed to act like an electrical stimulus. Then and there he made me write a paragraph announcing his resignation. It will appear to-morrow.'
Esther's eyes filled with soft light. She walked on in silence; then, noticing she had automatically walked too much in the direction of her place of concealment, she came to an abrupt stop.
'We must part here,' she said. 'If I ever come across my old shepherd in America, I will be nicer to him. It is really quite heroic of him—you must have exaggerated my own petty sacrifice alarmingly if it really supplied him with inspiration. What is he going to do in America?'
'To preach a universal Judaism. He is a born idealist; his ideas have always such a magnificent sweep. Years ago he wanted all the Jews to return to Palestine.'
Esther smiled faintly, not at Strelitski, but at Raphael's calling another man an idealist. She had never yet done justice to the strain of common-sense that saved him from being a great man; he and the new Strelitski were of one breed to her.
'He will make Jews no happier, and Christians nowiser,' she said sceptically. 'The great populations will sweep on, as affected by the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on itself—rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit. We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism—old or new—is a forlorn hope.'
'The forlorn hope will yet save the world,' he answered quietly, 'but it has first to be saved to the world.'
'Be happy in your hope,' she said gently. 'Good-bye.' She held out her little hand. He had no option but to take it.
'But we are not going to part like this,' he said desperately. 'I shall see you again before you go to America?'
'No, why should you?'
'Because I love you,' rose to his lips. But the avowal seemed too plump. He prevaricated by retorting, 'Why should I not?'
'Because I fear you,' was in her heart, but nothing rose to her lips. He looked into her eyes to read an answer there, but she dropped them. He saw his opportunity.
'Why should I not?' he repeated.
'Your time is valuable,' she said faintly.
'I could not spend it better than with you,' he answered boldly.
'Please don't insist,' she said in distress.
'But I shall; I am your friend. So far as I know, you are lonely. If you are bent upon going away, why deny me the pleasure of the society I am about to lose for ever?'
'Oh, how can you call it a pleasure—such poor melancholy company as I am!'
'Such poor melancholy company that I came expressly to seek it, for some one told me you were at the Museum. Such poor melancholy company that if I am robbed of it life will be a blank.'
He had not let go her hand; his tones were low and passionate; the heedless traffic of the sultry London street was all about them.
Esther trembled from head to foot; she could not lookat him. There was no mistaking his meaning now; her breast was a whirl of delicious pain. But in proportion as the happiness at her beck and call dazzled her, so she recoiled from it. Bent on self-effacement, attuned to the peace of despair, she almost resented the solicitation to be happy; she had suffered so much that she had grown to think suffering her natural element, out of which she could not breathe; she was almost in love with misery. And in so sad a world was there not something ignoble about happiness, a selfish aloofness from the life of humanity? And, illogically blent with this questioning, and strengthening her recoil, was an obstinate conviction that there could never be happiness for her, a being of ignominious birth, without roots in life, futile, shadowy, out of relation to the tangible solitudes of ordinary existence. To offer her a warm fireside seemed to be to tempt her to be false to something—she knew not what. Perhaps it was because the warm fireside was in the circle she had quitted, and her heart was yet bitter against it, finding no palliative even in the thought of a triumphant return. She did not belong to it; she was not of Raphael's world. But she felt grateful to the point of tears for his incomprehensible love for a plain, penniless, low-born girl. Surely it was only his chivalry. Other men had not found her attractive. Sidney had not; Levi only fancied himself in love. And yet beneath all her humility was a sense of being loved for the best in her, for the hidden qualities Raphael alone had the insight to divine. She could never think so meanly of herself or of humanity again. He had helped and strengthened her for her lonely future; the remembrance of him would always be an inspiration, and a reminder of the noble side of human nature.
All this contradictory medley of thought and feeling occupied but a few seconds of consciousness. She answered him without any perceptible pause, lightly enough.
'Really, Mr. Leon, I don't expectyouto say such things. Why should we be so conventional, you and I? How can your life be a blank, with Judaism yet to be saved?'
