"'I COULD HAVE TORN MY HAIR.'"
After that the Rabbi was what the congregation called Remorse; also Red-herring.
The Rabbi's fondness for concrete exemplification of abstract ideas was not, however, to be stifled, and there was one illustration of Charity which found a place in all the five sermons of consolation.
"If you have a pair of old breeches, send them to the Rabbi."
Rabbi Remorse Red-herring was, however, as is the way of preachers, himself aught but a concrete exemplificationof the virtues he inculcated. He lived generously—through other people's generosity—but no one could boast of having received a farthing from him over and above what was due to them; whileSchnorrers(who deemed considerable sums due to them) regarded him in the light of a defalcating bankrupt. He, for his part, had a countervailing grudge against the world, fancying the work he did for it but feebly remunerated. "I get so little," ran his bitter plaint, "that I couldn't live,if it were not for the fasts." And, indeed, the fasts of the religion were worth much more to him than to Yankelé; his meals were so profuse that his savings from this source were quite a little revenue. As Yankelé had pointed out, he was married. And his wife had given him a child, but it died at the age of seven, bequeathing to him the only poignant sorrow of his life. He was too jealous to call in a rival consolation preacher during those dark days, and none of his own five sermons seemed to fit the case. It was some months before he took his meals regularly.
At no time had anyone else taken meals in his house, except by law entitled. Though she had only two to cook for, his wife habitually provided for three, counting her husband no mere unit. Herself she reckoned as a half.
It was with intelligible perturbation, therefore, that Yankelé, dressed in some other man's best, approached the house of Rabbi Remorse Red-herring about a quarter of an hour before the Sabbath mid-day meal, intent on sharing it with him.
"No dinner, no marriage!" was da Costa's stern ukase.
What wonder if the inaccessible meal took upon itself the grandiosity of a wedding feast! Deborah da Costa's lovely face tantalised him like a mirage.
The Sabbath day was bleak, but chiller was his heart. The Rabbi had apartments in Steward Street, Spitalfields, an elegant suite on the ground-floor, for he stinted himself innothing but charity. At the entrance was a porch—a pointed Gothic arch of wood supported by two pillars. As Yankelé mounted the three wooden steps, breathing as painfully as if they were three hundred, and wondering if he would ever get merely as far as the other side of the door, he was assailed by the temptation to go and dine peacefully at home, and represent to da Costa that he had feasted with the Rabbi. Manasseh would never know, Manasseh had taken no steps to ascertain if he satisfied the test or not. Such carelessness, he told himself in righteous indignation, deserved fitting punishment. But, on the other hand, he recalled Manasseh's trust in him; Manasseh believed him a man of honour, and the patron's elevation of soul awoke an answering chivalry in the parasite.
He decided to make the attempt at least, for there would be plenty of time to say he had succeeded, after he had failed.
Vibrating with tremors of nobility as well as of apprehension, Yankelé lifted the knocker. He had no programme, trusting to chance and mother-wit.
Mrs. Remorse Red-herring half opened the door.
"I vish to see de Rabbi," he said, putting one foot within.
"'I VISH TO SEE DE RABBI.'"
"He is engaged," said the wife—a tiny thin creature who had been plump and pretty. "He is very busy talking with a gentleman."
"Oh, but I can vait."
"But the Rabbi will be having his dinner soon."
"I can vait till after dinner," said Yankelé obligingly.
"Oh, but the Rabbi sits long at table."
"I don't mind," said Yankelé with undiminished placidity, "de longer de better."
The poor woman looked perplexed. "I'll tell my husband," she said at last.
Yankelé had an anxious moment in the passage.
"The Rabbi wishes to know what you want," she said when she returned.
"I vant to get married," said Yankelé with an inspiration of veracity.
"But my husband doesn't marry people."
"Vy not?"
"He only brings consolation into households," she explained ingenuously.
"Vell, I won't get married midout him," Yankelé murmured lugubriously.
The little woman went back in bewilderment to her bosom's lord. Forthwith out came Rabbi Remorse Red-herring, curiosity and cupidity in his eyes. He wore the skull-cap of sanctity, but looked the gourmand in spite of it.
"Good Sabbath, sir! What is this about your getting married?"
"It's a long story," said Yankelé, "and as your good vife told me your dinner is just ready, I mustn't keep you now."
"No, there are still a few minutes before dinner. What is it?"
Yankelé shook his head. "I couldn't tink of keeping you in dis draughty passage."
"I don't mind. I don't feel any draught."
"Dat's just vere de danger lays. You don't notice, and one day you find yourself laid up mid rheumatism, and you vill have Remorse," said Yankelé with a twinkle. "Your life is precious—ifyoudie, who vill console de community?"
It was an ambiguous remark, but the Rabbi understood it in its most flattering sense, and his little eyes beamed. "I would ask you inside," he said, "but I have a visitor."
"No matter," said Yankelé, "vat I have to say to you, Rabbi, is not private. A stranger may hear it."
Still undecided, the Rabbi muttered, "You want me to marry you?"
"I have come to get married," replied Yankelé.
"But I have never been called upon to marry people."
"It's never too late to mend, dey say."
"Strange—strange," murmured the Rabbi reflectively.
"Vat is strange?"
"That you should come to me just to-day. But why did you not go to Rabbi Sandman?"
"Rabbi Sandman!" replied Yankelé with contempt. "Vere vould be de good of going to him?"
"But why not?"
"EverySchnorrergoes to him," said Yankelé frankly.
"Hum!" mused the Rabbi. "Perhaps thereisan opening for a more select marrier. Come in, then, I can give you five minutes if you really don't mind talking before a stranger."
He threw open the door, and led the way into the sitting-room.
Yankelé followed, exultant; the outworks were already carried, and his heart beat high with hope. But at his first glance within, he reeled and almost fell.
Standing with his back to the fire and dominating the room was Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa!
