APPARENTLY it did not once occur to Elias to seek a natural explanation for what had happened; and even if it had done so, I don't believe it would have made much difference. But this, as has been said, in view of all the circumstances, was scarcely strange. The supernatural explanation had, so to speak, captured his mind by storm. With tremendous force and suddenness, it had thrust itself upon him at a moment when he was suffering the exhaustion and the debility consequent upon a violent shock; and, once in possession, it clung tenaciously, and left no foothold for a saner judgment to stand upon. Then, besides, had not the rabbi's menaces predisposed him to accept it? And finally, there were heredity and education and mental habitude, which in such matters must surely count for much. Elias had been fancying that his inherited and sedulously cultivated superstition was dead and buried. Love, like a radiant St. George, had slain the monster. To us, wise after the fact, it is conceivable that it had but slumbered; and now again was wide awake, breathing fire and vengeance; and had given its quondam executioner such a blow as might not speedily be recovered from, if at all.
Elias, at any rate, did not doubt. He told himself that he had been on the point of committing a mortal sin, one that would have removed him forever beyond the pale of divine mercy, one that would have entailed upon him, and upon his seed after him, infinite retribution. He told himself that at the eleventh hour heaven had intervened, and saved him from his own suicidal clutch. He shuddered at the notion of the risk he had run. He was duly grateful for his deliverance. It had at first surprised him to find that his love of Christine had not survived. That which had absorbed his life, and shaped and directed his life, and been to his life what the sunlight is to the day, its vital, dominating, distinguishing principle, had vanished utterly out of his life, had melted phantom-like, and left not a shred, not a mark, not even a gap, behind, to show where, or of what substance, or of what form it had been. It was the extinguishment of a subtle, spiritual flame, which departs, so far as is determinable, nowhither—is simply swallowed up and assimilated by the inane. Three days ago, he had believed it possessed of everlasting vigor; and now, it was gone as completely as the snows of yesteryear. Death and dissolution had occurred simultaneously.—But his surprise was short-lived. On reflection, he agreed with the rabbi, that nothing else could have been expected. He adopted the rabbi's metaphor, and said that the breath of the Lord had entered his heart, and cleansed it. He remembered how, once before, something similar had befallen, in answer to prayer. But the effects of that had been transitory. The effects of this, he thought, would be permanent. If there were the materials for melancholy here, Elias was callous to their influence.
It seemed, indeed, that not only had his love been abolished, but that his entire emotional system had sunken into a state of apathy, and become unresponsive and inactive. He knew, for example, perfectly well how Christine would suffer. The light of her youth would be quenched, and its sweetness turned to gall and wormwood. The world, that was so fair in her sight, would crumble suddenly to a wide waste of dust and ashes. An agony like fire would be kindled in her young heart, hopeless even of hope. It might perhaps, as old Redwood had said, it might perhaps kill her. But if it did not kill her, it would do worse. She would have to live, and bear it. He knew all this. He could not help knowing it. It was too big, palpable, conspicuous, to be ignored. He knew it; and he stated it clearly, completely, circumstantially, to himself. And then he wondered at his stolidity; for it woke not a throe either of compunction or of compassion. He said to himself, “Altogether aside from the personal element, from the fact that she is who she is, and that I have been her lover; altogether aside, also, from the fact that I, though helpless and irresponsible, am still the occasion of her unhappiness; and simply because she is a woman, a human being, the knowledge of her overwhelming sorrow and utter desolation, ought to move me to deepest, keenest pity.” But it did not. It did not move him to a single momentary qualm. His condition puzzled and mystified him. He could imagine no way to account for it, unless by again following the logic of the rabbi, and assuming it to be the act of God. That it was merely the torpor, the numbness, naturally resulting from the fright, and the immense physical and moral shock, he had sustained, does not appear to have suggested itself to him.
On the morning after his interview with old Redwood (on the morning, namely, of the fourth of May, 1883; date worth remembering), Elias was established at his studio-window, watching the play of sunlight and shadow upon the foliage opposite in the park, and introspecting somewhat listlessly in the direction above set forth, when there came a light tap upon his door; and, without turning around, he called out, “Come in.” He heard the door creak open. He heard the visitor take two or three steps forward into the room. Then, before he had looked to see who it was, he heard his own name pronounced shyly, by a voice that was but too well-known:
“Elias!”
Unspeakably astounded and discomfited, he sprang to his feet, faced her, and stood dumb.
At the moment he was not conscious of noticing especially her appearance; but long afterward he recalled it vividly. Long afterward, the pale face, the disordered golden hair, the large, dark, tearful eyes, the appealing attitude—hands stretched out toward him, face upturned—became of all his memories the strongest, the clearest, the most constant, the one on which his remorse chiefly fed.
But now, he faced her and stood dumb, aware only of hubbub in his brain, and dismay in his breast.
She, manifestly unprepared for this style of greeting, started back. Her eyes filled with fear.
“Oh Elias,” she faltered, “you—you make me think that it is true.”
He, finding his voice, cried piteously: “Oh, why—why did you come here?”
And then they were both silent.
At last she began: “I came—because I could not believe—because my father told me something which I knew was a lie. I came to have you tell me that it was a lie. Oh, why did he tell me such a cruel thing? Why—why do you act like this?”
She paused, expecting him to speak. But he did not speak.
All at once she went on passionately: “Oh, you don't know what he told me. He must have wanted to kill me. But I knew it was a lie. I told him it was a lie—oh, such a shameful, cruel lie. Oh, God! Here, this was it: he told me—he told me that you—Elias—oh, no, no, no! I can not say it. But yes, yes—Iwillsay it—Imustsay it. He said that you—you did not love me any more. Oh, my God, my God!”
She had moved up toward him. Now she fell upon his breast, and sobbed her heart out.
He passively allowed her to remain there. What to do? what to say? he asked himself, distracted.
“Oh, Elias—my darling—I—I knew it could not be true,” she was murmuring between her sobs.
Thus, until her grief had spent itself—until she had had her cry out. By and by she raised her eyes to his, and smiling a forlorn little smile, asked timidly, “You think I am very silly?”
But her smile did not last long. Suddenly, it changed to an expression of utmost woe and terror. She fell back a step or two.
