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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +The Rise of David Levinsky + + +by + +Abraham Cahan + + + + + Book I - Home and School + Book II - Enter Satan + Book III - I Lose My Mother + Book IV - Matilda + Book V - I Discover America + Book VI - A Greenhorn No Longer + Book VII - My Temple + Book VIII - The Destruction of My Temple + Book IX - Dora + Book X - On the Road + Book XI - Matrimony + Book XII - Miss Tevkin + Book XIII - At Her Father's House + Book XIV - Episodes of a Lonely Life + + + + +BOOK I + + + +HOME AND SCHOOL + + +CHAPTER I + +SOMETIMES, when I think of my past in a superficial, casual +way, the metamorphosis I have gone through strikes me as nothing +short of a miracle. I was born and reared in the lowest depths of +poverty and I arrived in America--in 1885--with four cents in my +pocket. I am now worth more than two million dollars and +recognized as one of the two or three leading men in the +cloak-and-suit trade in the United States. And yet when I take a +look at my inner identity it impresses me as being precisely the +same as it was thirty or forty years ago. My present station, power, +the amount of worldly happiness at my command, and the rest of +it, seem to be devoid of significance. + +When I was young I used to think that middle-aged people recalled +their youth as something seen through a haze. I know better now. +Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be. The last years that I +spent in my native land and my first years in America come back +to me with the distinctness of yesterday. Indeed, I have a better +recollection of many a trifle of my childhood days than I have of +some important things that occurred to me recently. I have a good +memory for faces, but I am apt to recognize people I have not +seen for a quarter of a century more readily than I do some I used +to know only a few years ago. + +I love to brood over my youth. The dearest days in one's life are +those that seem very far and very near at once. My wretched +boyhood appeals to me as a sick child does to its mother. + +I was born in Antomir, in the Northwestern Region, Russia, in +1865. All I remember of my father is his tawny beard, a huge +yellow apple he once gave me at the gate of an orchard where he +was employed as watchman, and the candle which burned at his +head his body lay under a white shroud on the floor. I was less +than three years old when he died, so my mother would carry me +to the synagogue in her arms to have somebody say the Prayer for +the Dead with me. I was unable fully to realize the meaning of the +ceremony, of course, but its solemnity and pathos were not +altogether lost upon me. There is a streak of sadness in the blood +of my race. Very likely it is of Oriental origin. If it is, it has been +amply nourished by many centuries of persecution. + +Left to her own resources, my mother strove to support herself and +me by peddling pea mush or doing odds and ends of jobs. She had +to struggle hard for our scanty livelihood and her trials and +loneliness came home to me at an early period. + +I was her all in all, though she never poured over me those torrents +of senseless rhapsody which I heard other Jewish mothers shower +over their children. The only words of endearment I often heard +from her were, "My little bean," and, "My comfort." Sometimes, +when she seemed to be crushed by the miseries of her life, she +would call me, "My poor little orphan." Otherwise it was, "Come +here, my comfort," "Are you hungry, my little bean?" or, "You are +a silly little dear, my comfort." These words of hers and the +sonorous contralto in which they were uttered are ever alive in my +heart, like the Flame Everlasting in a synagogue. + +"Mamma, why do you never beat me like other mammas do?" I +once asked her. + +She laughed, kissed me, and said, "Because God has punished you +hard enough as it is, poor orphan mine." + +I scarcely remembered my father, yet I missed him keenly. I was +ever awake to the fact that other little boys had fathers and that I +was a melancholy exception; that most married women had +husbands, while my mother had to bear her burden unaided. In my +dim childish way I knew that there was a great blank in our family +nest, that it was a widow's nest; and the feeling of it seemed to +color all my other feelings. When I was a little older and would no +longer sleep with my mother, a rusty old coat of my deceased +father's served me as a quilt. At night, before falling asleep, I +would pull it over my head, shut my eyes tight, and evoke a flow +of fantastic shapes, bright, beautifully tinted, and incessantly +changing form and color. While the play of these figures and hues +was going on before me I would see all sorts of bizarre visions, +which at times seemed to have something to do with my father's +spirit. + +"Is papa in heaven now? Is he through with hell?" I once inquired +of my mother. Some things or ideas would assume queer forms in +my mind. God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man +wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, +forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the +form of an oblong box. + +I was a great dreamer of day dreams. One of my pastimes was to +imagine a host of tiny soldiers each the size of my little finger, +"but alive and real." These I would drill as I saw officers do their +men in front of the barracks some distance from our home. Or +else I would take to marching up and down the room with +mother's rolling-pin for a rifle, grunting, ferociously, in Russian: +"Left one! Left one! Left one!" in the double capacity of a Russian +soldier and of David fighting Goliath. + +Often, while bent upon her housework, my mother would hum +some of the songs of the famous wedding bard, Eliakim Zunzer, +who later emigrated to America. + +I distinctly remember her singing his "There is a flower on the +road, decaying in the dust, Passers-by treading upon it," his +"Summer and Winter," and his "Rachael is bemoaning her +children." I vividly recall these brooding airs as she used to sing +them, for I have inherited her musical memory and her passionate +love for melody, though not her voice. I cannot sing myself, but +some tunes give me thrills of pleasure, keen and terrible as the +edge of a sword. Some haunt me like ghosts. But then this is a +common trait among our people. + +She was a wiry little woman, my mother, with prominent +cheek-bones, a small, firm mouth, and dark eyes. Her hair was +likewise dark, though I saw it but very seldom, for like all +orthodox daughters of Israel she always had it carefully covered +by a kerchief, a nightcap, or--on Saturdays and holidays--by a wig. +She was extremely rigorous about it. For instance, while she +changed her kerchief for her nightcap she would cause me to look +away. + +My great sport during my ninth and tenth years was to play +buttons. These we would fillip around on some patch of unpaved +ground with a little pit for a billiard pocket. My own pockets were +usually full of these buttons. As the game was restricted to brass +ones from the uniforms of soldiers, my mother had plenty to do to +keep those pockets of mine in good repair. To develop skill for the +sport I would spend hours in some secluded spot, secretly +practising it by myself. Sometimes, as I was thus engaged, my +mother would seek me out and bring me a hunk of rye bread. + +"Here," she would say, gravely, handing me it. And I would accept +it with preoccupied mien, take a deep bite, and go on filliping my +buttons. + +I gambled passionately and was continually counting my treasure, +or running around the big courtyard, jingling it self-consciously. +But one day I suddenly wearied of it all and traded my entire +hoard of buttons for a pocket-knife and some trinkets. + +"Don't you care for buttons any more?" mother inquired. + +"I can't bear the sight of them," I replied. + +She shrugged her shoulders smilingly, and called me "queer +fellow." + +Sometimes I would fall to kissing her passionately. Once, after an +outburst of this kind, I said: "Are people sorry for us, mamma?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Because I have no papa and we have no money." + +Antomir, which then boasted eighty thousand inhabitants, was a +town in which a few thousand rubles was considered wealth, and +we were among the humblest and poorest in it. The bulk of the +population lived on less than fifty copecks (twenty-five cents) a +day, and that was difficult to earn. A hunk of rye bread and a bit +of herring or cheese constituted a meal. A quarter of a copeck (an +eighth of a cent) was a coin with which one purchased a few +crumbs of pot-cheese or some boiled water for tea. Rubbers were +worn by people "of means" only. I never saw any in the district in +which my mother and I had our home. A white starched collar was +an attribute of "aristocracy." Children had to nag their mothers for +a piece of bread + +"Mamma, I want a piece of bread," with a mild whimper + +"Again bread! You'll eat my head off. May the worms eat you." + +Dialogues such as this were heard at every turn + +My boyhood recollections include the following episode: Mother +once sent me to a tinker's shop to have our drinking-cup repaired. +It was a plain tin affair and must have cost, when new, something +like four or five cents. It had done service as long as I could +remember. It was quite rusty, and finally sprang a leak. And so I +took it to the tinker, or tinsmith, who soldered it up. On my way +home I slipped and fell, whereupon the cup hit a cobblestone and +sprang a new leak. When my mother discovered the damage she +made me tell the story of the accident over and over again, +wringing her hands and sighing as she listened. The average +mother in our town would have given me a whipping in the +circumstances. She did not + + + +CHAPTER II + +WE lived in a deep basement, in a large, dusky room +that we shared with three other families, each family occupying +one of the corners and as much space as it was able to wrest. +Violent quarrels were a commonplace occurrence, and the +question of floor space a staple bone of contention. The huge +brick oven in which the four housewives cooked dinner was +another prolific source of strife. Fights over pots were as frequent +and as truculent as those over the children + +Of our room-mates I best recall a bookbinder and a retired old +soldier who mended old sheepskin coats for a living. My +memories of home are inseparable from the odors of sheepskin +and paste and the image of two upright wooden screws (the +bookbinder's "machine"). The soldier had finished his term of +military service years before, yet he still wore his uniform--a +dilapidated black coat with new brass buttons, and a similar +overcoat of a coarse gray material. Also, he still shaved his chin, +sporting a pair of formidable gray side-whiskers. Shaving is one of +the worst sins known to our faith, but, somehow, people +overlooked it in one who had once been compelled to practise it +in the army. Otherwise the furrier or sheepskin tailor was an +extremely pious man. He was very kind to me, so that his military +whiskers never awed me. Not so his lame, tall wife, who often hit +me with one of her crutches. + +She was the bane of my life. The bookbinder's wife was much +younger than her husband and one of the things I often heard was +that he was "crazy for her because she is his second wife," from +which I inferred that second wives were loved far more than first +ones. + +The bookbinder had a red-haired little girl whom I hated like +poison. Red Esther we called her, to distinguish her from a Black +Esther, whose home was on the same yard. She was full of fight. +Knowing how repulsive she was to me, she was often the first to +open hostilities, mocking my way of speaking, or sticking out her +tongue at me. Or else she would press her freckled cheek against +my lips and then dodge back, shouting, gloatingly: "He has kissed +a girl! He has kissed a girl! Sinner! Shame! Sinner! Sinner!" + +There were some other things that she or some of the other little +girls of our courtyard would do to make an involuntary "sinner" of +me, but these had better be left out + +I had many a fierce duel with her. I was considered a strong boy, +but she was quick and nimble as a cat, and I usually got the worst +of the bargain, often being left badly scratched and bleeding. At +which point the combat would be taken up by our mothers + +The room, part of which was our home, and two other single-room +apartments, similarly tenanted, opened into a pitch-dark vestibule +which my fancy peopled with "evil ones." A steep stairway led up +to the yard, part of which was occupied by a huddle of ramshackle +one-story houses. It was known as Abner's Court. During the +summer months it swarmed with tattered, unkempt humanity. +There was a peculiar odor to the place which I can still smell. + +(Indeed, many of the things that I conjure up from the past appeal +as much to my sense of smell as to my visual memory.) It was +anything but a grateful odor + +The far end of our street was part of a squalid little suburb known +as the Sands. It was inhabited by Gentiles exclusively. Sometimes, +when a Jew chanced to visit it some of its boys would descend +upon him with shouts of "Damned Jew!" "Christ-killer!" and sick +their dogs at him. As we had no dogs to defend us, orthodox Jews +being prohibited from keeping these domestic animals by a +custom amounting to a religious injunction, our boys never +ventured into the place except, perhaps, in a spirit of dare-devil +bravado + +One day the bigger Jewish boys of our street had a pitched battle +with the Sands boys, an event which is one of the landmarks in the +history of my childhood + +Still, some of the Sands boys were on terms of friendship with us +and would even come to play with us in our yard. The only +Gentile family that lived in Abner's Court was that of the porter. +His children spoke fairly good Yiddish + +One Saturday evening a pock-marked lad from the Sands, the son +of a chimney-sweep, meeting me in the street, set his dog at me. +As a result I came home with a fair-sized piece of my trousers +(knee-breeches were unknown to us) missing + +"I'm going to kill him," my mother said, with something like a sob. +"I'm just going to kill him." + +"Cool down," the retired soldier pleaded, without removing his +short-stemmed pipe from his mouth + +Mother was silent for a minute, and even seated herself, but +presently she sprang to her feet again and made for the door + +The soldier's wife seized her by an arm + +"Where are you going? To the Sands? Are you crazy? If you start a +quarrel over there you'll never come back alive." + +"I don't care!" + +She wrenched herself free and left the room. + +Half an hour later she came back beaming + +"His father is a lovely Gentile," she said. "He went out, brought his +murderer of a boy home, took off his belt, and skinned him alive." + +"A good Gentile," the soldier's wife commented, admiringly + +There was always a pile of logs somewhere in our Court, the +property of some family that was to have it cut up for firewood. +This was our great gathering-place of a summer evening. Here we +would bandy stories (often of our own inventing) or discuss +things, the leading topic of conversation being the soldiers of the +two regiments that were stationed in our town. We saw a good +deal of these soldiers, and we could tell their officers, +commissioned or non-commissioned, by the number of stars or +bands on their shoulder-straps. Also, we knew the names of their +generals, colonels, and some of their majors or captains. The more +important manoeuvers took place a great distance from Abner's +Court, but that did not matter. If they occurred on a Saturday, +when we were free from school--and, as good luck would have it, +they usually did--many of us, myself invariably included, would go +to see them. The blare of trumpets, the beat of drums, the playing +of the band, the rhythmic clatter of thousands of feet, the glint of +rows and rows of bayonets, the red or the blue of the uniforms, the +commanding officer on his mount, the spirited singing of the men +marching back to barracks--all this would literally hold me +spellbound + +That we often played soldiers goes without saying, but we played +"hares" more often, a game in which the counting was done by +means of senseless words like the American "Eeny, meeny, miny, +moe." Sometimes we would play war, with the names of the +belligerents borrowed from the Old Testament, and once in a +while we would have a real "war" with the boys of the next street + +I was accounted one of the strong fellows among the boys of +Abner's Court as well as one of the conspicuous figures among +them. Compactly built, broad-shouldered, with a small, firm +mouth like my mother's, a well-formed nose and large, dark eyes, +I was not a homely boy by any means, nor one devoid of a certain +kind of magnetism + +One of my recollections is of my mother administering a +tongue-lashing to a married young woman whom she had +discovered flirting in the dark vestibule with a man not her +husband + +A few minutes later the young woman came in and begged my +mother not to tell her husband + +"If I was your husband I would skin you alive." + +"Oh, don't tell him! Take pity! Don't." + +"I won't. Get out of here, you lump of stench." + +"Oh, swear that you won't tell him! Do swear, dearie. Long life to +you. + +Health to every little bone of yours." + +"First you swear that you'll never do it again, you heap of dung." + +"Strike me blind and dumb and deaf if I ever do it again. There." + +"Your oaths are worth no more than the barking of a dog. Can't +you be decent? You ought to be knouted in the market-place. You +are a plague. Black luck upon you. Get away from me." + +"But I will be decent. May I break both my legs and both my arms +if I am not. Do swear that you won't tell him." + +My mother yielded + +She was passionately devout, my mother. Being absolutely +illiterate, she would murmur meaningless words, in the singsong +of a prayer, pretending to herself that she was performing her +devotions. This, however, she would do with absolute earnestness +and fervor, often with tears of ecstasy coming to her eyes. To be +sure, she knew how to bless the Sabbath candles and to recite the +two or three other brief prayers that our religion exacts from +married women. But she was not contented with it, and the sight of +a woman going to synagogue with a huge prayer-book under her +arm was ever a source of envy to her. + +Most of the tenants of the Court were good people, honest and +pure, but there were exceptions. Of these my memory has retained +the face of a man who was known as "Carrot Pudding" Moe, a +red-headed, broad-shouldered "finger worker," a specialist in +"short change," yardstick frauds, and other varieties of +market-place legerdemain. One woman, a cross between a beggar +and a dealer in second-hand dresses, had four sons, all of whom +were pickpockets, but she herself was said to be of spotless +honesty. She never allowed them to enter Abner's Court, though +every time one of them was in prison she would visit him and +bring him food + +Nor were professional beggars barred from the Court as tenants. +Indeed, one of our next-door neighbors was a regular recipient of +alms at the hands of my mother. For, poor as she was, she seldom +let a Friday pass without distributing a few half-groschen (an +eighth of a cent) in charity. The amusing part of it was the fact +that one of the beggars on her list was far better off than she + +"He's old and lame, and no hypocrite like the rest of them," she +would explain + +She had a ferocious temper, but there were people (myself among +them) with whom she was never irritated. The women of Abner's +Court were either her devoted followers or her bitter enemies. She +was a leader in most of the feuds that often divided the whole +Court into two warring camps, and in those exceptional cases +when she happened to be neutral she was an ardent peacemaker. +She wore a dark-blue kerchief, which was older than I, and almost +invariably, when there was a crowd of women in the yard, that +kerchief would loom in its center + +Growing as I did in that crowded basement room which was the +home of four families, it was inevitable that the secrets of sex +should be revealed to me before I was able fully to appreciate +their meaning. Then, too, the neighborhood was not of the purest +in town. Located a short distance from Abner's Court, midway +between it and the barracks, was a lane of ill repute, usually full +of soldiers. If it had an official name I never heard it. It was +generally referred to as "that street," in a subdued voice that was +suggestive either of shame and disgust or of waggish mirth. For a +long time I was under the impression that "That" was simply the +name of the street. + +One summer day--I must have been eight years old--I told my +mother that I had peeked in one of the little yards of the +mysterious lane, that I had seen half-naked women and soldiers +there, and that one of the women had beckoned me in and given +me some cake + +"Why, you mustn't do that, Davie!" she said, aghast. "Don't you +ever go near that street again! Do you hear?" + +"Why?" + +"Because it is a bad street." + +"Why is it bad?" + +"Keep still and don't ask foolish questions." + +I obeyed, with the result that the foolish questions kept rankling in +my brain + +On a subsequent occasion, when she was combing my dark hair +fondly, I ventured once more: "Mamma, why mustn't I come near +that street?" + +"Because it is a sin to do so, my comfort. Fie upon it!" + +This answer settled it. One did not ask why it was a sin to do this +or not to do that. "You don't demand explanations of the Master of +the World," as people were continually saying around me. My +curiosity was silenced. That street became repellent to me, +something hideously wicked and sinister + +Sometimes some of the excommunicated women would drop in at +our yard. As a rule, my mother was bitterly opposed to their visits +and she often chased them out with maledictions and expressions +of abhorrence; but there was one case in which she showed +unusual tolerance and even assumed the part of father confessor to +a woman of this kind. She would listen to her tale of woe, +homesickness and repentance, including some of the most intimate +details of her loathsome life. She would even deliver her donations +to the synagogue, thus helping her cheat the Biblical injunction +which bars the gifts of fallen women from a house of God + +My mother would bid me keep away during these confabs of +theirs, but this only whetted my curiosity and I often overheard far +more than I should + +Fridays were half-holidays with us Jewish boys. One Friday +afternoon a wedding was celebrated in our courtyard. The +procession emerged from one of the rickety one-story houses, +accompanied by a band playing a solemn tune. + +When it reached the center of the vacant part of the yard it came to +a halt and a canopy was stretched over the principal figures of the +ceremony. + +Prayers and benedictions were chanted. The groom put the ring on +the bride's finger, "dedicating her to himself according to the laws +of Moses and Israel "; more prayers were recited; the bridegroom +and the bride received sips of wine; a plate was smashed, the +sound being greeted by shouts of "Good luck! Good luck!" The +band struck up a lively tune with a sad tang to it + +The yard was crowded with people. It was the greatest sensation +we children had ever enjoyed there. We remained out chattering +of the event till the windows were aglitter with Sabbath lights + +I was in a trance. The ceremony was a poem to me, something +inexpressibly beautiful and sacred. + +Presently a boy, somewhat older than I, made a jest at the young +couple's expense. What he said was a startling revelation to me. +Certain things which I had known before suddenly appeared in a +new light to me. I relished the discovery and I relished the deviltry +of it. But the poem vanished. The beauty of the wedding I had just +witnessed, and of weddings in general, seemed to be irretrievably +desecrated + +That boy's name was Naphtali. He was a trim-looking fellow with +curly brown hair, somewhat near-sighted. He was as poor as the +average boy in the yard and as poorly dressed, but he was the +tidiest of us. He would draw, with a piece of chalk, figures of +horses and men which we admired. He knew things, good and +bad, and from that Friday I often sought his company. Unlike most +of the other boys, he talked little, throwing out his remarks at long +intervals, which sharpened my sense of his wisdom. His father +never let him attend the manoeuvers, yet he knew more about +soldiers than any of the other boys, more even than I, though I had +that retired soldier, the sheepskin man, to explain things military +to me. + +One summer evening Naphtali and I sat on a pile of logs in the +yard, watching a boy who was "playing" on a toy fiddle of his own +making. I said: "I wish I knew how to play on a real fiddle, don't +you?" + +Naphtali made no answer. After a little he said: "You must think it +is the bow that does the playing, don't you?" + +"What else does it?" I asked, perplexed + +"It's the fingers of the other hand, those that are jumping around." + +"Is it?" + +I did not understand, but I was deeply impressed all the same. The +question bothered me all that evening. Finally I submitted it to my +mother: "Mamma, Naphtali says when you play on a fiddle it is not +the bow that makes the tune, but the fingers that are jumping +around. Is it true?" + +She told me not to bother her with foolish questions, but the +retired soldier, who had overheard my query, volunteered to +answer it. + +"Of course it is not the bow," he said + +"But if you did not work the bow the strings would not play, would +they?" I urged. + +"You could play a tune by pinching them," he answered. "But if +you just kept passing the bow up and down there would be no tune +at all." + +I plied him with further questions and he answered them all, +patiently and fondly, illustrating his explanations with a thread for +a violin string, my mother looking from him to me beamingly + +When we were through she questioned him: "Do you think he +understands it all?" "He certainly does. He has a good head," he +answered, with a wink. And she flushed with happiness + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE tuition fee at a school for religious instruction +or cheder was from eight to ten rubles (five dollars) for a term of +six months. My mother could not afford it. On the other hand, she +would not hear of sending me to the free cheder of our town, +because of its reputation for poor instruction. So she importuned +and harassed two distant relatives of ours until they agreed to raise +part of the sum between them. The payments were made with +anything but promptness, the result being that I was often turned +out of school. + +Mother, however, would lose no time in bringing me back. She +would implore the schoolmaster to take pity on the poor, helpless +woman that she was, assuring him, with some weird oaths, that +she would pay him every penny. If that failed she would burst into +a flood of threats and imprecations, daring him to let a fatherless +boy grow up in ignorance of the Word of God. This was followed +by similar scenes at the houses of my cousins, until finally I was +allowed to resume my studies, sometimes at the same cheder, +sometimes at some other one. There were scores of such private +schools in our town, and before I got through my elementary +religious education I had become acquainted with a considerable +number of them + +Sometimes when a teacher or his wife tried to oust me, I would +clutch at the table and struggle sullenly until they yielded + +I may explain that instruction in these cheders was confined to the +Hebrew Old Testament and rudiments of the Talmud, the +exercises lasting practically all day and part of the evening. The +class-room was at the same time the bedroom, living-room, and +kitchen of the teacher's family. His wife and children were always +around. These cheder teachers were usually a haggard-looking lot +with full beards and voices hoarse with incessant shouting. + +A special man generally came for an hour to teach the boys to +write. As he was to be paid separately, I was not included. The +feeling of envy, abasement, and self-pity with which I used to +watch the other boys ply their quills is among the most painful +memories of my childhood + +During the penmanship lesson I was generally kept busy in other +directions. + +The teacher's wife would make me help her with her housework, +go her errands, or mind the baby (in one instance I became so +attached to the baby that when I was expelled I missed it keenly) + +I seized every opportunity to watch the boys write and would +practise the art, with chalk, on my mother's table or bed, on the +door of our basement room, on many a gate or fence. Sometimes a +boy would let me write a line or two in his copy-book. +Sometimes, too, I would come to school before the schoolmaster +had returned from the morning service at the synagogue, and +practise with pen and ink, following the copy of some of my +classmates. One of my teachers once caught me in the act. He +held me up as an ink-thief and forbade me come to school before +the beginning of exercises + +Otherwise my teachers scarcely ever complained of my behavior. +As to the progress I was making in my studies, they admitted, +some even with enthusiasm, that mine was a "good head." +Nevertheless, to be beaten by them was an every-day experience +with me + +Overworked, underfed, and goaded by the tongue-lashings of their +wives, these enervated drudges were usually out of sorts. Bursts of +ill temper, in the form of invective, hair-pulling, ear-pulling, +pinching, caning, "nape-cracking," or "chin-smashing," were part +of the routine, and very often I was the scapegoat for the sins of +other boys. When a pupil deserved punishment and the +schoolmaster could not afford to inflict it because the culprit +happened to be the pet of a well-to-do family, the teacher's anger +was almost sure to be vented on me. If I happened to be somewhat +absent-minded (the only offense I was ever guilty of), or was not +quick enough to turn over a leaf, or there was the slightest halt in +my singsong, I received a violent "nudge" or a pull by the ear. + +"Lively, lively, carcass you!" I can almost hear one of my teachers +shout these words as he digs his elbow into my side. "The millions +one gets from your mother!" + +This man would beat and abuse me even by way of expressing +approval + +"A bright fellow, curse him!" he would say, punching me with an +air of admiration. Or, "Where did you get those brains of yours, +you wild beast?" with a violent pull at my forelock + +During the winter months, when the exercises went on until 9 in +the evening, the candle or kerosene was paid for by the boys, in +rotation. When it was my turn to furnish the light it often +happened that my mother was unable to procure the required two +copecks (one cent). Then the teacher or his wife, or both, would +curse me for a sponge and a robber, and ask me why I did not go +to the charity school + +Almost every teacher in town was known among us boys by some +nickname, which was usually borrowed from some trade. If he +had a predilection for pulling a boy's hair we would call him +"wig-maker" or "brush-maker"; if he preferred to slap or +"calcimine" the culprit's face we would speak of him as a mason. + +A "coachman" was a teacher who did not spare the rod or the +whip; a "carpenter," one who used his finger as a gimlet, boring a +pupil's side or cheek; a "locksmith," one who had a weakness for +"turning the screw," or pinching + +The greatest "locksmith" in town was a man named Shmerl. But +then he was more often called simply Shmerl the Pincher. He was +one of my schoolmasters. + +He seemed to prefer the flesh of plump, well-fed boys, but as these +were usually the sons of prosperous parents, he often had to +forego the pleasure and to gratify his appetite on me. There was +something morbid in his cruel passion for young flesh something +perversely related to sex, perhaps. He was a young man with a +wide, sneering mouth + +He would pinch me black and blue till my heart contracted with +pain. Yet I never uttered a murmur. I was too profoundly aware of +the fact that I was kept on sufferance to risk the slightest +demonstration. I had developed a singular faculty for bearing pain, +which I would parade before the other boys. Also, I had developed +a relish for flaunting my martyrdom, for being an object of pity + +Oh, how I did hate this man, especially his sneering mouth! In my +helplessness I would seek comfort in dreams of becoming a great +man some day, rich and mighty, and avenging myself on him. +Behold! Shmerl the Pincher is running after me, cringingly +begging my pardon, and I, omnipotent and formidable, say to him: +"Do you remember how you pinched the life out of me for +nothing? Away with you, you cruel beast!" + +Or I would vision myself dropping dead under one of his +onslaughts. Behold him trembling with fright, the heartless +wretch! Serves him right. + +If my body happened to bear some mark of his cruelty I would +conceal it carefully from my mother, lest she should quarrel with +him. Moreover, to betray school secrets was considered a great +"sin." + +One night, as I was changing my shirt, anxiously manoeuvering to +keep a certain spot on my left arm out of her sight, she became +suspicious + +"Hold on. What are you hiding there?" she said, stepping up and +inspecting my bare arm. She found an ugly blotch. "Woe is me! A +lamentation upon me!" she said, looking aghast. "Who has been +pinching you?" + +"Nobody." + +"It is that beast of a teacher, isn't it?" + +"No." + +"Don't lie, Davie. It is that assassin, the cholera take him! Tell me +the truth. Don't be afraid." + +"A boy did it." + +"What is his name?" + +"I don't know. It was a boy in the street." + +"You are a liar." + +The next morning when I went to cheder she accompanied me + +Arrived there, she stripped me half-naked and, pointing at the +discoloration on my arm, she said, with ominous composure: +"Look! Whose work is it?" + +"Mine," Shmerl answered, without removing his long-stemmed +pipe from his wide mouth. He was no coward + +"And you are proud of it, are you?" "If you don't like it you can +take your ornament of a son along with you. + +Clear out, you witch!" + +She flew at him and they clenched. When they had separated, +some of his hair was in her hand, while her arms, as she +subsequently owned to me, were marked with the work of his +expert fingers. + +Another schoolmaster had a special predilection for digging the +huge nail of his thumb into the side of his victim, a peculiarity for +which he had been named "the Cossack," his famous thumb being +referred to by the boys as his spear. He had a passion for inventing +new and complex modes of punishment, his spear figuring in most +of them. One of his methods of inflicting pain was to slap the +boy's face with one hand and to prod his side with the thumb of +the other, the slaps and the thrusts alternating rhythmically. This +heartless wretch was an abject coward. He was afraid of thunder, +of rats, spiders, dogs, and, above all, of his wife, who would call +him indecent names in our presence. I abhorred him, yet when he +was thus humiliated I felt pity for him His wife kept a stand on a +neighboring street corner, where she sold cheap cakes and candy, +and those of her husband's pupils who were on her list of "good +customers" were sure of immunity from his spear. As I scarcely +ever had a penny, he could safely beat me whenever he was so +disposed + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE Cossack had a large family and one of his +daughters, a little girl, named Sarah-Leah, was the heroine of my +first romance. + +Sarah-Leah had the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to a +sister of her father's, an offense which her mother never forgave +her. She treated her as she might a stepdaughter. As for the +Cossack, he may have cared for the child, but if he did he dared +not show it. Poor little Sarah-Leah! She was the outcast of the +family just as I was the outcast of her father's school. + +She was about eleven years old and I was somewhat younger. The +similarity of our fates and of our self-pity drew us to each other. +When her father beat me I was conscious of her commiserating +look, and when she was mistreated by her mother she would cast +appealing glances in my direction. Once when the teacher +punished me with special cruelty her face twitched and she broke +into a whimper, whereupon he gave her a kick, saying: "Is it any +business of yours? Thank God your own skin has not been peeled +off." + +Once during the lunch hour, when we were alone, Sarah-Leah and +I, in a corner of the courtyard, she said: "You are so strong, Davie! +Nothing hurts you." + +"Nothing at all. I could stand everything," I bragged + +"You could not, if I bit your finger." + +"Go ahead!" I said, with bravado, holding out my hand. She dug +her teeth into one of my fingers. It hurt so that I involuntarily +ground my own teeth, but I smiled + +"Does it not hurt you, Davie?" she asked, with a look of admiration + +"Not a bit. Go on, bite as hard as you can." + +She did, the cruel thing, and like many an older heroine, she would +not desist until she saw her lover's blood + +"It still does not hurt, does it?" she asked, wiping away a red drop +from her lips. + +I shook my head contemptuously + +"When you are a man you will be strong as Samson the Strong." + +I was the strongest boy in her father's school. She knew that most +of the other boys were afraid of me, but that did not seem to +interest her. At least when I began to boast of it she returned to my +ability "to stand punishment," as the pugilists would put it + +One day one of my schoolmates aroused her admiration by the way +he "played" taps with his fist for a trumpet. I tried to imitate him, +but failed grievously. The other boy laughed and Sarah-Leah +joined him. That was my first taste of the bitter cup called +jealousy + +I went home a lovelorn boy + +I took to practising "taps." I was continually trumpeting. I kept at it +so strenuously that my mother had many a quarrel with our +room-mates because of it + +My efforts went for nothing, however. My rival, and with him my +lady love, continued to sneer at my performances + +I had only one teacher who never beat me, or any of the other boys. +Whatever anger we provoked in him would spend itself in threats, +and even these he often turned to a joke, in a peculiar vein of his +own + +"If you don't behave I'll cut you to pieces," he would say. "I'll just +cut you to tiny bits and put you into my pipe and you'll go up in +smoke." Or, "I'll give you such a thrashing that you won't be able +to sit down, stand up, or lie down. The only thing you'll be able to +do is to fly--to the devil." + +This teacher used me as a living advertisement for his school. He +would take me from house to house, flaunting my recitations and +interpretations. Very often the passage which he thus made me +read was a lesson I had studied under one of his predecessors, but +I never gave him away + +Every cheder had its king. As a rule, it was the richest boy in the +school, but I was usually the power behind the throne. Once one +of these potentates (it was at the school of that kindly man) +mimicked my mother hugging her pot of pea mush + +"If you do it again I'll kill you," I said + +"If you lay a finger on me," he retorted, "the teacher will kick you +out. + +Your mother doesn't pay him, anyhow." + +I flew at him. His Majesty tearfully begged for mercy. Since then +he was under my thumb and never omitted to share his +ring-shaped rolls or apples with me + +Often when a boy ate something that was beyond my mother's +means--a cookie or a slice of buttered white bread--I would eye +him enviously till he complained that I made him choke. Then I +would go on eying him until he bribed me off with a piece of the +tidbit. If staring alone proved futile I might try to bring him to +terms by naming all sorts of loathsome objects. At this it +frequently happened that the prosperous boy threw away his +cookie from sheer disgust, whereupon I would be mean enough to +pick it up and to eat it in triumph, calling him something +equivalent to "Sissy." + +The compliments that were paid my brains were ample +compensation for my mother's struggles. Sending me to work was +out of the question. She was resolved to put me in a Talmudic +seminary. I was the "crown of her head" and she was going to +make a "fine Jew" of me. Nor was she a rare exception in this +respect, for there were hundreds of other poor families in our town +who would starve themselves to keep their sons studying the +Word of God + +Whenever one of the neighbors suggested that I be apprenticed to +some artisan she would flare up. On one occasion a suggestion of +this kind led to a violent quarrel + +One afternoon when we happened to pass by a bookstore she +stopped me in front of the window and, pointing at some huge +volumes of the Talmud, she said: "This is the trade I am going to +have you learn, and let our enemies grow green with envy." + + + +BOOK II + +ENTER SATAN + + +CHAPTER I + +THE Talmudic seminary, +or yeshivah, in which my mother placed me was a celebrated old +institution, attracting students from many provinces. Like most +yeshivahs, it was sustained by donations, and instruction in it was +free. Moreover, out-of-town students found shelter under its roof, +sleeping on the benches or floors of the same rooms in which the +lectures were delivered and studied during the day. Also, they +were supplied with a pound of rye bread each for breakfast. As to +the other meals, they were furnished by the various households of +the orthodox community. I understand that some school-teachers +in certain villages of New England get their board on the rotation +plan, dining each day in the week with another family. This is +exactly the way a poor Talmud student gets his sustenance in +Russia, the system being called "eating days." + +One hour a day was devoted to penmanship and a sorry smattering +of Russian, the cost of tuition and writing-materials being paid by +a "modern" philanthropist + +I was admitted to that seminary at the age of thirteen. As my home +was in the city, I neither slept in the classroom nor "ate days." +The lectures lasted only two hours a day, but then there was plenty +to do, studying them and reviewing previous work. This I did in +an old house of prayer where many other boys and men of all ages +pursued similar occupations. It was known as the Preacher's +Synagogue, and was famed for the large number of noted scholars +who had passed their young days reading Talmud in it. + +The Talmud is a voluminous work of about twenty ponderous +tomes. To read these books, to drink deep of their sacred wisdom, +is accounted one of the greatest "good deeds" in the life of a Jew. +It is, however, as much a source of intellectual interest as an act of +piety. If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of +mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to +the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in +the spiritual life of the race + +A Talmudic education was until recent years practically the only +kind of education a Jewish boy of old-fashioned parents received. +I spent seven years at it, not counting the several years of Talmud +which I had had at the various cheders + +What is the Talmud? The bulk of it is taken up with debates of +ancient rabbis. It is primarily concerned with questions of +conscience, religious duty, and human sympathy--in short, with +the relations "between man and God" and those "between man and +man." But it practically contains a consideration of almost every +topic under the sun, mostly with some verse of the Pentateuch for a +pretext. All of which is analyzed and explained in the minutest and +keenest fashion, discussions on abstruse subjects being sometimes +relieved by an anecdote or two, a bit of folklore, worldly wisdom, +or small talk. Scattered through its numerous volumes are +priceless gems of poetry, epigram, and story-telling + +It is at once a fountain of religious inspiration and a +"brain-sharpener." "Can you fathom the sea? Neither can you +fathom the depths of the Talmud," as we would put it. We were +sure that the highest mathematics taught in the Gentile +universities were child's play as compared to the Talmud + +In the Preacher's Synagogue, then, I spent seven years of my +youthful life. + +For hours and hours together I would sit at a gaunt reading-desk, +swaying to and fro over some huge volume, reading its ancient +text and interpreting it in Yiddish. All this I did aloud, in the +peculiar Talmud singsong, a trace of which still persists in my +intonation even when I talk cloaks and bank accounts and in +English + +The Talmud was being read there, in a hundred variations of the +same singsong, literally every minute of the year, except the hours +of prayer. + +There were plenty of men to do it during the day and the evening, +and at least ten men (a sacred number) to keep the holy word +echoing throughout the night. The majority of them were simply +scholarly business men who would drop in to read the sacred +books for an hour or two, but there was a considerable number of +such as made it the occupation of their life. These were supported +either by the congregation or by their own wives, who kept shops, +stalls, inns, or peddled, while their husbands spent sixteen hours a +day studying Talmud + +One of these was a man named Reb (Rabbi) Sender, an +insignificant, ungainly little figure of a man, with a sad, child-like +little face flanked by a pair of thick, heavy, dark-brown side-locks +that seemed to weigh him down + +His wife kept a trimming-store or something of the sort, and their +only child, a girl older than I, helped her attend to business as well +as to keep house in the single-room apartment which the family +occupied in the rear of the little shop. As he invariably came to +the synagogue for the morning prayer, and never left it until after +the evening service, his breakfasts and dinners were brought to the +house of worship. His wife usually came with the meal herself. +Waiting on one's husband and "giving him strength to learn the +law" was a "good deed." + +She was a large woman with an interesting dark face, and poor +Reb Sender cut a sorry figure by her side + +Men of his class are described as having "no acquaintance with the +face of a coin." All the money he usually handled was the penny +or two which he needed to pay for his bath of a Friday afternoon. +Occasionally he would earn three or four copecks by participating +in some special prayer, for a sick person, for instance. These +pennies he invariably gave away. Once he gave his muffler to a +poor boy. His wife subsequently nagged him to death for it. The +next morning he complained of her to one of the other scholars + +"Still," he concluded, "if you want to serve God you must be ready +to suffer for it. A good deed that comes easy to you is like a +donation which does not cost you anything." I made his +acquaintance by asking him to help me out with an obscure +passage. This he did with such simple alacrity and kindly modesty +as to make me feel a chum of his. I warmed to him and he +reciprocated my feelings. He took me to his bosom. He often +offered to go over my lesson with me, and I accepted his services +with gratitude. He spoke in a warm, mellow basso that had won +my heart from the first. His singsong lent peculiar charm to the +pages that we read in duet. As he read and interpreted the text he +would wave his snuff-box, by way of punctuating and +emphasizing his words, much as the conductor of an orchestra +does his baton, now gently, insinuatingly, now with a passionate +jerk, now with a sweeping majestic movement. One cannot read +Talmud without gesticulating, and Reb Sender would scarcely +have been able to gesticulate without his snuff-box. + +It was of tortoise shell, with a lozenge-shaped bit of silver in the +center. + +It gradually became dear to me as part of his charming personality. + +Sometimes, when we were reading together, that glistening spot in +the center of the lid would fascinate my eye so that I lost track of +the subject in hand + +He often hummed some liturgical melody of a well-known +synagogue chanter. + +One afternoon he sang something to me, with his snuff-box for a +baton, and then asked me how I liked it + +"I composed it myself," he explained, boastfully + +I did not like the tune. In fact, I failed to make out any tune at all, +but I was overflowing with a desire to please him, so I said, with +feigned enthusiasm: "Did you really? Why, it's so beautiful, so +sweet!" + +Reb Sender's face shone + +After that he often submitted his compositions to me, though he +was too shy to sing them to older people. They were all supposed +to be liturgical tunes, or at least some "hop" for the Day of the +Rejoicing of the Law. When I hailed the newly composed air with +warm approval he would show his satisfaction either with +shamefaced reserve or with child-like exuberance. + +If, on the other hand, I failed to conceal my indifference, he would +grow morose, and it would be some time before I succeeded in +coaxing him back to his usual good humor + +Nor were his melodies the only things he confided to me. When I +was still a mere boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, he would lay +bare to me some of the most intimate secrets of his heart + +"You see, my wife thinks me a fool," he once complained to me. +"She thinks I don't see it. Do you understand, David? She looks up +to me for my learning, but otherwise she thinks I have no sense. It +hurts, you know." He was absolutely incapable of keeping a secret +or of saying or acting anything that did not come from the depths +of his heart. He often talked to me of God and His throne, of the +world to come, and of the eternal bliss of the righteous, quoting +from a certain book of exhortations and adding much from his +own exalted imagination. And I would listen, thrilling, and make a +silent vow to be good and to dedicate my life to the service of God + +"Study the Word of God, Davie dear," he would say, taking my +hand into his. + +"There is no happiness like it. What is wealth? A dream of fools. +What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter. +Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds +and holy learning have tangible worth. Beware of Satan, Davie. +When he assails you, just say no; turn your heart to steel and say +no. Do you hear, my son?" + +The anecdotes and sayings of the Talmud, its absurdities no less +than its gems of epigrammatic wisdom, were mines of poetry, +philosophy, and science to him. He was a dreamer with a noble +imagination, with a soul full of beauty + +This unsophisticated, simple-hearted man, with the mind of an +infant, was one of the most quick-witted, nimble-minded scholars +in town. + +His great delight was to tackle some intricate maze of Talmudic +reasoning. + +This he would do with ferocious zest, like a warrior attacking the +enemy, flashing his tortoise snuff-box as if it were his sword. +When away from his books or when reading some of the fantastic +tales in them he was meek and gentle as a little bird. No sooner +did he come across a fine bit of reasoning than he would impress +me as a lion + +On one occasion, after Reb Sender got through a celebrated tangle +with me, arousing my admiration by the ingenuity with which he +discovered discrepancies and by the adroitness with which he +explained them away, he said: "I do enjoy reading with you. +Sometimes, when I read by myself, I feel lonely. Anyhow, I love +to have you around, David. If you went to study somewhere else I +should miss you very much." On another occasion he said: "You +are like a son to me, Davie. Be good, be genuinely pious; for my +sake, if for nothing else. Above all, don't be double-faced; never +say what you do not mean; do not utter words of flattery." + +As I now analyze my reminiscences of him I feel that he was a +yearning, lonely man. He was in love with his wife and, in spite of +her devotion to him, he was love-lorn. Poor Reb Sender! He was +anything but a handsome man, while she was well built and pretty. +And so it may be that she showed more reverence for his learning +and piety than love for his person. He was continually referring to +her, apparently thirsting to discuss her demeanor toward him + +"The Lord of the Universe has been exceptionally good to me," he +once said to me. "May I not forfeit His kindness for my sins. He +gives me health and my daily bread, and I have a worthy woman +for a wife. Indeed, she is a woman of rare merits, so clever, so +efficient, and so good. She nags me but seldom, very seldom." He +paused to take snuff and then remained silent, apparently +hesitating to come to the point. Finally he said: "In fact, she is so +wise I sometimes wish I could read her thoughts. I should give +anything to have a glimpse into her heart. She has so little to say to +me. + +She thinks I am a fool. There is a sore in here "--pointing at his +heart. + +"We have been married over twenty-two years, and yet--would you +believe it?--I still feel shy in her presence, as if we were brought +together for the first time, by a match-maker, don't you know. But +then you are too young to understand these things. Nor, indeed, +ought I to talk to you about them, for you are only a child. But I +cannot help it. If I did not unburden my mind once in a while I +might not be able to stand it." + +That afternoon he composed what he called a "very sad tune," and +hummed it to me. I failed to make out the tune, but I could feel its +sadness + +I loved him passionately. As for the other men of the synagogue, if +they did not share my ardent affection for him, they all, with one +exception, liked him. The exception was a middle-aged little +Talmudist with a tough little beard who held everybody in terror +by his violent temper and pugnacity. He was a pious man, but his +piety never manifested itself with such genuine fervor as when he +exposed the impiety of others. He was forever picking quarrels, +forever challenging people to debate with him, forever offering to +show that their interpretation of this passage or that was all wrong. +The sound of his acrimonious voice or venomous laughter grated +on Reb Sender's nerves, but he bore him absolutely no ill-will. +Nor did he ever utter a word of condemnation concerning a +certain other scholar, an inveterate tale-bearer and gossip-monger, +though a good-natured fellow, who not infrequently sought to +embroil him with some of his warmest friends. + +One Talmudist, a corpulent old man whose seat was next to Reb +Sender's, was more inclined to chat than to study. Now and again +he would break in upon my friend's reading with some piece of +gossip; and the piteous air with which Reb Sender would listen to +him, casting yearning glances at his book as he did so, was as +touching as it was amusing + +My mother usually brought my dinner to the synagogue. She +would make her entrance softly, so as to take me by surprise while +I was absorbed in my studies. It did her heart good to see me read +the holy book. As a result, I was never so diligent as I was at the +hour when I expected her arrival with the dinner-pot. Very often I +discovered her tiptoeing in or standing at a distance and watching +me admiringly. Then I would take to singing and swaying to and +fro with great gusto. She often encountered Reb Sender's wife at +the synagogue. They did not take to each other. + +On one occasion my mother found Reb Sender's daughter at the +house of prayer. Having her father's figure and features, the girl +was anything but prepossessing. My mother surveyed her from +head to foot + +That evening when I was eating my supper at home my mother +said: "Look here, Davie. I want you to understand that Reb +Sender's wife is up to some scheme about you. She wants you to +marry that monkey of hers. That's what she is after." I was not +quite fifteen + +"Leave me alone," I retorted, coloring + +"Never mind blushing. It is she who tells Reb Sender to be so good +to you. + +The foxy thing! She thinks I don't see through her. That scarecrow +of a girl is old enough to be your mother, and she has not a penny +to her marriage portion, either. A fine match for a boy like you! +Why, you can get the best girl in town." + +She said it aloud, by way of flaunting my future before our +room-mates. Two of the three families who shared the room with +us, by the way, were the same as when I was a little boy. Moving +was a rare event in the life of the average Antomir family + +Red Esther was still there. She was one of those who heard my +mother's boastful warning to me. She grinned. After a little, as I +was crossing the room, she sang out with a giggle: "Bridegroom!" + +"I'll break your bones," I returned, pausing + +She stuck out her tongue at me + +I still hated her, but, somehow, she did not seem to be the same as +she had been before. The new lines that were developing in her +growing little figure, and more particularly her own consciousness +of them, were not lost upon me. A new element was stealing into +my rancor for her--a feeling of forbidden curiosity. At night, when +I lay in bed, before falling asleep, I would be alive to the fact that +she was sleeping in the same room, only a few feet from me. +Sometimes I would conjure up the days of our childhood when +Red Esther caused me to "sin" against my will, whereupon I would +try to imagine the same scenes, but with the present +fifteen-year-old Esther in place of the five-year-old one of yore. + +The word "girl" had acquired a novel sound for me, one full of +disquieting charm. The same was true of such words as "sister," +"niece," or "bride," but not of "woman." Somehow sisters and +nieces were all young girls, whereas a woman belonged to the +realm of middle-aged humanity, not to my world + +Naphtali went to the same seminary. He was two grades ahead of +me. He "ate days," for his father had died and his mother had +married a man who refused to support him. He was my great +chum at the seminary. The students called him Tidy Naphtali or +simply the Tidy One. He was a slender, trim lad, his curly brown +hair and his near-sighted eyes emphasizing his Talmudic +appearance. He was the cleanliest and neatest boy at the yeshivah. +This often aroused sardonic witticism from some of the other +students. Scrupulous tidiness was so uncommon a virtue among +the poorer classes of Antomir that the painstaking care he +bestowed upon his person and everything with which he came in +contact struck many of the boys as a manifestation of girl-like +squeamishness. As for me, it only added to my admiration of him. +His conscience seemed to be as clean as his finger-nails. He wrote +a beautiful hand, he could draw and carve, and he was a good +singer. His interpretations were as clear-cut as his handwriting. He +seemed to be a Jack of all trades and master of all. I admired and +envied him. His reticence piqued me and intensified his power +over me. I strove to emulate his cleanliness, his graceful Talmud +gestures, and his handwriting. At one period I spent many hours a +day practising caligraphy with some of his lines for a model + +"Oh, I shall never be able to write like you," I once said to him, in +despair + +"Let us swap, then," he replied, gaily.. "Give me your mind for +learning and I shall let you have my handwriting." + +"Pshaw! Yours is a better mind than mine, too." + +"No, it is not," he returned, and resumed his reading. "Besides, you +are ahead of me in piety and conduct." He shook his head +deprecatingly and went on reading. He was one of the noted "men +of diligence" at the seminary. With his near-sighted eyes close to +the book he would read all day and far into the night in ringing, +ardent singsongs that I thought fascinating. The other reticent +Talmudists I knew usually read in an undertone, humming their +recitatives quietly. He seldom did. Sparing as he was of his voice +in conversation, he would use it extravagantly when intoning his +Talmud + +It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work. +While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you +utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of +its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had +little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to +himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of +beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse + +Regularly every Thursday night he and I had our vigil at the +Preacher's Synagogue, where many other young men would gather +for the same purpose. We would sit up reading, side by side, until +the worshipers came to morning service. To spend a whole night +by his side was one of the joys of my existence in those days + +Reb Sender was somewhat jealous of him + +Soon after graduation Naphtali left Antomir for a town in which +lived some of his relatives. I missed him as I would a sweetheart + + + +CHAPTER II + +I WAS nearly sixteen. I had graduated from the +seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's +Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was +overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to +have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast +or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in +my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent +scholar. You are a boy no longer." + +I was free to loaf, but I worked harder than ever. I was either in an +exalted state of mind or pining away under a spell of yearning and +melancholy--of causeless, meaningless melancholy. + +My Talmudic singsong reflected my moods. Sometimes it was a +spirited recitative, ringing with cheery self-consciousness and the +joy of being a lad of sixteen; at other times it was a solemn song, +aglow with devotional ecstasy. When I happened to be dejected in +the commonplace sense of the word, it was a listless murmur, +doleful or sullen. But then the very reading of the Talmud was apt +to dispel my gloom. My voice would gradually rise and ring out, +vibrating with intellectual passion + +The intonations of the other scholars, too, echoed the voices of +their hearts, some of them sonorous with religious bliss, others +sad, still others happy-go-lucky. Although absorbed in my book, I +would have a vague consciousness of the connection between the +various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be +aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me +belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the +squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed +fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, +unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were +being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of acumen" whose +father-in-law had made a fortune as a war-contractor in the late +conflict with Turkey. All these voices blended in a symphonic +source of inspiration for me. It was divine music in more senses +than one + +The ancient rabbis of the Talmud, the Tanaim of the earlier period +and the Amorairn of later generations, were living men. I could +almost see them, each of them individualized in my mind by some +of his sayings, by his manner in debate, by some particular word +he used, or by some particular incident in which he figured. I +pictured their faces, their beards, their voices. + +Some of them had won a warmer corner in my heart than others, +but they were all superior human beings, godly, unearthly, +denizens of a world that had been ages ago and would come back +in the remote future when Messiah should make his appearance + +Added to the mystery of that world was the mystery of my own +singsong. Who is there?--I seemed to be wondering, my tune or +recitative sounding like the voice of some other fellow. It was as +if somebody were hidden within me. + +What did he look like? If you study the Talmud you please God +even more than you do by praying or fasting. As you sit reading +the great folio He looks down from heaven upon you. Sometimes I +seemed to feel His gaze shining down upon me, as though casting +a halo over my bead + +My relations with God were of a personal and of a rather familiar +character. + +He was interested in everything I did or said; He watched my every +move or thought; He was always in heaven, yet, somehow, he was +always near me, and I often spoke to Him as I might to Reb +Sender + +If I caught myself slurring over some of my prayers or speaking ill +of another boy or telling a falsehood, I would say to Him, audibly: +"Oh, forgive me once more. You know that I want to be good. I +will be good. + +I know I will." + +Sometimes I would continue to plead in this manner till I broke +into sobs. + +At other times, as I read my Talmud, conscious of His approval of +me, tears of bliss would come into my eyes + +I loved Him as one does a woman. + +Often while saying my prayers I would fall into a veritable +delirium of religious infatuation. Sometimes this fit of happiness +and yearning would seize me as I walked in the street + +"O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!" I +would sigh. "Oh, how I love you!" + +I also had talks with the Evil Spirit, or Satan. He, too, was always +near me. But he was always trying to get me into trouble + +"You won't catch me again, scoundrel you," I would assure him +with sneers and leers. Or, "Get away from me, heartless +mischief-maker you! You're wasting your time, I can tell you +that." + +My bursts of piety usually lasted a week or two. Then there was +apt to set in a period of apathy, which was sure to be replaced by +days of penance and a new access of spiritual fervor. + +One day, as Reb Sender and I were reading a page together, a very +pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter +written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud, +but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My +mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances + +Reb Sender paused, with evident annoyance. "What are you +looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! You +are yielding to Satan." + +I colored + +He was too deeply interested in the Talmudic argument under +consideration to say more on the matter at this minute, but he +returned to it as soon as we had reached the end of the section. He +spoke earnestly, with fatherly concern: "You are growing, David. +You are a boy no longer. You are getting to be a man. This is just +the time when one should be on his guard against Satan." + +I sat, looking down, my brain in a daze of embarrassment + +"Remember, David, 'He who looks even at the little finger of a +woman is as guilty as though he looked at a woman that is wholly +naked.'" He quoted the Talmudic maxim in a tone of passionate +sternness, beating the desk with his snuff-box at each word + +As to his own conduct, he was one of three or four men at the +synagogue of whom it was said that they never looked at women, +and, to a very considerable extent, his reputation was not +unjustified + +"You must never tire fighting Satan, David," he proceeded. "Fight +him with might and main." + +As I listened I was tingling with a mute vow to be good. Yet, at the +same time, the vision of "a woman that is wholly naked" was +vividly before me + +He caused me to bring a certain ancient work, one not included in +the Talmud, in which he made me read the following: "Rabbi +Mathia, the son of Chovosh, had never set eyes on a woman. + +Therefore when he was at the synagogue studying the Law, his +visage would shine as the sun and its features would be the +features of an angel. One day, as he thus sat reading, Satan +chanced to pass by, and in a fit of jealousy Satan said: "'Can it +really be that this man has never sinned?' "'He is a man of spotless +purity,' answered God + +"'Just grant me the liberty,' Satan urged, 'and I will lead him to sin.' +"'You will never succeed.' "'Let me try.' "'Proceed.' "Satan then +appeared in the guise of the most beautiful woman in the world, +of one the like of whom had not been born since the days of +Naomi, the sister of Tuval Cain, the woman who had led angels +astray. + +When Rabbi Mathia espied her he faced about. So Satan, still in +the disguise of a beautiful woman, took up a position on the left +side of him; and when he turned away once more he walked over +to the right side again. Finally Rabbi Mathia had nails and fire +brought him and gouged out his own eyes. + +"At this God called for Angel Raphael and bade him cure the +righteous man. Presently Raphael came back with the report that +Rabbi Mathia would not be cured lest he should again be tempted +to look at pretty women. + +"'Go tell him in My name that he shall never be tempted again,' +said God + +"And so the holy man regained his eyesight and was never +molested by Satan again." + +The painful image of poor Rabbi M athia gouging out his eyes +supplanted the nude figure of the previous quotation in my mind + +Reb Sender pursued his "exhortative talk." He dwelt on the duties +of man to man. + +"If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity +for him, as you would for a man with broken legs. Nor should you +hate a man who has a weakness for telling falsehoods. This, too, is +an affliction, like stuttering or being lame. Say to yourself, 'Poor +fellow, he is given to lying.' Above all, you must fight conceit, +envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. Remember, the +sum and substance of all learning lies in the words, 'Love thy +neighbor as thyself.' Another thing, remember that it is not enough +to abstain from lying by word of mouth; for the worst lies are +often conveyed by a false look, smile, or act. Be genuinely +truthful, then. And if you feel that you are good, don't be too proud +of it. + +Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger." + +He worked me up to a veritable frenzy of penitence + +"I will, I will," I said, tremulously. "And if I ever catch myself +looking at a woman again I will gouge out my eyes like Rabbi +Mathia." + +"'S-sh! Don't say that, my son." About a quarter of an hour later, as +I sat reading by myself, I suddenly sprang to my feet and walked +over to Reb Sender + +"You are so dear to me," I gasped out. "You are a man of perfect +righteousness. I love you so. I should jump into fire or into water +for your sake." + +"'S-sh!" he said, taking me gently by the hand and pressing me +down into a seat by his side. "You are a good boy. As to my being +a man of perfect righteousness, alas! I am far from being one. We +are all sinful. Come, let us read another page together." + +Satan kept me rather busy these days. It was not an easy task to +keep one's eyes off the girls who came to the Preacher's +Synagogue, and when none was around I would be apt to think of +one. I would even picture myself touching a feminine cheek with +the tip of my finger. Then my heart would sink in despair and I +would hurl curses at Satan + +"Eighty black years on you, vile wretch you!" I would whisper, +gnashing my teeth, and fall to reading with ferocious zeal + +In the relations between men and women it is largely case of +forbidden fruit and the mystery of distance. The great barrier that +religion, law, and convention have laced between the sexes adds +to the joys and poetry of love, but it is responsible also for much +of the suffering, degradation, and crime that spring from it. In my +case his barrier was of special magnitude. + +Dancing with a girl, or even taking one out for a walk, was out of +the question. Nor was the injunction confined to men who devoted +themselves to the study of holy books. It was the rule of ordinary +decency for any Jew except one who lived "like a Gentile," that is, +like a person of modern culture. Indeed, there were scores of +towns in the vicinity of Antomir where one could not take a walk +even with one's own wife without incurring universal +condemnation. There was a dancing-school or two in Antomir, but +they were attended by young mechanics of the coarser type. To be +sure, there were plenty of young Jews in our town who did live +"like Gentiles," who called the girls of their acquaintance "young +ladies," took off their hats to them, took them out for a walk in the +public park, and danced with them, just like the nobles or the +army officers of my birthplace. But then these fellows spoke +Russian instead of Yiddish and altogether they belonged to a +world far removed from mine. Many of these "modern" young +Jews went to high school and wore pretty uniforms with +silver-plated buttons and silver lace. + +To me they were apostates, sinners in Israel. And yet I could not +think of them without a lurking feeling of envy. The Gentile +books they studied and their social relations with girls who were +dressed "like young noblewomen" piqued my keenest curiosity +and made me feel small and wretched + +The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from +religious life. + +Attending divine service is not obligatory for her, and those of the +sex who wish to do so are allowed to follow the devotions not in +the synagogue proper, but through little windows or peepholes in +the wall of an adjoining room. In the eye of the spiritual law that +governed my life women were intended for two purposes only: for +the continuation of the human species and to serve as an +instrument in the hands of Satan for tempting the stronger sex to +sin. Marriage was simply a duty imposed by the Bible. Love? So +far as it meant attraction between two persons of the opposite sex +who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native +tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be +"in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was +something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern" +Jews might indulge in + +But at present all this merely deepened the bewitching mystery of +the forbidden sex in my young blood. And Satan, wide awake and +sharp-eyed as ever, was not slow to perceive the change that had +come over me and made the most of it + +There was no such thing as athletics or outdoor sports in my world. +The only physical exercise known to us was to be swinging like a +pendulum in front of your reading-desk from nine in the morning +to bedtime every day, and an all-night vigil every Thursday in +addition. Even a most innocent frolic among the boys was +suppressed as an offense to good Judaism + +All of which tended to deepen the mystery of girlhood and to +increase the chances of Satan. + +I must explain that although women could not attend divine +service except through a peephole, they were free to visit the +house of worship on all sorts of other errands. So some of them +would come with food for the scholars, others with candles for the +chandeliers, while still others wanted letters read or written. One +of the several rabbis of the town was in the habit of spending his +evenings reading Talmud in the Preacher's Synagogue, so +housewives of the neighborhood, or their daughters, would bring +some spoon, pot, or chicken to have them passed upon according +to the dietary laws of Moses and the Talmud + +I would scrutinize the faces and figures of these girls, I would draw +comparisons, make guesses as to whether they were engaged to be +married (I did not have to speculate upon whether they were +already married, because a young matron who would visit our +synagogue was sure to have her hair covered with a wig). It +became one of my pastimes to make forecasts as to the looks of +the next young woman to call at the synagogue, whether she would +be pretty or homely, tall or short, fair or dark, plump or spare. I +was interested in their eyes, but, somehow, I was still more +interested in their mouths. Some mouths would set my blood on +fire. I would invent all sorts of romantic episodes with myself as +the hero. I would portray my engagement to some of the pretty +girls I had seen, our wedding, and, above all, our married life. The +worst of it was that these images often visited my brain while I +was reading the holy book. Satan would choose such moments of +all others because in this manner he would involve me in two +great sins at once; for in addition to the wickedness of indulging +in salacious thoughts there was the offense of desecrating the holy +book by them + +Reb Sender's daughter was about to be married to a tradesman of +Talmudic education. I did not care for her in the least, yet her +approaching wedding aroused a lively interest in me + +Red Esther had gone out to service. She came home but seldom, +and when she did we scarcely ever talked to each other. The +coarse brightness of her complexion and the harsh femininity of +her laughter repelled me + +"I do hate her," I once said to myself, as I heard that laugh of hers + +"And yet you would not mind kissing her, would you, now?" a +voice retorted + +I had to own that I would not, and then I cudgeled my brains over +the amazing discrepancy of the thing. Kissing meant being fond of +one. I enjoyed kissing my mother, for instance. Now, I certainly +was not fond of Esther. I was sure that I hated her. Why, then, was +I impelled to kiss her? How could I hate and be fond of her at +once? I went on reasoning it out, Talmud fashion, till I arrived at +the conclusion that there were two kinds of kisses: the kiss of +affection and the kiss of Satan. I submitted it, as a discovery, to +some of the other young Talmudists, but they scouted it as a +truism. A majority of us were modest of speech and conduct. But +there were some who were not + + + +CHAPTER III + +WHEN I was a little over eighteen the number of +steady readers at the Old Synagogue was increased by the advent +of a youth from the Polish provinces. + +His appearance produced something of a sensation, for, in addition +to being the son of a rich merchant and the prospective son-in-law +of a celebrated rabbi, he was the possessor of a truly phenomenal +memory. He was well versed in the entire Talmud, and could +recite by heart about five hundred leaves, or one thousand pages, +of it. He was generally called the Pole. He was tall and supple, +fair-complexioned, and well-groomed, with a suggestion of +self-satisfaction and aloofness in the very sinuosity of his figure. +His velvet skull-cap, which was always pushed back on his head, +exposed to view a forelock of golden hair. His long-skirted, +well-fitting coat was of the richest broadcloth I had ever seen. He +wore a watch and chain that were said to be worth a small fortune. +I hated him. He was repugnant to me for his Polish accent, for his +good clothes, for his well-fed face, for his haughty manner, for the +servile attention that was showered on him, and, above all, for his +extraordinary memory. I had always been under the impression +that the boys of well-to-do parents were stupid. Brains did not +seem to be in their line. That this young man, who was so well +supplied with this world's goods, should possess a wonderful mind +as well jarred on me as an injustice to us poor boys + +I would seek comfort in the reflection that "the essence of +scholarship lay in profundity and acumen rather than in the ability +to rattle off pages like so many psalms." Yet those "five hundred +leaves" of his gave me no peace. + +Five hundred! The figure haunted me. Finally I set myself the task +of memorizing five hundred leaves. It was a gigantic undertaking, +although my memory was rather above the average. I worked with +unflagging assiduity for weeks and weeks. Nobody was to know +of my purpose until it had been achieved. I worked so hard and +was so absorbed in my task that my interest in girls lost much of +its usual acuteness. At times I had a sense of my own holiness. +When I walked through the streets, on my way to or from the +synagogue, I kept reciting some of the pages I had mastered. While +in bed for the night, I whispered myself to sleep reciting Talmud. +When I ate, some bit of Talmud was apt to be running through my +mind. If there was a hitch, and I could not go on, my heart would +sink within me. I would stop eating and make an effort to recall +the passage + +It was inevitable that the new character of my studies should +sooner or later attract Reb Sender's attention. My secret hung like +a veil between us. + +He was jealous of it. Ultimately he questioned me, beseechingly, +and I was forced to make a clean breast of it + +Reb Sender beamed. The veil was withdrawn. Presently his face +fell again + +"What I don't like about it is your envy of the Pole," he said, +gravely. + +"Don't take it ill, my son, but I am afraid you are envious and +begrudging. + +Fight it, Davie. Give up studying by heart. It is not with a pure +motive you are doing it. Your studies are poisoned with hatred +and malice. Do you want to gladden my heart, Davie?" + +"I do. I will. What do you mean?" "Just step up to the Pole and beg +his pardon for the evil thoughts you have harbored about him." + +A minute later I stood in front of my hated rival, thrilling with the +ecstasy of penitence. + +"I have sinned against you. Forgive me," I said, with downcast eyes + +The Pole was puzzled + +"I envied you," I explained. "I could not bear to hear everybody +speak of the five hundred leaves you know by heart. So I wanted +to show you that I could learn by heart just as much, if not more." + +A suggestion of a sneer flitted across his well-fed face. It stung me +as if it were some loathsome insect. His golden forelock +exasperated me + +"And I could do it, too," I snapped. "I have learned more than fifty +leaves already. It is not so much of a trick as I thought it was." + +"Is it not?" the Pole said, with a full-grown sneer + +"You need not be so stuck up, anyhow," I shot back, and turned +away + +Before I had reached Reb Sender, who had been watching us, I +rushed back to the Pole + +"I just want to say this," I began, in a towering rage. "With all your +boasted memory you would be glad to change brains with me." + +His shoulders shook with soundless mirth + +"Laugh away. But let Reb Sender examine both of us. Let him +select a passage and see who of us can delve deeper into it, you or +I? Memory alone is nothing." + +"Isn't it? Then why are you green with envy of me?" And once +more he burst into a laugh, with a graceful jerk of his head which +set my blood on fire + +"You're a pampered idiot." + +"You're green with envy." + +"I'll break every bone in you." + +We flew at each other, but Reb Sender and two other scholars tore +us apart + +"Shame!" the Talmudists cried, shrugging their shoulders in +disgust + +"Just like Gentiles," some one commented + +"It is an outrage to have the holy place desecrated in this manner." + +"What has got into you?" Reb Sender said to me as he led me back +to my desk + +I resumed studying by heart with more energy than ever. "That's +all right!" I thought to myself. "I'll have that silk-stocking of a +fellow lick the dust of my shoes." I now took special measures to +guard my secret even from Reb Sender. One of these was to take a +book home and to work there, staying away from synagogue as +often as I could invent a plausible pretext. I was lying right and +left. Satan chuckled in my face, but I did not care. I promised +myself to settle my accounts with the Uppermost later on. The only +thing that mattered now was to beat the Pole + +The sight of me learning the Word of God so diligently was a +source of indescribable joy to my mother. She struggled to +suppress her feeling, but from time to time a sigh would escape +her, as though the rush of happiness was too much for her heart + +Alas! this happiness of hers was not to last much longer + + + +BOOK III + +I LOSE MY MOTHER + + +CHAPTER I + +IT was Purim, the +feast of Esther. Our school-boys were celebrating the downfall of +Haman, and they were doing it in the same war-like fashion in +which American boys celebrate their forefathers' defiance of +George III. The synagogues roared with the booming of +fire-crackers, the report of toy pistols, the whir-whir of Purim +rattles. It was four weeks to the great eight-day festival of +Passover and my mother went to work in a bakery of unleavened +bread. She toiled from eighteen to twenty hours a day, so that she +often dozed off over her rolling-pin from sheer exhaustion. But +then she earned far more than usual. Including tips from +customers (the baker merely acted as a contractor for the families +whose flour he transformed into flat, round, tasteless Passover +cakes, or "matzoths") she saved up, during the period, a little over +twenty rubles. With a part of this sum she ordered a new coat for +me and bought me a new cap. I remember that coat very well. It +was of a dark-brown cotton stuff, neat at the waist and with +absurdly long skirts, of course. The Jewish Passover often concurs +with the Christian Easter. This was the case in the year in +question. One afternoon--it was the seventh day of our festival--I +chanced to be crossing the Horse-market. As it was not market +day, it was deserted save for groups of young Gentiles, civilians +and soldiers, who were rolling brightly colored Easter eggs over +the ground. My new long-skirted coat and side-locks provoked +their mirth until one of them hit me a savage blow in the face, +splitting my lower lip. + +Another rowdy snatched off my new cap--just because our people +considered it a sin to go bareheaded. And, as I made my way, +bleeding, with one hand to my lip and the other over my bare +head, the company sent a shower of broken eggs and a chorus of +jeers after me + +It was only a short distance from Abner's Court. When I entered +our basement and faced my mother, she stared at me for a +moment, as though dumfounded, and then, slapping her hands +together, she sobbed: "Woe is me! Darkness is me! What has +happened to you?" + +When she had heard my story she stood silent awhile, looking +aghast, and then left the house. + +"I'm going to kill him. I am just going to kill him," she said, in +measured accents which still ring in my ears + +The bookbinder's wife, the retired soldier, and I ran after her, +imploring her not to risk her life on such a foolhardy errand, but +she took no heed of us + +"Foolish woman! You don't even know who did it," urged the +soldier + +"I'll find out!" she answered + +The bookbinder's wife seized her by an arm, but she shook her off. +I pleaded with her with tears in my eyes + +"Go back," she said to me, trying to be gentle while her eyes were +lit with an ominous look + +These were the last words I ever heard her utter + +Fifteen minutes later she was carried into our basement +unconscious. Her face was bruised and swollen and the back of +her head was broken. She died the same evening + +I have never been able to learn the ghastly details of her death. The +police and an examining magistrate were said to be investigating +the case, but nothing came of it + +There was no lack of excitement among the Jews of Antomir. The +funeral was expected to draw a vast crowd. But the epidemic of +anti-Jewish atrocities of 1881 and 1882 were fresh in one's mind, +so word was passed round "not to irritate the Gentiles." The +younger and "modern" element in town took exception to this +timidity. They insisted upon a demonstrative funeral. They were +organizing for self-defense in case the procession was interfered +with, but the counsel of older people prevailed. As a consequence, +the number of mourners following the hearse was even smaller +than it would have been if my mother had died a natural death. +And the few who did take part in the sad procession were +unusually silent. A Jewish funeral without a chorus of sobbing +women was inconceivable in Antomir. Indeed, a pious matron who +happens to come across such a scene will join in the weeping, +whether she had ever heard of the deceased or not. On this +occasion, however, sobs were conspicuous by their absence + +"'S-sh! 