"Ah, Yankelé, good Sabbath!" said da Costa affably.
"G-g-ood Sabbath!" stammered Yankelé.
"Why, you know each other!" cried the Rabbi.
"Oh, yes," said Manasseh, "an acquaintance of yours, too, apparently."
"No, he is just come to see me about something," replied the Rabbi.
"I thought you did not know the Rabbi, Mr. da Costa?" Yankelé could not help saying.
"I didn't. I only had the pleasure of making his acquaintance half an hour ago. I met him in the street as he was coming home from morning service, and he was kind enough to invite me to dinner."
Yankelé gasped; despite his secret amusement at Manasseh's airs, there were moments when the easy magnificence of the man overwhelmed him, extorted his reluctant admiration. How in Heaven's name had the Spaniard conquered at a blow!
Looking down at the table, he now observed that it was already laid for dinner—and for three! He should have been that third. Was it fair of Manasseh to handicap him thus? Naturally, there would be infinitely less chance of a fourth being invited than a third—to say nothing of the dearth of provisions. "But, surely, you don't intend to stay to dinner!" he complained in dismay.
"I have given my word," said Manasseh, "and I shouldn't care to disappoint the Rabbi."
"Oh, it's no disappointment, no disappointment," remarkedRabbi Remorse Red-herring cordially, "I could just as well come round and see you after dinner."
"After dinner I never see people," said Manasseh majestically; "I sleep."
The Rabbi dared not make further protest: he turned to Yankelé and asked, "Well, now, what's this about your marriage?"
"I can't tell you before Mr. da Costa," replied Yankelé, to gain time.
"Why not? You said anybody might hear."
"Noting of the sort. I said a stranger might hear. But Mr. da Costa isn't a stranger. He knows too much about de matter."
"What shall we do, then?" murmured the Rabbi.
"I can vait till after dinner," said Yankelé, with good-natured carelessness. "Idon't sleep—"
Before the Rabbi could reply, the wife brought in a baked dish, and set it on the table. Her husband glowered at her, but she, regular as clockwork, and as unthinking, produced the black bottle ofschnapps. It was her husband's business to get rid of Yankelé; her business was to bring on the dinner. If she had delayed, he would have raged equally. She was not only wife, but maid-of-all-work.
Seeing the advanced state of the preparations, Manasseh da Costa took his seat at the table; obeying her husband's significant glance, Mrs. Red-herring took up her position at the foot. The Rabbi himself sat down at the head, behind the dish. He always served, being the only person he could rely upon to gauge his capacities. Yankelé was left standing. The odour of the meat and potatoes impregnated the atmosphere with wistful poetry.
Suddenly the Rabbi looked up and perceived Yankelé. "Will you do as we do?" he said in seductive accents.
TheSchnorrer'sheart gave one wild, mad throb of joy. He laid his hand on the only other chair.
"I don't mind if I do," he said, with responsive amiability.
"Then go home and haveyourdinner," said the Rabbi.
"'THEN GO HOME AND HAVE YOUR DINNER.'"
Yankelé's wild heart-beat was exchanged for a stagnation as of death. A shiver ran down his spine. He darted an agonised appealing glance at Manasseh, who sniggered inscrutably.
"Oh, I don't tink I ought to go avay and leave you midout a tird man for grace," he said, in tones of prophetic rebuke. "Since Ibehere, it vould be a sin not to stay."
The Rabbi, having a certain connection with religion, was cornered; he was not able to repudiate such an opportunity of that more pious form of grace which needs the presence of three males.
"Oh, I should be very glad for you to stay," said the Rabbi, "but, unfortunately, we have only three meat-plates."
"Oh, de dish vill do for me."
"Very well, then!" said the Rabbi.
And Yankelé, with the old mad heart-beat, took the fourth chair, darting a triumphant glance at the still sniggering Manasseh.
The hostess rose, misunderstanding her husband's optical signals, and fished out a knife and fork from the recesses of a chiffonier. The host first heaped his own plate high with artistically coloured potatoes and stiff meat—less from discourtesy than from life-long habit—then divided the remainder in unequal portions between Manasseh and the little woman, in rough correspondence with their sizes. Finally, he handed Yankelé the empty dish.
"You see there is nothing left," he said simply. "We didn't even expect one visitor."
"First come, first served," observed Manasseh, with his sphinx-like expression, as he fell-to.
Yankelé sat frozen, staring blankly at the dish, his brain as empty. He had lost.
Such a dinner was a hollow mockery—like the dish. He could not expect Manasseh to accept it, quibbled he ever so cunningly. He sat for a minute or two as in a dream, the music of knife and fork ringing mockingly in his ears, his hungry palate moistened by the delicious savour. Then he shook off his stupor, and all his being was desperately astrain, questing for an idea. Manasseh discoursed with his host on neo-Hebrew literature.
"We thought of starting a journal at Grodno," said the Rabbi, "only the funds—"
"Be you den a native of Grodno?" interrupted Yankelé.
"Yes, I was born there," mumbled the Rabbi, "but I left there twenty years ago." His mouth was full, and he did not cease to ply the cutlery.
"Ah!" said Yankelé enthusiastically, "den you must be de famous preacher everybody speaks of. I do not remember you myself, for I vas a boy, but dey say ve haven't got no such preachers nowaday."
"In Grodno my husband kept a brandy shop," put in the hostess.
There was a bad quarter of a minute of silence. To Yankelé's relief, the Rabbi ended it by observing, "Yes, but doubtless the gentleman (you will excuse me calling you that, sir, I don't know your real name) alluded to my fame as a boy-Maggid. At the age of five I preached to audiences of many hundreds, and my manipulation of texts, my demonstrations that they did not mean what they said, drew tears even from octogenarians familiar with the Torah fromtheir earliest infancy. It was said there never was such a wonder-child since Ben Sira."
"But why did you give it up?" enquired Manasseh.