“Elias!” she cried, in a sharp, startled voice. “Why do you look at me like that? Is—do—you can't—mean—that it is true!”
He felt that he must speak. He must gather his forces, and make her understand. He was trying to. He was trying to find the words he needed. But before they had come to him, the door opened, and the rabbi glided upon the scene.
The rabbi took in the situation at a glance.
“Elias,” he said, “this is unfortunate. You ought to have called me.”
Turning to Christine: “You have forgotten yourself, madam. By what right are you here? Did your father send you? I shall be happy to show you the way down stairs.”
He bowed in the direction of the door.
She looked helplessly from the rabbi to his nephew; but she found little to reassure her in Elias's face.
“Was there any thing you had to say to this young lady, before she goes, Elias?” the rabbi queried, in a brisk, business-like tone.
“No, nothing,” Elias began faintly, “nothing, except—yes, except—” He broke off, and drew a sharp, loud breath; suddenly he began anew: “Christine, I am powerless. The Lord—it is the Lord's will. I—it—what your father told you—it was the truth.”
The words found their own way out, mechanically. He could scarcely realize that he had spoken.
For an instant she stood motionless. Then she reeled and tottered, as if about to fall. Then she recovered herself. Slowly, with a dazed, stunned air, groping blindly, she turned, and reached the door, and crossed the threshold.
The rabbi followed, shutting the door behind him.
Elias dropped into a chair. Bewildered, agitated, fagged-out, undone—he felt all this. But he felt not a pang for her.
“If I had thrown you down and trampled upon you,” he wrote, a little less than two years afterward, “it would not have been so brutal, so cruel; but if I had done it in my sleep, I could not have been more insensible to your pain.”
ONE evening at dinner, about a fortnight later, “What's the matter, Elias?” the rabbi asked. “You're not feeling sick, are you? Or blue? Or worried about any thing?”
“Why, no,” Elias answered, “I feel all right. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don't know. I thought you were looking a little out-of-sorts. Likely enough, it was only an idea.”
“The truth is,” Elias presently volunteered, “that, so far from feeling blue or low-spirited or anything of that kind, I don't seem to feel much of any thing at all. I'm sort of sluggish—dull—dead-and-alive. I'd give a good deal for a sensation, an excitement. I've been feeling this way pretty much all the time since—for the last two weeks. Heavy, thick, as though my blood had stopped circulating. I wish you'd stick a pin into me.”
“Oh, you need a little amusement, a little fun, something to take you out of yourself. That's all. Why don't you go to the theater?”
“No, thanks. I'm not fond of the theater. Besides, it's too hot.”
“Well, then, why don't you make a call?”
“A call! Pshaw; is that your notion of excitement?”
“Well, it's better than sitting at home, and moping, isn't it?”
“And, any how, whom do I know to call on?”
“Whom do you know? Mercy upon me! I could name fifty people, whom you not only know, but to whom you actually owe calls. It's really abominable, the way you neglect, and always have neglected, your social duties. There's no excuse for it. If—if you were an old recluse like me, it would be different.”
“I don't see how. What if you were a young recluse, like me?”
“Ah, but nobody has a right to be a young recluse. It is only when we get along in years, that we are entitled to withdraw from the world. Besides, it's narrowing, it's hardening. You need contact with other people, to broaden your mind, and keep your sympathies alive. If you avoid society while you're young, the milk of human kindness will dry up in your bosom. You'll get coldblooded, selfish, indifferent.” Which amiable sentiments, falling from the lips of the rabbi, possessed a peculiar interest. “Come,” he added, “run up-stairs, and put on your best suit, and go make a call.”
“Again I ask, whom on?”
“On—on anybody. I'll tell you whom. Call on Mr. and Mrs. Koch.”
The pronunciation of this name has been anglicized intoCoach.
“Which Koch? A. Hamilton?”
“No, of course not. Washington I.”
“Oh, heavens! I haven't called on them these two years. I'd be afraid to show my face inside their door. They'd overwhelm me with reproaches.”
“Well, what of that? You could stand it, I guess. They're very nice people, the Kochs; people whom it is worth while to be on good terms with—so warm-hearted and unpretentious, and yet with their hundreds of thousands behind them. There isn't a smarter business man in New York City than Washington I. Koch, nor a more honest, nor a more open-handed. Look at that stained glass window he gave the congregation. And then, at the same time, he's a man of ideas, a well-informed man; and best of all, he's a pious Jew.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I'll do,” said Elias; “I'll call on them, if you'll come along.”
“I! Nonsense! I called on them last New-Year's, and shall call again next. That's the most that can be expected of me.”
“Well, I shouldn't dare to go alone. If you'd come along, to keep me in countenance, I'd go. But alone—no, never.”
There was an interval of silence. Suddenly the rabbi said, “Well, I declare, I'll do it. I'll do it, just to encourage you. There; let's go up-stairs and dress.”
Pretty soon they left the house and sauntered westward arm-in-arm. Elias wore the Prince Albert coat that he had had made to be married in.
It was a hot night, and it had all the qualities characteristic of a hot night in New York. The air was redolent of bursting ailanthus buds. Strains of music, more or less musical, were wafted from every point of the compass—from behind open windows, where people sang, or played pianos; from the blazing depths of German concert saloons, where cracked-voiced orchestrions thundered discord; from the street corners, where itinerant bands halted, and blew themselves red in the face; and from the indeterminate distance, where belated hand-organs wailed with mechanical melancholy. Third Avenue, into which thoroughfare Elias and the rabbi presently turned, was thronged by many sorts and conditions of men and women clad in light summer gear, and drifting onward in light, languid, summer fashion. It was intensely hot and oppressive; and yet, somehow, it was productive of a certain unmistakable exhilaration. The sense one got of busy, teeming human life, was penetrating and enlivening.
They walked up to Eighteenth Street, where they took the Elevated Railway. At Fifty-ninth Street they descended, and thence proceeded to Lexington Avenue. On Lexington Avenue, just above Sixty-first Street, the Kochs resided. Out on the stoops of most of the houses that they passed, the inmates were seated, resting, gossiping, trying to cool off—the ladies in white dresses, the gentlemen often in their shirt-sleeves. Here and there, some of them were partaking of refreshments; beer, sandwiches, or cheese that savored of the Rhine. Here and there, some of them had fallen asleep. Here and there, a couple of young folks made surreptitious love, and, consumed by inner fires, forgot the outer heat. A pervasive odor, compounded of tobacco smoke and eau-de-cologne, assailed the nostrils. What snatches of conversation could be overheard, were either in German, or in English pronounced with a strong German accent.