's-sh! None of your wailing!" an old man kept admonishing +the women + +I spent the "Seven Days "(of mourning) in our basement, where I +received visits from neighbors, from the families of my two +distant relatives, from Reb Sender and other Talmudists of my +synagogue. Among these was the Pole. + +This time my rival begged my forgiveness. I granted it, of course, +but I felt that we never could like each other + +There was a great wave of sympathy for me. Offers of assistance +came pouring in in all sorts of forms. Had there been a Yiddish +newspaper in town and such things as public meetings, the +outburst might have crystallized into what, to me, would have +been a great fortune. As it was, public interest in me died before +anything tangible was done. Still, there were several prosperous +families of the old-fashioned class, each of which wanted to +provide me with excellent board. But then Reb Sender's wife, in a +fit of compassion and carried away by the prevailing spirit of the +moment, claimed the sole right to feed me + +"I'll take his mother's place," she said. "Whatever the Upper One +gives us will be enough for him, too." Her husband was happy, +while I lacked the courage to overrule them + +As to lodgings, it was deemed most natural that I should sleep in +some house of worship, as thousands of Talmud students did in +Antomir and other towns. + +To put up with a synagogue bench for a bed and to "eat days" was +even regarded as a desirable part of a young man's Talmud +education. And so I selected a pew in the Preacher's Synagogue +for my bed. I was better off than some others who lived in houses +of God, for I had some of my mother's bedding while they mostly +had to sleep on hay pillows with a coat for a blanket + +It was not until I found myself lying on this improvised bed that I +realized the full extent of my calamity. During the first seven days +of mourning I had been aware, of course, that something appalling +had befallen me, but I had scarcely experienced anything like +keen anguish. I had been in an excited, hazy state of mind, more +conscious of being the central figure of a great sensation than of +my loss. As I went to bed on the synagogue bench, however, +instead of in my old bunk at what had been my home, the fact that +my mother was dead and would never be alive again smote me +with crushing violence. It was as though I had just discovered it. I +shall never forget that terrible night + +At the end of the first thirty days of mourning I visited mother's +grave. + +"Mamma! Mamma!" I shrieked, throwing myself upon the mound +in a wild paroxysm of grief + +The dinners which Reb Sender's wife brought to the synagogue for +her husband and myself were never quite enough for two, and for +supper, which he had at home, she would bring me some bread +and cheese or herring. Poor Reb Sender could not look me in the +face. The situation grew more awkward every day. It was not long +before his wife began to drop hints that I was hard to please, that +she did far more than she could afford for me and that I was an +ingrate. The upshot was that she "allowed" me to accept "days" +from other families. But the well-to-do people had by now +forgotten my existence and the housewives who were still vying +with one another in offering me meals were mostly of the poorer +class. These strove to make me feel at home at their houses, and +yet, in some cases at least, as I ate, I was aware of being watched +lest I should consume too much bread. As a consequence, I often +went away half hungry. All of which quickened my self-pity and +the agony of my yearnings for mother. I grew extremely sensitive +and more quarrelsome than I am naturally. I quarreled with one of +my relatives, a woman, and rejected the "day" which I had had in +her house, and shortly after abandoned one of my other "days." + +Reb Sender kept tab of my missing "days" and tried to make up for +them by sharing his dinner with me. His wife, however, who +usually waited for the dishes and so was present while I ate, was +anything but an encouraging witness of her husband's hospitality. +The food would stick in my throat under her glances. I was +repeatedly impelled abruptly to leave the meal, but refrained from +doing so for Reb Sender's sake. I obtained two new "days." One of +these I soon forfeited, having been caught stealing a hunk of bread; +but I kept the matter from Reb Sender. To conceal the truth from +him I would spend the dinner hour in the street or in a little +synagogue in another section of the city. Tidy Naphtali had +recently returned to Antomir, and this house of worship was his +home now. His vocal cords had been ruined by incessantly reading +Talmud at the top of his lungs. He now spoke or read in a low, +hoarse voice. He still spent most of his time at a reading-desk, but +he had to content himself with whispering + +I found a new "day," but lost three of my old ones. Naphtali had as +little to eat as I, yet he scarcely ever left his books. One late +afternoon I sat by his side while he was reading in a spiritless +whisper. Neither of us had lunched that day. His curly head was +propped upon his arm, his near-sighted eyes close to the book. He +never stirred. He was too faint to sway his body or to gesticulate. I +was musing wearily, and it seemed as though my hunger was a +living thing and was taking part in my thoughts + +"Do you know, Naphtali," I said, "it is pleasant even to famish in +company. + +If I were alone it would be harder to stand it. 'The misery of the +many is a consolation.'" He made no answer. Minutes passed. +Presently he turned from his desk + +"Do you really think there is a God?" he asked, irrelevantly + +I stared + +"Don't be shocked. It is all bosh." And he fell to swaying over his +book + +I was dumfounded. "Why do you keep reading Talmud, then?" I +asked, looking aghast + +"Because I am a fool," he returned, going on with his reading. A +minute later he added, "But you are a bigger one." + +I was hurt and horrified. I tried to argue, but he went on +murmuring, his eyes on the folio before him + +Finally I snapped: "You are a horrid atheist and a sinner in Israel. +You are desecrating the holy place." And I rushed from the little +synagogue + +His shocking whisper, "Do you really think there is a God?" +haunted me all that afternoon and evening. He appeared like +another man to me. I was burning to see him again and to smash +his atheism, to prove to him that there was a God. But as I made a +mental rehearsal of my argument I realized that I had nothing +clear or definite to put forth. So I cursed Naphtali for an apostate, +registered a vow to shun him, and was looking forward to the +following day when I should go to see him again + +My interest in the matter was not keen, however, and soon it died +down altogether. Nothing really interested me except the fact that +I had not enough to eat, that mother was no more, that I was all +alone in the world. + +The shock of the catastrophe had produced a striking effect on me. +My incessant broodings, and the corroding sense of my great +irreparable loss and of my desolation had made a nerveless, +listless wreck of me, a mere shadow of my former self. I was +incapable of sustained thinking + +My communions with God were quite rare now. Nor did He take +as much interest in my studies as He used to. Instead of the Divine +Presence shining down on me while I read, the face of my +martyred mother would loom before me. Once or twice in my +hungry rambles I visited Abner's Court and let my heart be racked +by the sight of what had once been our home, mother's and mine. I +said prayers for her three times a day with great devotion, with a +deep yearning. But this piety was powerless to restore me to my +former feeling for the Talmud + +I distinctly recall how I would shut my eyes and vision my mother +looking at me from her grave, her heart contracted with anguish +and pity for her famished orphan. It was an excruciating vision, +yet I found comfort in it. I would mutely complain of the world to +her. It would give me satisfaction to denounce the whole town to +her. "Ah, I have got you!" I seemed to say to the people of +Antomir. "The ghost of my mother and the whole Other World see +you in all your heartlessness. You can't wriggle out of it." This +was my revenge. I reveled in it. + +But, nothing daunted, the people of Antomir would go about their +business as usual and my heart would sink with a sense of my +helplessness. + +I was restless. I coveted diversion, company, and I saw a good deal +of Naphtali. As for his Free Thought, it soon, after we had two +mild quarrels over it, began to bore me. It appeared that the huge +tomes of the Talmud were not the only books he read these days. +He spent much time, clandestinely, on little books written in the +holy tongue on any but holy topics. They were taken up with such +things as modern science, poetry, fiction, and, above all, criticism +of our faith. He made some attempts to lure me into an interest in +these books, but without avail. The only thing connected with +them that appealed to me were the anecdotes that Naphtali would +tell me, in his laconic way, concerning their authors. I scarcely +ever listened to these stories without invoking imprecations upon +the infidels, but I enjoyed them all the same. They were mostly +concerned with their apostasy, but there were many that were not. +Some of these, or rather the fact that I had first heard them from +Naphtali, in my youth, were destined to have a peculiar bearing on +an important event in my life, on something that occurred many +years later, when I was already a prosperous merchant in New +York. They were about Doctor Rachaeles, a famous Hebrew writer +who practised medicine in Odessa, and his son-in-law, a poet +named Abraham Tevkin. Doctor Rachaeles's daughter was a +celebrated beauty and the poet's courtship of her had been in the +form of a long series of passionate letters addressed, not to his +lady-love, but to her father. This love-story made a strong +impression on me. The figures of the beautiful girl and of the +enamoured young poet, as I pictured them, were vivid in my mind. + +"Did he write of his love in those letters?" I demanded, shyly + +"He did not write of onions, did he?" Naphtali retorted. After a +little I asked: "But how could she read those letters? She certainly +does not read holy tongue?" + +"Go ask her." + +"You're a funny fellow. Did Tevkin get the girl?" + +"He did, and they have been married for many years. Why, did you +wonder if you mightn't have a chance?" + +"You're impossible, Naphtali." + +He smiled. + + + +CHAPTER II + +ONE afternoon Naphtali called on me at the +Preacher's Synagogue + +"Have you got all your 'days'?" he asked, in his whisper + +"Why?" + +He had discovered a "treasure"--a pious, rich, elderly woman +whose latest hobby was to care for at least eighteen poor +Talmudists--eighteen being the numerical value of the letters +composing the Hebrew word for "life." Her name was Shiphrah +Minsker. She belonged to one of the oldest families in Antomir, +and her husband was equally well-born. Her religious zeal was of +recent origin, in fact, and even now she wore her hair "Gentile +fashion." It was a great sin, but she had never worn a wig in her +life, and putting on one now seemed to be out of the question. +This hair of hers was of a dark-brown hue, threaded with silver, +and it grew in a tousled abundance of unruly wisps that seemed to +be symbolic of her harum-scarum character. She was as +pugnacious as she was charitable, and as quick to make up a +quarrel as to pick one. Her husband, Michael Minsker, was a +"worldly" man, with only a smattering of Talmud, and their +younger children were being educated at the Russian schools. But +they all humored her newly adopted old-fashioned ways, to a +certain extent at least, while she tolerated their "Gentile" ones as +she did her own uncovered hair. Relegating her household affairs +to a devoted old servant, with whom she was forever wrangling, +Shiphrah spent most of her time raising contributions to her +various charity funds, looking after her Talmud students, +quarreling with her numerous friends, and begging their +forgiveness. If she was unable to provide meals for a student in the +houses of some people of her acquaintance she paid for his board +out of her own purse + +Her husband was an exporter of grain and his business often took +him to Koenigsberg, Prussia, for several weeks at a time. +Occasions of this kind were hailed by Shiphrah as a godsend (in +the literal sense of the term), for in his absence she could freely +spend on her beneficiaries and even feed some of them at her own +house + +When I was introduced to her as "the son of the woman who had +been killed on the Horse-market" and she heard that I frequently +had nothing to eat, she burst into tears and berated me soundly for +not having knocked at her door sooner + +"It's terrible! It's terrible!" she moaned, breaking into tears again. +"In fact I, too, deserve a spanking. To think that I did not look him +up at once when that awful thing happened!" + +As a matter of fact, she had not done so because at the time of my +mother's death her house had been agog with a trouble of its own. +But of this presently + +She handed me a three-ruble bill and set about filling up the gaps +in my eating calendar and substituting fat "days" for lean ones. + +She often came to see me at the synagogue, never empty-handed. +Now she had a silver coin for me, now a pair of socks, a shirt, or +perhaps a pair of trousers which some member of her family had +discarded. Often, too, she would bring me a quarter of a chicken, +cookies, or some other article of food from her own table + +My days of hunger were at an end. I lived in clover. "Now I can +work," I thought to myself, with the satisfaction of a well-filled +stomach. "And work I will. I'll show people what I can do." + +I applied myself to my task with ardor, but it did not last long. My +former interest in the Talmud was gone. The spell was broken +irretrievably. Now that I did not want for food, my sense of +loneliness became keener than ever. Indeed, it was a novel sense +of loneliness, quite unlike the one I had experienced before + +My surroundings had somehow lost their former meaning. Life +was devoid of savor, and I was thirsting for an appetizer, as it +were, for some violent change, for piquant sensations + +Then it was that the word America first caught my fancy + +The name was buzzing all around me. The great emigration of +Jews to the United States, which had received its first impulse two +or three years before, was already in full swing. It may not be out +of order to relate, briefly. how it had all come about + +An anti-Semitic riot broke out in a southern town named +Elisabethgrad in the early spring of 1881. Occurrences of this kind +were, in those days, quite rare in Russia, and when they did +happen they did not extend beyond the town of their origin. But +the circumstances that surrounded the Elisabethgrad outbreak +were of a specific character. It took place one month after the +assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. The actual size and +influence of the "underground" revolutionary organization being +an unknown quantity, St. + +Petersburg was full of the rumblings of a general uprising. The +Elisabethgrad riot, however, was not of a revolutionary nature. Yet +the police, so far from suppressing it, encouraged it. The example +of the Elisabethgrad rabble was followed by the riffraff of other +places. The epidemic quickly spread from city to city. Whereupon +the scenes of lawlessness in the various cities were marked by the +same method in the mob's madness, by the same connivance on +the part of the police, and by many other traits that clearly pointed +to a common source of inspiration. It has long since become a +well-established historical fact that the anti-Jewish disturbances +were encouraged, even arranged, by the authorities as an outlet for +the growing popular discontent with the Government. + +Count von Plehve was then at the head of the Police Department in +the Ministry of the Interior. + +This bit of history repeated itself, on a larger scale, twenty-two +years later, when Russia was in the paroxysm of a real revolution +and when the ghastly massacres of Jews in Kishineff, Odessa, +Kieff, and other cities were among the means employed in an +effort to keep the masses "busy." + +Count von Plehve then held the office of Prime Minister. To return +to 1881 and 1882. Thousands of Jewish families were left +homeless. Of still greater moment was the moral effect which the +atrocities produced on the whole Jewish population of Russia. +Over five million people were suddenly made to realize that their +birthplace was not their home (a feeling which the great Russian +revolution has suddenly changed). Then it was that the cry "To +America!" was raised. It spread like wild-fire, even over those +parts of the Pale of Jewish Settlement which lay outside the riot +zone + +This was the beginning of the great New Exodus that has been in +progress for decades + +My native town and the entire section to which it belongs had been +immune from the riots, yet it caught the general contagion, and at +the time I became one of Shiphrah's wards hundreds of its +inhabitants were going to America or planning to do so. Letters +full of wonders from emigrants already there went the rounds of +eager readers and listeners until they were worn to shreds in the +process + +I succumbed to the spreading fever. It was one of these letters from +America, in fact, which put the notion of emigrating to the New +World definitely in my mind. An illiterate woman brought it to the +synagogue to have it read to her, and I happened to be the one to +whom she addressed her request. The concrete details of that +letter gave New York tangible form in my imagination. It haunted +me ever after + +The United States lured me not merely as a land of milk and +honey, but also, and perhaps chiefly, as one of mystery, of +fantastic experiences, of marvelous transformations. To leave my +native place and to seek my fortune in that distant, weird world +seemed to be just the kind of sensational adventure my heart was +hankering for. + +When I unburdened myself of my project to Reb Sender he was +thunderstruck + +"To America!" he said. "Lord of the World! But one becomes a +Gentile there." + +"Not at all," I sought to reassure him. "There are lots of good Jews +there, and they don't neglect their Talmud, either." The amount +that was necessary to take me to America loomed staggeringly +large. Where was it to come from? I thought of approaching +Shiphrah, but the idea of her helping me abandon my Talmud and +go to live in a godless country seemed preposterous. So I began by +saving the small allowance which I received from her and by +selling some of the clothes and food she brought me. For the +evening meal I usually received some rye bread and a small coin +for cheese or herring, so I invariably added the coin to my little +hoard, relishing the bread with thoughts of America. + +While I was thus pinching and saving pennies I was continually +casting about for some more effective way of raising the sum that +would take me to New York. I confided my plan to Naphtali. + +"Not a bad idea," he said, "but you will never raise the money. You +are a master of dreams, David." + +"I'll get the money, and, what is more, when I am in America I +shall bring you over there, too." + +"May your words pass from your lips into the ear of God." + +"I thought you did not believe in God." + +"How long will you believe in Him after you get to America?" + + + +BOOK IV + +MATILDA + + +CHAPTER I + +I COULD scarcely think of +anything but America. I read every letter from there that I could +obtain. I was constantly seeking information about the country +and the opportunities it held out to a man of my type, and +cudgeling my brains for some way of scraping together the +formidable sum. I was restless, sleepless, and finally, when I +caught a slight cold, my health broke down so completely that I +had to be taken to the hospital. Shiphrah visited me every day, +calling me poor orphan boy and quarreling with the +superintendent over me. One afternoon, after I had been +discharged, when she saw me at the synagogue, feeble and +emaciated, she gasped + +"You're a cruel, heartless man," she flared up, addressing herself to +the beadle. "The poor boy needs a good soft bed, fine chicken +soup, and real care. Why didn't you let me know at once? Come +on, David!" + +"Where to?" I inquired, timidly. + +"None of your business. Come on. I'm not going to take you to the +woods, you may be sure of that. I want you to stay in my house +until you are well rested and strong enough to study. Don't you +like it?" she added, with a wink to the beadle + +It appeared that her husband was away on one of his prolonged +business excursions. Otherwise installing in her "modern" home +an old-fashioned, ridiculous young creature like a Talmud student +would have been out of the question + +I followed her with fast-beating heart. I knew that her family was +"modern," that her children spoke Russian and "behaved like +Gentiles," that there was a grown young woman among them and +that her name was Matilda + +The case of this young woman had been the talk of the town the +year before. + +She had been persuaded to marry a man for whom she did not +care, and shortly after the wedding and after a sensational passage +at arms between his people and hers, she made her father pay him +a small fortune for divorcing her + +Matilda's family being one of the "upper ten" in our town, its +members were frequently the subject of envious gossip, and so I +had known a good deal about them even before Shiphrah +befriended me. I had heard, for example, that Matilda had +received her early education in a boarding-school in Germany (in +accordance with a custom that had been in existence among people +of her father's class until recently); that she had subsequently +studied Russian and other subjects under Russian tutors at home; +and that her two brothers, who were younger than she, were at the +local Russian gymnasium, or high school. I had heard, also, that +Matilda was very pretty. That she was well dressed went without +saying + +All this both fascinated and cowed me + +Suddenly Shiphrah paused, as though bethinking herself of +something. "Wait. + +Don't stir," she said, rushing back. Ten or fifteen minutes later she +returned, saying: "I was not long, was I? I just went to get the +beadle's forgiveness. Had insulted him for nothing. But he's a +dummy, all the same. + +Come on, David." + +Arrived at her house, she introduced me to her old servant, in the +kitchen + +"He'll stay a week with us, perhaps more," she explained. "I want +you to build him up. Fatten him up like a Passover goose. Do you +hear?" + +The servant, a tall, spare woman, with an extremely dark face +tinged with blue, began by darting hostile glances at me + +"Look at the way she is staring at him!" Shiphrah growled. "He is +the son of the woman who was murdered at the Horse-market." + +The old servant started. "Is he?" she said, aghast + +"Are you pleased now? Will you take good care of him?" + +"May the Uppermost give him a good appetite." + +As Shiphrah led me from the kitchen into another room she said: +"She took a fancy to you. It will be all right." + +She towed me into a vast sitting-room, so crowded with new +furniture that it had the appearance of a furniture-store. There +were many rooms in the apartment and they all produced a similar +impression. I subsequently learned that the superabundance of +sofas, chests of drawers, chairs, or bric-à-brac-stands was due to +Shiphrah's passion for bargains, a weakness which made her the +fair game of tradespeople and artisans. Several of her wardrobes +and bureaus were packed full of all sorts of things for which she +had no earthly use and many of which she had smuggled in when +her husband and the children were out + +Ensconced in a corner of an enormous green sofa in the big +crowded sitting-room, with a book in her lap, we found a young +woman with curly brown hair and sparkling brown eyes set in a +small oval face. She looked no more than twenty, but when her +mother addressed her as Matilda I knew that I was facing the +heroine of the sensational divorce. She was singularly interesting, +but pretty she certainly was not. Her Gentile name had a world of +charm for my ear + +One of the trifles that clung to my memory is the fact that upon +seeing her I felt something like amazement at her girlish +appearance. I had had a notion that a married woman, no matter +how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct +from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did +not begin to look married. + +Matilda got up, cast a frowning side-glance at her mother, and +walked over to one of the four immense windows illuminating the +room. Less than a minute later she turned around and crossed over +to her mother's side + +She was small, but well made, and her movements were brisk, +firm, elastic + +"Come on, mother, there's something I want to tell you," she said, a +jerk of her curly head indicating the adjoining room + +"I have no secrets," Shiphrah growled. "What do you want?" + +A snappish whispered conference ensued, the trend of which was +at once betrayed in an acrimonious retort by Shiphrah: "Just keep +your foolish nose out of my affairs, will you? When I say he is +going to stay here for some time I mean it. Don't you mind her, +David." + +"Mother! Mother! Mother!" Matilda trilled with a gesture of +disgust, and flounced out of the room + +I felt my face turning all colors, and at the same time her "Mother! +Mother! Mother!" (instead of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!") was +echoing in my brain enchantingly + +Presently a fair-complexioned youth of eighteen or nineteen came +in, apparently attracted by his mother's angry voice. He wore a +blue coat with silver lace and silver buttons, the uniform of a +Russian high school, which sent a flutter of mixed envy and awe +through me. He threw a frowning glance at me, and withdrew. +Two smaller children, a uniformed boy and a little girl, made their +appearance, talking in Russian noisily. At sight of me they fell +silent, looked me over, from my side-locks to the edge of my +long-skirted coat, and then took to whispering and giggling + +"Clear out, you devils!" Shiphrah shouted, stamping her foot. +"Shoo!" A young chambermaid passed through the room, and +Shiphrah stopped her long enough to introduce me and to +command her to look after me as if I were one of the +family--"even better." + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE spacious sitting-room was used as a +breakfast-room as well. It was in this room, on the enormous +green sofa, that my bed was made for the night. + +It was by far the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in + +Early the next morning, after I finished my long prayer and had put +away my phylacteries, the young chambermaid removed the +bedding and the swarthy old servant served me my breakfast + +"Go wash your hands and eat in good health. Eat hearty, and may it +well agree with you," she said, with a compound of deep +commiseration, reverence, and disdain. I went to the kitchen, +where I washed my hands, and, while wiping them, muttered the +brief prayer which one offers before eating. As I returned to the +sitting-room I found Matilda there. She was seated at some +distance from the table upon which my breakfast was spread. She +wore a sort of white kimono. One did not have to stand on +ceremony with a fellow who did not even wear a stiff collar and a +necktie. Nor did I know enough to resent her costume. She did not +order anything to eat for herself, not even a glass of tea. It seemed +as though she had come in for the express purpose of eying me out +of countenance. If she had, she succeeded but too well. Her silent +glances fell on me like splashes of hot water. I was so disconcerted +I could not swallow my food. There were centuries of difference +between her and myself, not to speak of the economic chasm that +separated us. To me she was an aristocrat, while I was a poor, +wretched "day" eater, a cross between a beggar and a recluse. I +dared not even look at her. Talmud students were expected to be +the shyest creatures under the sun. On this occasion I certainly +was + +The other children entered the room. They were dressing +themselves, eating and studying their Gentile lessons all at once. +Matilda had a mild altercation with Yeffim, her eighteen-year-old +brother, ordered breakfast for herself, and seemed to have +forgotten my existence. Her mother came in and took to cloying +me with food + +At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon I was alone in the +drawing-room. I stood at the piano--the first I had ever laid eyes +on--timidly sounding some of the keys, when I heard approaching +voices. With my heart in my mouth, I rushed over to the nearest +window, where I paused, feigning interest in some passing peasant +teams. Presently Matilda made her appearance. accompanied by +two girl friends + +The three young women were chattering in Russian, a language of +which I understood scarcely three dozen words. I could +conjecture, however, that the subject of their talk was no other +than my own quailing personality + +Suddenly Matilda addressed herself to me in Yiddish: "Look here, +young man! Don't you know it is bad manners for a gentleman to +stand with his back to ladies?" + +I faced about, all flushed and scared + +"That's better," she said, gaily. "Never mind staring at the floor. +Give us a look, will you? Don't act as a shy bridegroom." + +I made no answer. The room seemed to be in a whirl + +"Why don't you speak?" Matilda insisted, concealing her quizzical +purpose under a well-acted air of gravity + +Her two friends roared, and, spurred on by their merriment, she +continued to make game of me. + +"Won't you give us one look, at least? Do, please! Come, my +mother will never find out you have been guilty of a great sin like +that." + +I was dying to get up and fling out of the room, but I felt glued to +the spot. Their cruel sport, which made me faint with +embarrassment and misery, had something inexpressibly alluring +in it + +One of the two girls said something in Russian of which I caught +the word "kiss" and which was greeted by a new outburst of +laughter. I was terror-stricken + +"Well, pious Jew!" Matilda resumed. "Suppose a girl were to give +you a kiss. + +What would you do? Commit suicide, would you? Well, never +fear; we won't be as cruel as all that. I tell you what, though. I'll +hide your side-locks behind your ears. I just want to see how you +would look without them." At this she stepped up close to me and +reached out her hands for my two appendages + +I pushed her off. "Please, let me alone," I protested + +"At last we have heard his voice. Bravo! We're making headway, +aren't we?" + +At this point her mother's angry voice made itself heard. Matilda +desisted, with a merry remark to her friends + +The next morning when she and I were alone she tantalized me +again. She made another attempt to tuck my side-locks behind my +ears. As we were alone I had more courage + +"If you don't stop I'll go away from here," I said, in a rage. "What +do you want of me?" + +As I thus gave vent to my resentment I instinctively felt that, so far +from causing her to avoid me, it would quicken her rompish +interest in me. And I hoped it would + +"'S-sh! don't yell," she said, startled. "Can't you take a joke?" + +"A nice joke, that." + +"Very well, I won't do it again. I didn't know you were a +touch-me-not." After a pause she resumed, in grave, friendly +accents: "Come, don't be angry. I want to talk to you. Look here. Is +there any sense in your wasting your life the way you do? Look at +the way you are dressed, the way you live generally. Besides, the +idea of a young man like you not being able to speak a word of +Russian! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why, mother says you +are remarkably bright. Isn't it a pity that you should throw it all +away? Why don't you try to study Russian, geography, history? +Why don't you try to become an educated man?" + +"The idea!" I said, with a laugh. + +My confusion was gone, partly, at least. I looked her full in the +face + +She flared up. "The idea!" she mocked me. "Rather say, 'The idea +of a bright young fellow being so ignorant!' Did you ever hear of a +provoking thing like that?" There was a good deal of her mother's +helter-skelter explosiveness in her + +Now, that I had scanned her features in the light of the fact that she +was a married woman, I read that fact into them. She did look +married, I remarked to myself. Her exposed hair gave her an effect +of "aristocratic" wickedness and wantonness which repelled and +drew me at once. She was a girl, and yet she was a married +woman. This duality of hers deepened the fascinating mystery of +the distance between us + +She proceeded to draw me out. She made me tell her the story of +my young life, and I obeyed her but too willingly. I told her my +whole tale of woe, reveling in my own rehearsal of my sufferings +and more especially in the expressions of horror and heartfelt pity +which it elicited from her. + +"My God! My God!" she cried, gasping and wringing her hands. +"Poor boy!" or, "Oh, I can't hear it! I can't hear it! It is enough to +drive one crazy." + +At one point, as I described the pangs of hunger which I had often +borne, there were tears in her interesting eyes + +When I had finished my story, flushed with a sense of my +histrionic success, she ordered tea and preserves, as though to +indemnify me for my past sufferings + +"All the more reason for you to study Russian and to become an +educated man," she said, as she put sugar into my glass. She cited +the cases of former Talmudists, poor and friendless like myself, +who had studied at the universities, fighting every inch of their +way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. +She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her +mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself +away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up and +down the room fiercely + +All this sounded shockingly wicked, and yet it did not shock me in +the least + +"I have a plan," I said + +When she heard what I wanted to do she shook her head and +frowned. She said, in substance, that America was a land of +dollars, not of education, and that she wanted me to be an +educated man. I assured her that I should study English in +America and, after I had laid up some money, prepare for college +there (she could have made me promise anything). But colleges in +which the instruction was not in Russian failed to appeal to her +imagination + +Still, when she saw that my heart was set on the project, she +yielded. She seemed to like the fervor with which I defended my +cause, and the notion of my going to a far-away land was +apparently beginning to have its effect. I was the hero of an +adventure. Gradually she became quite enthusiastic about my plan + +"I tell you what. I can raise the money for you," she said, with a +gesture of sudden resolution. "How much is it?" + +When I said, forlornly, that it would come to about eighty rubles, +she declared, gravely: "That's all right. I shall get it for you. Only, +say nothing to mother about it." I thought myself in a flurry of joy +over this windfall, but a little later, when I was left to myself, I +became aware that the flurry I was in was of quite a different +nature. When I tried to think of America I found that my ambition +in that direction had lost its former vitality + +I was deeply in love with Matilda + + + +CHAPTER III + +SHE continued to treat me in a patronizing, playful +way; but we were supposed to be great friends and I asked myself +no questions. + +"The money is assured," she once announced. "You shall get it in a +few days. + +You may begin to pack your great baggage," she jested + +My heart sank within me, but I feigned exultation + +"Do you deserve it, pious soul that you are?" she laughed. And +casting a glance at my side-locks, she added: "I do wish you would +cut off those horrid things of yours. You won't take them to +America, will you?" + +I smiled. Small as was my stock of information of the New World, +I knew enough of it to understand, in a general way, that +side-locks were out of place there + +She proceeded to put my side-locks behind my ears, and this time I +did not object. She then smoothed them down, the touch of her +fingers thrilling me through and through. Then she brought a +hand-glass and made me look at myself. + +"Do you see the difference?" she demanded. "If you were not +rigged out like the savage that you are you wouldn't be a +bad-looking fellow, after all. + +Why, girls might even fall in love with you. But then what does a +pious soul like you know about such things as love?" + +"How do you know I don't?" I ventured to say, blushing like a +poppy + +"Do you, really?" she said, with mischievous surprise + +I nodded + +"Well, well. So you are not quite so saintly as I thought you were! +Perhaps you have even been in love yourself? Have you? Tell +me." + +I kept silent. My heart was throbbing wildly. + +"Do you love me?" + +I nodded once more. My heart stood still. + +"Kiss me, then." + +She put my arms around her, made me clasp her to my breast, and +we kissed, passionately + +I suddenly felt ten years older + +She broke away from me, jumping around, slapping her hands and +bubbling over with triumphant mirth, as she shouted: "There is a +pious soul for you! There is a pious soul for you!" + +A thought of little Red Esther of my childhood days flashed +through my brain, of the way she would force me to "sin" and then +gloat over my "fall." + +"A penny for your piety," Matilda added, gravely. "When you are +in America you'll dress like a Gentile and even shave. Then you +won't look so ridiculous. Good clothes would make another man +of you." At this she looked me over in a business-like sort of way. +"Pretty good figure, that," she concluded + +In the evening of that day, when there was company in the house, +she bore herself as though she did not know me. But the next +morning, after the children had gone to school and her mother was +away on her various missions, she made me put on the glittering +coat and cap of her brother's Sunday uniform + +"It's rather too small for you, but it's becoming all the same," she +said, enthusiastically. "If mamma came in now she would not +know you. But then there would be a nice how-do-you-do if she +did." She gave a titter which rolled through my very heart. "Well, +Mr. Gymnasist, [note] are you really in love with me?" + +"Don't make fun of me, pray," I implored her. "It hurts, you know." +"Very well, I sha'n't. But you haven't answered my question." + +"What question?" + +"What a poor memory you have! And yet mother says you have 'a +good head.' Try to remember." + +"I do remember your question." + +"Then what is your answer?" + +"Yes." + +"Yes!" she mocked me. "That's not the way gentlemen declare +their love." "What else shall I say?" + +"What else! Well, say: 'I am ready to die for you. You are the +sunshine of my life.'" "'You are the sunshine of my life,'" I +echoed, with a smile that was a combination of mirth and +resentment + +"'You are my happiness, my soul. The world would be dark +without you.'" + +"I am no baby to parrot somebody else's words." + +"Then you don't love me." + +"Yes, I do. But I hate to be made fun of. Don't! Please don't!" I said +it with a beseeching, passionate tremor in my voice, and all at +once I clasped her violently to me and was about to kiss her. She +put up her lips responsively, but suddenly she wrenched herself +back + +"Easy, easy, you saintly Talmudist," she said, good-naturedly. +"You must not forget that you are not a gymnasist, that to kiss a +woman is a sin, a great sin. You'll be beaten with rods of iron in +the world to come. Well, good-by," she concluded, gravely. "I +must go. Take off that coat and cap. + +Mamma may come in at any moment." She showed me where to +hang them + +[note: Gymnasist] A pupil of a gymnasium or high school + + + +CHAPTER IV + +In my incessant reveries of her I developed the +theory that if I abandoned my plan about going to America she +would have her father send me to college with a view to my +marrying her. Indeed, matches of this kind were not an unusual +arrangement in our town (nor are they in the Jewish districts of +New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, for example) + +My bed was usually made on the enormous green sofa in the +spacious sitting-room. One night, when I was asleep on that great +sofa, I was suddenly aroused by the touch of a hand + +"'S-sh," I heard Matilda's whisper. "I want to talk to you. I can't +sleep, anyhow. I don't know why. So I was thinking of all kinds of +things till I came to your plan about America. It is foolish. Why go +so far? Perhaps something can be done to get you into high school +and then into the university." + +"I have guessed it right, then," I exclaimed within myself. The +room was pitch-dark. Her white kimono was all I could see of her + +She explained certain details. She spoke in a very low undertone, +with great earnestness. I took her by the hand and drew her down +to a seat on the edge of the sofa beside me. She offered no +resistance. She continued to talk, partly in the same undertone, +partly in whispers, with her hand remaining in mine. I was aflame +with happiness, yet I listened intently. I felt sure that she was my +bride-to-be, that it was only a matter of days when our +engagement would be celebrated. My heart went out to her with a +passion that seemed to be sanctioned by God and men. I strained +down her head and kissed her, but that was the stainless kiss of a +man yearning upon the lips of his betrothed. I clasped her flimsily +garmented form, kissed her again and again, let her kiss and bite +me; and still it all seemed legitimate, or nearly so. I saw in it an +emphatic confirmation of my feeling that she did not regard +herself a stranger to me. That mattered more than anything else at +this moment + +"You're a devil," she whispered, slapping me on both cheeks, "a +devil with side-locks." And she broke into a suppressed laugh + +"I'll study as hard as I can," I assured her, with boyish exultation. + +"You'll see what I can do. The Gentile books are child's play in +comparison with the Talmud." + +I went into details. She took no part in my talk, but she let me go +on. I became so absorbed in what I was saying that my caresses +ceased. I sat up and spoke quite audibly + +"'S-sh!" she cautioned me in an irritated whisper + +I dropped my voice. She listened for another minute or two and +then, suddenly rising, she said: "Oh, you are a Talmud student, +after all," and her indistinct kimono vanished in the darkness + +I felt crushed, but I was sure that the words "Talmud student," +which are Yiddish for "ninny," merely referred to my rendering +our confab dangerous by speaking too loud + +The next afternoon she kissed me once more, calling me Talmud +student again. + +But she was apparently getting somewhat fidgety about our +relations. She was more guarded, more on the alert for +eavesdroppers, as though somebody had become suspicious. My +Gentile education she never broached again. Finally when a letter +came from her father announcing his speedy return and Shiphrah +hastened to terminate my stay at the house, Matilda was obviously +glad to have me go. + +"I shall bring you the money to the synagogue," she whispered as I +was about to leave + +I was stunned. I left in a turmoil of misery and perplexity, yet not +in despair + +When I returned to the synagogue everybody and everything in it +looked strange to me. Reb Sender was dearer than ever, but that +was chiefly because I was longing for a devoted friend. I was +dying to relieve my fevered mind by telling him all and seeking +advice, but I did not + +"Are you still weak?" he asked, tenderly, looking close into niy +eyes + +"Oh, it is not that, Reb Sender." "Is it the death of your dear +mother--peace upon her?" + +"Yes, of course. That and lots of other things." + +"It will all pass. She will have a bright paradise, and The Upper +One will help you. Don't lose heart, my boy." + +I ran over to Naphtali's place. We talked of Shiphrah and her +children--at least I did. He asked about Matilda, and I answered +reluctantly. Now and again I felt impelled to tell him all. It would +have been such a relief to ease my mind of its cruel burden and to +hear somebody's, anybody's opinion about it. But his laconical +questions and answers were anything but encouraging + +I spent many an hour in his company, but he was always absorbed +in the Talmud, or in some of his infidel books. The specific +character of my restlessness was lost upon him + +I was in the grip of a dull, enervating, overpowering agony that +seemed to be weighing my heart down and filling my throat with +pent-up sobs. I was writhing inwardly, praying for Matilda's +mercy. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever experienced. I +remember it distinctly in every detail. If I now wished to imagine +a state of mind driving one to suicide I could not do it better than +by recalling my mental condition in those days + +In point of fact I took pride in my misery. "I am in love. I am no +mere slouch of a Talmud student," I would say to myself + +In the evening of the fourth day, as I was making a pretense at +reading Talmud, a poor boy came in to call me out. In the alley +outside the house of worship I found Matilda. She had the money +with her + +"I don't think I want it now," I said. "I don't care to go to America." +"Why?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh, take it and let me be done +with it," she said, forcing a small packet into my hand. "I have no +time to bother with you. Go to America. I wish you good luck." + +"But I'll miss you. I sha'n't be able to live without you." + +"What? Are you crazy?" she said, sternly. "You forget your place, +young man!" + +She stalked hastily away, her form, at once an angel of light and a +messenger of death, being swallowed up by the gloom + +Ten minutes later, when I was at my book again, my heart bleeding +and my head in a daze, I was called out once more + +Again I found her standing in the lane + +"I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she said. "I wish you good +luck from the bottom of my heart." + +She uttered it with a warm cordiality, and yet the note of +impatience which rang in her voice ten minutes before was again +there + +"Try to become an educated man in America," she added. "That's +the main thing. Good-by. You have my best wishes. Good-by." + +And before I had time to say anything she shook my hand and was +gone. + + + +CHAPTER V + +A LITTLE over three weeks had elapsed. It was two +days after Passover. I had just solemnized the first anniversary of +my mother's death. The snow had melted. Each of my five senses +seemed to be thrillingly aware of the presence of spring + +I was at the railway station. Clustered about me were Reb Sender +and his wife, two other Talmudists from the Preacher's +Synagogue, the retired old soldier with the formidable +side-whiskers, and Naphtali + +As I write these words I seem to see the group before me. It is one +of those scenes that never grow dim in one's memory + +"Be a good Jew and a good man," Reb Sender murmured to me, +confusedly. "Do not forget that there is a God in heaven in +America as well as here. Do not forget to write us." Naphtali, +speaking in his hoarse whisper, half in jest, half in earnest, made +me repeat my promise to send him a "ship ticket" from America. I +promised everything that was asked of me. My head was +swimming + +While the first bell was sounding for the passengers to board the +train, Shiphrah rushed in, puffing for breath. I looked at the door +to see if Matilda was not following her. She was not. + +The group around me made way for the rich woman + +"Here," she said, handing me a ten-ruble bill and a package. "There +is a boiled chicken in it, and some other things, provided you +won't neglect your Talmud in America." + +A minute later she drew her purse from her skirt pocket, produced +a five-ruble bill, and put it into my hand. That all the other money +I had for my journey had come from her daughter she had not the +remotest idea + +I made my final farewells amid a hubbub of excited voices and +eyes glistening with tears + + + +BOOK V + +I DISCOVER AMERICA + + +CHAPTER I + +TWO weeks later +I was one of a multitude of steerage passengers on a Bremen +steamship on my way to New York. Who can depict the feeling of +desolation, homesickness, uncertainty, and anxiety with which an +emigrant makes his first voyage across the ocean? I proved to be a +good sailor, but the sea frightened me. The thumping of the +engines was drumming a ghastly accompaniment to the awesome +whisper of the waves. I felt in the embrace of a vast, uncanny +force. And echoing through it all were the heart-lashing words: +"Are you crazy? You forget your place, young man!" When +Columbus was crossing the Atlantic, on his first great voyage, his +men doubted whether they would ever reach land. So does many +an America-bound emigrant to this day. Such, at least, was the +feeling that was lurking in my heart while the Bremen steamer +was carrying me to New York. Day after day passes and all you +see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a +hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, +but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are +skeptical + +In my devotions, which I performed three times a day, without +counting a benediction before every meal and every drink of +water, grace after every meal and a prayer before going to sleep, I +would mentally plead for the safety of the ship and for a speedy +sight of land. My scanty luggage included a pair of phylacteries +and a plump little prayer-book, with the Book of Psalms at the +end. The prayers I knew by heart, but I now often said psalms, in +addition, particularly when the sea looked angry and the pitching +or rolling was unusually violent. I would read all kinds of psalms, +but my favorite among them was the 104th, generally referred to +by our people as "Bless the Lord, O my soul," its opening words in +the original Hebrew. It is a poem on the power and wisdom of +God as manifested in the wonders of nature, some of its verses +dealing with the sea. It is said by the faithful every Saturday +afternoon during the fall and winter; so I could have recited it +from memory; but I preferred to read it in my prayer-book. For it +seemed as though the familiar words had changed their identity +and meaning, especially those concerned with the sea. Their +divine inspiration was now something visible and audible. It was +not I who was reading them. It was as though the waves and the +clouds, the whole far-flung scene of restlessness and mystery, +were whispering to me: "Thou who coverest thyself with light as +with a garment, who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who +layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the +clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. . . . +So is this great and wide sea wherein are things creeping +innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: +there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. . . + +." + +The relentless presence of Matilda in my mind worried me +immeasurably, for to think of a woman who is a stranger to you is +a sin, and so there was the danger of the vessel coming to grief on +my account. And, as though to spite me, the closing verse of +Psalm 104 reads, "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth +and let the wicked be no more." I strained every nerve to keep +Matilda out of my thoughts, but without avail + +When the discoverers of America saw land at last they fell on their +knees and a hymn of thanksgiving burst from their souls. The +scene, which is one of the most thrilling in history, repeats itself +in the heart of every immigrant as he comes in sight of the +American shores. I am at a loss to convey the peculiar state of +mind that the experience created in me + +When the ship reached Sandy Hook I was literally overcome with +the beauty of the landscape + +The immigrant's arrival in his new home is like a second birth to +him. + +Imagine a new-born babe in possession of a fully developed +intellect. Would it ever forget its entry into the world? Neither +does the immigrant ever forget his entry into a country which is, +to him, a new world in the profoundest sense of the term and in +which he expects to pass the rest of his life. I conjure up the +gorgeousness of the spectacle as it appeared to me on that clear +June morning: the magnificent verdure of Staten Island, the tender +blue of sea and sky, the dignified bustle of passing craft--above +all, those floating, squatting, multitudinously windowed palaces +which I subsequently learned to call ferries. It was all so utterly +unlike anything I had ever seen or dreamed of before. It unfolded +itself like a divine revelation. I was in a trance or in something +closely resembling one + +"This, then, is America!" I exclaimed, mutely. The notion of +something enchanted which the name had always evoked in me +now seemed fully borne out + +In my ecstasy I could not help thinking of Psalm 104, and, opening +my little prayer-book, I glanced over those of its verses that speak +of hills and rocks, of grass and trees and birds. + +My transport of admiration, however, only added to my sense of +helplessness and awe. Here, on shipboard, I was sure of my shelter +and food, at least. + +How was I going to procure my sustenance on those magic shores? +I wished the remaining hour could be prolonged indefinitely + +Psalm 104 spoke reassuringly to me. It reminded me of the way +God took care of man and beast: "Thou openest thine hand and +they are filled with good." But then the very next verse warned me +that "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away +their breath, they die." So I was praying God not to hide His face +from me, but to open His hand to me; to remember that my +mother had been murdered by Gentiles and that I was going to a +strange land. + +When I reached the words, "I will sing unto the Lord as long as I +live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being," I uttered +them in a fervent whisper + +My unhappy love never ceased to harrow me. The stern image of +Matilda blended with the hostile glamour of America + +One of my fellow-passengers was a young Yiddish-speaking tailor +named Gitelson. He was about twenty-four years old, yet his +forelock was gray, just his forelock, the rest of his hair being a +fine, glossy brown. His own cap had been blown into the sea and +the one he had obtained from the steerage steward was too small +for him, so that gray tuft of his was always out like a plume. We +had not been acquainted more than a few hours, in fact, for he had +been seasick throughout the voyage and this was the first day he +had been up and about. But then I had seen him on the day of our +sailing and subsequently, many times, as he wretchedly lay in his +berth. He was literally in tatters. He clung to me like a lover, but +we spoke very little. + +Our hearts were too full for words + +As I thus stood at the railing, prayer-book in hand, he took a look +at the page. The most ignorant "man of the earth" among our +people can read holy tongue (Hebrew), though he may not +understand the meaning of the words. This was the case with +Gitelson + +"Saying, 'Bless the Lord, O my soul'?" he asked, reverently. "Why +this chapter of all others?" + +"Because--Why, just listen." With which I took to translating the +Hebrew text into Yiddish for him + +He listened with devout mien. I was not sure that he understood it +even in his native tongue, but, whether he did or not, his beaming, +wistful look and the deep sigh he emitted indicated that he was in +a state similar to mine + +When I say that my first view of New York Bay struck me as +something not of this earth it is not a mere figure of speech. I +vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the +first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while +the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, +black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of +new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is +a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those +at home!" For the moment the little animal made America real to +me. At the same time it seemed unreal itself. I was tempted to feel +its fur to ascertain whether it was actually the kind of creature I +took it for + +We were ferried over to Castle Garden. One of the things that +caught my eye as I entered the vast rotunda was an iron staircase +rising diagonally against one of the inner walls. A uniformed man, +with some papers in his hands, ascended it with brisk, resounding +step till he disappeared through a door not many inches from the +ceiling. It may seem odd, but I can never think of my arrival in +this country without hearing the ringing footfalls of this official +and beholding the yellow eyes of the black cat which stared at us +at the Hoboken pier. The harsh manner of the immigration officers +was a grievous surprise to me. As contrasted with the officials of +my despotic country, those of a republic had been portrayed in my +mind as paragons of refinement and cordiality. My anticipations +were rudely belied. "They are not a bit better than Cossacks," I +remarked to Gitelson. But they neither looked nor spoke like +Cossacks, so their gruff voices were part of the uncanny scheme +of things that surrounded me. These unfriendly voices flavored all +America with a spirit of icy inhospitality that sent a chill through +my very soul + +The stringent immigration laws that were passed some years later +had not yet come into existence. We had no difficulty in being +admitted to the United States, and when I was I was loath to leave +the Garden + +Many of the other immigrants were met by relatives, friends. +There were cries of joy, tears, embraces, kisses. All of which +intensified my sense of loneliness and dread of the New World. +The agencies which two Jewish charity organizations now +maintain at the Immigrant Station had not yet been established. +Gitelson, who like myself had no friends in New York, never left +my side. He was even more timid than I. It seemed as though he +were holding on to me for dear life. This had the effect of putting +me on my mettle + +"Cheer up, old man!" I said, with bravado. "America is not the +place to be a ninny in. Come, pull yourself together." In truth, I +addressed these exhortations as much to myself as to him; and so +far, at least, as I was concerned, my words had the desired effect. + +I led the way out of the big Immigrant Station. As we reached the +park outside we were pounced down upon by two evil-looking +men, representatives of boarding-houses for immigrants. They +pulled us so roughly and their general appearance and manner +were so uninviting that we struggled and protested until they let us +go--not without some parting curses. Then I led the way across +Battery Park and under the Elevated railway to State Street. + +A train hurtling and panting along overhead produced a +bewildering, a daunting effect on me. The active life of the great +strange city made me feel like one abandoned in the midst of a +jungle. Where were we to go? What were we to do? But the +presence of Gitelson continued to act as a spur on me. I mustered +courage to approach a policeman, something I should never have +been bold enough to do at home. As a matter of fact, I scarcely had +an idea what his function was. To me he looked like some +uniformed nobleman--an impression that in itself was enough to +intimidate me. With his coat of blue cloth, starched linen collar, +and white gloves, he reminded me of anything but the policemen +of my town. I addressed him in Yiddish, making it as near an +approach to German as I knew how, but my efforts were lost on +him. He shook his head. With a witheringly dignified grimace he +then pointed his club in the direction of Broadway and strutted off +majestically + +"He's not better than a Cossack, either," was my verdict + +At this moment a voice hailed us in Yiddish. Facing about, we +beheld a middle-aged man with huge, round, perpendicular +nostrils and a huge, round, deep dimple in his chin that looked +like a third nostril. Prosperity was written all over his +smooth-shaven face and broad-shouldered, stocky figure. + +He was literally aglow with diamonds and self-satisfaction. But he +was unmistakably one of our people. It was like coming across a +human being in the jungle. Moreover, his very diamonds +somehow told a tale of former want, of a time when he had +landed, an impecunious immigrant like myself; and this made him +a living source of encouragement to me + +"God Himself has sent you to us," I began, acting as the +spokesman; but he gave no heed to me. His eyes were eagerly +fixed on Gitelson and his tatters + +"You're a tailor, aren't you?" he questioned him + +My steerage companion nodded. "I'm a ladies' tailor, but I have +worked on men's clothing, too," he said + +"A ladies' tailor?" the well-dressed stranger echoed, with +ill-concealed delight. "Very well; come along. I have work for +you." + +That he should have been able to read Gitelson's trade in his face +and figure scarcely surprised me. In my native place it seemed to +be a matter of course that one could tell a tailor by his general +appearance and walk. + +Besides, had I not divined the occupation of my fellow-passenger +the moment I saw him on deck? As I learned subsequently, the +man who accosted us on State Street was a cloak contractor, and +his presence in the neighborhood of Castle Garden was anything +but a matter of chance. He came there quite often, in fact, his +purpose being to angle for cheap labor among the newly arrived +immigrants + +We paused near Bowling Green. The contractor and my +fellow-passenger were absorbed in a conversation full of sartorial +technicalities which were Greek to me, but which brought a gleam +of joy into Gitelson's eye. My former companion seemed to have +become oblivious of my existence. + +As we resumed our walk up Broadway the bejeweled man turned +to me + +"And what was your occupation? You have no trade, have you?" + +"I read Talmud," I said, confusedly. + +"I see, but that's no business in America," he declared. "Any +relatives here?" "Well, don't worry. You will be all right. If a +fellow isn't lazy nor a fool he has no reason to be sorry he came to +America. It'll be all right." + +"All right" he said in English, and I conjectured what it meant +from the context. In the course of the minute or two which he +bestowed upon me he uttered it so many times that the phrase +engraved itself upon my memory. It was the first bit of English I +ever acquired + +The well-dressed, trim-looking crowds of lower Broadway +impressed me as a multitude of counts, barons, princes. I was +puzzled by their preoccupied faces and hurried step. It seemed to +comport ill with their baronial dress and general high-born +appearance + +In a vague way all this helped to confirm my conception of +America as a unique country, unlike the rest of the world + +When we reached the General Post-Office, at the end of the Third +Avenue surface line, our guide bade us stop + +"Walk straight ahead," he said to me, waving his hand toward Park +Row. "Just keep walking until you see a lot of Jewish people. It +isn't far from here." With which he slipped a silver quarter into my +hand and made Gitelson bid me good-by + +The two then boarded a big red horse-car + +I was left with a sickening sense of having been tricked, cast off, +and abandoned. I stood watching the receding public vehicle, as +though its scarlet hue were my last gleam of hope in the world. +When it finally disappeared from view my heart sank within me. I +may safely say that the half-hour that followed is one of the worst +I experienced in all the thirty-odd years of my life in this country + +The big, round nostrils of the contractor and the gray forelock of +my young steerage-fellow haunted my brain as hideous symbols of +treachery. + +With twenty-nine cents in my pocket (four cents was all that was +left of the sum which I had received from Matilda and her mother) +I set forth in the direction of East Broadway + + + +CHAPTER II + +TEN minutes' walk brought me to the heart of the +Jewish East Side. The streets swarmed with Yiddish-speaking +immigrants. The sign-boards were in English and Yiddish, some +of them in Russian. The scurry and hustle of the people were not +merely overwhelmingly greater, both in volume and intensity, +than in my native town. It was of another sort. The swing and step +of the pedestrians, the voices and manner of the street peddlers, +and a hundred and one other things seemed to testify to far more +self-confidence and energy, to larger ambitions and wider scopes, +than did the appearance of the crowds in my birthplace + +The great thing was that these people were better dressed than the +inhabitants of my town. The poorest-looking man wore a hat +(instead of a cap), a stiff collar and a necktie, and the poorest +woman wore a hat or a bonnet + +The appearance of a newly arrived immigrant was still a novel +spectacle on the East Side. Many of the passers-by paused to look +at me with wistful smiles of curiosity + +"There goes a green one!" some of them exclaimed + +The sight of me obviously evoked reminiscences in them of the +days when they had been "green ones" like myself. It was a second +birth that they were witnessing, an experience which they had +once gone through themselves and which was one of the greatest +events in their lives. + +"Green one" or "greenhorn" is one of the many English words and +phrases which my mother-tongue has appropriated in England and +America. Thanks to the many millions of letters that pass annually +between the Jews of Russia and their relatives in the United +States, a number of these words have by now come to be generally +known among our people at home as well as here. In the eighties, +however, one who had not visited any English-speaking country +was utterly unfamiliar with them. And so I had never heard of +"green one" before. Still, "green," in the sense of color, is Yiddish +as well as English, so I understood the phrase at once, and as a +contemptuous quizzical appellation for a newly arrived, +inexperienced immigrant it stung me cruelly. As I went along I +heard it again and again. Some of the passers-by would call me +"greenhorn" in a tone of blighting gaiety, but these were an +exception. For the most part it was "green one" and in a spirit of +sympathetic interest. It hurt me, all the same. Even those glances +that offered me a cordial welcome and good wishes had +something self-complacent and condescending in them. "Poor +fellow! he is a green one," these people seemed to say. "We are +not, of course. We are Americanized." + +For my first meal in the New World I bought a three-cent wedge of +coarse rye bread, off a huge round loaf, on a stand on Essex +Street. I was too strict in my religious observances to eat it +without first performing ablutions and offering a brief prayer. So I +approached a bewigged old woman who stood in the doorway of a +small grocery-store to let me wash my hands and eat my meal in +her place. She looked old-fashioned enough, yet when she heard +my request she said, with a laugh: "You're a green one, I see." + +"Suppose I am," I resented. "Do the yellow ones or black ones all +eat without washing? Can't a fellow be a good Jew in America?" + +"Yes, of course he can, but--well, wait till you see for yourself." + +However, she asked me to come in, gave me some water and an +old apron to serve me for a towel, and when I was ready to eat my +bread she placed a glass of milk before me, explaining that she +was not going to charge me for it + +"In America people are not foolish enough to be content with dry +bread," she said, sententiously + +While I ate she questioned me about my antecedents. I remember +how she impressed me as a strong, clever woman of few words as +long as she catechised me, and how disappointed I was when she +began to talk of herself. + +The astute, knowing mien gradually faded out of her face and I had +before me a gushing, boastful old bore + +My intention was to take a long stroll, as much in the hope of +coming upon some windfall as for the purpose of taking a look at +the great American city. Many of the letters that came from the +United States to my birthplace before I sailed had contained a +warning not to imagine that America was a "land of gold" and that +treasure might be had in the streets of New York for the picking. +But these warnings only had the effect of lending vividness to my +image of an American street as a thoroughfare strewn with nuggets +of the precious metal. Symbolically speaking, this was the idea +one had of the "land of Columbus." It was a continuation of the +widespread effect produced by stories of Cortes and Pizarro in the +sixteenth century, confirmed by the successes of some Russian +emigrants of my time + +I asked the grocery-woman to let me leave my bundle with her, +and, after considerable hesitation, she allowed me to put it among +some empty barrels in her cellar + +I went wandering over the Ghetto. Instead of stumbling upon +nuggets of gold, I found signs of poverty. In one place I came +across a poor family who--as I learned upon inquiry--had been +dispossessed for non-payment of rent. A mother and her two little +boys were watching their pile of furniture and other household +goods on the sidewalk while the passers-by were dropping coins +into a saucer placed on one of the chairs to enable the family to +move into new quarters + +What puzzled me was the nature of the furniture. For in my +birthplace chairs and a couch like those I now saw on the +sidewalk would be a sign of prosperity. But then anything was to +be expected of a country where the poorest devil wore a hat and a +starched collar + +I walked on + +The exclamation "A green one" or "A greenhorn" continued. If I +did not hear it, I saw it in the eyes of the people who passed me + +When it grew dark and I was much in need of rest I had a street +peddler direct me to a synagogue. I expected to spend the night +there. What could have been more natural? At the house of God I +found a handful of men in prayer. It was a large, spacious room +and the smallness of their number gave it an air of desolation. I +joined in the devotions with great fervor. My soul was sobbing to +Heaven to take care of me in the strange country + +The service over, several of the worshipers took up some Talmud +folio or other holy book and proceeded to read them aloud in the +familiar singsong. + +The strange surroundings suddenly began to look like home to me + +One of the readers, an elderly man with a pinched face and forked +little beard, paused to look me over + +"A green one?" he asked, genially. + +He told me that the synagogue was crowded on Saturdays, while +on week-days people in America had no time to say their prayers +at home, much less to visit a house of worship + +"It isn't Russia," he said, with a sigh. "Judaism has not much of a +chance here." + +When he heard that I intended to stay at the synagogue overnight +he smiled ruefully + +"One does not sleep in an American synagogue," he said. "It is not +Russia." Then, scanning me once more, he added, with an air of +compassionate perplexity: "Where will you sleep, poor child? I +wish I could take you to my house, but--well, America is not +Russia. There is no pity here, no hospitality. My wife would raise +a rumpus if I brought you along. I should never hear the last of it." + +With a deep sigh and nodding his head plaintively he returned to +his book, swaying back and forth. But he was apparently more +interested in the subject he had broached. "When we were at +home," he resumed, "she, too, was a different woman. She did not +make life a burden to me as she does here. Have you no money at +all?" + +I showed him the quarter I had received from the cloak contractor + +"Poor fellow! Is that all you have? There are places where you can +get a night's lodging for fifteen cents, but what are you going to do +afterward? I am simply ashamed of myself." + +"'Hospitality,'" he quoted from the Talmud, "'is one of the things +which the giver enjoys in this world and the fruit of which he +relishes in the world to come.' To think that I cannot offer a +Talmudic scholar a night's rest! Alas! America has turned me into +a mound of ashes." + +"You were well off in Russia, weren't you?" I inquired, in +astonishment. + +For, indeed, I had never heard of any but poor people emigrating to +America + +"I used to spend my time reading Talmud at the synagogue," was +his reply + +Many of his answers seemed to fit, not the question asked, but one +which was expected to follow it. You might have thought him +anxious to forestall your next query in order to save time and +words, had it not been so difficult for him to keep his mouth shut + +"She," he said, referring to his wife, "had a nice little business. She +sold feed for horses and she rejoiced in the thought that she was +married to a man of learning. True, she has a tongue. That she +always had, but over there it was not so bad. She has become a +different woman here. Alas! America is a topsy-turvy country." + +He went on to show how the New World turned things upside +down, transforming an immigrant shoemaker into a man of +substance, while a former man of leisure was forced to work in a +factory here. In like manner, his wife had changed for the worse, +for, lo and behold! instead of supporting him while he read +Talmud, as she used to do at home, she persisted in sending him +out to peddle. "America is not Russia," she said. "A man must +make a living here." But, alas! it was too late to begin now! He +had spent the better part of his life at his holy books and was fit +for nothing else now. His wife, however, would take no excuse. +He must peddle or be nagged to death. And if he ventured to slip +into some synagogue of an afternoon and read a page or two he +would be in danger of being caught red-handed, so to say, for, +indeed, she often shadowed him to make sure that he did not play +truant. + +Alas! America was not Russia + +A thought crossed my mind that if Reb Sender were here, he, too, +might have to go peddling. Poor Reb Sender! The very image of +him with a basket on his arm broke my heart. America did seem +to be the most cruel place on earth + +"I am telling you all this that you may see why I can't invite you to +my house," explained the peddier + +All I did see was that the poor man could not help unburdening his +mind to the first listener that presented himself + +He pursued his tale of woe. He went on complaining of his own +fate, quite forgetful of mine. Instead of continuing to listen, I fell +to gazing around the synagogue more or less furtively. One of the +readers attracted my special attention. He was a venerable-looking +man with a face which, as I now recall it, reminds me of +Thackeray. Only he had a finer head than the English novelist + +At last the henpecked man discovered my inattention and fell +silent. A minute later his tongue was at work again + +"You are looking at that man over there, aren't you?" he asked + +"Who is he?" + +"When the Lord of the World gives one good luck he gives one +good looks as well." + +"Why, is he rich?" + +"His son-in-law is, but then his daughter cherishes him as she does +the apple of her eye, and--well, when the Lord of the World +wishes to give a man happiness he gives him good children, don't +you know." + +He rattled on, betraying his envy of the venerable-looking man in +various ways and telling me all he knew about him--that he was a +widower named Even, that he had been some years in America, +and that his daughter furnished him all the money he needed and a +good deal more, so that "he lived like a monarch." Even would not +live in his daughter's house, however, because her kitchen was not +conducted according to the laws of Moses, and everything else in +it was too modern. So he roomed and boarded with pious +strangers, visiting her far less frequently than she visited him and +never eating at her table. + +"He is a very proud man," my informant said. "One must not +approach him otherwise than on tiptoe." + +I threw a glance at Even. His dignified singsong seemed to confirm +my interlocutor's characterization of him + +"Perhaps you will ask me how his son-in-law takes it all?" the +voluble Talmudist went on. "Well, his daughter is a beautiful +woman and well favored." The implication was that her husband +was extremely fond of her and let her use his money freely. "They +are awfully rich and they live like veritable Gentiles, which is a +common disease among the Jews of America. But then she +observes the commandment, 'Honor thy father.' That she does." + +Again he tried to read his book and again the temptation to gossip +was too much for him. He returned to Even's pride, dwelling with +considerable venom upon his love of approbation and vanity. +"May the Uppermost not punish me for my evil words, but to see +him take his roll of bills out of his pocket and pay his contribution +to the synagogue one would think he was some big merchant and +not a poor devil sponging on his son-in-law." + +A few minutes later he told me admiringly how Even often +"loaned" him a half-dollar to enable him to do some reading at the +house of God. + +"I tell my virago of a wife I have sold fifty cents' worth of goods," +he explained to me, sadly + +After a while the man with the Thackeray face closed his book, +kissed it, and rose to go. On his way out he unceremoniously +paused in front of me, a silver snuff-box in his left hand, and fell +to scrutinizing me. He had the appearance of a well-paid rabbi of +a large, prosperous town. "He is going to say, 'A green one,'" I +prophesied to myself, all but shuddering at the prospect. And, sure +enough, he did, but he took his time about it, which made the next +minute seem a year to me. He took snuff with tantalizing +deliberation. Next he sneezed with great zest and then he resumed +sizing me up. The suspense was insupportable. Another second +and I might have burst out, "For mercy's sake say 'A green one,' +and let us be done with it." But at that moment he uttered it of his +own accord: "A green one, I see. Where from?" And grasping my +hand he added in Hebrew, "Peace be to ye." + +His first questions about me were obsequiously answered by the +man with the forked beard, whereupon my attention was attracted +by the fact that he addressed him by his Gentile name--that is, as +"Mr. Even," and not by his Hebrew name, as he would have done +in our birthplace. Surely America did not seem to be much of a +God-fearing country + +When Mr. Even heard of my Talmud studies he questioned me +about the tractates I had recently read and even challenged me to +explain an apparent discrepancy in a certain passage, for the +double purpose of testing my "Talmud brains" and flaunting his +own. I acquitted myself creditably, it seemed, and I felt that I was +making a good impression personally as well. + +Anyhow, he invited me to supper in a restaurant. + +On our way there I told him of my mother's violent death, vaguely +hoping that it would add to his interest in me. It did--even more +than I had expected. To my pleasant surprise, he proved to be +familiar with the incident. It appeared that because our section lay +far outside the region of pogroms, or anti-Jewish riots, the killing +of my mother by a Gentile mob had attracted considerable +attention. I was thrilled to find myself in the lime-light of +world-wide publicity. I almost felt like a hero + +"So you are her son?" he said, pausing to look me over, as though I +had suddenly become a new man. "My poor orphan boy!" He +caused me to recount the incident in every detail. In doing so I +made it as appallingly vivid as I knew how. He was so absorbed +and moved that he repeatedly made me stop in the middle of the +sidewalk so as to look me in the face as he listened + +"Oh, but you must be hungry," he suddenly interrupted me. "Come +on." Arrived at the restaurant, he ordered supper for me. Then he +withdrew, commending me to the care of the proprietress until he +should return. + +He had no sooner shut the door behind him than she took to +questioning me: Was I a relative of Mr. Even? If not, then why +was he taking so much interest in me? She was a vivacious, +well-fed young matron with cheeks of a flaming red and with the +consciousness of business success all but spurting from her black +eyes. From what she, assisted by one of the other customers +present, told me about my benefactor I learned that his son-in-law +was the owner of the tenement-house in which the restaurant was +located, as well as of several other buildings. They also told me of +the landlord's wife, of her devotion to her father, and of the latter's +piety and dignity. It appeared, however, that in her filial reverence +she would draw the line upon his desire not to spare the rod upon +her children, which was really the chief reason why he was a +stranger at her house + +I had been waiting about two hours and was growing uneasy, when +Mr. Even came back, explaining that he had spent the time taking +his own supper and finding lodgings for me + +He then took me to store after store, buying me a suit of clothes, a +hat, some underclothes, handkerchiefs (the first white +handkerchiefs I ever possessed), collars, shoes, and a necktie. + +He spent a considerable sum on me. As we passed from block to +block he kept saying, "Now you won't look green," or, "That will +make you look American." At one point he added, "Not that you +are a bad-looking fellow as it is, but then one must be