"It gave me up," said the Rabbi, putting down his knife and fork to expound an ancient grievance. "A boy-Maggid cannot last more than a few years. Up to nine I was still a draw, but every year the wonder grew less, and, when I was thirteen, my Bar-Mitzvah (confirmation) sermon occasioned no more sensation than those of the many other lads whose sermons I had written for them. I struggled along as boyishly as I could for some time after that, but it was in a losing cause. My age won on me daily. As it is said, 'I have been young, and now I am old.' In vain I composed the most eloquent addresses to be heard in Grodno. In vain I gave a course on the emotions, with explanations and instances from daily life—the fickle public preferred younger attractions. So at last I gave it up and soldvodki."
"'SOLD VODKI.'""'SOLD VODKI.'"
"Vat a pity! Vat a pity!" ejaculated Yankelé, "after vinning fame in de Torah!"
"But what is a man to do? He is not always a boy," replied the Rabbi. "Yes, I kept a brandy shop. That'swhat I call Degradation. But there is always balm in Gilead. I lost so much money over it that I had to emigrate to England, where, finding nothing else to do, I became a preacher again." He poured himself out a glass ofschnapps, ignoring the water.
"I heard nothing of devodkishop," said Yankelé; "it vas svallowed up in your earlier fame."
The Rabbi drained the glass ofschnapps, smacked his lips, and resumed his knife and fork. Manasseh reached for the unoffered bottle, and helped himself liberally. The Rabbi unostentatiously withdrew it beyond his easy reach, looking at Yankelé the while.
"How long have you been in England?" he asked the Pole.
"Not long," said Yankelé.
"Ha! Does Gabriel the cantor still suffer from neuralgia?"
Yankelé looked sad. "No—he is dead," he said.
"Dear me! Well, he was tottering when I knew him. His blowing of the ram's horn got wheezier every year. And how is his young brother, Samuel?"
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"What, he too! Tut, tut! He was so robust. Has Mendelssohn, the stonemason, got many more girls?"
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"Nonsense!" gasped the Rabbi, dropping his knife and fork. "Why, I heard from him only a few months ago."
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"Good gracious me! Mendelssohn dead!" After a moment of emotion he resumed his meal. "But his sons and daughters are all doing well, I hope. The eldest, Solomon, was a most pious youth, and his third girl, Neshamah, promised to be a rare beauty."
"They are dead!" said Yankelé.
This time the Rabbi turned pale as a corpse himself. He laid down his knife and fork automatically.
"D—dead," he breathed in an awestruck whisper. "All?"
"Everyone. De same cholera took all de family."
The Rabbi covered his face with his hands. "Then poor Solomon's wife is a widow. I hope he left her enough to live upon."
"No, but it doesn't matter," said Yankelé.
"It matters a great deal," cried the Rabbi.
"She is dead," said Yankelé.
"Rebecca Schwartz dead!" screamed the Rabbi, for he had once loved the maiden himself, and, not having married her, had still a tenderness for her.
"Rebecca Schwartz," repeated Yankelé inexorably.
"Was it the cholera?" faltered the Rabbi.
"No, she vas heart-broke."
Rabbi Remorse Red-herring silently pushed his plate away, and leaned his elbows upon the table and his face upon his palms, and his chin upon the bottle ofschnappsin mournful meditation.
"IN MOURNFUL MEDITATION."
"You are not eating, Rabbi," said Yankelé insinuatingly.
"I have lost my appetite," said the Rabbi.
"Vat a pity to let food get cold and spoil! You'd better eat it."
The Rabbi shook his head querulously.
"Den I vill eat it," cried Yankelé indignantly. "Good hot food like dat!"
"As you like," said the Rabbi wearily. And Yankelé began to eat at lightning speed, pausing only to wink at the inscrutable Manasseh; and to cast yearning glances at the inaccessibleschnappsthat supported the Rabbi's chin.
Presently the Rabbi looked up: "You're quite sure all these people are dead?" he asked with a dawning suspicion.
"May my blood be poured out like thisschnapps," protested Yankelé, dislodging the bottle, and vehemently pouring the spirit into a tumbler, "if dey be not."
The Rabbi relapsed into his moody attitude, and retained it till his wife brought in a big willow-pattern china dish of stewed prunes and pippins. She produced four plates for these, and so Yankelé finished his meal in the unquestionable status of a first-class guest. The Rabbi was by this time sufficiently recovered to toy with two platefuls in a melancholy silence which he did not break till his mouth opened involuntarily to intone the grace.
"PRUNES AND PIPPINS."
When grace was over he turned to Manasseh and said, "And what was this way you were suggesting to me of getting a profitable Sephardic connection?"
"I did, indeed, wonder why you did not extend your practice as consolation preacher among the Spanish Jews,"replied Manasseh gravely. "But after what we have just heard of the death-rate of Jews in Grodno, I should seriously advise you to go back there."
"No, they cannot forget that I was once a boy," replied the Rabbi with equal gravity. "I prefer the Spanish Jews. They are all well-to-do. They may not die so often as the Russians, but they die better, so to speak. You will give me introductions, you will speak of me to your illustrious friends, I understand."
"You understand!" repeated Manasseh in dignified astonishment. "You do not understand. I shall do no such thing."
"But you yourself suggested it!" cried the Rabbi excitedly.
"I? Nothing of the kind. I had heard of you and your ministrations to mourners, and meeting you in the street this afternoon for the first time, it struck me to enquire why you did not carry your consolations into the bosom of my community where so much more money is to be made. I said I wondered you had not done so from the first. And you—invited me to dinner. I still wonder. That is all, my good man." He rose to go.
The haughty rebuke silenced the Rabbi, though his heart was hot with a vague sense of injury.
"Do you come my way, Yankelé?" said Manasseh carelessly.
The Rabbi turned hastily to his second guest.
"When do you want me to marry you?" he asked.
"You have married me," replied Yankelé.
"I?" gasped the Rabbi. It was the last straw.