They rang the Kochs' door-bell, and were ushered by a white-capped, flaxen-hairedMädcheninto the drawing-room.
The drawing-room was gorgeously and elaborately over-furnished. A bewildering arabesque, in gold, vermilion, and purple, decorated the ceiling. A dark, pseudo-æsthetic paper, bearing huge pink apricots embossed upon a ground of olive-green, covered the walls. The gas fixtures were of brass, wrought into an intricate design, and burnished to the highest possible brilliancy. The globes were alternately of ruby and emerald tinted glass. There were a good many pictures; two or three family portraits in charcoal, and several bits of color. Of the latter, the one above the mantelpiece was the largest. A blaze of crimson and orange, deep-set in a massive gilt frame, it proved, on close inspection, to be a specimen of worsted-work; and represented, as a device embroidered upon the margin testified, the Queen of Sheba playing before Solomon. The Queen had beautiful gambooge hair, and ultramarine eyes. Her harp was of ivory, with strings of silver; her costume, décolleté, of indigo velvet, trimmed profusely with handsome gold lace. Solomon—it is to be hoped, for his own sake, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like this flamboyant effigy of himself. In a robe of gold brocade, lined with scarlet satin, and bearing upon his brow a richly bejeweled crown, that must certainly have weighed in the neighborhood of twenty pounds, the sagacious monarch looked wretchedly hot and uncomfortable. The rest of this apartment was in perfect keeping. The chairs were of ebony, upholstered in stamped red velvet.
Before long Mr. Koch came in. He wore alligator-skin slippers, and a jacket of pongee silk. Between the fingers of his left hand, he carried a half-smoked cigar. He was a short, thick-set, pale-complexioned man, of forty, or thereabouts; inclined to baldness; with clear, light-gray eyes, and a straw-colored mustache waxed in the style of the Second Empire. He looked very clean, very alert, very good-tempered, and yet as though he could become as hard and as sharp as flint, if occasion demanded. He welcomed the rabbi with warm and deferential courtesy. Then, turning to Elias, in hearty, jovial, hail-fellow-well-met manner: “Well, Mr. Bacharach, how goes it? It's a dog's age since we've seen you, and no mistake. Have a cigar?”
With one hand, he was subjecting Elias's arm to a vigorous pumping. With the other, he offered him a tortoise-shell cigar-case.
“They're genuine,” he remarked. “I'll warrant them. Imported by my brother-in-law for his private consumption. Cost you a quarter apiece straight, if you bought them in New York.Hoyo de Montereys.”
Elias selected one. Mr. Koch produced a silver match-box, extracted a wax match, scratched it, and held it while his guest got his cigar alight.
“Now,” said he, flirting the match flame into extinction, “I'm going to ask you gentlemen to step down stairs to the basement. You'll find the whole family down there, engaged in an impressive ceremony. They're bidding good-night to the baby, whom my wife is about to put to bed.”
In the basement, or dining-room (which, in the Koch establishment, pursuant to a common Jewish habit, was made to serve also as a general sitting-room), as many as seven or eight ladies and gentlemen, some seated, some standing, were gathered around the extension-table, upon which, in the approximate center of it, sprawled a fair, fat, two-year-old baby. The spectators were all smiling benevolently at him, addressing complimentary remarks to him, and exchanging complimentary notes about him among themselves. All the gentlemen were smoking.
“Lester, was you a good boy?”
“Mein Gott! He kroes bigger every day.”
“Laistair, was you sleeby?”
“Tust look at that smile! Ain't it perfectly grand?”
“Laistair, haif you got a kiss for grainpa, before you go to bed?”
And so forth, and so forth: all of which Master Lester acknowledged with a vague grin, and a gutteral goo-goo-goo.
But at the entrance of Mr. Koch, flanked by Elias and the rabbi, the whole company deserted Lester, and making a rush forward, surrounded the visitors. The rabbi, every body greeted with subdued respect, as was due to his sacerdotal quality. But over Elias, they gushed.
Mrs. Koch, a thin, wiry little woman, with a prominent nose and a pleasant manner, piped in her shrill treble: “Oh, Meester Bacharach! I didn't naifer expaict to haif this honor. I ain't seen you in this house for two—for three—years, already: dot time you called with your mamma.”
Mrs. Koch's mother, Mrs. Blum, a dumpy, rubicund old lady, with rather a sly, rollicking air about her, held his hand, and swayed her head like an inverted pendulum from side to side, and smiled incredulously, and kept repeating, “Vail, vail, vail!”
Then came sprightly Mr. Blum, short, corpulent, and florid, like his wife; with a glossy bald pate, a drooping white mustache, and white mutton-chop whiskers, which left exposed a very red and shiny double chin. “My kracious? Was dot Elias Bacharach? Du lieber Gott! How you haif krown, since laist time you was here!” He held Elias off at arm's-length, and scrutinized him carefully. “Excuse me,” he demanded all at once; “where you get dot coat mait? Washington, come over here, and look at Elias Bacharach's coat. Dem must be Chairman goots, hey?” He plucked at the material of the unfortunate garment with his thumb and forefinger, and stroked it with the palm of his hand. “Dot's a goot coat,” he declared at last. “What you pay for it?” He lifted up one of the skirts, and examined the lining. He was a veritable child of nature, this Mr. Blum; and besides, he and his son-in-law constituted the firm of Blum & Koch, manufacturers and jobbers of ready-made clothing, Franklin Street, near Broadway.
Elias and the rabbi paid their respects to the baby; after which, Mrs. Koch picked him up and carried him off.
“Mr. Bacharach,” said Mr. Koch, grasping him by the elbow, “don't you know my brother-in-law, Mr. Sternberg?—Guggenheim & Sternberg, wholesale tobacco. My sister, Mrs. Sternberg; my other sister, Mrs. Morgenthau; my niece, Miss Tillie Morgenthau: Mr. Bacharach.”