presentable +in America." At this he quoted from the Talmud an equivalent to +the saying that one must do in Rome as the Romans do + +When all our purchases had been made he took me to a barber +shop with bathrooms in the rear + +"Give him a hair-cut and a bath," he said to the proprietor. "Cut off +his side-locks while you are at it. One may go without them and +yet be a good Jew." + +He disappeared again, but when I emerged from the bathroom I +found him waiting for me. I stood before him, necktie and collar +in hand, not knowing what to do with them, till he showed me +how to put them on + +"Don't worry. David," he consoled me. "When I came here I, too, +had to learn these things." When he was through with the job he +took me in front of a looking-glass. "Quite an American, isn't he?" +he said to the barber, beamingly. "And a good-looking fellow, +too." + +When I took a look at the mirror I was bewildered. I scarcely +recognized myself + +I was mentally parading my "modern" make-up before Matilda. A +pang of yearning clutched my heart. It was a momentary feeling. +For the rest, I was all in a flutter with embarrassment and a novel +relish of existence. It was as though the hair-cut and the American +clothes had changed my identity. The steamer, Gitelson, and the +man who had snatched him up now appeared to be something of +the remote past. The day had been so crowded with novel +impressions that it seemed an age + +He took me to an apartment in a poor tenement-house and +introduced me to a tall, bewhiskered, morose-looking, elderly man +and a smiling woman of thirty-five, explaining that he had paid +them in advance for a month's board and lodging. When he said, +"This is Mr. Levinsky," I felt as though I was being promoted in +rank as behooved my new appearance. "Mister" struck me as +something like a title of nobility. It thrilled me. But somehow it +seemed ridiculous, too. Indeed, it was some time before I could +think of myself as a "Mister" without being tempted to laugh. + +"And here is some cash for you," he said, handing me a five-dollar +bill, and some silver, in addition. "And now you must shift for +yourself. That's all I can do for you. Nor, indeed, would I do more +if I could. A young man like you must learn to stand on his own +legs. Understand? If you do well, come to see me. Understand?" + +There was an eloquent pause which said that if I did not do well I +was not to molest him. Then he added, aloud: "There is only one +thing I want you to promise me. Don't neglect your religion nor +your Talmud. Do you promise that, David?" + +I did. There was a note of fatherly tenderness in the way this utter +stranger called me David. It reminded me of Reb Sender. I wanted +to say something to express my gratitude, but I felt a lump in my +throat + +He advised me to invest the five dollars in dry-goods and to take +up peddling. Then, wishing me good luck, he left + +My landlady, who had listened to Mr. Even's parting words with +pious nods and rapturous grins, remarked that one would vainly +search the world for another man like him, and proceeded to make +my bed on a lounge + +The room was a kitchen. The stove was a puzzle to me. I wondered +whether it was really a stove. + +"Is this used for heating?" I inquired + +"Yes, for heating and cooking," she explained, with smiling +cordiality. And she added, with infinite superiority, "America has +no use for those big tile ovens." + +When I found myself alone in the room the feeling of desolation +and uncertainty which had tormented me all day seized me once +again + +I went to bed and began to say my bed-prayer. I did so +mechanically. My mind did not attend to the words I was +murmuring. Instead, it was saying to God: "Lord of the Universe, +you have been good to me so far. I went out of that grocery-store +in the hope of coming upon some good piece of luck and my hope +was realized. Be good to me in the future as well. I shall be more +pious than ever, I promise you, even if America is a godless +country." + +I was excruciatingly homesick. My heart went out to my poor dead +mother. + +Then I reflected that it was my story of her death that had led Even +to spend so much money on me. It seemed as if she were taking +care of me from her grave. It seemed, too, as though she had died +so that I might arouse sympathy and make a good start in +America. I thought of her and of all Antomir, and my pangs of +yearning for her were tinged with pangs of my unrequited love for +Matilda. + + + +CHAPTER III + +MY landlady was a robust little woman, compact +and mobile as a billiard-ball, continually bustling about, +chattering and smiling or laughing. She was a good-natured, silly +creature, and her smile, which automatically shut her eyes and +opened her mouth from ear to ear, accentuated her kindliness as +well as her lack of sense. When she did not talk she would hum or +sing at the top of her absurd voice the then popular American song +"Climbing Up the Golden Stairs." She told me the very next day +that she had been married less than a year, and one of the first +things I noticed about her was the pleasure it gave her to refer to +her husband or to quote him. Her prattle was so full of, "My +husband says, says my husband," that it seemed as though the +chief purpose of her jabber was to parade her married state and to +hear herself talk of her spouse. The words, "My husband," were +music to her ears. They actually meant, "Behold, I am an old maid +no longer!" + +She was so deeply impressed by the story of my meeting with Mr. +Even, whose son-in-law was her landlord, and by the amount he +had spent on me that she retailed it among her neighbors, some of +whom she invited to the house in order to exhibit me to them + +Her name was Mrs. Dienstog, which is Yiddish for Tuesday. Now +Tuesday is a lucky day, so I saw a good omen in her, and thanked +God her name was not Monday or Wednesday, which, according +to the Talmud, are unlucky + +One of the first things I did was to make up a list of the English +words and phrases which our people in this country had adopted +as part and parcel of their native tongue. This, I felt, was an +essential step toward shedding one's "greenhornhood," an +operation every immigrant is anxious to dispose of without delay. +The list included, "floor," "ceiling," "window," "dinner," "supper," +"hat," "business," "job," "clean," "plenty," "never," "ready," +"anyhow," "never mind," "hurry up," "all right," and about a +hundred other words and phrases + +I was quick to realize that to be "stylishly" dressed was a good +investment, but I realized, too, that to use the Yiddish word for +"collar" or "clean" instead of their English correlatives was worse +than to wear a dirty collar + +I wrote down the English words in Hebrew characters and from my +landlady's dictation, so that "never mind," for example, became +"nevermine." + +When I came home with a basket containing my first stock of +wares, Mrs. + +Dienstog ran into ecstasies over it. She took to fingering some of +my collar-buttons and garters, and when I protested she drew +away, pouting + +Still, the next morning, as I was leaving the house with my stock, +she wished me good luck ardently; and when I left the house she +ran after me, shouting: "Wait, Mr. Levinsky. I'll buy something of +you 'for a lucky start.'" She picked out a paper of pins, and as she +paid me the price she said, devoutly, "May this little basket +become one of the biggest stores in New York." + +My plan of campaign was to peddle in the streets for a few +weeks--that is, until my "greenness" should wear off-- and then to +try to sell goods to tenement housewives. I threw myself into the +business with enthusiasm, but with rather discouraging results. I +earned what I then called a living, but made no headway. As a +consequence, my ardor cooled off. It was nothing but a daily +grind. My heart was not in it. My landlord, who was a truck-driver, +but who dreamed of business, thought that I lacked dash, pluck, +tenacity; and the proprietor of the "peddler supply store" in which +I bought my goods seemed to be of the same opinion, for he often +chaffed me on the smallness of my bill. On one occasion he said: +"If you want to make a decent living you must put all other +thoughts out of your mind and think of nothing but your +business." + +Only my smiling little landlady was always chirping words of +encouragement, assuring me that I was not doing worse than the +average beginner. This and her cordial, good-natured manner were +a source of comfort to me. We became great friends. She taught +me some of her broken English; and I let her talk of her husband +as long as she wanted. One of her weaknesses was to boast of +holding him under her thumb, though in reality she was under his. + +Ceaselessly gay in his absence, she would become shy and reticent +the moment he came home. I never saw him talk to her save to +give her some order, which she would execute with feverish haste. +Still, in his surly, domineering way he was devoted to her + +I was ever conscious of my modern garb, and as I walked through +the streets I would repeatedly throw glances at store windows, +trying to catch my reflection in them. Or else I would pass my +fingers across my temples to feel the absence of my side-locks. It +seemed a pity that Matilda could not see me now + +One of the trifles that have remained embedded in my memory +from those days is the image of a big, florid-faced huckster +shouting at the top of his husky voice: "Strawberri-i-ies, +strawberri-i-ies, five cents a quart!" + +I used to hear and see him every morning through the windows of +my lodging; and to this day, whenever I hear the singsong of a +strawberry-peddler I scent the odors of New York as they struck +me upon my arrival, in 1885, and I experience the feeling of +uncertainty, homesickness, and lovesickness that never left my +heart at that period + +I often saw Antomir in my dreams + +The immigrants from the various Russian, Galician, or Roumanian +towns usually have their respective synagogues in New York, +Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago. So I sought out the house of +worship of the Sons of Antomir + +There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of small congregations on +the East Side, each of which had the use of a single room, for the +service hours on Saturdays and holidays, in a building rented for +all sorts of gatherings--weddings, dances, lodge meetings, +trade-union meetings, and the like. The Antomir congregation, +however, was one of those that could afford a whole house all to +themselves. Our synagogue was a small, rickety, frame structure + +It was for a Saturday-morning service that I visited it for the first +time. + +I entered it with throbbing heart. I prayed with great fervor. When +the devotions were over I was disappointed to find that the +congregation contained not a single worshiper whom I had known +or heard of at home. + +Indeed, many of them did not even belong to Antomir. When I told +them about my mother there was a murmur of curiosity and +sympathy, but their interest in me soon gave way to their interest +in the information I could give each of them concerning the house +and street that had once been his home + +Upon the advice of my landlord, the truck-driver, and largely with +his help, I soon changed the character of my business. I rented a +push-cart and tried to sell remnants of dress-goods, linen, and +oil-cloth. This turned out somewhat better than basket peddling; +but I was one of the common herd in this branch of the business as +well + +Often I would load my push-cart with cheap hosiery collars, +brushes, hand-mirrors, note-books, shoe-laces, and the like, +sometimes with several of these articles at once, but more often +with one at a time. In the latter case I would announce to the +passers-by the glad news that I had struck a miraculous bargain at +a wholesale bankruptcy sale, for instance, and exhort them not to +miss their golden opportunity. I also learned to crumple up new +underwear, or even to wet it somewhat, and then shout that I could +sell it "so cheap" because it was slightly damaged + +I earned enough to pay my board, but I developed neither vim nor +ardor for the occupation. I hankered after intellectual interest and +was unceasingly homesick. I was greatly tempted to call on Mr. +Even, but deferred the visit until I should make a better showing. + +I hated the constant chase and scramble for bargains and I hated to +yell and scream in order to create a demand for my wares by the +sheer force of my lungs. Many an illiterate dolt easily outshouted +me and thus dampened what little interest I had mustered. One +fellow in particular was a source of discouragement to me. He +was a half -witted, hideous-looking man, with no end of vocal +energy and senseless fervor. He was a veritable engine of imbecile +vitality. He would make the street ring with deafening shrieks, +working his arms and head, sputtering and foaming at the mouth +like a madman. And it produced results. His nervous fit would +have a peculiar effect on the pedestrians. One could not help +pausing and buying something of him. The block where we +usually did business was one of the best, but I hated him so +violently that I finally moved my push-cart to a less desirable +locality + +I came home in despair + +"Oh, it takes a blockhead to make a success of it," I complained to +Mrs. + +Dienstog + +"Why, why," she consoled me, "it is a sin to be grumbling like that. +There are lots of peddlers who have been years in America and +who would be glad to earn as much as you do. It'll be all right. +Don't worry, Mr. Levinsky." + +It was less than a fortnight before I changed my place of business +once again. The only thing by which these few days became fixed +in my memory was the teeth of a young man named Volodsky and +the peculiar tale of woe he told me. He was a homely, +commonplace-looking man, but his teeth were so beautiful that +their glistening whiteness irritated me somewhat. They were his +own natural teeth, but I thought them out of place amid his plain +features, or amid the features of any other man, for that matter. +They seemed to be more suited to the face of a woman. His +push-cart was next to mine, but he sold--or tried to sell--hardware, +while my cart was laden with other goods; and as he was, +moreover, as much of a failure as I was, there was no reason why +we should not be friends. So we would spend the day in +heart-to-heart talks of our hard luck and homesickness. His chief +worry was over the "dower money" which he had borrowed of his +sister, at home, to pay for his passage + +"She gave it to me cheerfully," he said, in a brooding, listless way. +"She thought I would send it back to her at once. People over +there think treasure can really be had for the picking in America. +Well, I have been over two years here, and have not been able to +send her a cent. Her letters make holes in my heart. She has a +good marriage chance, so she says, and unless I send her the +money at once it will be off. Her lamentations will drive me into +the grave." + + + +CHAPTER IV + +I SOON had to move from the Dienstogs' to make +room for a relative of the truck-driver's who had arrived from +England. My second lodgings were an exact copy of my first, a +lounge in a kitchen serving me as a bed. To add to the similarity, +my new landlady was incessantly singing. Only she had three +children and her songs were all in Yiddish. Her ordinary speech +teemed with oaths like: "Strike me blind," "May I not be able to +move my arms or my legs," "May I spend every cent of it on +doctor's bills," "May I not be able to get up from this chair." + +A great many of our women will spice their Yiddish with this kind +of imprecations, but she was far above the average in this respect + +The curious thing about her was that her name was Mrs. Levinsky, +though we were not related in the remotest degree + +Whatever enthusiasm there was in me found vent in religion. I +spent many an evening at the Antomir Synagogue, reading +Talmud passionately. This would bring my heart in touch with my +old home, with dear old Reb Sender, with the grave of my poor +mother. It was the only pleasure I had in those days, and it seemed +to be the highest I had ever enjoyed. At times I would feel the +tears coming to my eyes for the sheer joy of hearing my own +singsong, my old Antomir singsong. It was like an echo from the +Preacher's Synagogue. My former self was addressing me across +the sea in this strange, uninviting, big town where I was +compelled to peddle shoe-black or oil-cloth and to compete with a +yelling idiot. I would picture my mother gazing at me as I stood at +my push-cart. I could almost see her slapping her hands in despair + +As for my love, it had settled down to a chronic dull pain that +asserted itself on special occasions only + +I was so homesick that my former lodging in New York, to which I +had become used, now seemed like home by comparison. I missed +the Dienstogs keenly, and I visited them quite often + +I wrote long, passionate letters to Reb Sender, in a conglomeration +of the Talmudic jargon, bad Hebrew, and good Yiddish, referring +to the Talmud studies I pursued in America and pouring out my +forlorn heart to him. His affectionate answers brought me +inexpressible happiness + +But many of the other peddlers made fun of my piety and it could +not last long. Moreover, I was in contact with life now, and the +daily surprises it had in store for me dealt my former ideas of the +world blow after blow. I saw the cunning and the meanness of +some of my customers, of the tradespeople of whom I bought my +wares, and of the peddlers who did business by my side. Nor was I +unaware of certain unlovable traits that were unavoidably +developing in my own self under these influences. And while +human nature was thus growing smaller, the human world as a +whole was growing larger, more complex, more heartless, and +more interesting. The striking thing was that it was not a world of +piety. I spoke to scores of people and I saw tens of thousands. +Very few of the women who passed my push-cart wore wigs, and +men who did not shave were an exception. Also, I knew that many +of the people with whom I came in daily contact openly +patronized Gentile restaurants and would not hesitate even to eat +pork + +The orthodox Jewish faith, as it is followed in the old Ghetto +towns of Russia or Austria, has still to learn the art of trimming its +sails to suit new winds. It is exactly the same as it was a thousand +years ago. It does not attempt to adopt itself to modern conditions +as the Christian Church is continually doing. It is absolutely +inflexible. If you are a Jew of the type to which I belonged when I +came to New York and you attempt to bend your religion to the +spirit of your new surroundings, it breaks. It falls to pieces. The +very clothes I wore and the very food I ate had a fatal effect on my +religious habits. A whole book could be written on the influence of +a starched collar and a necktie on a man who was brought up as I +was. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, I should let a barber +shave my sprouting beard + +"What do you want those things for?" Mrs. Levinsky once said to +me, pointing at my nascent whiskers. "Oh, go take a shave and +don't be a fool. It will make you ever so much better-looking. May +my luck be as handsome as your face will then be." + +"Never!" I retorted, testily, yet blushing + +She gave a sarcastic snort. "They all speak like that at the +beginning," she said. "The girls will make you shave if nobody +else does." + +"What girls?" I asked, with a scowl, but blushing once again + +"What do I know what girls?" she laughed. "That's your own +lookout, not mine." + +I did not like her. She was provokingly crafty and cold, and she +had a mean smile and a dishonest voice that often irritated me. +She was ruddy-faced and bursting with health, taller than Mrs. +Dienstog, yet too short for her great breadth of shoulder and the +enormous bulk of her bust. I thought she looked absurdly dumpy. +What I particularly hated in her was her laughter, which sounded +for all the world like the gobble of a turkey + +She was constantly importuning me to get her another lodger who +would share her kitchen lounge with me + +"Rent is so high, I am losing money on you. May I have a year of +darkness if I am not," she would din in my ears + +She was intolerable to me, but I liked her cooking and I hated to be +moving again, so I remained several months in her house + +It was not long before her prediction as to the fate of my beard +came true. + +I took a shave. What actually decided me to commit so heinous a +sin was a remark dropped by one of the peddlers that my +down-covered face made me look like a "green one." It was the +most cruel thing he could have told me. I took a look at myself as +soon as I could get near a mirror, and the next day I received my +first shave. "What would Reb Sender say?" I thought. When I +came home that evening I was extremely ill at ease. Mrs. Levinsky +noticed the change at once, but she also noticed my +embarrassment, so she said nothing, but she was continually +darting furtive glances at me, and when our eyes met she seemed +to be on the verge of bursting into one of her turkey laughs. I +could have murdered her + + + + +BOOK VI + +A GREENHORN NO LONGER + + +CHAPTER I + +I BOUGHT my goods in several places and made the acquaintance +of many peddlers. One of these attracted my attention by his +popularity among the other men and by his peculiar talks of +women. His name was Max Margolis. We used to speak of him as +Big Max to distinguish him from a Little Max, till one day a +peddler who was a good chess-player and was then studying +algebra changed the two names to "Maximum Max" and +"Minimum Max," which the other peddlers pronounced "Maxie +Max" and "Minnie Max." + +Some of the other fellows, too, were addicted to obscene +story-telling, but these mostly made (or pretended to make) a joke +of it. The man who had changed Max's sobriquet, for instance, +never tired of composing smutty puns, while another man, who +had a married daughter, was continually hinting, with merry +bravado, at his illicit successes with Gentile women. Maximum +Max, on the other hand, would treat his lascivious topics with +peculiar earnestness, and even with something like sadness, as +though he dwelt on them in spite of himself, under the stress of an +obsession + +Otherwise he was a jovial fellow + +He was a tall, large-boned man, loosely built. His lips were always +moist and when closed they were never in tight contact. He had +the reputation of a liar, and, as is often the case with those who +suffer from that weakness, people liked him. Nor, indeed, were +his fibs, as a rule, made out of whole cloth. They usually had a +basis of truth. When he told a story and he felt that it was +producing no effect he would "play it up," as newspapermen would +put it, often quite grotesquely. Altogether he was so inclined to +overemphasize and embellish his facts that it was not always easy +to say where truth ended and fiction began. Somehow it seemed to +me as though the moistness and looseness of his lips had +something to do with his mendacity + +He was an ignorant man, barely able to write down an address + +Max was an instalment peddler, his chief business being with +frequenters of dance-halls, to whom he sold clothing, dress-goods, +jewelry, and--when there was a marriage among them--furniture. +Many a young housewife who had met her "predestined one" in +one of these halls wore a marriage ring, and had her front room +furnished with a "parlor set," bought of Max Margolis. He was as +popular among the dancers as he was among the men he met at the +stores. He was married, Max, yet it was as much by his interest in +the dancers as by his business interest that he was drawn to the +dance-halls. He took a fancy to me and he often made me listen to +his discourses on women + +The youngest married man usually appealed to me as being old +enough to be my father, and as Maximum Max was not only +married, but eleven years my senior, there seemed to be a great +chasm between us. That he should hold this kind of conversations +with an unmarried youngster like myself struck me as something +unnatural, doubly indecent. As I listened I would feel awkward, +but would listen, nevertheless + +One day he looked me over, much as an expert in horseflesh would +a colt, and said, with the utmost seriousness: "Do you know, +Levinsky, you have an awfully fine figure. You are a good-looking +chap all around, for that matter. A fellow like you ought to make a +hit with women. Why don't you learn to dance?" + +The compliment made me wince and blush. Perhaps, if he had put +it in the form of a jest I should even have liked it. As it was, I felt +like one stripped in public. Still, I recalled with pleasure that +Matilda had said similar things about my figure + +"Why don't you learn to dance, Levinsky?" he repeated + +I laughed, waving the suggestion aside as a joke + +On another occasion he said, "Every woman can be won, +absolutely every one, provided a fellow knows how to go about +it." + +As he proceeded to develop his theory he described various types +of women and the various methods to be used with them + +"Of course, the man must not be repulsive to her," he said + +That evening, when Mrs. Levinsky's husband, their three children, +and myself sat around the table and she was serving us our supper +she appeared in a new light to me. She was nearly twice my age +and I hated her not only for her meanness and low cunning, but +also for her massive, broad-shouldered figure and for her turkey +laugh, but she was a full-blooded, healthy female, after all. So, as +I looked at her bustling between the table and the stove, Max's +rule came back to me. I could almost hear his voice, "Every +woman can be won, absolutely every one. Mrs. Levinsky's oldest +child was a young man of nearly my age, yet I looked her over +lustfully and when I found that her florid skin was almost spotless, +her lips fresh, and her black hair without a hint of gray, I was glad. +Presently, while removing my plate, she threw the trembling bulk +of her great, firm bust under my very eyes. I felt disturbed. "Some +morning when we are alone," I said to myself, "I shall kiss those +red lips of hers." + +From that moment on she was my quarry + +As her husband worked in a sweatshop, while I peddled, he usually +got up at least an hour before me. And it was considered perfectly +natural that Mrs. + +Levinsky should be hovering about the kitchen while I was +sleeping or lying awake on the kitchen lounge. Also, that after her +husband left for the day I should go around half-naked, washing +and dressing myself, in the same crowded little room in which she +was then doing her work, as scantily clad as I was and with the +sleeves of her flimsy blouse rolled up to her armpits. + +I had never noticed these things before, but on the morning +following the above supper I did. As I opened my eyes and saw +her bare, fleshy arms held out toward the little kerosene-stove I +thought of my resolve to kiss her + +She was humming something in a very low voice. To let her know +that I was awake I stretched myself and yawned audibly. Her +voice rose. It was a song from a well-known Jewish play she was +singing + +"Good mornings Mrs. Levinsky," I greeted her, in a familiar tone +which she now heard for the first time from me. "You seem to be +in good spirits this morning." + +She was evidently taken aback. I was the last man in the world she +would have expected to address a remark of this kind to her + +"How can you see it?" she asked, with a side-glance at me + +"Have I no ears? Don't I hear your beautiful singing?" + +"Beautiful singing!" she said, without looking at me + +After a considerable pause I said, awkwardly, "You know, Mrs. +Levinsky, I dreamed of you last night!" + +"Did you?" + +"Aren't you interested to know something more about it?" "I +dreamed of telling you that you are a good-looking lady," I +pursued, with fast-beating heart + +"What has got into that fellow?" she asked of the kerosene-stove. +"He is a greenhorn no longer, as true as I am alive." "You won't +deny you are good-looking, will you?" + +"What is that to you?" And again addressing herself to the +kerosene-stove: "What do you think of that fellow? A pious +Talmudist indeed! Strike me blind if I ever saw one like that." +And she uttered a gobble-like chuckle + +I saw encouragement in her manner. I went on to talk of her songs +and the Jewish theater, a topic for which I knew her to have a +singular weakness. + +The upshot was that I soon had her telling me of a play she had +recently seen. As she spoke, it was inevitable that she should +come up close to the lounge. As she did so, her fingers touched +my quilt, her bare, sturdy arms paralyzing my attention. The +temptation to grasp them was tightening its grip on me. I decided +to begin by taking hold of her hand. I warned myself that it must +be done gently, with romance in my touch. "I shall just caress her +hand," I decided, not hearing a word of what she was saving + +I brought my hand close to hers. My heart beat violently. I was just +about to touch her fingers, but I let the opportunity pass. I turned +the conversation on her husband, on his devotion to her, on their +wedding. She mocked my questions, but answered them all the +same + +"He must have been awfully in love with you," I said + +"What business is that of yours? Where did you learn to ask such +questions? At the synagogue? Of course he loved me! What would +you have? That he should have hated me? Why did he marry me, +then? Of course he was in love with me! Else I would not have +married him, would I? Are you satisfied now?" She boasted of the +rich and well-connected suitors she had rejected + +I felt that I had side-tracked my flirtation. Touching her hand +would have been out of place now + +A few minutes later, when I was saying my morning prayers, I +carefully kept my eyes away from her lest I should meet her +sneering glance. + +When I had finished my devotions and had put my phylacteries +into their little bag I sat down to breakfast. "I don't like this +woman at all," I said to myself, looking at her. "In fact, I abhor +her. Why, then, am I so crazy to carry on with her?" It was the +same question that I had once asked myself concerning my +contradictory feelings for Red Esther, but my knowledge of life +had grown considerably since then + +In those days I had made the discovery that there were "kisses +prompted by affection and kisses prompted by Satan." I now +added that even love of the flesh might be of two distinct kinds: +"There is love of body and soul, and there is a kind of love that is +of the body only," I theorized. "There is love and there is lust." + +I thought of my feeling for Matilda. That certainly was love + +Various details of my relations with Matilda came back to me +during these days + +One afternoon, as I was brooding over these recollections, while +passively awaiting customers at my cart, I conjured up that night +scene when she sat on the great green sofa and I went into +ecstasies speaking of my prospective studies for admission to a +Russian university. I recalled how she had been irritated with me +for talking too loud and how, calling me "Talmud student," or +ninny, she had abruptly left the room. I had thought of the scene a +hundred times before, but now a new interpretation of it flashed +through my mind. It all seemed so obvious. I certainly had been a +ninny, an idiot. I burst into a sarcastic titter at Matilda's expense +and my own + +"Of course I was a ninny," I scoffed at myself again and again. + +I saw Matilda from a new angle. It was as if she had suddenly +slipped off her pedestal. Instead of lamenting my fallen idol, +however, I gloated over her fall. And, instead of growing cold to +her, I felt that she was nearer to me than ever, nearer and dearer + + + +CHAPTER II + +ONE morning, after breakfast, when I was about to +leave the house and Mrs. Levinsky was detaining me, trying to exact a +promise that I should +get somebody to share the lounge with me, I said: "I'll see about it. +I must be going. Good-by!" At this I took her hand, ostensibly in +farewell. + +"Good-by," she said, coloring and trying to free herself + +"Good-by," I repeated, shaking her hand gently and smiling upon +her. + +She wrenched out her hand. I took hold of her chin, but she shook +it free + +"Don't," she said, shyly, turning away + +"What's the matter?" I said, gaily. + +She faced about again. "I'll tell you what the matter is," she said. +"If you do that again you will have to move. If you think I am one +of those landladies--you know the kind I mean--you are +mistaken." + +She uttered it in calm, rather amicable accents. So I replied: "Why, +why, of course I don't! Indeed you are the most respectable and the +most sweet-looking woman in the world!" + +I stepped up close to ner and reached out my hand to seize hold of +her bare arm + +"None of that, mister!" she flared up, drawing back. "Keep your +hands where they belong. If you try that again I'll break every bone +in your body. May both my hands be paralyzed if I don't!" + +"'S-sh," I implored. Which only added fuel to her rage + +"'S-sh nothing! I'll call in all the neighbors of the house and tell +them the kind of pious man you are. Saying his prayers three +times a day, indeed!" + +I sneaked out of the house like a thief. I was wretched all day, +wondering how I should come to supper in the evening. I +wondered whether she was going to deliver me over to the jealous +wrath of her husband. I should have willingly forfeited my trunk +and settled in another place, but Mrs. Levinsky had an +approximate knowledge of the places where I was likely to do +business and there was the danger of a scene from her. Maximum +Max's theory did not seem to count for much. But then he had said +that one must know "how to go about it." Perhaps I had been too +hasty. + +Late in the afternoon of that day Mrs. Levinsky came to see me. +Pretending to be passing along on some errand, she paused in +front of my cart, accosting me pleasantly + +"I'll bet you are angry with me," she said, smiling broadly + +"I am not angry at all," I answered, with feigned moroseness. "But +you certainly have a tongue. Whew! And, well, you can't take a +joke." + +"I did not mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Levinsky. May my luck +be as good as is my friendship for you. I certainly wish you no +evil. May God give me all the things I wish you. I just want you to +behave yourself. That's all. I am so much older than you, anyhow. +Look for somebody of your own age. You are not angry at me, are +you?" she added, suavely + +She simply could not afford to lose the rent I paid her + +Since then she held herself at a respectful distance from me + +I called on smiling Mrs. Dienstog, my former landlady, in whose +house I was no stranger. I timed this visit at an hour when I knew +her to be alone + +In this venture I met with scarcely any resistance at first. She let +me hold her hand and caress it and tell her how soft and tender it +was. + +"Do you think so?" she said, coyly, her eyes clouding with +embarrassment. "I don't think they are soft at all. They would be if +I did not have so much washing and scrubbing to do." Then she +added, sadly: "America has made a servant of me. A land of gold, +indeed! When I was in my father's house I did not have to scrub +floors." + +I attempted to raise her wrist to my lips, but she checked me. She +did not break away from me, however. She held me off, but she +did not let go of the index finger of my right hand, which she +clutched with all her might, playfully. As we struggled, we both +laughed nervously. At last I wrenched my finger from her grip, +and before she had time to thwart my purpose she was in my +arms. I was aiming a kiss at her lips, but she continued to turn and +twist, trying to clap her hand over my mouth as she did so, and my +kiss landed on one side of her chin + +"Just one more, dearest," I raved. "Only one on your sweet little +lips, my dove. Only one. Only one." + +She yielded. Our lips joined in a feverish kiss. Then she thrust me +away from her and, after a pause, shook her finger at me with a +good-natured gesture, as much as to say, "You must not do that, +bad boy, you." + +I went away in high feather + +I called on Mrs. Dienstog again the very next morning. She +received me well, but the first thing she did after returning my +greeting was to throw the door wide open and to offer me a chair +in full view of the hallway + +"Oh, shut the door," I whispered, in disgust. "Don't be foolish." + +She shook her head + +"Just one kiss," I begged her. "You are so sweet." + +She held firm + +I came away sorely disappointed, but convinced that her +inflexibility was a mere matter of practical common sense + +I kept these experiences and reflections to myself. Nor did an +indecent word ever cross my lips. In the street, while attending to +my business, I heard uncouth language quite often. The other +push-cart men would utter the most revolting improprieties in the +hearing of the women peddlers, or even address such talk to them, +as a matter of course. Nor was it an uncommon incident for a +peddler to fire a volley of obscenities at a departing housewife +who had priced something on his cart without buying it. These +things scandalized me beyond words. I could never get accustomed +to them + +"Look at Levinsky standing there quiet as a kitten," the other +peddlers would twit me. "One would think he is so innocent he +doesn't know how to count two. Shy young fellows are the worst +devils in the world." + +They were partly mistaken, during the first few weeks of our +acquaintance, at least. For the last thread that bound me to +chastity was still unbroken. + +It was rapidly wearing away, though. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE last thread snapped. It was the beginning of a +period of unrestrained misconduct. Intoxicated by the novelty of +yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was +months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I +met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact, +business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel +me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and +myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening, +call on her again or on some other woman of her class + +Many of these women would simulate love, but they failed to +deceive me. I knew that they lied and shammed to me just as I did +to my customers, and their insincerities were only another source +of repugnance to me. But I frequented them in spite of it all, in +spite of myself. I spent on them more than I could afford. +Sometimes I would borrow money or pawn something for the +purpose of calling on them + +The fact that these wretched women were not segregated as they +were in my native town probably had something to do with it. +Instead of being confined to a fixed out-of-the-way locality, they +were allowed to live in the same tenement-houses with +respectable people, beckoning to men from the front steps, under +open protection from the police. Indeed, the police, as silent +partners in the profits of their shame, plainly encouraged this vice +traffic. All of which undoubtedly helped to make a profligate of +me, but, of course, it would be preposterous to charge it all, or +even chiefly, to the police + +My wild oats were flavored with a sense of my failure as a +business man, by my homesickness and passion for Matilda. My +push-cart bored me. I was hungry for intellectual interest, for +novel sensations. I was restless. Sometimes I would stop from +business in the middle of the day to plunge into a page of Talmud +at some near-by synagogue, and sometimes I would lay down the +holy book in the middle of a sentence and betake myself to the +residence of some fallen woman In my loneliness I would look for +some human element in my acquaintance with these women. I +would ply them with questions about their antecedents, their +family connections, as my mother had done the girl from "That" +Street + +As a rule, my questions bored them and their answers were +obvious fabrications, but there were some exceptions + +One of these, a plump, handsome, languid-eyed female named +Bertha, occupied two tiny rooms in which she lived with her +ten-year-old daughter. One of the two rooms was often full of +men, some of them with heavy beards, who would sit there, each +awaiting his turn, as patients do in the reception-room of a +physician, and whiling their time away by chaffing the little girl +upon her mother's occupation and her own future. Some of the +questions and jokes they would address to her were of the most +revolting nature, whereupon she would reply, "Oh, go to hell!" or +stick out her tongue resentfully + +One day I asked Bertha why she was giving her child this sort of +bringing up + +"I once tried to keep her in another place, with a respectable +family," she replied, ruefully. "But she would not stay there. +Besides, I missed her so much I could not stand it." + +Another fallen woman who was frank with me proved to be a +native of Antomir. + +When she heard that I was from the same place she flushed with +excitement + +"Go away!" she shouted. "You're fooling me." + +We talked of the streets, lanes, and yards of our birthplace, she +hailing every name I uttered with outbursts of wistful enthusiasm. + +I wondered whether she knew of my mother's sensational death, +but I never disclosed my identity to her, though she, on her part, +told me with impetuous frankness the whole story of her life. + +"You are a Talmudist, aren't you?" she asked. + +"How do you know?" + +"How do I know! As if it could not be seen by your face." A little +later she said: "I am sorry you came here. Honest. You should +have stayed at home and stuck to your holy books. It would have +been a thousand times better than coming to America and calling +on girls like myself. Honest." + +She was known as Argentine Rachael. + +It was from her that I first heard of the relations existing between +the underworld and the police of New York. But then my idea of +the Russian police had always been associated in my mind with +everything cruel and dishonest, so the corruption of the New York +police did not seem to be anything unusual + +One day she said to me: "If you want a good street corner for your +cart I can fix it for you. I know Cuff-Button Leary." + +"Who is he?" + +"Why, have you never heard about him?' "Is he a big police +officer?" + +"Bigger. The police are afraid of him." + +"Why?" + +"Because he is the boss. He is the district leader. What he says +goes." + +She went on to explain that he was the local chieftain of the +dominant "politician party," as she termed it + +"What is a politician party?" I asked + +She tried to define it and, failing in her attempt, she said, with a +giggle: "Oh, you are a boob. You certainly are a green one. Why, +it's an organization, a lot of people who stick together, don't you +know." + +She talked on, and the upshot was that I formed a conception of +political parties as of a kind of competing business companies +whose specialty it was to make millions by ruling some big city, +levying tribute on fallen women, thieves, and liquor-dealers, doing +favors to friends and meting out punishment to foes. I learned also +that District-Leader Leary owed his surname to a celebrated pair +of diamond cuff-buttons, said to have cost him fifteen thousand +dollars, from which he never was separated, and by the blaze of +which he could be recognized at a distance. "Well, shall I speak to +him about you?" she asked. I gave her an evasive answer + +"Why, don't you want to have favors from a girl like me?" she +laughed + +I colored, whereupon she remarked, reflectively: "I don't blame +you, either." + +She never tired talking of our birthplace. + +"Aren't you homesick?" she once demanded + +"Not a bit," I answered, with bravado + +"Then you have no heart. I have been away five times as long as +you, yet I am homesick." + +"Really?" + +"Honest." + +She was as repellent to me as the rest of her class. I could never +bring myself to accept a cup of tea from her hands. And yet I +could not help liking her spirit. She was truthful and affectionate. +This and, above all, her yearning for our common birthplace +appealed to me strongly. I was very much inclined to think that in +spite of the horrible life she led she was a good girl. To hold this +sort of opinion about a woman of her kind seemed to be an +improper thing to do. I knew that according to the conventional +idea concerning women of the street they were all the most +hideous creatures in the world in every respect. So I would tell +myself that I must consider her, too, one of the most hideous +creatures in the world in every respect. But I did not. For I knew +that at heart she was better than some of the most respectable +people I had met. It was one of the astonishing discrepancies I had +discovered in the world. Also, it was one of the things I had found +to be totally different from what people usually thought they were. +I was gradually realizing that the average man or woman was full +of all sorts of false notions. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +I ENROLLED in a public evening school. I threw +myself into my new studies with unbounded enthusiasm. After all, +it was a matter of book-learning, something in which I felt at +home. Some of my classmates had a much better practical +acquaintance with English than I, but few of these could best the +mental training that my Talmud education had given me. As a +consequence, I found things irksomely slow. Still, the teacher--a +young East Side dude, hazel-eyed, apple-faced, and girlish of +feature and voice--was a talkative fellow, with oratorical +proclivities, and his garrulousness was of great value to me. He +was of German descent and, as I subsequently learned from +private conversations with him, his mother was American-born, +like himself, so English was his mother-tongue in the full sense of +the term. He would either address us wholly in that tongue, or +intersperse it with interpretations in labored German, which, +thanks to my native Yiddish, I had no difficulty in understanding. +His name was Bender. At first I did not like him. Yet I would +hang on his lips, striving to memorize every English word I could +catch and watching intently, not only his enunciation, but also his +gestures, manners, and mannerisms, and accepting it all as part and +parcel of the American way of speaking Sign language, which was +the chief means of communication in the early days of mankind, +still holds its own. It retains sway over nations of the highest +culture with tongues of unlimited wealth and variety. And the +gestures of the various countries are as different as their spoken +languages. The gesticulations and facial expressions with which +an American will supplement his English are as distinctively +American as those of a Frenchman are distinctively French. One +can tell the nationality of a stranger by his gestures as readily as +by his language. In a vague, general way I had become aware of +this before, probably from contact with some American-born Jews +whose gesticulations, when they spoke Yiddish, impressed me as +utterly un-Yiddish. And so I studied Bender's gestures almost as +closely as I did his words + +Even the slight lisp in his "s" I accepted as part of the "real +Yankee" utterance. Nor, indeed, was this unnatural, in view of the +"th" sound, that stumbling-block of every foreigner, whom it must +needs strike as a full-grown lisp. Bender spoke with a nasal twang +which I am now inclined to think he paraded as an accessory to +the over-dignified drawl he affected in the class-room. But then I +had noticed this kind of twang in the delivery of other Americans +as well, so, altogether, English impressed me as the language of a +people afflicted with defective organs of speech. Or else it would +seem to me that the Americans had normal organs of speech, but +that they made special efforts to distort the "t" into a "th" and the +"v" into a "w." + +One of the things I discovered was the unsmiling smile. I often saw +it on Bender and on other native Americans-- on the principal of +the school, for instance, who was an Anglo-Saxon. In Russia, +among the people I knew, at least, one either smiled or not. here I +found a peculiar kind of smile that was not a smile. It would flash +up into a lifeless flame and forthwith go out again, leaving the +face cold and stiff. "They laugh with their teeth only," I would say +to myself. But, of course, I saw "real smiles," too, on Americans, +and I instinctively learned to discern the smile of mere politeness +from the sort that came from one's heart. Nevertheless, one +evening, when we were reading in our school-book that "Kate had +a smile for everybody," and I saw that this was stated in praise of +Kate, I had a disagreeable vision of a little girl going around the +streets and grinning upon everybody she met + +I abhorred the teacher for his girlish looks and affectations, but his +twang and "th" made me literally pant with hatred. At the same +time I strained every nerve to imitate him in these very sounds. It +was a hard struggle, and when I had overcome all difficulties at +last, and my girlish-looking teacher complimented me +enthusiastically upon my 'thick" and "thin." my aversion for him +suddenly thawed out + +Two of my classmates were a grizzly, heavy-set man and his +sixteen-year-old son, both trying to learn English after a long day's +work. On one occasion, when it was the boy's turn to read and he +said "bat" for "bath," the teacher bellowed, imperiously: "Stick out +the tip of your tongue! This way." + +The boy tried, and failed + +"Oh, you have the brain of a horse!" his father said, impatiently, in +Yiddish. "Let me try, Mr. Teacher." And screwing up his +bewhiskered old face, he yelled, "Bat-t-t!" and then he shot out +half an inch of thick red tongue + +The teacher grinned, struggling with a more pronounced +manifestation of his mirth + +"His tongue missed the train," I jested, in Yiddish + +One of the other pupils translated it into English, whereupon +Bender's suppressed laughter broke loose, and I warmed to him +still more. + +Election Day was drawing near. The streets were alive with the +banners, transparencies, window portraits of rival candidates, +processions, fireworks, speeches. I heard scores of words from the +political jargon of the country. I was continually asking questions, +inquiring into the meaning of the things I saw or heard around me. +Each day brought me new experiences, fresh impressions, keen +sensations. An American day seemed to be far richer in substance +than an Antomir year. I was in an everlasting flutter. I seemed to +be panting for breath for the sheer speed with which I was rushing +through life + +What was the meaning of all this noise and excitement? Everybody +I spoke to said it was "all humbug." People were making jokes at +the expense of all politicians, irrespective of parties. "One is as +bad as the other," I heard all around me. "They are all thieves." +Argentine Rachael's conception of politics was clearly the +conception of respectable people as well + +Rejoicing of the Law is one of our great autumn holidays. It is a +day of picturesque merrymaking and ceremony, when the +stringent rule barring women out of a synagogue is relaxed. On +that day, which was a short time before Election Day, I saw an +East Side judge, a Gentile, at the synagogue of the Sons of +Antomir. He was very short, and the high hat he wore gave him +droll dignity. He went around the house of worship kissing babies +in their mothers' arms and saying pleasant things to the +worshipers. Every little while he would instinctively raise his +hand to his high hat and then, reminding himself that one did not +bare one's head in a synagogue, he would feverishly drop his hand +again + +This part of the scene was so utterly, so strikingly un-Russian that I +watched it open-mouthed + +"A great friend of the Jewish people, isn't he?" the worshiper who +stood next to me remarked, archly + +"He is simply in love with us," I chimed in, with a laugh, by way of +showing off my understanding of things American. "It's Jewish +votes he is after." + +"Still, he's not a bad fellow," the man by my side remarked. "If you +have a trial in his court he'll decide it in your favor." + +"How is that?" I asked, perplexed. "And how about the other +fellow? He can't decide in favor of both, can he?" + +"There is no 'can't' in America," the man by my side returned, with +a sage smile + +I pondered the riddle until I saw light. "I know what you mean," I +said. "He does favors only to those who vote for his party." + +"You have hit it, upon my word! You're certainly no longer a green +one." + +"Voting alone may not be enough, though," another worshiper +interposed. "If you ever happen to have a case in his court, take a +lawyer who is close to the judge. Understand?" + +All such talks notwithstanding, the campaign, or the spectacular +novelty of it, thrilled me. + +Bender delivered a speech to our class, but all I could make of it +was that it dealt with elections in general, and that it was +something solemn and lofty, like a prayer or a psalm + +Election Day came round. I did not rest. I was continually +snooping around, watching the politicians and their "customers," +as we called the voters. + +Traffic in votes was quite an open business in those days, and I +saw a good deal of it, on a side-street in the vicinity ot a certain +polling-place, or even in front of the polling-place itself, under the +very eyes of policemen. + +I saw the bargaining, the haggling between buyer and seller; I saw +money passed from the one to the other; I saw a heeler put a ballot +into the hand of a man whose vote he had just purchased (the +present system of voting had not yet been introduced) and then +march him into a polling-place to make sure that he deposited the +ballot for which he had paid him. I saw a man beaten black and +blue because he had cheated the party that had paid him for his +vote. I saw Leary, blazing cuff-buttons and all. He was a +broad-shouldered man with rather pleasing features. I saw him +listening to a whispered report from one of the men whom I had +seen buying votes. + +There was no such thing as political life in the Russia of that +period. The only political parties in existence there were the secret +organizations of revolutionists, of people for whom government +detectives were incessantly searching so that they might be +hanged or sent to Siberia. As a consequence a great many of our +immigrants landed in America absolutely ignorant of the meaning +of citizenship, and the first practical instructors on the subject into +whose hands they fell were men like Cuff-Button Leary or his +political underlings. These taught them that a vote was something +to be sold for two or three dollars, with the prospect of future +favors into the bargain, and that a politician was a specialist in +doing people favors. Favors, favors, favors! I heard the word so +often, in connection with politics, that the two words became +inseparable in my mind. A politician was a "master of favors," as +my native tongue would have it + +I attended school with religious devotion. This and the rapid +progress I was making endeared me to Bender, and he gave me +special attention. He taught me grammar, which I relished most +keenly. The prospect of going to school in the evening would +loom before me, during the hours of boredom or distress I spent at +my cart, as a promise of divine pleasure + +Some English words inspired me with hatred, as though they were +obnoxious living things. The disagreeable impression they +produced on me was so strong that it made them easy to +memorize, so that I welcomed them in spite of my aversion or, +rather, because of it. The list of these words included +"satisfaction," "think," and "because." + +At the end of the first month I knew infinitely more English than I +did Russian + +One evening I asked Bender to tell me the "real difference" +between "I wrote" and "I have written." He had explained it to me +once or twice before, but I was none the wiser for it + +"What do you mean by 'real difference'?" he demanded. "I have +told you, haven't I, that 'I wrote' is the perfect tense, while 'I have +written' is the imperfect tense." This was in accordance with the +grammatical terminology of those days + +"I know," I replied in my wretched English, "but what is the +difference between these two tenses? That's just what bothers +me." + +"Well," he said, grandly, "the perfect refers to what was, while the +imperfect means something that has been." + +"But when do you say 'was' and when do you say 'has been'? That's +just the question." "You're a nuisance, Levinsky," was his final +retort + +I was tempted to say, "And you are a blockhead." But I did not, of +course. + +At the bottom of my heart I had a conviction that one who had not +studied the Talmud could not be anything but a blockhead + +The first thing he did the next evening was to take up the same +subject with me, the rest of the class watching the two of us +curiously. I could see that his performance of the previous night +had been troubling him and that he was bent upon making a better +showing. He spent the entire lesson of two hours with me +exclusively, trying all sorts of elucidations and illustrations, all +without avail. The trouble with him was that he pictured the +working of a foreigner's mind, with regard to English, as that of +his own. It did not occur to him that people born to speak another +language were guided by another language logic, so to say, and +that in order to reach my understanding he would have to impart +his ideas in terms of my own linguistic psychology. Still, one of +his numerous examples gave me a glimmer of light and finally it +all became clear to me. I expressed my joy so boisterously that it +brought a roar of laughter from the other men + +He made a pet of me. I became the monitor of his class (that is, I +would bring in and distribute the books), and he often had me +escort him home, so as to talk to me as we walked. He was +extremely companionable and loquacious. He had a passion for +sharing with others whatever knowledge he had, or simply for +hearing himself speak. Upon reaching the house in which he lived +we would pause in front of the building for an hour or even more. + +Or else we would start on a ramble, usually through Grand Street +to East River and back again through East Broadway. His favorite +topics during these walks were civics, American history, and his +own history + +"Dil-i-gence, perr-severance, tenacity!" he would drawl out, with +nasal dignity. "Get these three words engraved on your mind, +Levinsky. Diligence, perseverance, tenacity." + +And by way of illustration he would enlarge on how he had fought +his way through City College, how he had won some prizes and +beaten a rival in a race for the presidency of a literary society; +how he had obtained his present two occupations--as +custom-house clerk during the day and as school-teacher in the +winter evenings--and how he was going to work himself up to +something far more dignified and lucrative. He unbosomed +himself to me of all his plans; he confided some of his intimate +secrets in me, often dwelling on "my young lady," who was a first +cousin of his and to whom he had practically been engaged since +boyhood + +All this, his boasts not excepted, were of incalculable profit to me. +It introduced me to detail after detail of American life. It +accelerated the process of "getting me out of my greenhornhood" +in the better sense of the phrase + +Bender was an ardent patriot. He was sincerely proud of his +country. He was firmly convinced that it was superior to any other +country, absolutely in every respect. One evening, in the course of +one of those rambles of ours, he took up the subject of political +parties with me. He explained the respective principles of the +Republicans and the Democrats. Being a Democrat himself, he +eulogized his own organization and assailed its rival, but he did it +strictly along the lines of principle and policy + +"The principles of a party are its soul," he thundered, probably +borrowing the phrase from some newspaper. And he proceeded to +show that the Democratic soul was of superior quality + +He went into the question of State rights, of personal liberty, of +"Jeffersonian ideals." It was all an abstract formula, and I was so +overwhelmed by the image of a great organization fighting for +lofty ideals that the concrete question of political baby-kissing, of +Cuff-Button Leary's power, and of the scenes I had witnessed on +Election Day escaped me at the moment. I merely felt that all I +had heard about politics and political parties from Argentine +Rachael and from other people was the product of untutored +brains that looked at things from the special viewpoint of the +gutter + +Presently, however, the screaming discrepancy between +Cuff-Button Leary's rule and "Jeffersonian ideals" did occur to +me. I conveyed my thoughts to Bender as well as I could + +He flared up. "Nonsense," he said, "Mr. Leary is the best man in +the city. + +He is a friend of mine and I am proud of it. Ask him for any favor +and he will do it for you if he has to get out of bed in the middle +of the night. + +He spends a fortune on the poor. He has the biggest heart of any +man in all New York, I don't care who he is. He helps a lot of +people out of trouble, but he can't help everybody, can he? That's +why you hear so many bad things about him. He has a lot of +enemies. But I love him just for the enemies he has made." + +"People say he collects bribes from disreputable women," I +ventured to urge. + +"It's a lie. It's all rumors," he shouted, testily + +"On Election Day I saw a man who was buying votes whisper to +him." + +"Whisper to him! Whisper to him! Ha-ha, ha-ha! Well, is that all +the evidence you have got against Mr. Leary? I suppose that's the +kind of evidence you have about the buying of votes, too. I am +afraid you don't quite understand what you see, Levinsky." + +His answers were far from convincing. I was wondering what +interest he had to defend Leary, to deny things that everybody +saw. But he disarmed me by the force of his irritation + +Bender himself was a clean, honest fellow. In his peculiar +American way, he was very religious, and I knew that his piety +was not a mere affectation. + +Which was another puzzle to me, for all the educated Jews of my +birthplace were known to be atheists. He belonged to a Reformed +synagogue, where he conducted a Bible class + +One evening he expanded on the beauty of the English translation +of the Old Testament. He told me it was the best English to be +found in all literature + +"Study the Bible, Levinsky! Read it and read it again." + +The suggestion took my fancy, for I could read the English Bible +with the aid of the original Hebrew text. I began with Psalm 104, +the poem that had thrilled me when I was on shipboard. I read the +English version of it before Bender until I pronounced the words +correctly. I thought I realized their music. I got the chapter by +heart. When I recited it before Bender he was joyously surprised +and called me a "corker." + +"What is a corker?" I asked, beamingly + +"It's slang for 'a great fellow.'" With which he burst into a lecture +on slang + +I often sat up till the small hours, studying the English Bible. I had +many a quarrel with Mrs. Levinsky over the kerosene I consumed. +Finally it was arranged that I should pay her five cents for every +night I sat up late. But this merely changed the bone of contention +between us. Instead of quarreling over kerosene, we would quarrel +over hours--over the question whether I really had sat up late or +not. + +To this day, whenever I happen to utter certain Biblical words or +names in their English version, they seem to smell of Mrs. +Levinsky's lamp. + + + +CHAPTER V + +EVENING school closed in April. The final session +was of a festive character. Bender, excited and sentimental, +distributed some presents + +"Promise me that you will read this glorious book from beginning +to end, Levinsky," he said, solemnly, as he handed me a new +volume of Dombey and Son and a small dictionary. "We may +never meet again. So you will have something to remind you that +once upon a time you had a teacher whose name was Bender and +who tried to do his duty." + +I wanted to thank him, to say something handsome, but partly +because I was overcome by his gift, partly because I was at a loss +for words, I merely kept saying, sheepishly, "Thank you, thank +you, thank you, thank you." + +That volume of Dickens proved to be the ruin of my push-cart +business and caused me some weeks of the blackest misery I had +ever experienced + +As I started to read the voluminous book I found it an extremely +difficult task. It seemed as though it was written in a language +other than the one I had been studying during the past few months. +I had to turn to the dictionary for the meaning of every third word, +if not more often, while in many cases several words in succession +were Greek to me. Some words could not be found in my little +dictionary at all, and in the case of many others the English +definitions were as much of an enigma to me as the words they +were supposed to interpret. Yet I was making headway. I had to +turn to the dictionary less and less often + +It was the first novel I had ever read. The dramatic interest of the +narrative, coupled with the poetry and the humor with which it is +so richly spiced, was a revelation to me. I had had no idea that +Gentiles were capable of anything so wonderful in the line of +book-writing. To all of which should be added my +self-congratulations upon being able to read English of this sort, a +state of mind which I was too apt to mistake for my raptures over +Dickens. It seemed to me that people who were born to speak this +language were of a superior race + +I was literally intoxicated, and, drunkard-like, I would delay going +to business from hour to hour. The upshot was that I became so +badly involved in debt that I dared not appear with my push-cart +for fear of scenes from my creditors. Moreover, I scarcely had +anything to sell. Finally I disposed of what little stock I still +possessed for one-fourth of its value, and, to my relief as well as +to my despair, my activities as a peddler came to an end + +I went on reading, or, rather, studying, Dombey and Son with +voluptuous abandon till I found myself literally penniless. + +I procured a job with a man who sold dill pickles to Jewish +grocers. From his description of my duties-- chiefly as his +bookkeeper--I expected that they would leave me plenty of +leisure, between whiles, to read my Dickens. I was mistaken. My +first attempt to open the book during business hours, which +extended from 8 in the morning to bedtime, was suppressed. My +employer, who had the complexion of a dill pickle, by the way, +proved to be a severe taskmaster, absurdly exacting, and so +niggardly that I dared not take a decent-looking pickle for my +lunch. + +I left him at the end of the second week, obtaining employment in +a prosperous fish-store next door. My new "boss" was a kinder +and pleasanter man, but then the malodorous and clamorous chaos +of his place literally sickened me + +I left the fishmonger and jumped my board at Mrs. Levinsky's to go +to a New Jersey farm, where I was engaged to read Yiddish novels +to the illiterate wife of a New York merchant, but my client was +soon driven from the place by the New Jersey mosquitoes and I +returned to New York with two dollars in my pocket. I worked as +assistant in a Hebrew school where the American-born boys +mocked my English and challenged me to have an "American +fight" with them, till--on the third day--I administered a sound +un-American thrashing to one of them and lost my job + +Maximum Max got the proprietor of one of the dance-halls in +which he did his instalment business to let me sleep in his +basement in return for some odd jobs. While there I earned from +two to three dollars a week in tips and a good supper every time +there was a wedding in the place, which happened two or three +times a week. I had plenty of time for Dickens (I was still +burrowing my way through Dombey and Son) while the "affairs" +of the hall--weddings, banquets, balls, mass meetings--were quite +exciting. I felt happy, but this happiness of mine did not last long. +I was soon sent packing. + +This is the way it came about. It was in the large ballroom of the +establishment in question that I saw a "modern" dance for the first +time in my life. It produced a bewitching effect on me. Here were +highly respectable young women who would let men encircle their +waists, each resting her arm on her partner's shoulder, and then go +spinning and hopping with him, with a frank relish of the physical +excitement in which they were joined. As I watched one of these +girls I seemed to see her surrender much of her womanly reserve. +I knew that the dance--an ordinary waltz--was considered highly +proper, yet her pose and his struck me as a public confession of +unseemly mutual interest. I almost blushed for her. And for the +moment I was in love with her. As this young woman went round +and round her face bore a faint smile of embarrassed satisfaction. +I knew that it was a sex smile. Another woman danced with grave +mien, and I knew that it was the gravity of sex + +To watch dancing couples became a passion with me. One +evening, as I stood watching the waltzing members of a wedding +party, a married sister of the bride's shouted to me in Yiddish: +"What are you doing here? Get out. You're a kill-joy." + +This was her way of alluding to my unpresentable appearance. +When the proprietor heard of the incident he sent for me. He told +me that I was a nuisance and bade me find another "hang-out" for +myself. + +The following month or two constitute the most wretched period +of my life in America. I slept in the cheapest lodging-houses on +the Bowery and not infrequently in some express-wagon. I was +constantly borrowing quarters, dimes, nickels. + +Maximum Max was very kind to me. As I could not meet him at +the stores, where I dared not face my creditors, I would waylay +him in front of his residence + +"I tell you what, Levinsky," he once said to me. "You ought to +learn some trade. It's plain you were not born to be a business +man. The black dots [meaning the words in books] take up too +much room in your head." + +Finally I owed him so many quarters, and even half-dollars, that I +had not the courage to ask him for more + +Hunger was a frequent experience. I had been no stranger to the +sensation at Antomir, at least after the death of my mother; but, +for some reason, I was now less capable of bearing it. The pangs I +underwent were at times so acute that I would pick up cigarette +stubs in the street and smoke them, without being a smoker, for +the purpose of having the pain supplanted by dizziness and +nausea. Sometimes, too, I would burn my hand with a match or +bite it as hard as I could. Any kind of suffering or excitement was +welcome, provided it made me forget my hunger + +When famished I would sometimes saunter through the streets on +the lower East Side which disreputable creatures used as their +market-place. It was mildly exciting to watch women hunt for +men and men hunt for women: their furtive glances, winks, tacit +understandings, bargainings, the little subterfuges by which they +sought to veil their purpose from the other passers-by; the way a +man would take stock of a passing woman to ascertain whether +she was of the approachable class; the timidity of some of the men +and the matter-of-fact ease of others; the mutual spying of two or +three rivals aiming at the same quarry; the pretended abstraction +of the policemen, and a hundred and one other details of the +traffic. Many a time I joined in the chase without having a cent in +my pocket, stop to discuss terms with a woman in front of some +window display, or around a corner, only soon to turn away from +her on the pretense that I had expected to be taken to her +residence while she proposed going to some hotel. Thus, held by a +dull, dogged fascination, I would tramp around, sometimes for +hours, until, feeling on the verge of a fainting-spell with hunger +and exhaustion, I would sit down on the front steps of some house + +I often thought of Mr. Even, but nothing was further from my mind +than to let him see me in my present plight. One morning I met +him, face to face, on the Bowery, but he evidently failed to +recognize me + +One afternoon I called on Argentine Rachael. "Look here, +Rachace," I said, in a studiously matter-of-fact voice, "I'm dead +broke to-day. I'll pay you in a day or two." Her face fell. "I never +trust. Never," she said, shaking her head mournfully. "It brings +bad luck, anyhow." + +I felt like sinking into the ground. "All right, I'll see you some +other time," I said, with an air of bravado + +She ran after me. "Wait a moment. What's your hurry?" + +By way of warding off "bad luck," she offered to lend me three +dollars in cash, out of which I could pay her. I declined her offer. +She pleaded and expostulated. But I stood firm, and I came away +in a state of the blackest wretchedness and self-disgust + +I could never again bring myself to show my face at her house + +A little music-store was now my chief resort. It was kept by a man +whom I had met at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir, a +former cantor who now supplemented his income from the store +by doing occasional service as a wedding bard. The musicians, +singers, and music-teachers who made the place their +headquarters had begun by taking an interest in me, but the dimes +and nickels I was now unceasingly "borrowing" of them had +turned me into an outcast in their eyes. I felt it keenly. I would +sulk around the store, anxious to leave, and loitering in spite of +myself. There was a piano in the store, upon which they often +played. This, their talks of music, and their venomous gossip had +an irresistible fascination for me + +I noticed that morbid vanity was a common disease among them. +Some of them would frankly and boldly sing their own +panegyrics, while others, more discreet and tactful, let their high +opinions of themselves be inferred. Nor could they conceal the +grudges they bore one another, the jealousies with which they +were eaten up. I thought them ludicrous, repugnant, and yet they +lured me. I felt that some of those among them who were most +grotesque and revolting in their selfishness had something in their +make-up--certain interests, passions, emotions, visions-- which +placed them above the common herd. This was especially true of +a spare, haggard-looking violinist, boyish of figure and cat-like of +manner, with deep dark rings under his insatiable blue eyes. He +called himself Octavius. He was literally consumed by the blaze +of his own conceit and envy. When he was not in raptures over the +poetry, subtlety, or depth of his own playing or compositions, he +would give way to paroxysms of malice and derision at the +expense of some other musician, from his East Side rivals all the +way up to Sarasate, who was then at the height of his career and +had recently played in New York. Wagner was his god, yet no +sooner would somebody else express admiration for Wagner +music than he would offer to show that all the good things in the +works of the famous German were merely so many paraphrased +plagiarisms from the compositions of other men. He possessed a +phenomenal memory. He seemed to remember every note in every +opera, symphony, oratorio, or concerto that anybody ever +mentioned, and there was not a piece of music by a celebrated +man but he was ready to "prove" that it had been stolen from some +other celebrated man + +His invective was particularly violent when he spoke of those +Jewish immigrants in the musical profession whose success had +extended beyond the East Side. He could never mention without a +jeer or some coarse epithet the name of a Madison Street boy, a +violinist, who was then attracting attention in Europe and who +was booked for a series of concerts before the best audiences in +the United States + +He was a passionate phrase-maker. Indeed, it would have been +difficult to determine which afforded him more pleasure--his +self-laudations or the colorful, pungent, often preposterous +language in which they were clothed + +"I am writing something with hot tears in it," I once heard him +brag. + +"They'll be so hot they'll scald the heart of every one who hears it, +provided he has a heart." + +He had given me some nickels, yet his boasts would fill me with +disgust. On the occasion just mentioned I was so irritated with my +poverty and with the whole world that I was seized with an +irresistible desire to taunt him. As he continued to eulogize his +forthcoming masterpiece I threw out a Hebrew quotation: "Let +others praise thee, but not thine own mouth." + +He took no heed of my thrust. But since then he never looked at +me and I never dared ask him for a nickel again + +He had a ferocious temper. When it broke loose it would be a +veritable volcano of revolting acrimony, his thin, firm opening +and snapping shut in a peculiar fashion, as though he were +squirting venom all over the floor. He was as sensual as +Maximum Max, only his voluptuous talks of women were far +more offensive in form. But then his lewd drivel was apt to glitter +with flashes of imagination. I do not remember ever seeing him in +good humor + + + + +BOOK VII + +MY TEMPLE + + +CHAPTER I + +ONE Friday evening in +September I stood on Grand Street with my eyes raised to the big +open windows of a dance-hall on the second floor of a brick +building on the opposite side of the lively thoroughfare. Only the +busts of the dancers could be seen. This and the distance that +divided me from the hall enveloped the scene in mystery. As the +couples floated by, as though borne along on waves of the music, +the girls clinging to the men, their fantastic figures held me +spellbound. Several other people were watching the dancers from +the street, mostly women, who gazed at the appearing and +disappearing images with envying eyes + +Presently I was accosted by a dandified-looking young man who +rushed at me with an exuberant, "How are you?" in English. He +was dressed in the height of the summer fashion. He looked +familiar to me, but I was at a loss to locate him + +"Don't you know me? Try to remember!" + +It was Gitelson, my fellow-passenger on board the ship that had +brought me to America, the tailor who clung to my side when I +made my entry into the New World, sixteen months before + +The change took my breath away + +"You didn't recognize me, did you?" he said, with a triumphant +snicker, pulling out his cuffs so as to flaunt their gold or gilded +buttons + +He asked me what I was doing, but he was more interested in +telling me about himself. That cloak-contractor who picked him +up near Castle Garden had turned out to be a skinflint and a +slave-driver. He had started him on five dollars a week for work +the market price of which was twenty or thirty. So Gitelson left +him as soon as he realized his real worth, and he had been making +good wages ever since. Being an excellent tailor, he was much +sought after, and although the trade had two long slack seasons he +always had plenty to do. He told me that he was going to that +dance-hall across the street, which greatly enhanced his +importance in my eyes and seemed to give reality to the floating +phantoms that I had been watching in those windows. + +He said he was in a hurry to go up there, as he had "an +appointment with a lady" (this in English), yet he went on +describing the picnics, balls, excursions he attended + +Thereupon I involuntarily shot a look at his jaunty straw hat, +thinking of his gray forelock. I did so several times. I could not +help it. Finally my furtive glances attracted his attention + +"What are you looking at? Anything wrong with my hat?" he +asked, baring his head. His hair was freshly trimmed and dudishly +dressed. As I looked at the patch of silver hair that shone in front +of a glossy expanse of brown, he exclaimed, with a laugh: "Oh, +you mean that! That's nothing. The ladies like me all the same + +He went on boasting, but he did it in an inoffensive way. He +simply could not get over the magic transformation that had come +over him. While in his native place his income had amounted to +four rubles (about two dollars) a week, his wages here were now +from thirty to forty dollars. He felt like a peasant suddenly turned +to a prince. But he spoke of his successes in a pleasing, soft voice +and with a kindly, confiding smile that won my heart. + +Altogether he made the impression of an exceedingly +unaggressive, good-natured fellow, without anything like ginger in +his make-up + +After he had bragged his fill he invited me to have a glass of soda +with him. There was a soda-stand on the next corner, and when +we reached it I paused, but he pulled me away + +"Come on," he said, disdainfully. "We'll go into a drug-store, or, +better still, let's go to an ice-cream parlor." + +This I hesitated to do because of my shabby clothes. When he +divined the cause of my embarrassment he was touched + +"Come on!' he said, with warm hospitality, uttering the two words +in English. "When I say 'Come on' I know what I am talking +about." + +"But your lady is waiting for you." "She can wait. Ladies are never +on time, anyhow." + +"But maybe she is." + +"If she is she can dance with some of the other fellows. I wouldn't +be jealous. There are plenty of other ladies. I should not take fifty +ladies for this chance of seeing you. Honest." + +He took me into a little candy-store, dazzlingly lighted and +mirrored and filled with marble-topped tables + +We seated ourselves and he gave the order. He did so rather +swaggeringly, but his manner to me was one of affectionate and +compassionate respectfulness + +"Oh, I am so glad to see you," he said. "You remember the ship?" + +"As if one could ever forget things of that kind." + +"I have often thought of you. 