"Yes," reiterated Yankelé. "Hasn't he, Mr. da Costa?"
His heart went pit-a-pat as he put the question.
"Certainly," said Manasseh without hesitation.
Yankelé's face was made glorious summer. Only two of the quartette knew the secret of his radiance.
"There, Rabbi," he cried exultantly. "Good Sabbath!"
"Good Sabbath!" added Manasseh.
"Good Sabbath," dazedly murmured the Rabbi.
"Good Sabbath," added his wife.
"Congratulate me!" cried Yankelé when they got outside.
"On what?" asked Manasseh.
"On being your future son-in-law, of course."
"Oh, onthat? Certainly, I congratulate you most heartily." The twoSchnorrersshook hands. "I thought you were asking for compliments on your manœuvring."
"Vy, doesn't it deserve dem?"
"No," said Manasseh magisterially.
"No?" queried Yankelé, his heart sinking again. "Vy not?"
"Why did you kill so many people?"
"Somebody must die dat I may live."
"You said that before," said Manasseh severely. "A goodSchnorrerwould not have slaughtered so many for his dinner. It is a waste of good material. And then you told lies!"
"How do you know they are not dead?" pleaded Yankelé.
The King shook his head reprovingly. "A first-classSchnorrernever lies," he laid it down.
"I might have made truth go as far as a lie—if you hadn't come to dinner yourself."
"What is that you say? Why, I came to encourage you by showing you how easy your task was."
"On de contrary, you made it much harder for me. Dere vas no dinner left."
"But against that you must reckon that since the Rabbi had already invited one person, he couldn't be so hard to tackle as I had fancied."
"Oh, but you must not judge from yourself," protested Yankelé. "You be not aSchnorrer—you be a miracle."
"But I should like a miracle for my son-in-law also," grumbled the King.
"And if you had toschnorra son-in-law, you vould get a miracle," said Yankelé soothingly. "As he has toschnorryou,hegets the miracle."
"True," observed Manasseh musingly, "and I think you might therefore be very well content without the dowry."
"So I might," admitted Yankelé, "onlyyouvould not be content to break your promise. I suppose I shall have some of de dowry on de marriage morning."
"On that morning you shall get my daughter—without fail. Surely that will be enough for one day!"
"Vell, ven do I get de money your daughter gets from de Synagogue?"
"When she gets it from the Synagogue, of course."
"How much vill it be?"
"It may be a hundred and fifty pounds," said Manasseh pompously.
Yankelé's eyes sparkled.
"And it may be less," added Manasseh as an after-thought.
"How much less?" enquired Yankelé anxiously.
"A hundred and fifty pounds," repeated Manasseh pompously.
"D'you mean to say I may get noting?"
"Certainly, if she gets nothing. What I promised you was the money she gets from the Synagogue. Should she be fortunate enough in thesorteo—"
"Desorteo! Vat is dat?"
"The dowry I told you of. It is accorded by lot. My daughter has as good a chance as any other maiden. By winning her you stand to win a hundred and fifty pounds. It is a handsome amount. There are not many fathers who would do as much for their daughters," concluded Manasseh with conscious magnanimity.
"But about de Jerusalem estate!" said Yankelé, shifting his standpoint. "I don't vant to go and live dere. De Messiah is not yet come."
"No, you will hardly be able to live on it," admitted Manasseh.
"You do not object to my selling it, den?"
"Oh, no! If you are so sordid, if you have no true Jewish sentiment!"
"Ven can I come into possession?"
"On the wedding day if you like."
"One may as vell get it over," said Yankelé, suppressing a desire to rub his hands in glee. "As de Talmud says, 'One peppercorn to-day is better dan a basketful of pumpkins to-morrow.'"
"All right! I will bring it to the Synagogue."
"Bring it to de Synagogue!" repeated Yankelé in amaze. "Oh, you mean de deed of transfer."
"The deed of transfer! Do you think I waste my substance on solicitors? No, I will bring the property itself."
"But how can you do dat?"
"Where is the difficulty?" demanded Manasseh with withering contempt. "Surely a child could carry a casket of Jerusalem earth to Synagogue!"
"A casket of earth! Is your property in Jerusalem only a casket of earth?"
"What then? You didn't expect it would be a casket of diamonds?" retorted Manasseh, with gathering wrath."To a true Jew a casket of Jerusalem earth is worth all the diamonds in the world."
"But your Jerusalem property is a fraud!" gasped Yankelé.
"Oh, no, you may be easy on that point. It's quite genuine. I know there is a good deal of spurious Palestine earth in circulation, and that many a dead man who has clods of it thrown into his tomb is nevertheless buried in unholy soil. But this casket I was careful to obtain from a Rabbi of extreme sanctity. It was the only thing he had worthschnorring."
"I don't suppose I shall get more dan a crown for it," said Yankelé, with irrepressible indignation.
"That's what I say," returned Manasseh; "and never did I think a son-in-law of mine would meditate selling my holy soil for a paltry five shillings! I will not withdraw my promise, but I am disappointed in you—bitterly disappointed. Had I known this earth was not to cover your bones, it should have gone down to the grave with me, as enjoined in my last will and testament, by the side of which it stands in my safe."
"Very vell, I von't sell it," said Yankelé sulkily.
"You relieve my soul. As theMishnahsays, 'He who marries a wife for money begets froward children.'"
"THE UNCONSCIOUS BRIDE OPENEDTHE DOOR."
"And vat about de province in England?" asked Yankelé, in low, despondent tones. He had never believed inthat, but now, behind all his despair and incredulity, was a vague hope that something might yet be saved from the crash.
"Oh, you shall choose your own," replied Manasseh graciously. "We will get a large map of London, and I will mark off in red pencil the domain in which Ischnorr. You will then choose any district in this—say, two main streetsand a dozen byways and alleys—which shall be marked off in blue pencil, and whatever province of my kingdom you pick, I undertake not toschnorrin, from your wedding-day onwards. I need not tell you how valuable such a province already is; under careful administration, such as you would be able to give it, the revenue from it might be doubled, trebled. I do not think your tribute to me need be more than ten per cent."