To each of these persons, in turn, Elias made his obeisance.
Mrs. Morgenthau was in appearance a feminine duplicate of her brother; short, thick-set, smart-looking, and with an air of having lots ofgo; what is called a bouncing woman.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” she announced, in a loud, robust voice, and with emphasis, as though she wanted it understood that she wasn't fooling, but meant exactly what she said. She shook his hand, giving it a virile grip.
Miss Tillie Morgenthau was a young lady of eighteen or twenty, taller than her mother, exceedingly taper in the waist, and of an exceedingly fresh complexion; decidedly a pretty girl, with plenty of waving black hair, a pair of bright blue eyes, a shapely red mouth, and a generous provision of tiny teeth, regular and of pearly whiteness.
“Oh, I suppose Mr. Bacharach don't remember me,” she said, pouting playfully. She pronounced the personal pronounI, like the interjectionAh.
“Oh, on the contrary,” protested Elias, trying hard to remember whether he had ever seen her before.
“Now, Ah'm perfectly sure you don't,” she insisted. “But All'll tell you. It was at the Advance Club, winter before last. Mr. Greenleaf introduced you to me—Charley Greenleaf. Do you belong to the Advance?”
No, Elias said; he was not a member of any club.
“Well, now,” called out Mr. Koch, to the company generally, “now that the baby's gone to bed, I propose that we adjourn to the summer-house, and try to get cooled off.”
An exodus at once began; and presently they were all established, a picturesque, free-and-easy group, upon the stoop. Elias found himself at Miss Tillie's side.
“Fearfully hot, isn't it?” she observed.
“Very, indeed,” agreed Elias.
“It always is hot over here on Lexington Avenue—Jerusalem Avenue, I call it, on account of the number of Jews that live over here. Pretty good name for it, don't you think so?”
“Quite good, yes,” he assented.
“But over where we live, it's much cooler. Have a breeze there most all the time.”
“Ah, where is that?”
“Beekman Place—clear down on the edge of the river. Number 57. Be happy to have you call on us there. We—mamma and I—we live with my uncle and aunt, the Sternbergs. It's fearfully out of the way, but it's grand when you get there.”
“Yes, I've heard so,” Elias said.
“Musical, Mr. Bacharach?” she inquired.
“Well, I don't know. I'm very fond of music.”
“Sing?”
“No.”
“Play?”
“No, not any more. I used to, a little. But I gave it up.”
“Oh, my! What a pity! I think it's perfectly elegant for a gentleman to play, don't you? But so few of them do. I think it's simply awful.”
“I suppose you play, of course?”
“Oh, I should say so. Yes, indeed. Music's my forte. I teach, too. Give lessons in Dr. Meyer's conservatory, and take private pupils.”
“Won't you play for us a little to-night, then?”
“Oh, gracious, no. It's too hot. Ah'm about melted, as it is. Ain't you?”
“Well, itispretty warm,” Elias confessed, in & reflective tone.
At this juncture, the white-capped maid-servant began to circulate among the people, bearing a large tray, upon which reposed a pitcher, a couple of slim bottles, and half a score of cut-glass tumblers.
“Beer or wine, Mr. Bacharach?” cried Mr. Koch, from above. “Take your choice, and help yourself. They're both gratis.”
Elias poured out a glass of wine for Miss Tillie, and for himself a glass of beer.
“Have a fresh cigar?” cried Mr. Koch.
“No, thank you. I haven't finished this one,” returned Elias, who had allowed the fire of his cigar to go out.
“Well, if you ain't comfortable, speak up, that's all,” his host concluded, and became silent.
“Oh, by the way, Meester Bacharach,” piped Mrs. Koch, who, having disposed of Lester, had rejoined the company, “I hear dot we haif to con-kratulate you.”
“Indeed? What about?” inquired Elias, unsuspiciously.
“We hear dot you was encaged. Was it true?”
“Oh!” he cried, taken aback. He colored up; but the darkness hid his blushes.
“Vail?” pursued his good-natured tormentress.
“No—not at all—an entire mistake,” he stammered.
“Oh, dot's too baid. Ain't you naifer going to get married?”
“I don't know. I guess not,” he said.
At this, there was a universal murmur of disapproval.
“Dot's just the way with all the young fellers, now-a-days,” Mr. Blum exclaimed. “They don't none of them want to get married. It's simply fearful; hey, Dr. Gedaza? When me and you was young men, we'd be ashamed to be single at his age, hey? Why, a man ain't a goot Jew, if he don't get married. Might just as well be an American right out. If I was you, Elias Bacharach, I'd be afraid. The Lord will punish you. You better get married, or look out.”
“Yes, that's so.”
“There ain't any doubt about that.”
“A young fellow ought to get married, and no mistake.”
Remarks such as these went up from all directions; and poor Elias felt like the most miserable of sinners.
Tillie came to his rescue. “Oh, let Mr. Bacharach alone,” she cried. “He ain't dead yet. Give him time.” Then, turning to the victim, “Don't you mind them. They've got marriage on the brain.—How are you going to spend this summer? In the country?”
“Well I haven't made any plans yet,” he answered; “have you?”
“Oh, yes—we're going to the Catskills—Tannerstown—all of us. Ever been there? It's perfectly ideal—the grandest place I ever did see. And such a lot of nice people! I must know a hundred at the very least, who are going there this season—Advance Club people—friends of my uncle Wash. You said you didn't belong to the Advance. Why don't you join? If I were a man, wouldn't I, though! They give the most elegant balls that you can possibly imagine. Mamma and I go to all of them. Mamma took the prize at the last.”
“Prize for what?” asked Elias.
“Why, don't you know? They give a prize for the most original costume; generally a book, or a work of art. Mamma's was a magnificent picture album, with hinges and clasps of hammered silver—solid, not plated. The ladies all go in costume, and each one tries to wear the most curious and surprising. Well, for instance, one lady represented a match. She had a dress just perfectly covered with burned matches, and matches in her hair, and for ear-rings, and every thing. Then, another lady, she went as a pack of cards; and her dress was just one mass of patch-work, and each patch was a card. And then mamma—Well, guess. What do you suppose mamma represented?”
“I give it up.”
“Well, it was simply the grandest idea you can possibly imagine. It took the whole room by storm. Gracious me, how they did laugh and applaud! She went as a fireman.”