'I wonder what has become of him,' I +said to myself." He did not remember my name, or perhaps he +had never known it, so I had to introduce myself afresh. The +contrast between his flashy clothes and my frowsy, +wretched-looking appearance, as I saw ourselves in the mirrors on +either side of me, made me sorely ill at ease. The brilliancy of the +gaslight chafed my nerves. It was as though it had been turned on +for the express purpose of illuminating my disgrace. I was longing +to go away, but Gitelson fell to questioning me about my affairs +once more, and this time he did so with such unfeigned concern +that I told him the whole cheerless story of my sixteen months' life +in America + +He was touched. In his mild, unemphatic way he expressed +heartfelt sympathy + +"But why don't you learn some trade?" he inquired. "You don't +seem to be fit for business, anyhow" (the last two words in +mispronounced English) + +"Everybody is telling me that." + +"There you are. You just listen to me, Mr. Levinsky. You won't be +sorry for it." He proposed machine-operating in a cloak-shop, +which paid even better than tailoring and was far easier to learn. +Finally he offered to introduce me to an operator who would teach +me the trade, and to pay him my tuition fee + +He went into details. He continued to address me as Mr. Levinsky +and tried to show me esteem as his intellectual superior, but, in +spite of himself, as it were, he gradually took a respectfully +contemptuous tone with me + +"Don't be a lobster, Mr. Levinsky." (" Lobster" he said in English.) +"This is not Russia. Here a fellow must be no fool. There is no +sense in living the way you do. Do as Gitelson tells you, and you'll +live decently, dress decently, and lay by a dollar or two. There are +lots of educated fellows in the shops." He told me of some of +these, particularly of one young man who was a shopmate of his. +"He never comes to work without some book" he said. + +"When there is not enough to do he reads. When he has to wait for +a new 'bundle,' as we call it, he reads. Other fellows carry on, but +he is always reading. He is so highly educated he could read any +kind of book, and I don't believe there is a book in the world that +he has not read. He is saving up money to go to college." + +On parting he became fully respectful again. "Do as I tell you, Mr. + +Levinsky," he said. "Take up cloak-making." + +He made me write down his address. He expected that I would do +it in Yiddish. When he saw me write his name and the name of +the street in English he said, reverently: "Writing English already! +There is a mind for you! If I could write like that I could become a +designer. Well, don't lose the address. Call on me, and if you +make up your mind to take up cloak-making just say the word and +I'll fix you up. When Gitelson says he will, he will." The image of +that cloak-operator reading books and laying by money for a +college education haunted me. Why could I not do the same? I +pictured myself working and studying and saving money for the +kind of education which Matilda had dinned into my ears + +I accepted Gitelson's offer. Cloak-making or the cloak business as +a career never entered my dreams at that time. I regarded the trade +merely as a stepping-stone to a life of intellectual interests + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE operator to whom Gitelson apprenticed me was +a short, plump, dark-complexioned fellow named Joe. I have but a +dim recollection of his features, though I distinctly remember his +irresistible wide-eyed smile and his emotional nature + +He taught me to bind seams, and later to put in pockets, to stitch +on "under collars," and so forth. After a while he began to pay me +a small weekly wage, he himself being paid, for our joint work, by +the piece. The shop was not the manufacturer's. It belonged to one +of his contractors, who received from him "bundles" of material +which his employees (tailors, machine - operators, pressers, and +finisher girls) made up into cloaks or jackets. The cheaper goods +were made entirely by operators; the better grades partly by +tailors, partly by operators, or wholly by tailors; but these were +mostly made "inside," in the manufacturer's own establishment. +The designing, cutting, and making of samples were "inside" +branches exclusively. Gitelson, as a skilled tailor, was an "inside" +man, being mostly employed on samples + +My work proved to be much harder and the hours very much +longer than I had anticipated. I had to toil from six in the morning +to nine in the evening. + +(Joe put in even more time. I always found him grinding away +rapturously when I came to the shop in the morning, and always +left him toiling as rapturously when I went home in the evening.) +Ours is a seasonal trade. All the work of the year is crowded into +two short seasons of three and two months, respectively, during +which one is to earn enough to last him twelve months (only +sample-makers, high-grade tailors like Gitelson, were kept busy +throughout the year). But then wages were comparatively high, so +that a good mechanic, particularly an operator, could make as +much as seventy-five dollars a week, working about fifteen hours +a day. However, during the first two or three weeks I was too +much borne down by the cruelty of my drudgery to be interested +in the luring rewards which it held out. Not being accustomed to +physical exertion of any kind, I felt like an innocent man suddenly +thrown into prison and put at hard labor. I was shocked. I was +crushed. I was continually looking at the clock, counting the +minutes, and when I came home I would feel so sore in body and +spirit that I could not sleep. Studying or reading was out of the +question + +Moreover, as a peddler I seemed to have belonged to the world of +business, to the same class as the rich, the refined, while now, +behold! I was a workman, a laborer, one of the masses. I pitied +myself for a degraded wretch. And when some of my shopmates +indulged in coarse pleasantry in the hearing of the finisher girls it +would hurt me personally, as a confirmation of my disgrace. "And +this is the kind of people with whom I am doomed to associate!" I +would lament. In point of fact, there were only four or five fellows +of this kind in a shop of fifty. Nor were some of the peddlers or +music-teachers I had known more modest of speech than the worst +of these cloak-makers. What was more, I felt that some of my +fellow-employees were purer and better men than I. But that did +not matter. I abhorred the shop and everybody in it as a well-bred +convict abhors his jail and his fellow-inmates + +When the men quarreled they would call one another, among other +things, "bundle-eaters." This meant that they accused one another +of being ever hungry for bundles of raw material, ever eager to +"gobble up all the work in the shop." I wondered how one could +be anxious for physical toil. They seemed to be a lot of savages + +The idea of leaving the shop often crossed my mind, but I never +had the courage to take it seriously. I had tried my hand at +peddling and failed. + +Was I a failure as a mechanic as well? Was I unfit for anything? +The other fellows at the shop had a definite foothold in life, while +I was a waif, a ne'er-do-well, nearly two years in America with +nothing to show for it. + +Thoughts such as these had a cowing effect on me. They made me +feel somewhat like the fresh prisoner who has been put to work at +stone-breaking to have his wild spirit broken. I dared not give up +my new occupation. I would force myself to work hard, and as I +did so the very terrors of my toil would fascinate me, giving me a +sense of my own worth. As the jackets that bore my stitches kept +piling up, the concrete result of my useful performance would +become a source of moral satisfaction to me. And when I received +my first wages--the first money I had ever earned by the work of +my hands--it seemed as if it were the first money I had ever +earned honestly + +By little and little I got used to my work and even to enjoy its +processes. + +Moreover, the thinking and the dreaming I usually indulged in +while plying my machine became a great pleasure to me. It +seemed as though one's mind could not produce such interesting +thoughts or images unless it had the rhythmic whir of a +sewing-machine to stimulate it + +I now ate well and slept well. I was in the best of health and in the +best of spirits. I was in an uplifted state of mind. No one seemed +to be honorable who did not earn his bread in the sweat of his +brow as I did. Had I then chanced to hear a Socialist speech I +might have become an ardent follower of Karl Marx and my life +might have been directed along lines other than those which +brought me to financial power + +The girls in the shop, individually, scarcely interested me, but their +collective presence was something of which I never seemed to be +quite unconscious. It was as though the workaday atmosphere +were scented with the breath of a delicate perfume--a perfume +that was tainted with the tang of my yearning for Matilda + +Two girls who were seated within a yard from my machine were +continually bandying secrets. Now one and then the other would +look around to make sure that the contractor was not watching, +and then she would bend over and whisper something into her +chum's ear. This would set my blood tingling with a peculiar kind +of inquisitiveness. It was reasonable to suppose that their +whispered conferences mostly bore upon such innocent matters as +their work, earnings, lodgings, or dresses. Nevertheless, it seemed +to me that their whispers, especially when accompanied by a +smile, a giggle, or a wink, conveyed some of their intimate +thoughts of men. They were homely girls, with pinched faces, yet +at such moments they represented to me all that there was +fascinating and disquieting in womanhood + +The jests of the foul-mouthed rowdies would make me writhe with +disgust. As a rule they were ostensibly addressed to some of the +other fellows or to nobody in particular, their real target being the +nearest girls. These would receive them with gestures of protest or +with an exclamation of mild repugnance, or--in the majority of +cases--pass them unnoticed, as one does some unavoidable +discomfort of toil. There was only one girl in the shop who +received these jests with a shamefaced grin or even with frank +appreciation, and she was a perfectly respectable girl like the rest. +There were some finisher girls who could not boast an unsullied +reputation, but none of them worked in our shop, and, indeed, +their number in the entire trade was very small + +One of the two girls who sat nearest to my machine was quite +popular in the shop, but that was because of her sweet disposition +and sound sense rather than for her looks. She was known to have +a snug little account in a savings-bank. It was for a marriage +portion she was saving; but she was doing it so strenuously that +she stinted herself the expense of a decent dress or hat, or the +price of a ticket to a ball, picnic, or dancing-class. + +The result was that while she was pinching and scrimping herself +to pave the way to her marriage she barred herself, by this very +process, from contact with possible suitors. She was a good soul. +From time to time she would give some of her money to a needy +relative, and then she would try to make up for it by saving with +more ardor than ever. Her name was Gussie + +Joe, the plump, dark fellow who was teaching me the trade, was +one of the several men in the shop who were addicted to salacious +banter. One of his favorite pranks was to burlesque some +synagogue chant from the solemn service of the Days of Awe, +with disgustingly coarse Yiddish in place of the Hebrew of the +prayer. But he was not a bad fellow, by any means. He was +good-natured, extremely impressionable, and susceptible of good +influences. + +A sad tune would bring a woebegone look into his face, while a +good joke would make him laugh to tears. He was fond of +referring to himself as my "rabbi," which is Hebrew for teacher, +and that was the way I would address him, at first playfully, and +then as a matter of course + +One day, after he had delivered himself of a quip that set my teeth +on edge, I said to him, appealingly: "Why should you be saying +these things, rabbi?" + +"If you don't like them you can stop your God-fearing ears," he +fired back, good-naturedly + +I retorted that it was not a matter of piety, but of common decency, +and my words were evidently striking home, but the girls +applauded me, which spoiled it all + +"If you want to preach sermons you're in the wrong place," he +flared up. + +"This is no synagogue." + +"Nor is it a pigsty," Gussie urged, without raising her eyes from her +work + +A month or two later he abandoned these sallies of his own accord. +The other fellows twitted him on his burst of "righteousness" and +made efforts to lure him into a race of ribald punning, but he +stood his ground + +By and by it leaked out that he was engaged and madly in love +with his girl. + +I warmed to him. + +The young woman who had won his heart was not an employee of +our shop. + +Indeed, love-affairs between working-men and working-girls who +are employed in the same place are not quite so common as one +might suppose. The factory is scarcely a proper setting for +romance. It is one of the battle-fields in our struggle for existence, +where we treat woman as an inferior being, whereas in civilized +love-making we prefer to keep up the chivalrous fiction that she is +our superior. The girls of our shop, hard-worked, disheveled, and +handled with anything but chivalry, aroused my sympathy, but it +was not the kind of feeling that stimulates romantic interest. Still, +collectively, as an abstract reminder of their sex, they flavored my +sordid environment with poetry + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE majority of the students at the College of the +City of New York was already made up of Jewish boys, mostly +from the tenement-houses. One such student often called at the +cloak-shop in which I was employed, and in which his father--a +tough-looking fellow with a sandy beard, a former teamster--was +one of the pressers. A classmate of this boy was supported by an +aunt, a spinster who made good wages as a bunch-maker in a +cigar-factory. + +To make an educated man of her nephew was the great ambition +of her life. + +All this made me feel as though I were bound to that college with +the ties of kinship. Two of my other shopmates had sons at high +school. The East Side was full of poor Jews--wage-earners, +peddlers, grocers, salesmen, insurance agents--who would beggar +themselves to give their children a liberal education. Then, too, +thousands of our working-men attended public evening school, +while many others took lessons at home. The Ghetto rang with a +clamor for knowledge + +To save up some money and prepare for college seemed to be the +most natural thing for me to do. I said to myself that I must begin +to study for it without delay. But that was impossible, and it was +quite some time before I took up the course which the presser's +boy had laid out for me. During the first three months I literally +had no time to open a book. Nor was that all. + +My work as a cloak-maker had become a passion with me, so +much so that even on Saturdays, when the shop was closed, I +would scarcely do any reading. + +Instead, I would seek the society of other cloak-makers with whom +I might talk shop + +I was developing speed rather than skill at my sewing-machine, but +this question of speed afforded exercise to my brain. It did not +take me long to realize that the number of cloaks or jackets which +one turned out in a given length of time was largely a matter of +method and system. I perceived that Joe, who was accounted a +fast hand, would take up the various parts of a garment in a +certain order calculated to reduce to a minimum the amount of +time lost in passing from section to section. So I watched him +intently, studying his system with every fiber of my being. Nor did +I content myself with imitating his processes. I was forever +pondering the problem and introducing little improvements of my +own. I was making a science of it. It was not merely physical +exertion. It was a source of intellectual interest as well. I was +wrapped up in it. If I happened to meet a cloak-operator who was +noted for extraordinary speed I would feel like an ambitious +musician meeting a famous virtuoso. Some cloak-operators were +artists. I certainly was not one of them. I admired their work and +envied them, but I lacked the artistic patience and the dexterity +essential to workmanship of a high order. Much to my chagrin, I +was a born bungler. But then I possessed physical strength, +nervous vitality, method, and inventiveness--all the elements that +go to make up speed + +I was progressing with unusual rapidity. Joe criticized my work +severely, often calling me botcher, but I knew that this was chiefly +intended to veil his satisfaction at the growing profits that my +work was yielding him + +I now earned about ten dollars a week, of which I spent about five, +saving the rest for the next season of idleness + +At last that season set in. There was not a stroke of work in the +shop. I was so absorbed in my new vocation that I would pass my +evenings in a cloak-makers' haunt, a café on Delancey Street, +where I never tired talking sleeves, pockets, stitches, trimmings, +and the like. There was a good deal of card-playing in the place, +but somehow I never succumbed to that temptation. + +But then, under the influence of some of the fellows I met there, I +developed a considerable passion for the Jewish theater. These +young men were what is known on the East Side as "patriots," that +is, devoted admirers of some actor or actress and members of his +or her voluntary claque. Several of the other frequenters were also +interested in the stage, or at least in the gossip of it; so that, on the +whole, there was as much talk of plays and players as there was of +cloaks and cloak-makers. Our shop discussions certainly never +reached the heat that usually characterized our debates on things +theatrical + +The most ardent of the "patriots" was a young contractor named +Mindels. He attended nearly every performance in which his +favorite actor had a part, selling dozens of tickets for his benefit +performances and usually losing considerable sums on these sales, +loading him with presents and often running his errands. I once +saw Mindels in a violent quarrel with a man who had scoffed at +his idol + +Mindels's younger brother, Jake, fascinated me by his appearance, +and we became great chums. He was the handsomest fellow I ever +had seen, with a fine head of dark-brown hair, classic features, +and large, soft-blue eyes; too soft and too blue, perhaps. His was a +manly face and figure, and his voice was a manly, a beautiful +basso; but this masculine exterior contained an effeminate +psychology. In my heart I pronounced him "a calf," and when I +had discovered the English word "sissy," I thought that it just fitted +him. + +Yet I adored him, and even looked up to him, all because of his +good looks + +He was a Talmudist like myself, and we had much in common, +also, regarding our dreams of the future + +"Oh, I am so glad I have met you," I once said to him + +"I am glad, too," he returned, flushing + +I found that he blushed rather too frequently, which confirmed my +notion of him as a sissy. Like most handsome men, he bestowed a +great deal of time on his personal appearance. He never uttered a +foul word nor a harsh one. If he heard a cloak-maker tell an +indecent story he would look down, smiling and blushing like a +girl + +Formerly he had been employed in his brother's shop, while now +he earned his living by soliciting and collecting for a +life-insurance company + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JAKE MINDELS was a devotee of Madame +Klesmer, the leading Jewish actress of that period, which, by the +way, was practically the opening chapter in the interesting history +of the Yiddish stage in America. Madame Klesmer was a +tragedienne and a prima donna at once-a usual combination in +those days + +One Friday evening we were in the gallery of her theater. The play +was an "historical opera," and she was playing the part of a +Biblical princess. It was the closing scene of an act. The whole +company was on the stage, swaying sidewise and singing with the +princess, her head in a halo of electric light in the center. Jake was +feasting his large blue eyes on her. Presently he turned to me with +the air of one confiding a secret. "Wouldn't you like to kiss her?" +And, swinging around again, he resumed feasting his blue eyes on +the princess. + +"I have seen prettier women than she," I replied + +"'S-sh! Let a fellow listen. She is a dear, all the same. You don't +know a good thing when you see it, Levinsky." + +"Are you in love with her?" + +"'S-sh! Do let me listen." + +When the curtain fell he made me applaud her. There were several +curtain-calls, during all of which he kept applauding her furiously, +shouting the prima donna's name at the top of his voice and +winking to me imploringly to do the same. When quiet had been +restored at last I returned to the subject: "Are you in love with +her?" + +"Sure," he answered, without blushing. "As if a fellow could help +it. If she let me kiss her little finger I should be the happiest man +in the world." + +"And if she let you kiss her cheek?" "I should go crazy." + +"And if she let you kiss her lips?" "What's the use asking idle +questions?" + +"Would you like to kiss her neck?" "You ask me foolish +questions." + +"You are in love with her," I declared, reflectively + +"I should say I was." + +It was a unique sort of love, for he wanted me also to be in love +with her + +"If you are not in love with her you must have a heart of iron, or +else your soul is dry as a raisin." With which he took to analyzing +the prima donna's charms, going into raptures over her eyes, +smile, gestures, manner of opening her mouth, and her swing and +step as she walked over the stage + +"No, I don't care for her," I replied + +"You are a peculiar fellow." + +"If I did fall in love," I said, by way of meeting him halfway, "I +should choose Mrs. Segalovitch. She is a thousand times prettier +than Mrs. + +Klesmer." + +"Tut, tut!" + +Mrs. Segalovitch was certainly prettier than the prima donna, but +she played unimportant parts, so the notion of one's falling in love +with her seemed queer to Jake + +That night I had an endless chain of dreams, in every one of which +Madame Klesmer was the central figure. When I awoke in the +morning I fell in love with her, and was overjoyed + +When I saw Jake Mindels at dinner I said to him, with the air of +one bringing glad news: "Do you know, I am in love with her?" + +"With whom? With Mrs. Segalovitch?" "Oh, pshaw! I had +forgotten all about her. I mean Madame Kiesmer," I said, +self-consciously + +Somehow, my love for the actress did not interfere with my +longing thoughts of Matilda. I asked myself no questions + +And so we went on loving jointly, Jake and I, the companionship +of our passion apparently stimulating our romance as +companionship at a meal stimulates the appetite of the diners. +Each of us seemed to be infatuated with Madame Klesmer. Yet +the community of this feeling, far from arousing mutual jealousy +in us, seemed to strengthen the ties of our friendship + +We would hum her songs in duet, recite her lines, compare notes +on our dreams of happiness with her. One day we composed a +love-letter to her, a long epistle full of Biblical and homespun +poetry, which we copied jointly, his lines alternating with mine, +and which we signed: "Your two lovelorn slaves whose hearts are +panting for a look of your star-like eyes. Jacob and David." We +mailed the letter without affixing any address + +The next evening we were in the theater, and when she appeared +on the stage and shot a glance to the gallery Jake nudged me +violently + +"But she does not know we are in the gallery," I argued. "She must +think we are in the orchestra." + +"Hearts are good guessers." + +"Guessers nothing." + +" 'S-sh! Let's listen." + +Madame Klesmer was playing the part of a girl in a modern +Russian town. She declaimed her lines, speaking like a prophetess +in ancient Israel, and I liked it extremely. I was fully aware that it +was unnatural for a girl in a modern Russian town to speak like a +prophetess in ancient Israel, but that was just why I liked it. I +thought it perfectly proper that people on the stage should not talk +as they would off the stage. I thought that this unnatural speech of +theirs was one of the principal things an audience paid for. The +only actor who spoke like a human being was the comedian, and +this, too, seemed to be perfectly proper, for a comedian was a +fellow who did not take his art seriously, and so I thought that this +natural talk of his was part of his fun-making. I thought it was +something like a clown burlesquing the Old Testament by reading +it, not in the ancient intonations of the synagogue, but in the plain, +conversational accents of every-day life + +During the intermission, in the course of our talk about Madame +Klesmer, Jake said: "Do you know, Levinsky, I don't think you +really love her." + +"I love her as much as you, and more, too," I retorted + +"How much do you love her? Would you walk from New York to +Philadelphia if she wanted you to do so?" + +"Why should she? What good would it do her?" + +"But suppose she does want it?" + +"How can I suppose such nonsense?" "Well, she might just want +to see how much you love her." + +"A nice test, that." + +"Oh, well, she might just get that kind of notion. Women are liable +to get any kind of notion, don't you know." + +"Well, if Madame Klesmer got that kind of notion I should tell her +to walk to Philadelphia herself." + +"Then you don't love her." + +"I love her as much as you do, but if she took it into her head to +make a fool of me I should send her to the eighty devils." + +He winced. "And you call that love, don't you?" he said, with a +sneer in the corner of his pretty mouth. "As for me, I should walk +to Boston, if she wanted me to." + +"Even if she did not promise to let you kiss her?" + +"Even if she did not." + +"And if she did?" + +"I should walk to Chicago." + +"And if she promised to be your mistress?" + +"Oh, what's the use talking that way?" he protested, blushing. +"Aren't you shy! A regular bride-to-be, I declare." "Stop!" he said, +coloring once again. + +It dawned upon me that he was probably chaste, and, searching his +face with a mocking look, I said: "I bet you you are still innocent." +"Leave me alone, please," he retorted, softly + +"I have hit it, then," I importuned him, with a great sense of my +own superiority. + +"Do let me alone, will you?" + +"I just want you to tell me whether you are innocent or not." + +"It's none of your business." + +"Of course you are." + +"And if I am? Is it a disgrace?" "Who says it is?" + +I desisted. He became more attractive than ever to me + +Nevertheless, I made repeated attempts to deprave him. His +chastity bothered me. The idea of breaking it down became an +irresistible temptation. I would ridicule him for a sissy, appeal to +him in the name of his health, beg him as one does for a personal +favor, all in vain + +He spoke better English than I, with more ease, and in that pretty +basso of his which I envied. He had never read Dickens or any +other English author, but he was familiar with some subjects to +which I was a stranger. He was well grounded in arithmetic, knew +some geography, and now with a view of qualifying for the study +of medicine, he was preparing, with the aid of a private teacher, +for the Regents' examination in algebra, geometry, English +composition, American and English history. I thought he did not +study "deeply" enough, that he took more real interest in his +collars and neckties, the shine of his shoes, or the hang of his +trousers than he did in his algebra or history + +By his cleanliness and tidiness he reminded me of Naphtali, which, +indeed, had something to do with my attachment for him. My +relations toward him echoed with the feelings I used to have for +the reticent, omniscient boy of Abner's Court, and with the hoarse, +studious young Talmudist with whom I would "famish in +company." He had neither Naphtali's brains nor his individuality, +yet I looked up to him and was somewhat under his influence. + +I adopted many of the English phrases he was in the habit of using +and tried to imitate his way of dressing. As a consequence, he +would sometimes assume a patronizing tone with me, addressing +me with a good-natured sneer which I liked in spite of myself + +We made a compact to speak nothing but English, and, to a +considerable extent, we kept it + + + +CHAPTER V + +A FEW weeks of employment were succeeded by +another period of enforced idleness. I took up arithmetic, but +reading was still a great passion with me. My mornings and +forenoons during that slack season were mostly spent over +Dickens or Thackeray + +I now lived in a misshapen attic room which I rented of an Irish +family in what was then a Gentile neighborhood. I had chosen that +street for the English I had expected to hear around me. I had +lived more than two months in that attic, and almost the only +English I heard from my neighbors were the few words my +landlady would say to me when I paid her my weekly rent. + +Yet, somehow, the place seemed helpful to me, as though its very +atmosphere exuded a feeling for the language I was so eager to +master. I made all sorts of advances to the Irish family, all sorts of +efforts to get into social relations with them, all to no purpose. +Finally, one evening I had a real conversation with one of my +landlady's sons. My window gave me trouble and he came up to +put it in working order for me. We talked of his work and of mine. +I told him of my plans about going to college. He was interested +and I thought him charmingly courteous and sociable. He +remained about an hour and a half in my room. When he had +departed I was in high spirits. I seemed to feel the progress my +English had made in that hour and a half + +My bed was so placed that by lying prone, diagonally across it, my +head toward the window and my feet suspended in the air, I would +get excellent daylight. So this became my favorite posture when I +read in the daytime. + +Thus, lying on my stomach, with a novel under my eyes and the +dictionary by my side, I would devour scores of pages. In a few +weeks, often reading literally day and night, I read through +Nicholas Nickleby and Vanity Fair. + +Thackeray's masterpiece did not strike me as being in the same +class with anything by Dickens. It seemed to me that anybody in +command of bookish English ought to be able to turn out a work +like Vanity Fair, where men and things were so simple and so +natural that they impressed me like people and things I had +known. Indeed, I had a lurking feeling that I, too, could do it, after +a while at least. On the other hand, Nicholas Nickleby and +Dombey and Son were so full of extraordinary characters, +unexpected wit, outbursts of beautiful rhetoric, and other +wonderful things, that their author appealed to me as something +more than a human being. And yet deep down in my heart I +enjoyed Thackeray more than I did Dickens, It was at the East Side +branch of the Young Men's Hebrew Association that I obtained +my books. It was a sort of university settlement in which educated +men and women from up-town acted as "workers." The advice +these would give me as to my reading, their kindly manner, their +native English, and, last but not least, the flattering way in which +they would speak of my intellectual aspirations, led me to spend +many an hour in the place. The great thing was to hear these +American-born people speak their native tongue and to have them +hear me speak it. It was the same as in the case of the chat I had +with the son of my Irish landlady. Every time I had occasion to +spend five or ten minutes in their company I would seem to be +conscious of a perceptible improvement in my English + +Some days I would be so carried away by my reading that I never +opened my arithmetic. At other times I would drift into an +arithmetical mood and sit up all night doing problems + +When I happened to be in raptures over some book I would pester +Jake with lengthy accounts of it, dwelling on the chapters I had +read last and trying to force my exaltation upon him. As a rule, he +was bored, but sometimes he would become interested in the plot +or in some romantic scene. + +One evening, as we were discussing love in general, I said: "Love +is the greatest thing in the world." + +"Sure it is," he answered. "But if you love and are not loved in +return it is nothing but agony." + +"Even then it is sweet," I rejoined, reflectively, the image of +Matilda before me. + +"How can pain be sweet?" + +"But it can." + +"If you were really in love with Madame Klesmer you wouldn't +think so + +"I love her as much as you do." + +"You are always saying you do, but you don't." + +"Yes, I do." And suddenly lapsing into a confidential tone, I +questioned him: "By the way, Jake, is this the first time you have +ever been in love?" + +"Why?" + +"I just want to know. Is it?" + +"What difference does it make? Have you ever been in love +before?" + +"What difference does that make? If you answer my question I +shall answer yours." "Well, then, I have never been in love +before." + +"And I have." + +He was intensely interested, and I confided my love story in him, +which served to strengthen our friendship still further. When I +concluded my narrative he said, thoughtfully: "Of course you don't +love Madame Klesmer. I tell you what, Levinsky, you are still in +love with Matilda." + +I made no answer + +"Anyhow, you don't love Madame Klesmer." + +This time he said it without reproach. Once I was in love with +somebody else I was excused. + +The next "season" came around. I was a full-fledged helper now, +and, according to the customary arrangement, I received thirty per +cent. of what Joe received for my work. This brought me from +twenty to twenty-five dollars a week, quite an overwhelming sum, +according to my then standard of income and expenditures. I +saved about fifteen dollars a week. I shall never forget the day +when my capital reached the round figure of one hundred dollars. I +was in a flutter. When I looked at the passers-by in the street I +would say to myself, "These people have no idea that I am worth a +hundred dollars." + +Another thing I was ever conscious of was the fact that I had +earned the hundred dollars by my work. There was a touch of +solemnity in my mood, as though I had performed some feat of +valor or rendered some great service to the community. I was +impelled to convey this feeling to Jake, but when I attempted to +put it into words it was somehow lost in a haze and what I said +was something quite prosaic + +"Guess how much I have in the savings-bank?" I began + +"I haven't any idea. How much?" + +"Just one hundred." + +"Really?" + +"Honest. But, then, what does it amount to, after all? Of course, it +is pleasant to feel that you have a trade and that you know how to +keep a dollar, don't you know." + +So far from endearing me to the cloak trade, as might have been +expected, the hundred dollars killed at one stroke all the interest I +had taken in it. + +It lent reality to my vision of college. Cloak-making was now +nothing but a temporary round of dreary toil, an unavoidable +stepping-stone to loftier occupations + +Another year and I should be a fully developed mechanic, working +on my own hook--that is, as the immediate employee of some +manufacturer or contractor. + +"I shall soon be earning forty or fifty dollars a week," I would +muse. "At that rate I shall save up plenty of money in much less +time than I expected. + +I shall spend as little as possible and study as hard as possible." + +The Regents' examinations were not exacting in those days. I could +have prepared to qualify for admission to a school of medicine, +law, or civil engineering in a very short time. But I aimed higher. I +knew that many of the professional men on the East Side, and, +indeed, everywhere else in the United States, were people of +doubtful intellectual equipment, while I was ambitious to be a +cultured man "in the European way." There was an odd confusion +of ideas in my mind. On the one hand, I had a notion that to +"become an American" was the only tangible form of becoming a +man of culture (for did not I regard the most refined and learned +European as a "greenhorn"?); on the other hand, the impression +was deep in me that American education was a cheap +machine-made product. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +COLLEGE! The sound was forever buzzing in my +ear. The seven letters were forever floating before my eyes. They +were a magic group, a magic whisper. + +Matilda was to hear of me as a college man. What would she say? +"What do you want City College for?" Jake would argue. "Why not +take up medicine at once?" + +"Once I am to be an educated man I want to be the genuine +article," I would reply + +Every bit of new knowledge I acquired aroused my enthusiasm. I +was in a continuous turmoil of exultation + +My plan of campaign was to keep working until I had saved up six +hundred dollars, by which time I was to be eligible to admission +to the junior class of the College of the City of New York, +commonly known as City College, where tuition is free. The six +hundred dollars was to last me two years--that is, till graduation, +when I might take up medicine, engineering, or law. During the +height of the cloak season I might find it possible to replenish my +funds by an occasional few days at the sewing-machine, or else it +ought not to be difficult to support myself by joining the army of +private instructors who taught English to our workingmen at their +homes + +The image of the modest college building was constantly before +me. More than once I went a considerable distance out of my way +to pass the corner of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street, +where that edifice stood. I would pause and gaze at its red, +ivy-clad walls, mysterious high windows, humble spires; I would +stand watching the students on the campus and around the great +doors, and go my way, with a heart full of reverence, envy, and +hope, with a heart full of quiet ecstasy + +It was not merely a place in which I was to fit myself for the battle +of life, nor merely one in which I was going to acquire knowledge. +It was a symbol of spiritual promotion as well. University-bred +people were the real nobility of the world. A college diploma was +a certificate of moral as well as intellectual aristocracy + +My old religion had gradually fallen to pieces, and if its place was +taken by something else, if there was something that appealed to +the better man in me, to what was purest in my thoughts and most +sacred in my emotions, that something was the red, church-like +structure on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and +Twenty-third Street + +It was the synagogue of my new life. Nor is this merely a figure of +speech: the building really appealed to me as a temple, as a House +of Sanctity, as we call the ancient Temple of Jerusalem. At least +that was the term I would fondly apply to it, years later, in my +retrospective broodings upon the first few years of my life in +America + +I was impatiently awaiting the advent of the slack season, and +when it came at last I applied myself exclusively to the study of +subjects required for admission to college. To accelerate matters I +engaged, as my instructor in mathematics and geography, the son +of our tough-looking presser. I paid him twenty-five cents an hour. + +My geography lessons were rapidly dispelling the haze that had +enshrouded the universe from me. I beheld the globe hanging in +space, a vast independent world and yet a mere speck among +countless myriads of other worlds. Its rotations were so vivid in +my mind that I seemed to hear it hum as it spun round and round +its axis. The phenomena producing day and night and the four +seasons were as real to me as the things that took place in my +restaurant. The earth was being disclosed to my mental vision as a +whole and in detail. Order was coming out of chaos. Continents, +seas, islands, mountains, rivers, countries, were defining +themselves out of a misty jumble of meaningless names. Light +was breaking all around me. Life was becoming clearer. I was +broadening out. I was overborne by a sense of my growing +perspicacity + +My keenest pleasure was to do geometrical problems, preferably +such as contained puzzles in construction. On one occasion I sat +up all night and far into the following day over a riddle of this +kind. It was about 2 o'clock when I dressed and went to lunch, +which was also my breakfast. The problem was still unsolved. I +hurried back home as soon as I had finished my meal, went at the +problem again, and did not let go until it surrendered. + +Odd as it may seem, I found a certain kind of similarity between +the lure of these purely mental exercises and the appeal of music. +In both cases I was piqued and harassed by a personified mystery. +If a tune ran in my mind it would appear as though somebody, I +knew not who, was saying something, I knew not what. What was +he saying? Who was he? What had happened to him? Was he +reciting some grievance, bemoaning some loss, or threatening +vengeance? What was he nagging me about? Questions such as +these would keep pecking at my heart, and this pain, this +excruciating curiosity, I would call keen enjoyment + +In like manner every difficult mathematical problem seemed to +shelter some unknown fellow who took pleasure in teasing me +and daring me to find him. It was the same mischievous fellow, in +fact, who used to laugh in my face when I had a difficult bit of +Talmud to unravel + +"Why, geometry is even deeper than Talmud," I once exclaimed to +Jake + +"Do you think so?" he answered, indifferently + +"I think an interesting geometrical problem is more delicious than +the best piece of meat." + +"Why don't you live on problems, then? Why spend money on +dinners?" + +"Smart boy, aren't you?" + +"Is doing problems as sweet as being in love?" he demanded, with +sheepish earnestness + +"You are in love with Madame Klesmer. You ought to know." + +He made no answer + +On the day when I began these studies I had thirty-six dollars +besides the hundred which I kept in the savings-bank. Of this I +was now spending, including tuition fees, less than six dollars a +week. Every time I changed a dollar my heart literally sank within +me. Finally, when my cash was all gone, I borrowed some money +of Joe, my "rabbi" at the art of cloak-making. + +Breaking the round sum total of my savings-bank account was out +of the question. Joe advanced me money more than cheerfully. He +was glad to have me in his debt as a pledge of my continuing to +work for him. His motive was obvious, and yet I went on +borrowing of him rather than draw upon my bank account + +One day it crossed my mind that it would be a handsome thing if I +looked up Gitelson and paid him the ten dollars I owed him. It +was sweet to picture myself telling him how much his ten dollars +had done and was going to do for me. I was impatient to call on +him, and so I borrowed ten dollars of Joe and betook myself to the +factory where I had visited Gitelson several times before. As he +was a sample-maker, his work knew no seasons. When I called at +that factory I found that he had given up his job there, that he had +married and established a small custom-tailor shop somewhere +up-town, nobody seemed to know where. Joe had not even heard +of his marriage. Meanwhile, my enthusiasm for paying him his +debt was gone, and I was rather glad that I had not found him + +It was the middle of July. The great "winter season" was +developing. I felt perfectly competent to make a whole garment +unaided. It was doubtful, however, whether I should be readily +accepted as an independent mechanic in the shop where I was +employed now and where one was in the habit of regarding me as +a mere apprentice. So I was determined to seek employment +elsewhere. Joe was suspicious. Not that I betrayed my plans in any +way. He took them for granted. And so he visited me every day, +on all sorts of pretexts, dined me and wined me (if the phrase may +be applied to a soda-water dinner), and watched my every step + +Finally I wearied of it all, and one afternoon, as we were seated in +the restaurant, I picked a quarrel with him + +"I don't want your dinners," I burst out, "and I don't want to be +watched by you as if I were a recruit in the Russian army and you +were my 'little uncle.' I'll pay you what I owe you and leave me +alone." + +"As if I were uneasy about those few dollars!" he said, +ingratiatingly + +"I know you are not. That's just it." + +He took fire. "What am I after, then? You think I get rich on your +work, don't you?" + +Our altercation waxed violent. At one point he was about to lapse +into a conciliatory tone again, but his dignity prevailed + +"I would not keep