Yankelé walked along mesmerised, reduced to somnambulism by his magnificently masterful patron.
"Oh, here we are!" said Manasseh, stopping short. "Won't you come in and see the bride, and wish her joy?"
A flash of joy came into Yankelé's own face, dissipating his glooms. After all there was always da Costa's beautiful daughter—a solid, substantial satisfaction. He was glad she was not an item of the dowry.
The unconscious bride opened the door.
"Ah, ha, Yankelé!" said Manasseh, his paternal heart aglow at the sight of her loveliness. "You will be not only a king, but a rich king. As it is written, 'Who is rich? He who hath a beautiful wife.'"
SHOWING HOW THE KING DISSOLVED THE MAHAMAD.
Manasseh da Costa (thus docked of his nominal plenitude in the solemn writ) had been summoned before the Mahamad, the intended union of his daughter with a Polish Jew having excited the liveliest horror and displeasure in the breasts of the Elders of the Synagogue. Such a Jew did not pronounce Hebrew as they did!
"THE ELDERS OF THE SYNAGOGUE."
The Mahamad was a Council of Five, no less dread than the more notorious Council of Ten. Like the Venetian Tribunal, which has unjustly monopolised the attention of history, it was of annual election, and it was elected by a larger body of Elders, just as the Council of Ten was chosen by the aristocracy. "The gentlemen of the Mahamad," as they were styled, administered the affairs of the Spanish-Portuguese community, and their oligarchy would undoubtedly be a byword for all that is arbitrary and inquisitorial but for the widespread ignorance of its existence. To itself the Mahamad was the centre of creation. On one occasion it refused to bow even to the authority of the Lord Mayor of London. A Sephardic Jew lived and moved and had his being "by permission of the Mahamad." Without its consent he could have no legitimate place in the scheme of things. Minus "the permission of the Mahamad" he couldnot marry; with it he could be divorced readily. He might, indeed, die without the sanction of the Council of Five, but this was the only great act of his life which was free from its surveillance, and he could certainly not be buried save "by permission of the Mahamad." The Haham himself, the Sage or Chief Rabbi of the congregation, could not unite his flock in holy wedlock without the "permission of the Mahamad." And this authority was not merely negative and passive, it was likewise positive and active. To be a Yahid—a recognised congregant—one had to submit one's neck to a yoke more galling even than that of the Torah, to say nothing of the payment of Finta, or poll-tax. Woe tohim who refused to be Warden of the Captives—he who ransomed the chained hostages of the Moorish Corsairs, or the war prisoners held in durance by the Turks—or to be President of the Congregation, or Parnass of the Holy Land, or Bridegroom of the Law, or any of the numerous dignitaries of a complex constitution. Fines, frequent and heavy—for the benefit of the poor-box—awaited him "by permission of the Mahamad." Unhappy the wight who misconducted himself in Synagogue "by offending the president, or grossly insulting any other person," as the ordinance deliciously ran. Penalties, stringent and harrying, visited these and other offences—deprivation of the "good deeds," of swathing the Holy Scroll, or opening the Ark; ignominious relegation to seats behind the reading-desk, withdrawal of the franchise, prohibition against shaving for a term of weeks! And if, accepting office, the Yahid failed in the punctual and regular discharge of his duties, he was mulcted and chastised none the less. A fine of forty pounds drove from the Synagogue Isaac Disraeli, collector ofCuriosities of Literature, and made possible that curiosity of politics, the career of Lord Beaconsfield. The fathers of the Synagogue, who drew up their constitution in pure Castilian in the days when Pepys noted the indecorum in their little Synagogue in King Street, meant their statutes to cement, not thus to disintegrate, the community. 'Twas a tactless tyranny, this of the Mahamad, an inelastic administration of a cast-iron codex wrought "in good King Charles's golden days," when the colony of Dutch-Spanish exiles was as a camp in enemies' country, in need of militaryrégime; and it co-operated with the attractions of an unhampered "Christian" career in driving many a brilliant family beyond the gates of the Ghetto, and into the pages of Debrett. Athens is always a dangerous rival to Sparta.
"THE PRESIDENT OF THE MAHAMAD."
But the Mahamad itself moved strictly in the grooves of prescription. That legalistic instinct of the Hebrew, which had evolved the most gigantic and minute code of conduct in the world, had beguiled these latter-day Jews into super-adding to it a local legislation that grew into two hundred pages of Portuguese—an intertangled network ofAscamotor regulations, providing for every contingency of Synagogue politics, from the quarrels of members for the best seats down to the dimensions of their graves in theCarreira, from the distribution of "good deeds" among the rich to the distribution of Passover Cakes among the poor. If the wheels and pulleys of the communal life moved "by permission of the Mahamad," the Mahamad moved by permission of theAscamot.
The Solemn Council was met—"in complete Mahamad." Even the Chief of the Elders was present, by virtue of his privilege, making a sixth; not to count the Chancellor or Secretary, who sat flutteringly fingering the Portuguese Minute Book on the right of the President. He was a little man, an odd medley of pomp and bluster, with a snuff-smeared upper lip, and a nose that had dipped in the wine when it was red. He had a grandiose sense of his own importance, but it was a pride that had its roots in humility, for he felt himself great because he was the servant of greatness. He lived "by permission of the Mahamad." As an official he was theoretically inaccessible. If you approached him on a matter he would put out his palms deprecatingly and pant, "I must consult the Mahamad." It was said of him that he had once been asked the time, and that he had automatically panted, "I must consult the Mahamad." This consultation was the merest form; in practice the Secretary had more influence than the Chief Rabbi, who was not allowed to recommend an applicant forcharity, for the quaint reason that the respect entertained for him might unduly prejudice the Council in favour of his candidate. As no gentleman of the Mahamad could possibly master the statutes in his year of office, especially as only a rare member understood the Portuguese in which they had been ultimately couched, the Secretary was invariably referred to, for he was permanent, full of saws and precedents, and so he interpreted the law with impartial inaccuracy—"by permission of the Mahamad." In his heart of hearts he believed that the sun rose and the rain fell—"by permission of the Mahamad."