“A—what? M gasped Elias.
“Yes, a fireman. She had a red shirt with brass buttons, and a helmet, and a badge, and a hatchet, and a big black mustache, like a regular member of the department. Well, she did look just too funny for any thing. You ought to have been there. You'd have laughed to die. I had a side-ache for a week afterward. She and the match were rivals; and there was quite a lot of betting as to who would come in first. But, as the judge who made the awards said, she did her duty, andextinguishedthe match. That was pretty good, wasn't it? She got the prize, and the match got an honorable mention.”
“And your own costume?” Elias questioned. “What was that like?”
“Oh, I went in an ordinary white dress. Mamma thought I was too young to take a character. But next fall—Promise you won't tell. You mustn't breathe a word of it, will you? Next fall, I'm going as an ear of corn.”
“Why,” exclaimed Elias, “how can that be managed?”
“Oh, we've got it all designed; and my Uncle Wash, he's having some stuff woven on purpose, to represent the kernels. It's right in his line, you know. You wait till you see it. It will be simply the most ideal thing you can possibly imagine. Butpleasedon't mention it. Some one else might do it first, and get in ahead of me, if you did.”
“You may rely upon me,” Elias vowed. “I'll be as secret as the grave.”
The rabbi now rose, and began to make his adieux. Elias followed his example.
“You two gentlemen come up here to dinner next Sunday afternoon, will you?” demanded Mr. Koch.
Before Elias had had a chance to decline, if he had been disposed to do so, the rabbi replied, “We will, with pleasure. Thank you.”
On the way home, “Well,” the rabbi asked, “did you have a good time?”
“Oh, fair,” returned Elias. “Queer set, aren't they?”
“Well, they have certain mannerisms, yes. But you mustn't mind a superficial thing like that. They talk too loud, and their grammar isn't of the choicest; but they're thoroughly kind-hearted and well-meaning; and they're not wanting in brains, either, though they may be a trifle unpolished. Mr. Koch himself is a remarkably intelligent man, a man of ideas. You get to talking to him sometime, and you'll find out. How did you like that little Miss Morgenthau?”
“Oh, she's quite amusing. Not a bad little thing. Very raw and untamed, but good-natured enough, I dare say.”
“Her father, Reuben Morgenthau, was a professional, musician—one of the best pianists I ever heard; and she is said to have inherited his talent. He was lost at sea when she was a baby. Good-looking girl, isn't she? I suppose Washington I. Koch will make her a handsome settlement, when she gets married. Yes, I suppose he'll do something very handsome, indeed.”
THE sluggishness, the dull, dead-and-alive feeling, of which Elias had complained to his uncle, seemed to be tightening its hold upon him. From morning to-night, each day, he went about in a state of profound apathy. His customary occupations had lost their power to interest him. His painting he pursued listlessly, getting no pleasure from it, and producing wretched stuff. He would sit at his studio window for hours at a stretch, moping; trying to think of something to do that would cause him a little sensation; wondering what the matter with himself could be; pitying himself from the bottom of his heart. He craved excitement as the toper craves his grog. But there were grog-shops on every corner; he knew of no excitement-shop. The entire emotional side of his nature appeared to have become congealed and unsusceptible. Even his five bodily senses had lost their edge. His food, unless he deluged it with salt and pepper, was vapid, flavorless. The cold water with which he bathed in the morning, felt lukewarm to his skin. Whatsoever his eye looked upon, straightway forfeited all its beauty, all its suggestiveness. He fancied he would enjoy a horse-whipping. It would stir him up, and start his blood to circulating. Already his memory of Christine had begun to grow dim and shadowy, like the memory of a person known only in a dream. His whole acquaintance with her, from first to last, as he reviewed it, seemed unreal and dream-like. As a matter of curiosity, he tried now and then to call up her face and figure; with none but the vaguest, meagerest results. She had gone quite out of his life, and was fading rapidly quite out of his thought. When Sunday came, and the rabbi reminded him of their engagement to dine at the Kochs', he experienced something almost like a distinct and positive pleasure. These people, at least, with their high-pitched voices and peculiar manners, would afford him a small measure of amusement. He hoped Miss Tillie would be there. Her aggressive crudity, which, a few weeks ago, would have cut him like a knife, would now simply have the effect of an agreeable irritant.
His hope in this respect was not disappointed. The dinner party consisted of precisely the same lot of people whom he had met the other evening, without an addition or a subtraction. When he and the rabbi arrived, they were all assembled in the parlor, forming the circumference of a circle, of which Lester, sprawling upon the carpet, and smiling a smile of beatific inanition, was the center. They were in ecstasies of admiration, which, evidently, they expected the new-comers to share. It was a monstrously fat baby, without any features to speak of; and it had a horrid red eruption all over one side of its face. Yet, very gravely, Mr. Koch asked, “Isn't that the handsomest baby you ever saw, Mr. Bacharach? Wouldn't you like to paint his portrait?” And Elias felt constrained to reply that it was, and that he would.
By and by his nurse came, and bore Master Lester away.
Mr. Blum sidled up, and taking Elias by the arm, remarked, “You was an artist-painter, Mr. Bacharach. Come; I show you a work of art.”
He led his victim to the worsted-work enormity above the mantel-piece.
“Hey? What you think of dot?” he inquired, with a connoisseurish smile. “I give dot to my daughter for a birthday present. Dot's immense, hey? I had it mait to order. Dot coast me a heap of money. How much you think dot coast?”
Elias had no idea. A great deal, he supposed.
“Vail, sir, dot coast me two hundred and fifty dollars, cash down. But it's worth it. I don't consider no money wasted, dot's spent for a work of art.”
Suddenly a look of intense vacancy spread over Mr. Blum's countenance; which was as suddenly followed by one of liveliest interest. Bringing his forefinger with a swoop down upon Elias's cravat-pin—a Roman coin, set in a ring of gold—“Excuse me,” he demanded eagerly, “is dot a genuine aintique?”
“I don't know, I'm sure. I dare say not,” Elias answered, smothering his impulse to laugh.
“Where you bought it?”
Elias told him.
“What you pay for it?”
Elias told him.
“Oh, vail, dot must be an imitation. You couldn't get no genuine aintique for a price like dot.”