'Who am I to save Judaism? I want to save you,' he said passionately.
'What a descent! For Heaven's sake stick to your earlier ambition!'
'No, the two are one to me. Somehow you seem to stand for Judaism, too. I cannot disentwine my hopes; I have come to conceive your life as an allegory of Judaism, the offspring of a great and tragic past with the germs of a rich blossoming, yet wasting with an inward canker. I have grown to think of its future as somehow bound up with yours. I want to see your eyes laughing, the shadows lifted from your brow; I want to see you face life courageously, not in passionate revolt nor in passionless despair, but in faith and hope and the joy that springs from them. I want you to seek peace, not in a despairing surrender of the intellect to the faith of childhood, but in that faith intellectually justified. And while I want to help you, and to fill your life with the sunshine it needs, I want you to help me, to inspire me when I falter, to complete my life, to make me happier than I had ever dreamed. Be my wife, Esther. Let me save you from yourself.'
'Let me save you from yourself, Raphael. Is it wise to wed with the grey spirit of the Ghetto that doubts itself?'
And like a spirit she glided from his grasp and disappeared in the crowd.
The New Year dawned upon the Ghetto, heralded by a month of special matins and the long-sustained note of the ram's horn. It was in the midst of the Ten Days of Repentance which find their awful climax in the Day of Atonement that a strange letter for Hannah came to startle the breakfast-table at Reb Shemuel's. Hannah read it with growing pallor and perturbation.
'What is the matter, my dear?' asked the Reb anxiously.
'Oh, father,' she cried, 'read this! Bad news of Levi.'
A spasm of pain contorted the old man's furrowed countenance.
'Mention not his name!' he said harshly. 'He is dead.'
'He may be by now!' Hannah exclaimed agitatedly. 'You were right, Esther. He did join a strolling company, and now he is laid up with typhoid in the hospital in Stockbridge. One of his friends writes to tell us. He must have caught it in one of those insanitary dressing-rooms we were reading about.'
Esther trembled all over. The scene in the garret when the fatal telegram came announcing Benjamin's illness had never faded from her mind. She had an instant conviction that it was all over with poor Levi.
'My poor lamb!' cried the Rebbitzin, the coffee cup dropping from her nerveless hand.
'Simcha,' said Reb Shemuel sternly, 'calm thyself; we have no son to lose. The Holy One—blessed be He!—hath taken him from us. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'
Hannah rose. Her face was white and resolute. She moved towards the door.
'Whither goest thou?' inquired her father in German.
'I am going to my room, to put on my hat and jacket,' replied Hannah quietly.
'Whither goest thou?' repeated Reb Shemuel.
'To Stockbridge. Mother, you and I must go at once.'
The Reb sprang to his feet. His brow was dark; his eyes gleamed with anger and pain.
'Sit down and finish thy breakfast,' he said.
'How can I eat? Levi is dying,' said Hannah in low firm tones. 'Will you come, mother, or must I go alone?'
The Rebbitzin began to wring her hands and weep. Esther stole gently to Hannah's side and pressed the poor girl's hand. 'You and I will go,' her clasp said.
'Hannah!' said Reb Shemuel. 'What madness is this? Dost thou think thy mother will obey thee rather than her husband?'
'Levi is dying. It is our duty to go to him.' Hannah's gentle face was rigid. But there was exaltation rather than defiance in the eyes.
'It is not the duty of women,' said Reb Shemuel harshly. 'I will go to Stockbridge. If he dies (God have mercy upon his soul!), I will see that he is buried among his own people. Thou knowest women go not to funerals.' He reseated himself at the table, pushing aside his scarcely touched meal, and began saying the grace. Dominated by his will and by old habit, the three trembling women remained in reverential silence.
'The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace,' concluded the old man in unfaltering accents. He rose from the table and strode to the door, stern and erect. 'Thou wilt remain here, Hannah, and thou, Simcha,' he said. In the passage his shoulders relaxed their stiffness, so that the long snow-white beard drooped upon his breast. The three women looked at one another.