The Council Chamber was of goodly proportions, and was decorated by gold lettered panels, inscribed with the names of pious donors, thick as saints in a graveyard, overflowing even into the lobby. The flower and chivalry of the Spanish Jewry had sat round that Council-table, grandees who had plumed and ruffled it with the bloods of their day, clanking their swords with the best, punctiliouswithal and ceremonious, with the stately Castilian courtesy still preserved by the men who were met this afternoon, to whom their memory was as faint as the fading records of the panels. These descendants of theirs had still elaborate salutations and circumlocutions, and austere dignities of debate. "God-fearing men of capacity and respectability," as theAscamademanded, they were also men of money, and it gave them a port and a repose. His Britannic Majesty graced the throne no better than the President of the Mahamad, seated at the head of the long table in his alcoved arm-chair, with the Chief of the Elders on his left, and the Chancellor on his right, and his Councillors all about him. The westering sun sent a pencil of golden light through the Norman windows as if anxious to record the names of those present in gilt letters—"by permission of the Mahamad."
"Let da Costa enter," said the President, when the agenda demanded the greatSchnorrer'spresence.
The Chancellor fluttered to his feet, fussily threw open the door, and beckoned vacancy with his finger till he discovered Manasseh was not in the lobby. The beadle came hurrying up instead.
"BECKONED WITH HIS FINGER."
"Where is da Costa?" panted the Chancellor. "Call da Costa."
"Da Costa!" sonorously intoned the beadle with the long-drawn accent of court ushers.
The corridor rang hollow, empty of Manasseh. "Why, he was here a moment ago," cried the bewildered beadle. He ran down the passage, and found him sure enough at the end of it where it abutted on the street. The King ofSchnorrerswas in dignified converse with a person of consideration.
"Da Costa!" the beadle cried again, but his tone was less awesome and more tetchy. The beggar did not turn his head.
"Mr. da Costa," said the beadle, now arrived too near the imposing figure to venture on familiarities with it. This time the beggar gave indications of restored hearing. "Yes, my man," he said, turning and advancing a few paces to meet the envoy. "Don't go, Grobstock," he called over his shoulder.
"Didn't you hear me calling?" grumbled the beadle.
"I heard you calling da Costa, but I naturally imagined it was one of your drinking companions," replied Manasseh severely.
"The Mahamad is waiting for you," faltered the beadle.
"Tellthe gentlemenof the Mahamad," said Manasseh, with reproving emphasis, "that I shall do myself the pleasure of being with them presently. Nay, pray don't hurry away, my dear Grobstock," he went on, resuming his place at the German magnate's side—"and so your wife is taking the waters at Tunbridge Wells. In faith, 'tis an excellent regimen for the vapours. I am thinkingof sending my wife to Buxton—the warden of our hospital has his country-seat there."
"But you are wanted," murmured Grobstock, who was anxious to escape. He had caught theSchnorrer'seye as its owner sunned himself in the archway, and it held him.
"'Tis only a meeting of the Mahamad I have to attend," he said indifferently. "Rather a nuisance—but duty is duty."
Grobstock's red face became a setting for two expanded eyes.
"I thought the Mahamad was your chief Council," he exclaimed.
"Yes, there are only five of us," said Manasseh lightly, and, while Grobstock gaped incredulous, the Chancellor himself shambled up in pale consternation.
"You are keeping the gentlemen of the Mahamad waiting," he panted imperiously.
"Ah, you are right, Grobstock," said Manasseh with a sigh of resignation. "They cannot get on without me. Well, you will excuse me, I know. I am glad to have seen you again—we shall finish our chat at your house some evening, shall we? I have agreeable recollections of your hospitality."
"My wife will be away all this month," Grobstock repeated feebly.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Manasseh roguishly. "Thank you for the reminder. I shall not fail to aid you in taking advantage of her absence. Perhaps mine will be away, too—at Buxton. Two bachelors, ha! ha! ha!" and, proffering his hand, he shook Grobstock's in gracious farewell. Then he sauntered leisurely in the wake of the feverishly impatient Chancellor, his staff tapping the stones in measured tardiness.
"'HA! HA! HA!' LAUGHED MANASSEH."
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he observed affably as he entered the Council Chamber.
"You have kept us waiting," sharply rejoined the President of the Mahamad, ruffled out of his regal suavity. He was a puffy, swarthy personage, elegantly attired, and he leaned forward on his velvet throne, tattooing on the table with bediamonded fingers.
"Not so long as you have keptmewaiting," said Manasseh with quiet resentment. "If I had known you expected me to cool my heels in the corridor I should not have come, and, had not my friend the Treasurer of the Great Synagogue opportunely turned up to chat with me, I should not have stayed."
"You are impertinent, sir," growled the President.
"I think, sir, it is you who owe me an apology," maintained Manasseh unflinchingly, "and, knowing the courtesy and high breeding which has always distinguished your noble family, I can only explain your present tone by your beingunaware I have a grievance. No doubt it is your Chancellor who cited me to appear at too early an hour."
The President, cooled by the quiet dignity of the beggar, turned a questioning glance upon the outraged Chancellor, who was crimson and quivering with confusion and indignation.
"It is usual t-t-to summon persons before the c-c-commencement of the meeting," he stammered hotly. "We cannot tell how long the prior business will take."
"Then I would respectfully submit to the Chief of the Elders," said Manasseh, "that at the next meeting of his august body he move a resolution that persons cited to appear before the Mahamad shall take precedence of all other business."