Pretty soon a servant appeared, and announced that dinner was ready.
“Take partners,” Mr. Koch called out.
They went down to the dining-room, and distributed themselves about the table in accordance with the instructions, verbal and gestural, issued by Mrs. Koch. Elias sat between Miss Tillie and Mrs. Blum.
The men covered their heads with their handkerchiefs. There was an instant of silence. Mr. Koch glanced over at the rabbi, nodding significantly; whereupon, in his best voice, the rabbi intoned a grace. The men joined in the amen, which they pronounced omen.
The dinner began with a cocktail, and wound up with a liqueur. There were ten courses, and five kinds of wine. After the French, the Jews are the best cooks in the world; and the present repast fully sustained their reputation. The banqueters sat down at one o'clock. At a quarter to five the gentlemen lit their cigars. It was not until six o'clock that the table was finally deserted.
During the soup not a word was spoken. Everybody devoted himself religiously to his spoon. At last, however, leaning back in his chair, heaving a long-drawn sigh, and wiping the tears of enjoyment from his eyes, Mr. Blum exclaimed fervently: “Ach! Dot was a splendid soup!” And his spouse wagged her jolly old head approvingly at him, from across the table, and gurgled: “Du lieber Gott!”
This was the signal for a general loosening of tongues. A very loud and animated conversation at once broke forth from all directions. It was carried on, for the most part, in something like English; but every now and then it betrayed a tendency to lapse into German.
“Vail,” announced Mr. Blum, with a pathetically reflective air, “when I look around this table, and see all these smiling faces, and smell dot cooking, and drink dot wine—my Gott!—dot reminds me of the day I lainded at the Baittery, forty-five years ago, with just exactly six dollars in my pocket. I didn't much think then that I'd be here to-day. Hey, Rebecca?”
“Ach, Gott is goot,” Mrs. Blum responded, lifting her hand and casting her eyes toward the ceiling.
“Oh, papa,” murmured Mrs. Koch, with profound emotion, “and you didn't think you'd be a graindpa, neither, with such a loafly little graind-son, did you?”
“I didn't think I'd be much of any thing at all, dot's a faict. I didn't haif no prospects, and I didn't haif no friends. If it hadn't been for my religion, I don't know what I done. I guess I commit suicide. But I was a good Jew, and I knew the Lord would help me. Then I got married, and dot brought me goot luck. When me and Rebecca got married, I was earning just exactly five dollars a week, as a journeyman tailor. There's an exaimple for you, Elias Bacharach.”
“Your success has been very remarkable,” observed the rabbi.
“My success—what you think my success has been due to, Elias Bacharach?”
“Oh, to business wisdom—to what they call genius, I suppose.”
“No, sir—no, siree. Nodings of the kind. I owe my success to three things: to my God, my wife, and my industry. I ain't no smarter than any other man. But all my life I been industrious; and the Lord has given me good health; and my wife has taken care of my earnings. All my life I go to work at six or seven o'clock every morning; and I don't never leave my work till it can spare me. You aisk my son-in-law. He tell you that I get down-town every morning at seven o'clock; and I don't go home in the busy season till ten or eleven at night; and I'm sixty-five years old. Dot's what mait my success. Hey, Rebecca?”
“Ach, Gott!” cried Mrs. Blum. There was a frog in her voice, and her merry little eyes were dim with tears. She turned to Elias, and whispered: “Oh, he's such agootman, that man of mine!”
“Elias Bacharach,” pursued Mr. Blum, “you see dot lady there, next to you—my wife? Vail, she's pretty near as old as I am, and maybe you don't think she's very hainsome. But I tell you this. She's just exactly as hainsome in my eyes to-day, as she was on the day when we got married; and that's forty years ago already.”
Mrs. Blum was blushing now, peony red; and she cried out, “Oh, go'vay! Shut up!” And all around the table a laugh went, at the fond old couple's expense.
When sobriety was restored, “I saw by the papers,” said the rabbi, “that the manufacturers of clothing have been having trouble with their workmen, lately—strikes, and that sort of thing. How have you got along with yours?”
“Oh, we—we got along maiknificent,” Mr. Blum replied. “You see my son-in-law over there? He mainage the whole affair. You aisk him.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Koch—when Mr. Koch spoke, he raised his voice, and assumed a declamatory style, as though in fancy he were addressing a public meeting—“Yes, sir, when I saw that other houses were having trouble, I made up my mind to take the bull by the horns. So I called all our men together, and I talked to them up and down. I gave it to them straight. 'Look at here, boys,' said I, 'I want you to understand that the firm of Blum & Koch are not merely your employers; they're your friends. They're the best friends you've got, and don't you forget it. They mean to deal fairly and squarely with you in every thing, and they want to be dealt with the same way by you. You have rights, and we mean to recognize and protect your rights. You have interests, and we mean to make your interests our interests. And unless I'm hugely mistaken, we've always done it. Well, now, look at here. If you men ain't contented; if you think you've got any grievances; or if there's any demands you want to make, I'll tell you what you do. Don't you come to us as enemies, or strikers; but you just come right up like one friend to another, and you tell us in a friendly way what you want; and I promise you that every thing you ask will be considered, and every thing that's even fair-to-middling reasonable, will be done for you?' That's what I said to the men; and it worked like magic. They gave three cheers for Blum & Koch; and two or three days later they sent a committee with a statement of their claims. Well, sir, the granting of those claims involved a net loss of two per cent, annually on our profits; but we talked it over, and we made up our minds that the harm it would do us, wouldn't equal the good it would do the men; and so we gave in gracefully. There was one point, though, on which we held off. But we told them our reasons for holding off on that; and after they thought it over, they came and confessed that we were in the right.”
“Would it be indiscreet to ask what that point was?” the rabbi ventured.