'Mother,' said Hannah, passionately breaking the silence, 'are you going to stay here while Levi is dying in a strange town?'
'My husband wills it,' said the Rebbitzin, sobbing. 'Levi is a sinner in Israel. Thy father will not see him; he will not go to him till he is dead.'
'Oh yes, surely he will,' said Esther. 'But be comforted. Levi is young and strong. Let us hope he will pull through.'
'No, no,' moaned the Rebbitzin. 'He will die, and my husband will but read the psalms at his death-bed. He will not forgive him; he will not speak to him of his mother and sister.'
'Letmego. I will give him your messages,' said Esther.
'No, no,' interrupted Hannah. 'What are you to him? Why should you risk infection for our sakes?'
'Go, Hannah, but secretly,' said the Rebbitzin in a wailing whisper. 'Let not thy father see thee till thou arrive; then he will not send thee back. Tell Levi that I—oh, my poor child, my poor lamb!' Sobs overpowered her speech.
'No, mother,' said Hannah quietly, 'thou and I shall go. I will tell father we are accompanying him.'
She left the room, while the Rebbitzin fell weeping and terrified into a chair, and Esther vainly endeavoured to soothe her. The Reb was changing his coat when Hannah knocked at the door, and called 'Father.'
'Speak not to me, Hannah,' answered the Reb roughly. 'It is useless.' Then, as if repentant of his tone, he threw open the door, and passed his great trembling hand lovingly over her hair. 'Thou art a good daughter,' he said tenderly. 'Forget that thou hast had a brother.'
'But how can I forget?' she answered him in his own idiom. 'Why should I forget? What hath he done?'
He ceased to smooth her hair—his voice grew sad and stern.
'He hath profaned the Name. He hath lived like a heathen; he dieth like a heathen now. His blasphemy was a byword in the congregation. I alone knew it not till last Passover. He hath brought down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.'
'Yes, father, I know,' said Hannah, more gently. 'But he is not all to blame!'
'Thou meanest that I am not guiltless; that I shouldhave kept him at my side?' said the Reb, his voice faltering a little.
'No, father, not that! Levi could not always be a baby. He had to walk alone some day.'
'Yes, and did I not teach him to walk alone?' asked the Reb eagerly. 'My God, Thou canst not say I did not teach him Thy Law day and night.' He uplifted his eyes in anguished appeal.
'Yes, but he is not all to blame,' she repeated. 'Thy teaching did not reach his soul; he is of another generation, the air is different, his life was cast amid conditions for which the Law doth not allow.'
'Hannah!' Reb Shemuel's accents became harsh and chiding again. 'What sayest thou? The Law of Moses is eternal; it will never be changed. Levi knew God's commandments, but he followed the desire of his own heart and his own eyes. If God's Word were obeyed, he should have been stoned with stones. But Heaven itself hath punished him; he will die, for it is ordained that whosoever is stubborn and disobedient that soul shall surely be cut off from among his people. "Keep My commandments, that thy days may be long in the land," God Himself hath said it. Is it not written: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things the Lord will bring thee into judgment"? But thou, my Hannah,' he started caressing her hair again, 'art a good Jewish maiden. Between Levi and thee there is naught in common. His touch would profane thee. Sadden not thy innocent eyes with the sight of his end. Think of him as one who died in boyhood. My God! why didst Thou not take him then?' He turned away, stifling a sob.
'Father,' she put her hand on his shoulder, 'we will go with thee to Stockbridge—I and the mother.'
He faced her again, stern and rigid.
'Cease thy entreaties. I will go alone.'
'No, we will all go.'
'Hannah,' he said, his voice tremulous with painand astonishment, 'dost thou, too, set light by thy father?'
'Yes,' she cried, and there was no answering tremor in her voice. 'Now thou knowest! I am not a good Jewish maiden. Levi and I are brother and sister. His touch profane me, forsooth!' She laughed bitterly.