The Chief of the Elders looked helplessly at the President of the Mahamad, who was equally at sea. "However, I will not press that point now," added Manasseh, "nor will I draw the attention of the committee to the careless, perfunctory manner in which the document summoning me was drawn up, so that, had I been a stickler for accuracy, I need not have answered to the name of Manasseh da Costa."
"But thatisyour name," protested the Chancellor.
"If you will examine the Charity List," said Manasseh magnificently, "you will see that my name is Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa. But you are keeping the gentlemen of the Mahamad waiting." And with a magnanimous air of dismissing the past, he seated himself on the nearest empty chair at the foot of the table, leaned his elbows on the table, and his face on his hands, and gazed across at the President immediately opposite. The Councillors were so taken aback by his unexpected bearing that this additional audacity was scarcely noted. But the Chancellor, wounded in his inmost instincts, exclaimed irately,"Stand up, sir. These chairs are for the gentlemen of the Mahamad."
"And being gentlemen," added Manasseh crushingly, "they know better than to keep an old man on his legs any longer."
"If you were a gentleman," retorted the Chancellor, "you would take that thing off your head."
"If you were not a Man-of-the-Earth," rejoined the beggar, "you would know that it is not a mark of disrespect for the Mahamad, but of respect for the Law, which is higher than the Mahamad. The rich man can afford to neglect our holy religion, but the poor man has only the Law. It is his sole luxury."
The pathetic tremor in his voice stirred a confused sense of wrong-doing and injustice in the Councillors' breasts. The President felt vaguely that the edge of his coming impressive rebuke had been turned, if, indeed, he did not sit rebuked instead. Irritated, he turned on the Chancellor, and bade him hold his peace.
"He means well," said Manasseh deprecatingly. "He cannot be expected to have the fine instincts of the gentlemen of the Mahamad. May I ask you, sir," he concluded, "to proceed with the business for which you have summoned me? I have several appointments to keep with clients."
The President's bediamonded fingers recommenced their ill-tempered tattoo; he was fuming inwardly with a sense of baffled wrath, of righteous indignation made unrighteous. "Is it true, sir," he burst forth at last in the most terrible accents he could command in the circumstances, "that you meditate giving your daughter in marriage to a Polish Jew?"
"No," replied Manasseh curtly.
"No?" articulated the President, while a murmur of astonishment went round the table at this unexpected collapse of the whole case.
"Why, your daughter admitted it to my wife," said the Councillor on Manasseh's right.
Manasseh turned to him, expostulant, tilting his chair and body towards him. "My daughter is going to marry a Polish Jew," he explained with argumentative forefinger, "but I do not meditate giving her to him."
"Oh, then, you will refuse your consent," said the Councillor, hitching his chair back so as to escape the beggar's progressive propinquity. "By no means," quoth Manasseh in surprised accents, as he drew his chair nearer again, "I have already consented. I do notmeditateconsenting. That word argues an inconclusive attitude."
"None of your quibbles, sirrah," cried the President, while a scarlet flush mantled on his dark countenance. "Do you not know that the union you contemplate is disgraceful and degrading to you, to your daughter, and to the community which has done so much for you? What! A Sephardi marry a Tedesco! Shameful."
"And do you think I do not feel the shame as deeply as you?" enquired Manasseh, with infinite pathos. "Do you think, gentlemen, that I have not suffered from this passion of a Tedesco for my daughter? I came here expecting your sympathy, and do you offer me reproach? Perhaps you think, sir"—here he turned again to his right-hand neighbour, who, in his anxiety to evade his pertinacious proximity, had half-wheeled his chair round, offering only his back to the argumentative forefinger—"perhaps you think, because I have consented, that I cannot condole with you, that I am not at one with you in lamenting this blot on our common 'scutcheon; perhaps you think"—here he adroitly twisted his chair into argumentative position on the other side of the Councillor, rounding him like a cape—"that, because you have no sympathy with my tribulation, I have no sympathy with yours. But, if I have consented, it is only because it was the best I could do for my daughter. In my heart of hearts I have repudiated her, so that she may practically be considered an orphan, and, as such, a fit person to receive the marriage dowry bequeathed by Rodriguez Real, peace be upon him."
"This is no laughing matter, sir," thundered the President, stung into forgetfulness of his dignity by thinking too much of it.
"No, indeed," said Manasseh sympathetically, wheeling to the right so as to confront the President, who went on stormily, "Are you aware, sir, of the penalties you risk by persisting in your course?"
"I risk no penalties," replied the beggar.
"Indeed! Then do you think anyone may trample with impunity upon our ancientAscamot?"
"Our ancientAscamot!" repeated Manasseh in surprise. "What have they to say against a Sephardi marrying a Tedesco?"
The audacity of the question rendered the Council breathless. Manasseh had to answer it himself.
"They have nothing to say. There is no suchAscama." There was a moment of awful silence. It was as though he had disavowed the Decalogue.
"Do you question the first principle of our constitution?" said the President at last, in low, ominous tones. "Do you deny that your daughter is a traitress? Do you—?"
"Ask your Chancellor," calmly interrupted Manasseh. "He is a Man-of-the-Earth, but he should know yourstatutes, and he will tell you that my daughter's conduct is nowhere forbidden."
"Silence, sir," cried the President testily. "Mr. Chancellor, read theAscama."
The Chancellor wriggled on his chair, his face flushing and paling by turns; all eyes were bent upon him in anxious suspense. He hemmed and ha'd and coughed, and took snuff, and blew his nose elaborately.
"There is n-n-no expressAscama," he stuttered at last. Manasseh sat still, in unpretentious triumph.
The Councillor who was now become his right-hand neighbour was the first to break the dazed silence, and it was his first intervention.