“Not at all. It was this. We got a man in our employ—one of our best hands—an Irishman of the name of O'Day—who's been with us ever since we started manufacturing. You know, when we first went into business, we simply jobbed. We didn't begin to manufacture till '76. Well, that man, O'Day, a year or two ago, he contracted a kind of a nervous disease, which makes it impossible for him to do his work when the other workmen are around. He can work perfectly well alone; but in the room with the others, he gets excited, and loses his head, and can't take a stitch. At the same time, he's got a family to support. So we've given him a machine, and we allow him to do his work in his own home. Well, sir, the men, they're dead set against tenement-house labor; and they wanted us to discharge O'Day. We wouldn't. It struck us as such a dirty mean thing to do, that we made up our minds the Lord would punish us, if we did it. We made up our minds that if we did that, we'd deserve to have bad luck right along. So we told the men we wouldn't. We told them that we'd rather shut down and go out of the trade, than discharge O'Day—which was the fact. We said we'd always been a prosperous house; and that we believed we owed our prosperity chiefly to the fact that we'd never done any thing to offend the Lord. We said that right out. And we said also that if any other man in our employ should get in the same box, we'd treat him the same way. Well, as I say, the men, they thought it over, and they concluded that we were in the right.”
“Yes, sir,” added Mr. Blum, “we believe in treating our hands like feller-beings. I was a hand myself, already. Dot's a great advaintage. We don't go on the American plan, and treat them like machines.”
“Now, don't you get started on that subject,” cried Mr. Koch. “There's nothing he's so prejudiced about, as every thing American. I'm an Americain We're all Americans. The Americans are the grandest people on the face of the earth.”
“I don't see how you make dot out,” retorted Mr. Blum.
“Well, I'll tell you how I make it out. I make it out this way. But first, you just hold on. Let's see howyoumake it out. What doyoujudge the Americans from? What do you know about them, anyhow? Why, you meet a few of them downtown; and you're prejudiced against them, to begin with, because they're Christians; and they're prejudiced against you, because you're a Jew; and you and they don't understand each other, and don't get on together; and the consequence is, your mutual prejudices are simply intensified. Well, now, that ain't a fair way to judge a people. I'll leave it to Dr. Gedaza if it is. The right way is, not to take individuals, but to take public sentiment. Public sentiment, that is to say, the feeling of the people in general on questions of importance—that's the real index of a people's character, And there ain't another country in the world, where public sentiment is so high as it is right here in the United States of America.”
“In what respects?” questioned the rabbi.
Mrs. Koch put in: “You needn't scream so, Washington. We ain't none of us daif.” But her husband didn't hear her.
“In what respects?” he shouted, swelling with emotion. “Why, in—in every respect—on every question of honor and decency and morality. Here's a simple example. You go to Europe—you go to London, Berlin, Paris—I don't care which—and you notice the way the drivers beat their horses in the public streets; and nobody thinks any thing of it, nor dreams of interfering. If they tried to do it here, in New York, they'd be mobbed in no time. Well, that may seem a trifle; but itain'ta trifle. No, sir. For it points to a radical defect in the European character, and to a positive virtue in the American. It's the sense of fair play—that's what it is. Don't abuse a creature, simply because he's defenseless and you've got the upper hand. Do you see? Then take the American way of treating women. You let a respectable young girl, provided she's good-looking—you let Tillie, there—go out alone in Paris or Berlin, and when she gets back, you ask her whether she's been stared at, or insulted. But you let her go out here. Why, she could travel alone from New York to San Francisco, and not run a risk. Then take morality and decency. And take the American way of doing business—the big, generous scale on which every thing is done, and the sense of honor among business men. They're sharp and close, I admit, but they mean what they say every time. I tell you, it's grand, it's beautiful; it does me good every time I think of it. I go to Europe every two or three years on business; and I get a chance of comparing. It makes me sick, the depravity, the corruption, and the stinginess, you meet everywhere over there.”
The orator sank back in his chair, panting, and absent-mindedly mopped his brow with his napkin.
“Vail, dot's pretty good,” cried Mr. Blum, with cutting irony, “and what you say of them big American bank swindlers, hey? They do things on a generous scale, don't they?”
“That's no argument,” replied his son-in-law. “That don't signify any thing. If you want to argue, you just answer me this. If you think America's such a poor sort of a place, what did you come here for, any way?”
“Oh, I came because I didn't have no money; and I got an idea the streets here was paved with gold.”
“Well, now that you've got money, and now that you know the streets here ain't paved with gold, why don't you go back?”
“Oh, dot—dot is another question.”
“Well, I'll tell you why. Because you like it here, Because, down deep, you think it's the finest country in the world. You talk against it, for the love of talking. If you went to Europe, you'd be as homesick as anybody.”
“Ain't my uncle a splendid conversationalist?'' Tillie whispered to Elias.
“Washington,” said his father-in-law, solemnly, “you got a head on you like Daniel Webster's.”
“Oh, papa!” cried Mrs. Koch. “You make me die with laifing.”
Mrs. Blum was rocking from side to side in her chair, and murmuring, “Gott! Gott! Gott!”
For a while, again, there was silence; which, again, by and by, Mr. Blum was the first to break.
“Sarah,” he declared, addressing his daughter, “them pickles is simply graind.”
“I opened a new jar to-day, papa,” Mrs. Koch returned.
“Elias Bacharach,” the old gentleman continued, “whatyouthink of them pickles?”
“They're delicious,” Elias said.
“Vail, sir, my daughter, she make them herself. I think she make the best pickles going.”
“Oh, papa,” protested Mrs. Koch, blushing. “How can you say dot, when Aintoinette Morgenthau is seated right next to you? Her pickles beat mine all hollow.”
“No,” cried Mrs. Morgenthau, magnanimously; “he's right. You're the boss.”
“Vail,” pursued Mr. Blum, judicially, “there is a difference. Aintoinette's pickles is splendid—dot's a faict. Maybe their flavor is just exactly as good as yours. But yours is crisper. My Gott! when I put one of your pickles in my mouth, dot makes me feel said. I never taste no pickles so crisp as them, since I was a little boy in Chairmany, and ate my mamma's. Her pickles—oh, they was loafly, they was maiknificent.”
“Ach, papa! You got so much zendimend!” his daughter exclaimed, with deep sympathy.
“You ought to taste my mamma's pickles,” Tillie whispered to Elias. “Of course, Mr. Blum is prejudiced in favor of his daughter's.”
“Been to the theater lately, Mr. Bacharach?” Mr. Koch called out.
“No,” said Elias, little foreseeing the effect of his announcement; “I don't go to the theater much. I'm not very fond of it.”