'Thou wilt take this journey though I forbid thee?' he cried in acrid accents, still mingled with surprise.
'Yes; would I had taken the journey thou wouldst have forbidden ten years ago!'
'What journey? thou talkest madness.'
'I talk truth. Thou hast forgotten David Brandon; I have not. Ten years last Passover I arranged to fly with him, to marry him, in defiance of the Law and thee.'
A new pallor overspread the Reb's countenance, already ashen. He trembled and almost fell backwards.
'But thou didst not?' he whispered hoarsely.
'I did not, I know not why,' she said sullenly; 'else thou wouldst never have seen me again. It may be I respected thy religion, although thou didst not dream what was in my mind. But thy religion shall not keep me from this journey.'
The Reb had hidden his face in his hands. His lips were moving: was it in grateful prayer, in self-reproach, or merely in nervous trembling? Hannah never knew. Presently the Reb's arms dropped, great tears rolled down towards the white beard. When he spoke, his tones were hushed as with awe.
'This man—tell me, my daughter, thou lovest him still?'
She shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of reckless despair.
'What does it matter? My life is but a shadow.'
The Reb took her to his breast, though she remained stony to his touch, and laid his wet face against her burning cheeks.
'My child, my poor Hannah! I thought God had sent thee peace ten years ago, that He had rewarded thee for thy obedience to His Law.'
She drew her face away from his.
'It was not His Law; it was a miserable juggling withtexts. Thou alone interpretedst God's Law thus. No one knew of the matter.'
He could not argue; the breast against which he held her was shaken by a tempest of grief, which swept away all save human remorse, human love.
'My daughter,' he sobbed, 'I have ruined thy life!' After an agonised pause he said: 'Tell me, Hannah, is there nothing I can do to make atonement to thee?'
'Only one thing, father,' she articulated chokingly; 'forgive Levi.'
There was a moment of solemn silence. Then the Reb spake.
'Tell thy mother to put on her things and take what she needs for the journey. Perchance we may be away for days.'
They mingled their tears in sweet reconciliation. Presently the Reb said:
'Go now to thy mother, and see also that the boy's room be made ready as of old. Perchance God will hear my prayer, and he will yet be restored to us.'
A new peace fell upon Hannah's soul. 'My sacrifice was not in vain after all,' she thought, with a throb of happiness that was almost exultation.
But Levi never came back. The news of his death arrived on the eve ofYom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a letter to Esther, who had been left in charge of the house.
'He died quietly at the end,' Hannah wrote, 'happy in the consciousness of father's forgiveness, and leaning trustfully upon his interposition with Heaven; but he had delirious moments, during which he raved painfully. The poor boy was in great fear of death, moaning prayers that he might be spared till afterYom Kippur, when he would be cleansed of sin, and babbling about serpents that would twine themselves round his arm and brow, like the phylacteries he had not worn. He made father repeat his "Verse" to him over and over again, so that he might remember his name when the angel of the grave asked it; and borrowed father's phylacteries, the headpiece of which was much too large for him with his shaven crown. Whenhe had them on, and theTalithround him, he grew easier, and began murmuring the death-bed prayers with father. One of them runs: "O may my death be an atonement for all the sins, iniquities and transgressions of which I have been guilty against Thee!" I trust it may be so indeed. It seems so hard for a young man full of life and high spirits to be cut down, while the wretched are left alive. Your name was often on his lips. I was glad to learn he thought so much of you. "Be sure to give Esther my love," he said almost with his last breath, "and ask her to forgive me." I know not if you have anything to forgive, or whether this was delirium. He looks quite calm now—but oh! so worn. They have closed the eyes. The beard he shocked father so by shaving off has sprouted scrubbily during his illness. On the dead face it seems a mockery, like theTalithand phylacteries that have not been removed.'
A phrase of Leonard James vibrated in Esther's ears: 'If the chappies could see me!'