"Of course, it was never actually put into writing," he said in stern reproof. "It has never been legislated against, because it has never been conceived possible. These things are an instinct with every right-minded Sephardi. Have we ever legislated against marrying Christians?" Manasseh veered round half a point of the compass, and fixed the new opponent with his argumentative forefinger. "Certainly we have," he replied unexpectedly. "In Section XX., Paragraph II." He quoted theAscamaby heart, rolling out the sonorous Portuguese like a solemn indictment. "If our legislators had intended to prohibit intermarriage with the German community, they would have prohibited it."
"There is the Traditional Law as well as the Written," said the Chancellor, recovering himself. "It is so in our holy religion, it is so in our constitution."
"Yes, there are precedents assuredly," cried the President eagerly.
"There is the case of one of our Treasurers in the time of George II.," said the little Chancellor, blossoming under the sunshine of the President's encouragement, and naming theancestor of a Duchess of to-day. "He wanted to marry a beautiful German Jewess."
"And was interdicted," said the President.
"Hem!" coughed the Chancellor. "He—he was only permitted to marry her under humiliating conditions. The Elders forbade the attendance of the members of the House of Judgment, or of the Cantors; no celebration was to take place in theSnoga; no offerings were to be made for the bridegroom's health, nor was he even to receive the bridegroom's call to the reading of the Law."
"'HEM!' COUGHED THE CHANCELLOR."
"But the Elders will not impose any such conditions on my son-in-law," said Manasseh, skirting round another chair so as to bring his forefinger to play upon the Chief of the Elders, on whose left he had now arrived in his argumentative advances. "In the first place he is not one of us. His desire to join us is a compliment. If anyone has offended your traditions, it is my daughter. But then she is not a male, like the Treasurer cited; she is not an active agent, she has not gone out of her way to choose a Tedesco—she has been chosen. Your masculine precedents cannot touch her."
"Ay, but we can touch you," said the contemporaryTreasurer, guffawing grimly. He sat opposite Manasseh, and next to the Chancellor.
"Is it fines you are thinking of?" said Manasseh with a scornful glance across the table. "Very well, fine me—if you can afford it. You know that I am a student, a son of the Law, who has no resources but what you allow him. If you care to pay this fine it is your affair. There is always room in the poor-box. I am always glad to hear of fines. You had better make up your mind to the inevitable, gentlemen. Have I not had to do it? There is noAscamato prevent my son-in-law having all the usual privileges—in fact, it was to ask that he might receive the bridegroom's call to the Law on the Sabbath before his marriage that I really came. By Section III., Paragraph I., you are empowered to admit any person about to marry the daughter of a Yahid." Again the sonorous Portuguese rang out, thrilling the Councillors with all that quintessential awfulness of ancient statutes in a tongue not understood. It was not till a quarter of a century later that theAscamotwere translated into English, and from that moment their authority was doomed.
The Chancellor was the first to recover from the quotation. Daily contact with these archaic sanctities had dulled his awe, and the President's impotent irritation spurred him to action.
"But you arenota Yahid," he said quietly. "By Paragraph V. of the same section, any one whose name appears on the Charity List ceases to be a Yahid."
"And a vastly proper law," said Manasseh with irony. "Everybody may vote but theSchnorrer." And, ignoring the Chancellor's point at great length, he remarked confidentially to the Chief of the Elders, at whose elbow he was still encamped, "It is curious how few of your Eldersperceive that those who take the charity are the pillars of the Synagogue. What keeps your community together? Fines. What ensures respect for your constitution? Fines. What makes every man do his duty? Fines. What rules this very Mahamad? Fines. And it is the poor who provide an outlet for all these moneys. Egad, do you think your members would for a moment tolerate your penalties, if they did not know the money was laid out in 'good deeds'? Charity is the salt of riches, says the Talmud, and, indeed, it is the salt that preserves your community."
"Have done, sir, have done!" shouted the President, losing all regard for those grave amenities of the ancient Council Chamber which Manasseh did his best to maintain. "Do you forget to whom you are talking?"
"I am talking to the Chief of the Elders," said Manasseh in a wounded tone, "but if you would like me to address myself to you—" and wheeling round the Chief of the Elders, he landed his chair next to the President's.
"Silence, fellow!" thundered the President, shrinking spasmodically from his confidential contact. "You have no right to a voice at all; as the Chancellor has reminded us, you are not even a Yahid, a congregant."
"Then the laws do not apply to me," retorted the beggar quietly. "It is only the Yahid who is privileged to do this, who is prohibited from doing that. NoAscamamentions theSchnorrer, or gives you any authority over him."
"On the contrary," said the Chancellor, seeing the President disconcerted again, "he is bound to attend the weekday services. But this man hardly ever does, sir." "Ineverdo," corrected Manasseh, with touching sadness. "That is another of the privileges I have to forego in order to take your charity; I cannot risk appearing to my Maker in the light of a mercenary."
"And what prevents you taking your turn in the graveyard watches?" sneered the Chancellor.
The antagonists were now close together, one on either side of the President of the Mahamad, who was wedged between the two bobbing, quarrelling figures, his complexion altering momently for the blacker, and his fingers working nervously.
"What prevents me?" replied Manasseh. "My age. It would be a sin against heaven to spend a night in the cemetery. If the body-snatchers did come they might find a corpse to their hand in the watch-tower. But I do my duty—I always pay a substitute."
"No doubt," said the Treasurer. "I remember your asking me for the money to keep an old man out of the cemetery. Now I see what you meant."
"Yes," began two others, "and I—"
"Order, gentlemen, order," interrupted the President desperately, for the afternoon was flitting, the sun was setting, and the shadows of twilight were falling. "You must not argue with the man. Hark you, my fine fellow, we refuse to sanction this marriage; it shall not be performed by our ministers, nor can we dream of admitting your son-in-law as a Yahid."
"Then admit him on your Charity List," said Manasseh.
"We are more likely to strikeyouoff! And, by gad!" cried the President, tattooing on the table with his whole fist, "if you don't stop this scandal instanter, we will send you howling."