Immediately, from all directions, there was an outburst of astonishment and indignation; for in New York the theater has no patrons more ardent or devoted than the-German Jews.
“Oh, Mr. Bacharach!”
“How can you say such a thing?”
“Gott in Himmel!”
“Oh, you don't mean it!”
“Vail, if I aifer!”
And so forth, till the poor fellow was blushing to the roots of his hair, and would have liked to bite his tongue out. Mr. Koch took up the cudgels in his behalf.
“Oh, come,” he shouted, “don't make Mr. Bacharach feel as though he'd brought the Tower of Babel crashing around his ears. He's got a right to his opinion, hasn't he? I understand the way he feels. In fact, I feel about the same way, myself. Igoto the theater a good deal, I don't deny; but that's because there's nothing else to do. When I get home at night I'm fagged out, and I want a little amusement, and I take my wife and go to the theater. But all the same, I'm free to say that the theaters here in this town are about as poor as they can make them, and no mistake. Melodrama and burlesque—that's what they give you. Good, honest pictures of life—where'll you find them, I'd like to know? Now and then you get a big star—Salvini or Booth; now and then you get an old English comedy; but it's the average that I'm talking about, and I defy any man to say any thing in defense of that. You folks, you go to the theater, the same as I do, because you haven't got any thing else to do. But an intellectual young fellow like Mr. Bacharach, he don't need any outside amusements of that sort. He'd rather stay home, and think; wouldn't you, Mr. Bacharach?”
“Washington,” said Mr. Blum, “you're talking about American theayters. But what you got against the Chairman theayter—the Thalia—hey?”
“Oh, you go 'way. You want to get back to our old quarrel,” Mr. Koch retorted. “No, thanks.”
“Sarah,” said her father, abruptly, “there's one of your adopted children—my grainchild, consequently,” he added, winking humorously at Elias.
He pointed toward the open window, at which appeared the red and weather-beaten visage of an elderly tramp. The tramp was peering in through the iron bars, and muttering an inarticulate, plaintive prayer—presumably for “cold victuals.” Mrs. Koch glanced over her shoulders at him, and then, addressing a hasty “Excuse me,” to the company, got up and left the room.
“She's got about twenty of them fellers,” Mr. Blum informed Elias, “who she tries to be a mudder for. She feeds them, and clothes them, and gives them free lectures. They're coming all the time. We don't never sit down to a meal, but one of them sticks his head in the winder. Now, you just listen.”
Out in the area, Mrs. Koch's high-pitched voice could be heard earnestly speaking as follows:
“Oh, you baid man! You told me you wouldn't touch another drop of liquor this week! And now I see you been indoxicated! You smell perfectly outracheous; and dot loafly coat I give you, all spoiled! I got a great mind to send you away, and naifer do nothing for you any more.”
A dull reverberation, like the far-distant roll of muffled drums, testified that the tramp was pleading in his defense. After which, Mrs. Koch went on: “Vail, you promise you don't drink another glaiss of liquor till next Sunday, hey? You cross your heart, and promise? All right. Then, you take this. And bright and early, to-morrow morning, you come around here, and I give you a job. I want my cellar to be cleaned out.”
“She makes them fellers say they'll come around to-morrow morning, every time she sees them; but they don't never come,” Mr. Blum announced. “She's keeping dot cellar dirty just on purpose, so dot some time she can give the chop to one of them good-for-nodings. I guess I clean it out myself, if dot goes on much longer.—Hey! Hold on, there!” he cried, with sudden excitement. He ran to the window; stopped the tramp, who was in process of departure; and deposited a twenty-five-cent silver piece in his grimy palm. Returning to his seat, he appeared quite oblivious to the laughter at his expense, in which the others were indulging.
“You want to kill that old fellow, don't you?” Mr. Koch demanded. “Giving him a quarter! Why, it will bring on an attack of delirium tremens.”
“Dot's all right,” Mr. Blum replied. “I know how it is myself. I was pretty near to being a traimp myself, one time, already. Hey, Rebecca?”
“Du bist ein Engel—ja wohl!—ein himmlischer, wunderschoener Engel!” cried his wife, her broad face beaming like a harvest moon. Then she whispered to Elias, “Ach! He is so loafly, dot Meester Blum!” and kept swaying her head, and smiling to herself, for the next ten minutes.
With the coffee, the gentlemen lighted their cigars, and, leaving their respective places, gathered in a knot at one end of the table, where they began vociferously to exchange their views upon the state of trade. The ladies assembled at the other end, and discoursed of topics maternal and domestic. Lester was produced, and trotted upon his grandmother's lap, while his “points” were mooted and admired for the thousandth time. Finally, the men again covered their heads; and the rabbi chanted his graceaftermeat. Then Mr. Koch proposed that the company should ascend to the parlor, and listen to some music. In the parlor the gentlemen lighted fresh cigars; and Miss Tillie seated herself at the piano.
She played the second Hungarian Rhapsody, and the Allegro Appassionato from the Moonlight Sonata, and Chopin's Funeral March, and she played them all marvelously well. Her technic was exact and brilliant; her feeling was ardent, intelligent and refined. For an hour she flooded the room with bewitching harmonies, and held every heart there spellbound. Elias, whose chief sentiment for her, a short while ago, had been one of half contemptuous amusement, felt an emotion very like genuine respect begin to stir within his bosom. It astonished him, it awed him a little, to find that a young lady who, in the commoner relations of life, appeared so crude and so prosaic, was possessed of such superb and consummate genius for a noble art. “There must be somethinginher, after all,” he thought. She, perhaps, divined what was going on in his mind; for, when he had finished complimenting her upon her performance, she said, in a subdued voice, and with a gentler air than her usual one, “I know, Mr. Bacharach, that I'm not very much in conversation; but when I sit down at the piano, it seems as though somehow I was another girl, and a great deal nicer one; and I feel things that I don't ever feel anywhere else. I guess maybe music's my natural method of expression.”
“Now, Mr. Bacharach,” Mr. Koch said, when Elias and the rabbi were taking their leave, “don't treat us like strangers. Drop in on us any evening, or to dinner any Sunday afternoon. We'll always be glad to see you.”
“Yes; come over often,” added Mrs. Koch. “Come just exactly as if you was to home.”