you if you begged me," he declared. "I hate to +deal with an ingrate. But I want my money at once." "I shall pay it +to you when work begins." + +"No, sirrah. I want it at once." An ugly scene followed. He seized +me by my coat lapels and threatened to have me arrested. + +Finally the restaurant-keeper and Gussie, the homely finisher girl +whom we all respected, made peace between us, and things were +arranged more or less amicably + +I obtained employment in an "inside" place, a factory owned by +twin brothers named Manheimer + +I was in high feather. My sense of advancement and independence +reminded me of the days when I had just been graduated from the +Talmudic Academy and went on studying as an "independent +scholar." I had not, however, begun to work in my new place +when a general strike of the trade was declared + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE Cloak-makers' Union had been a weak, +insignificant organization, but at the call for a general strike it +suddenly burst into life. There was a great rush for membership +cards. Everybody seemed to be enthusiastic, full of fight. To me, +however, the strike was a sheer calamity. I laid it all to my own +hard luck. It seemed as though the trouble had been devised for the +express purpose of preventing me from being promoted to full pay; +for the express purpose of upsetting my financial calculations in +connection with my college plans. Everybody was saying that +prices were outrageously low, that the manufacturers were taking +advantage of the weakness of the union, and that they must be +brought to terms. All this was lost upon me. The question of +prices did not interest me, because the wages I was going to +receive were by far the highest I had ever been paid. But the main +thing was that I looked upon the whole business of making cloaks +as a temporary occupation. + +My mind was full of my books and my college dreams. All I +wanted was to start the "season" as soon as possible, to save up +the expected sum, and to reach the next period of freedom from +physical toil, when I should be able to spend day and night on my +studies again. But going to work as a strike-breaker was out of the +question. A new kind of Public Opinion had suddenly sprung up +among the cloak-makers: a man who did not belong to the union +was a traitor, worse than an apostate, worse than the worst of +criminals + +And so, feeling like a school-boy in Antomir when he is made to +furnish the very rod with which he is to be chastised, I went to the +headquarters of the union, paid my initiation fee, and became a +member. It was on a Friday afternoon. The secretaries of the +organization were seated at a long table in the basement of a +meeting-room building on Rivington Street. The basement and the +street outside were swarming with cloak-makers. A number of +mass meetings had been arranged to take place in several halls, +with well-known Socialists for speakers, but I had not even the +curiosity to attend them. + +When some of my shopmates reproached me for my indifference I +said, sullenly: "I've joined the union. What more do you want?" + +One of them, a Talmudist like myself, spoke of capital and labor, +of the injustice of the existing economic order. He had recently, +through the strike, been converted to Socialism. He made a fiery +appeal to me. He spoke with the exaltation of a new proselyte. But +his words fell on deaf ears. I had no mind for anything but my +college studies + +"Do you think it right that millions of people should toil and live in +misery so that a number of idlers might roll in luxury?" he pleaded + +"I haven't made the world, nor can I mend it," was my retort + +The manufacturers yielded almost every point. The "season" +began with a rush + +My pay-envelope for the first week contained thirty-two dollars +and some cents. I knew the union price, of course, and I had +figured out the sum before I received it, yet when I beheld the two +figures on the envelope the blood surged to my head. Thirty-two +dollars! Why, that meant sixty-four rubles! I was tempted to write +Naphtali about it + +The next week brought me an even fatter envelope. I worked +sixteen hours a day. Reading and studying had to be suspended till +October. I lived on five dollars a week. My savings, and with them +my sense of my own importance in the world, grew apace. As +there was no time to go to the savings-bank, I had to carry what I +deemed a great sum on my person (in a money-belt that I had +improvised for the purpose). This was a constant source of anxiety +as well as of joy. No matter how absorbed I might have been in +my work or in thought, the consciousness of having that wad of +paper money with me was never wholly absent from my mind. It +loomed as a badge of omnipotence. I felt in the presence of Luck, +which was a living spirit, a goddess. I was mostly grave. The +frivolities of the other men in the factory seemed so fatuous, so +revolting. A great sense of security and self-confidence swelled +my heart. When I walked through the American streets I would +feel at home in them, far more so than I had ever felt before. At +the same time danger was constantly hovering about me-the +danger of the street crowds seizing that magic wad from me. + +The image of the college building loomed as a bride-elect of mine. +But that, somehow, did not seem to have anything to do with my +money-belt, as though I expected to go to college without +encroaching upon my savings--a case of eating the cake and +having it + +The cloak-makers were so busy they had no time to attend +meetings, and being little accustomed to method and discipline, +they suffered their organization to melt away. By the time the +"season" came to a close the union was scarcely stronger than it +had been before the strike. As there was no work now, and no +prices to fix, one did not miss its protection + +The number of men employed in the trade in those years did not +exceed seven thousand. The industry was still in its infancy + +I resumed my studies with a passion amounting to a frenzy. I +would lay in a supply of coarse rye bread, cheese, and salmon to +last me two or even three days, and never leave my lair during that +length of time. I dined at the Delancey Street restaurant every +third or fourth day, and did not go to the theater unless Jake was +particularly insistent. But then I religiously attended Felix Adler's +ethical-culture lectures, at Chickering Hall, on Sunday mornings. I +valued them for their English rather than for anything else, but +their spirit, reinforced by the effect of organ music and the general +atmosphere of the place, would send my soul soaring. These +gatherings and my prospective alma mater appealed to me as being +of the same order of things, of the same world of refined ways, +new thoughts, noble interests + +If I came across a street faker and he spoke with a foreign accent I +would pass on; if, however, his English struck me as that of a +"real American," I would pause and listen to his "lecture," +sometimes for more than an hour. + +People who were born to speak English were superior beings. +Even among fallen women I would seek those who were real +Americans + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +I WAS reading Pendennis. The prospect of +returning to work was a hideous vision. The high wages in store +for me had lost their magnetism. I often wondered whether I +might not be able to secure some pupils in English or Hebrew, and +drop cloak-making at once. I dreamed of enlisting the interest of a +certain Maecenas, a German-American Jew who financed many a +struggling college student of the Ghetto. Thoughts of a "college +match" would flash through my mind--that is, of becoming +engaged to some girl who earned good wages and was willing to +support me through college. This form of matrimonial +arrangement, which has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, is +not uncommon among our immigrants. Alliances of this sort +naturally tend to widen the intellectual chasm between the two +parties to the contract, and often result in some of the tragedies or +comedies that fill the swift-flowing life of American Ghettos. But +the ambition to be the wife of a doctor, lawyer, or dentist is too +strong in some of our working-girls to be quenched by the dangers +involved + +One of the young women I had in mind was Gussie, the +cloak-finisher mentioned above, who saved for a marriage portion +too energetically to make a marriage. She was a good girl, and no +fool, either, and I thought to myself that she would make me a +good wife, even if she was plain and had a washed-out appearance +and was none too young. I was too passionately in love with my +prospective alma mater to care whether I could love my fiancée or +not + +"I have a fellow for you," I said to Gussie, under the guise of +pleasantry, meeting her in the street one day. "Something fine." + +"Who is it--yourself?" she asked, quickly + +"You have guessed it right." + +"Have I? Then tell your fellow to go to all the black devils." + +"Why?" + +"Because." + +"If I could go to college--" + +"You want me to pay your bills, do you?" + +"Wouldn't you like to be the wife of a doctor? You would take +rides in my carriage--" + +"You mean the other way around: you would ride in my carriage +and I should have to start a breach-of-promise case against 'Dr. +Levinsky.' You'll have to look for a bigger fool than I," she +concluded, with a smile + +It was an attractive smile, full of good nature and common sense. +A smile of this kind often makes a homely face pretty. Gussie's +did not. The light it shed only served to publish her ugliness. But I +did not care. The infatuation I had brought with me from Antomir +had not yet completely faded out, anyhow. And so I harbored +vague thoughts that some day, when I saw fit to press my suit, +Gussie might yield + +I was getting impatient. The idea of having to go back to work +became more hateful to me every day. I was in despair. Finally I +decided to consider my career as a cloak-maker closed; to cut my +expenses to the veriest minimum, to live on my savings, look for +some source of income that would not interfere with my studies, +take the college examination as soon as I was ready for it, and let +the future take care of itself + +In the heart of the Jewish neighborhood I found an attic for half of +what I was paying the Irish family. Moreover, it was a +neighborhood where everything was cheaper than in any other +part of New York, the only one in which it was possible for a man +to have a "room" to himself and live on four dollars a week. So I +moved to that attic, a step for which, as I now think of it, I cannot +but be thankful to fate, for it brought me in touch with a quaint, +simple man who is my warm friend to this day, perhaps the dearest +friend I have had in America + +The house was a rickety, two-story frame structure, the smallest +and oldest-looking on the block. Its ground floor was used as a +tailoring shop by the landlord himself, a white-headed giant of a +man whom I cannot recall otherwise than as smiling wistfully and +sighing. His name was Esrah Nodelman. His wife, who was a +dwarf beside him, ruled him with an iron hand + +Mrs. Nodelman gave me breakfasts, and I soon felt like one of the +family. + +She was a veritable chatter-box, her great topic of conversation +being her son Meyer, upon whom she doted, and his +American-born wife, whose name she scarcely ever uttered +without a malediction. She told me how she, Meyer's mother, her +sister, and a niece had turned out their pockets and pawned their +jewelry to help Meyer start in business as a clothing-manufacturer + +"He's now worth a hundred thousand dollars--may no evil eye hit +him," she said. "He's a good fellow, a lump of gold. If God had +given him a better wife (may the plague carry off the one he has) +he would be all right. She has a meat-ball for a face, the face of a +murderess. She always was a murderess, but since Meyer became +a manufacturer there is no talking to her at all. The airs she is +giving herself! And all because she was born in America, the frog +that she is." + +I soon made Meyer's acquaintance. He was a dark man of forty, +with Oriental sadness in his eyes. To lend his face capitalistic +dignity he had recently grown a pair of side-whiskers, but one day, +a week or two after I met him, he saw a circus poster of "Jo Jo, the +human dog," and then he hastened to discard them + +"I don't want to look like a man-dog," he explained, gaily, to his +mother, who was unpleasantly surprised by the change. + +"Man-dog nothing," she protested, addressing herself to me. "He +was as handsome as gold in those whiskers. He looked like a +regular monarch in them." And then to him: "I suppose it was that +treasure of a wife you have who told you to have them taken off. +It's a lucky thing she does not order you to have your foolish head +taken off." + +"You better shut up, mamma," he said, sternly. And she did + +He called to see his parents quite frequently, sometimes with some +of his children, but never with his wife, at least not while I lived +there. + +Crassly illiterate save for his ability to read some Hebrew, without +knowing the meaning of the words, he enjoyed a considerable +degree of native intellectual alertness, and in his crude, untutored +way was a thinker + +One evening he took to quizzing me on my plans, partly in Yiddish +and partly in broken English, which he uttered with a strong +Cockney accent, a relic of the several years he had spent in +London. + +"And what will you do after you finish (he pronounced it +"fiendish") college?" he inquired, with a touch of derision + +"I shall take up some higher things," I rejoined, reluctantly + +"And what do you call 'higher things'?" he pursued in his quizzical, +browbeating way. "Are you going to be a philosopher?" + +"Yes, I shall be a doctor of philosophy," I answered, frostily + +"What's that? You want to be both a doctor and a philosopher? But +you know the saying, 'Many trades--few blessings.'" + +"I am not going to be a doctor and a philosopher, but a doctor of +philosophy," I said, with a sneer + +"And how much will you make?" + +"Oh, let him alone, Meyer," his mother intervened. "He is an +educated fellow, and he doesn't care for money at all." + +"Doesn't care for money, eh?" the younger Nodelman jeered + +"Do you think money is really everything?" I shot back. "One +might be able to find a thing or two which could not be bought +with it." + +"Not even at Ridley's," [note] he jested, but he was manifestly +beginning to resent my attitude and to take our passage at arms +rather seriously + +"Not even at Ridley's. You can't get brains there, can you?" + +"Well, I never learned to write, but I have a learned fellow in my +office. + +He's chuck full of learning and that sort of thing. Yet who is +working for whom--I for him or he for me? So much for +education--for the stuff that's in a man's head. And now let's take +charity--the stuff that's in a man's heart. + +I don't care what you say, but of what use is a good heart unless he +has some jinglers [note] to go with it? You can't shove your hand +into your heart and pull out a few dollars for a poor friend, can +you? You can help him out of your pocket, though--that is, +provided it is not empty." + +My bewigged little landlady was feasting her eyes on her son + +Meyer went on with his argument: "What is a man without capital? +Nothing! Nobody cares for him. He is like a beast. A beast can't +talk, and he can't. + +'Money talks,' as the Americans say." + +His words and manner put me in a socialist mood. He was hateful +to me. I listened in morose silence. He felt piqued, and he wilted. +The ginger went out of his voice. My taciturnity continued, until, +gradually, he edged over to my side of the controversy, taking up +the cudgels for education and spiritual excellence with the same +force with which he had a short while ago tried to set forth their +futility + +"Of course it's nice to be educated," he said. "A man without +writing is just like a deaf mute. What's the difference? The man +who can't write has speech in his mouth, but he is dumb with his +fingers, while the deaf mute he can't talk with his mouth, but he +can do so with his fingers. Both should be pitied. I do like +education. Of course I do. Don't I send my boy to college? I am an +ignorant boor myself, because my father was poor, but my children +shall have all the wisdom they can pile in. We Jews have too many +enemies in the world. Everybody is ready to shed our blood. So +where would we be if many of our people were not among the +wisest of the wise? Why, they would just crush us like so many +flies. When I see an educated Jew I say to myself, 'That's it!'" + +When he heard of my ambition to give lessons he said: "I tell you +what. I'll be your first pupil. I mean it." he added, seriously. + +My heart gave a leap. "Very well. I'll try my best," I replied + +"Mind you, I don't want to be a philosopher. I just want you to fix +me up in reading, writing, and figuring a little bit. That's all. You +don't think it's too late, do you?" + +"Too late!" I chuckled, hysterically. "Why?" + +"I can sign or indorse a check, and, thank God, for a good few +dollars, too--but when it comes to fixing in the stuffing, there is +trouble. I know how to write the figures, but not the words. I can +write almost any number. + +If I was worth all the money I can put down in figures I should be +richer than Vanderbilt." + +To insure secrecy I was to give him his lessons in my attic room + +"I don't want my kids to know their pa is learning like a little boy, +don't you know," he explained. "American kids have not much +respect for their fathers, anyhow." + +As a preliminary to his initial lesson Nodelman offered to show +me what he could do. When I brought pen and ink and some paper +he cleared his throat, screwed up a solemn mien, and took hold of +the pen. In trying to shake off some of the ink he sent splashes all +over the table. At last he proceeded to write his name. He handled +the pen as he would a pitchfork. It was quite a laborious +proceeding, and his first attempt was a fizzle, for he reached the +end of the paper before he finished the "in" in Nodelman. He tried +again, and this time he was successful, but it was three minutes +before the task was completed. It left him panting and wiping his +ink-stained fingers on his hair + +"A man who has to work as hard as that over his signature has no +business to be seen among decent people," he said, with sincere +disgust. "I ought to be a horse-driver, not a manufacturer." + +So speaking, he submitted his signature for my inspection, +without, however, letting go of the sheet + +"Tell me how rotten it is," he said, bashfully + +When I protested that it was not "rotten" at all he grunted +something to the effect that once I was to instruct him he would +expect to pay me, not for empty compliments, but for the truth. At +this he lighted a match and applied it to the sheet of paper +containing his signature + +"A signature is no joke," he explained, as he watched it burn. "Put +a few words and some figures on top of it and it is a note, as good +as cash. When a fellow is a beggar he has nothing to fear, but +when he is in business he had better be careful." + +When he asked me how much I was going to charge him and I said +twenty-five cents an hour, he smiled + +"I'll pay you more than that. You just try your best for me, will +you?" + +At the end of the first week he handed me two dollars for three +lessons + +I was the happiest man in New York that day. If I had had to +choose between earning ten dollars a week in tuition fees and a +hundred dollars as wages or profits I should, without the slightest +hesitation, have decided in favor of the ten dollars, and now, +behold! that coveted source of income seemed nearer at hand than +I had dared forecast. Once a start had been made, I might expect +to procure other pupils, even if they could not afford to pay so +lavish a price as two dollars for three lessons + +But alas! My happiness was not to last long. + +I was giving Nodelman his fifth lesson. We were spelling out some +syllables in a First Reader. Presently he grew absent-minded and +then, suddenly pushing the school-book from him, said: "Too +late! Too late! Those black little dots won't get through my +forehead. + +It has grown too hard for them, I suppose." + +I attempted to reassure him, but in vain + +When the next cloak season came I slunk back to work. I felt +degraded. But I earned high wages and my good spirits soon +returned. I firmly made up my mind, come what might, to take the +college-entrance examination the very next fall. I expected to +have four hundred dollars by then, but I was determined to enter +college even if I had much less. "I sha'n't starve," I said to myself. +"And, if I don't get enough to eat, hunger is nothing new to me." + +The very firmness of my purpose was a source of encouragement +and joy. + +[note: Ridley's]: A well-known department store in those days + +[note: jingler]: Coin, money + + + + +BOOK VIII + +THE DESTRUCTION OF MY TEMPLE + + +CHAPTER I + +AN unimportant accident, a mere trifle, suddenly gave a new turn +to the trend of events changing the character of my whole life. + +It was the middle of April. The spring season was over, but +Manheimer Brothers, the firm by which I was employed, had +received heavy duplicate orders for silk coats, and, considering +the time of the year, we were unusually busy. One day, at the +lunch hour, as I was opening a small bottle of milk, the bottle +slipped out of my hand and its contents were spilled over the floor +and some silk coats + +Jeff Manheimer, one of the twins, happened to be near me at the +moment, and a disagreeable scene followed. But first a word or +two about Jeff Manheimer + +He was the "inside man" of the firm, having charge of the +mechanical end of the business as well as of the offices. He was +of German parentage, but of American birth. Bald-headed as a +melon and with a tendency to corpulence, he had the back of a +man of forty-five and the front of a man of twenty-five. + +He was a vivacious fellow, one of those who are indefatigable in +abortive attempts at being witty, one of his favorite puns being +that we "Russians were not rushin' at all," that we were a "slow +lot." Altogether he treated us as an inferior race, often lecturing us +upon our lack of manners + +I detested him + +When he saw me drop the bottle of milk he flew into a rage + +"Eh!" he shouted, "did you think this was a kitchen? Can't you take +better care of things?" As he saw me crouching and wiping the +floor and the coats with my handkerchief he added: "You might as +well take those coats home. The price will be charged against you. +That 'll make you remember that this is not a barn, but a factory. +Where were you brought up? Among Indians?" + +Some of my shopmates tittered obsequiously, which encouraged +Manheimer to further sarcasm. + +"Why, he doesn't even know how to handle a bottle of milk. Did +you ever see such a lobster?" + +At this there was an explosion of merriment. + +"A lobster!" one of the tailors repeated, relishingly + +I could have murdered him as well as Manheimer. + +My head was swimming. I was about to say something insulting to +my employer, to get up and leave the place demonstratively. But I +said to myself that I should soon be through with this kind of life +for good, and I held myself in leash. + +Two or three minutes later I sat at a machine, eating my milkless +lunch. I was trying to forget the incident, trying to think of +something else, but in vain. Manheimer's derision, especially the +word "lobster," was ringing in my ear. + +He passed out of the shop, but ten or fifteen minutes later he came +back, and as I saw him walk down the aisle I became breathless +with hate. The word "lobster" was buzzing in my brain amid +vague, helpless visions of revenge + +Presently my eye fell upon Ansel Chaikin, the designer, and a +strange thought flashed upon me. + +He was a Russian, like myself. He was an ignorant tailor, as +illiterate as Meyer Nodelman, but a born artist in his line. It was +largely to his skill that the firm, which was doing exceedingly +well, owed the beginning of its success. It was the common talk +among the "hands" of the factory that his Americanized copies of +French models had found special favor with the buyer of a certain +large department store and that this alone gave the house a +considerable volume of business. Jeff Manheimer, who +superintended the work, was a commonplace man, with more +method and system than taste or initiative. + +Chaikin was the heart and the actual master of the establishment. +Yet all this really wonderful designer received was forty-five +dollars a week. He knew his value, and he saw that the two +brothers were rapidly getting rich, but he was a quiet man, +unaggressive and unassuming, and very likely he had not the +courage to ask for a raise + +As I now looked at him, with my heart full of rancor for +Manheimer, I exclaimed to myself, "What a fool!" + +He appeared to me in a new light, as the willing victim of +downright robbery. It seemed obvious that the Manheimers could +not do without him, that he was in a position to dictate terms to +them, even to make them accept him as a third partner. And once +the matter had presented itself to me in that light it somehow +began to vex me. It got on my nerves, as though it were an affair +of my own. I complimented myself upon my keen sense of justice, +but in reality this was my name for my disgust with Chaikin's +passivity and for the annoyance and the burning ill-will which the +rapid ascent of the firm aroused in me. I begrudged them--or, +rather, Jeff--the money they were making through his efficiency + +"The idiot!" I soliloquized. "He ought to start on his own hook with +some smart business man for a partner. Let Jeff try to do without +that 'lobster' of a Russian." + +The idea took a peculiar hold upon my imagination. I could not +look at Ansel Chaikin, or think of him, without picturing him +leaving the Manheimers in a lurch and becoming a fatal +competitor of theirs. I beheld their downfall. I gloated over it + +But Chaikin lacked gumption and enterprise. What he needed was +an able partner, some man of brains and force. And so, +unbeknown to Chaikin, the notion was shaping itself in my mind +of becoming his manufacturing partner. + +The thought of Meyer Nodelman's humble beginnings and of the three +hundred-odd dollars I had in my savings-bank whispered +encouragement into my ear. I had heard of people who went into +manufacturing with even less than that sum. + +Moreover, it was reasonable to expect that Chaikin had laid up +some money of his own. Our precarious life among unfriendly +nations has made a thrifty people of us, and for a man like +Chaikin forty-five dollars a week, every week in the year, meant +superabundance + +The Manheimers were relegated to the background. It was no +longer a mere matter of punishing Jeff. It was a much greater +thing. + +I visioned myself a rich man, of course, but that was merely a +detail. What really hypnotized me was the venture of the thing. It +was a great, daring game of life + +I tried to reconcile this new dream of mine with my college +projects. I was again performing the trick of eating the cake and +having it. I would picture myself building up a great cloak +business and somehow contriving, at the same time, to go to +college + +The new scheme was scarcely ever absent from my mind. I would +ponder it over my work and during my meals. It would visit me in +my sleep in a thousand grotesque forms. Chaikin became the +center of the universe. I was continually eying him, listening for +his voice, scrutinizing his look, his gestures, his clothes + +He was an insignificant-looking man of thirty-two, with almost a +cadaverous face and a very prominent Adam's apple. He was not a +prepossessing man by any means, but his bluish eyes had a +charming look, of boy-like dreaminess, and his smile was even +more child-like than his look. He was dressed with scrupulous +neatness and rather pretentiously, as behooved his occupation, but +all this would scarcely have prevented one from telling him for a +tailor from some poor town in Russia + +Now and then my project struck me as absurd. For Chaikin was in +the foremost ranks of a trade in which I was one of the ruck. +Should he conceive the notion of going into business on his own +account, he would have no difficulty in forming a partnership with +considerable capital. Why, then, should he take heed of a piteous +schemer of my caliber? But a few minutes later I would see the +matter in another light + + + +CHAPTER II + +ONE Sunday morning in the latter part of May I +betook myself to a certain block of new tenement-houses in the +neighborhood of East 110th Street and Central Park, then the new +quarter of the more prosperous Russian Jews. + +Chaikin had recently moved into one of these houses, and it was to +call on him that I had made my way from down-town. I found him +in the dining-room, playing on an accordion, while his wife, who +had answered my knock at the door, was busy in the kitchen + +He scarcely knew me. To pave the way to the object of my visit I +began by inquiring about designing lessons. As teaching was not +in his line, we soon passed to other topics related to the cloak +trade. I found him a poor talker and a very uninteresting +companion. He answered mostly in monosyllables, or with mute +gestures, often accompanied by his child-like grin or by a +perplexed stare of his bluish eyes + +Gradually I gave the conversation a more personal turn. When, +somewhat flushed, I finally hinted at my plan, he shrank with an +air of confusion + +At this juncture his wife made her appearance, followed by her +eight-year-old boy. Chaikin looked relieved + +"I hear you are talking business," she said, summarily taking +possession of the situation. "What is it all about?" + +Completely taken aback by her domineering manner, I sought +escape in embarrassed banter. + +"You have scared me so," I said, "I can't speak. I'll tell you +everything. + +That's just what brings me here. Only let me first catch my breath +and take a look at your stalwart little man of a boy." + +Her grave face relaxed into an involuntary smile + +What struck me most in her was the startling resemblance she bore +to her husband. The two looked like brother and sister rather than +like husband and wife + +"You must be relatives," I observed, for something pleasant to say, +and put my foot in it + +"Not at all," she replied, with a frown + +To win back her good graces I proceeded to examine Maxie, her +boy, in spelling. The stratagem had the desired effect + +We got down to business again. When she heard my plan she +paused to survey me. I felt a sinking at the heart. I interpreted her +searching look as saying, "The nerve this snoozer has!" But I was +mistaken. Her pinched, sallow face grew tense with excitement, +and she said, with coy eagerness: "How can we tell if your plan +amounts to anything? If you gave us an idea of how much you +could put up--" + +"It would not require a million," I hazarded + +"A million! Who talks of millions! Still, it would take a good deal +of capital to start a factory that should be something like." + +"There'll be no trouble about money," I parried, fighting shy of the +more imposing term "capital," which made my paltry three +hundred still paltrier + +"There is money and money," she answered, with furtive glances at +me. "A nickel is also money." + +"I am not speaking of nickels, of course." + +"I should say not. It's a matter of many thousands of dollars." + +I was dumfounded, but instantly rallied. "Of course," I assented. +"At the same time it depends on many things." + +"Still, you ought to give us some idea how much you could put in. +Is it--is it, say, fifteen thousand?" + +That she should not deem it unnatural for a young man of my +station to be able to raise a sum of this size was partly due to her +utter lack of experience and partly to an impression prevalent +among people of her class that "nothing is impossible in the land +of Columbus." + +I pretended to grow thoughtful, with an effect of making +computations. I even produced a piece of paper and a pencil and +indulged in some sham figuring. At last I said: "Well, I can't as yet +tell you exactly how much. As I have said, it depends on certain +things, but it'll be all right. Besides, money is really not the most +important part in a scheme of this kind. A man of brains and a +hustler will make a lot of money, while a fool will lose a lot. +There are others who want to go into business with me. Only I +know Mr. Chaikin is an honest man, and that's what I value more +than anything else. I hate to take up with people of whom I can't +be sure, don't you know--" + +"You forget the main thing," she could not forbear to break in. +"Mr. Chaikin is the best designer in New York." + +"Everybody knows that," I conceded, deeming it best to flatter her +vanity. + +"That's just what makes it ridiculous that he should work for +others, make other people rich instead of trying to do something +for himself. I have some plans by which the two of us--Mr. +Chaikin taking charge of the manufacturing and I of the business +outside--would do wonders. We would simply do wonders. + +There is another fine designer who is anxious to form a partnership +with me, but I said to myself, 'I must first see if I could not get Mr. +Chaikin interested.'" + +Mrs. Chaikin tried to guess who that other designer was, but I +pleaded, mysteriously, certain circumstances that placed the seal +of discretion on my lips + +"I won't tell anybody," she assured me, in a flutter of curiosity + +"I know you won't, but I can't. Honest." + +"But, I tell you, I won't say a word to anybody. Strike me dumb if I +do!" + +"I can't, Mrs. Chaikin," I besought her + +"Don't bother," her husband put in, good-naturedly. "A woman will +be a woman." + +I went on to describe the "wonders" that the firm of Chaikin & +Levinsky would do. Mrs. Chaikin's eyes glittered. I held her +spellbound. Her husband, who had hitherto been a passive +listener, as if the matter under discussion was one in which he was +not concerned, began to show signs of interest. It was the longest +and most eloquent speech I had ever had occasion to deliver. + +It seemed to carry conviction + +Children often act as a barometer of their mother's moods. So +when I had finished and little Maxie slipped up close to me and +tactily invited me to fondle him I knew that I had made a +favorable impression on his mother + +I was detained for dinner. I played with Maxie, gave him problems +in arithmetic, went into ecstasies over his "cuteness." I had a +feeling that the way to Mrs. Chaikin's heart was through Maxie, +but I took good care not to over-play my part + +We are all actors, more or less. The question is only what our aim +is, and whether we are capable of a "convincing personation." At +the time I conceived my financial scheme I knew enough of +human motive to be aware of this. + + + +CHAPTER III + +IT was a sultry, sweltering July afternoon in May, +one of those escapades of the New York climate when the +population finds itself in the grip of midsummer discomforts +without having had time to get seasoned to them. I went into the +Park. I had come away from the Chaikins' under the impression +that if I could raise two or three thousand dollars I might be able, +by means of perseverance and diplomacy, to achieve my purpose. +But I might as well have set myself to raise two or three millions + +I thought of Meyer Nodelman, of Mr. Even and his wealthy +son-in-law, of Maximum Max. But the idea of approaching them +with my venture could not be taken seriously. The images of +Gitelson and of Gussie crossed my mind almost simultaneously. I +rejected them both. Gitelson and I might, perhaps, start +manufacturing on a small scale, leaving Chaikin out. But Chaikin +was the very soul of my project. Without him there was no life to +it. Besides, where was he, Gitelson? Was it worth while hunting +for him? As for Gussie, the notion of marrying her for her money +seemed a joke, even if she were better-looking and younger. That +her dower was anywhere near three thousand dollars was +exceedingly doubtful. However, the image of her washed-out face +would not leave my mind. Her hoarding might amount to over one +thousand, and in my despair the sum was tempting. "She is a good +girl, the best of all I know," I defended myself before the "Good +Spirit" in me. + +"Also she is a most sensible girl. Just the kind of wife a business +man needs." In addition I urged the time-honored theory that a +homely wife is less likely to flirt with other men and to neglect +her duties than a good-looking one. + +I took the car down-town and made my way to Gussie's lodgings +that very afternoon. I did so before I had made up my mind that I +was prepared to marry her. "I'll call on her, anyhow," I decided. +"Then we shall see. There can be no harm in speaking to her." + +I was impelled by the adventure of it more than by anything else + +In spite of the unbearable heat, I almost felt sure that I should find +her at home. Going out of a Sunday required presentable clothes, +which she did not possess. She was saving for her dower with her +usual intensity + +I was not mistaken. I found her on the stoop in a crowd of women +and children + +"I must speak to you, Gussie," I said, as she descended to the +sidewalk to meet me. "Let's go somewhere. I have something very +important I want to say to you." + +"Is it again something about your studying to be a smart man at my +expense?" she asked, rather good-naturedly + +"No, no. Not at all. It's something altogether different, Gussie." + +The nervous emphasis with which I said it piqued her interest. +Without going up-stairs for her hat she took me to the Grand +Street dock, not many blocks away. The best spots were already +engaged, but we found one that suited our purpose better than the +water edge would have done. It was a secluded nook where I +could give the rein to my eloquence + +I told her of my talk with the Chaikins, omitting names, but +inventing details and bits of "local color" calculated to appeal to +my listener's imagination and business sense. She followed my +story with an air of stiff aloofness, but this only added fuel to the +fervor with which I depicted the opportunity before me + +"So you have thrown that college of yours out of your mind, +haven't you?" she said in a dry, non-committal way + +I felt the color mounting to my face. "Well, not entirely," I +answered + +"Not entirely?" + +"I mean--Well, anyhow, what do they do at college? They read +books. Can't I read them at home? One can find time for +everything." Returning to my new project, I said: "It's a great +chance, Gussie. It would be an awful thing if I had to let it slip out +of my hand." + +That what I wanted was her dower (with herself as an unavoidable +appendage) went without saying. It was implied, as a matter of +course + +"How much would your great designer want you to invest?" she +asked, with an air of one guided by mere curiosity, and with a +touch of irony to boot + +"A couple of thousand dollars might do, I suppose." + +"A couple of thousand!" she said, lukewarmly. "Tell your great +designer he is riding too high a horse." + +"Still, in order to start a decent business--" I said, throwing a covert +glance at her + +"Cloak-factories have been started with a good deal less," she +snapped back + +"On Division Street, perhaps." + +"And what do you fellows expect to do--start on Broadway?" + +"Well, it takes some money to get started even on Division Street." + +"Not two thousand. It has been done for a good deal less." + +"I know; but still--I am sure a fellow must have some money + +"It depends on what you call 'some.'" It was the same kind of +fencing contest as that which I had had with Mrs. + +Chaikin. I was sounding Gussie's purse as the designer's wife had +mine. + +Finally she took me in hand for a severe cross-examination. She +was obviously interested. I contradicted myself in some minor +points, but, upon the whole, I stood the test well + +"If it is all as you say," she finally declared, "there seems to be +something in it." + +"Gussie " I said, tremulously, "there is a great chance for us--" + +"Wait," she interrupted me, suddenly bethinking herself of a new +point. "If he is as great a designer as you say he is, and he works +for a big firm, how is it, then, that he can't find a partner with big +money?" + +"He could, any number of them, but he has confidence in me. He +says he would much rather start with me on two thousand than +with somebody else on twenty. + +He thinks I should make an excellent business man, and that +between the two of us we should make a great success of it. +Money is nothing--so he says--money can be made, but with a fool +of an outside man even more than twenty thousand dollars might +go up in smoke." "That's so," Gussie assented, musingly. There +was a pause + +"Well, Gussie?" I mustered courage to demand + +"You don't want me to give you an answer right off, do you? +Things like that are not decided in a hurry." + +We went on to discuss the project and some indifferent topics. It +was rapidly growing dark and cool. Looming through the +thickening dusk, somewhat diagonally across the dock from us, +was the figure of a young fellow with his head reclining on the +shoulder of a young woman. A little further off and nearer to the +water I could discern a white shirt-waist in the embrace of a dark +coat. A song made itself heard. It was "After the Ball is Over," one +of the sentimental songs of that day. "Tara-ra-boom-de-aye" +followed, a tune usually full of joyous snap and go, but now +performed in a subdued, brooding tempo, tinged with sadness. It +rang in a girlish soprano, the rest of the crowd listening silently. +By this time the gloom was so dense that the majority of us could +not see the singer, which enhanced the mystery of her melody and +the charm of her young voice. Presently other voices joined in, all +in the same meditative, somewhat doleful rhythm. Gayer strains +would have sounded sacrilegiously out of tune with the darkling +glint of the river, with the mysterious splash of its waves against +the bobbing bulkheads of the pier, with the starry enchantment of +the passing ferry-boats, with the love-enraptured solemnity of the +spring night. + +I had not the heart even to think of business, much less to talk it. +We fell silent, both of us, listening to the singing. Poor Gussie! +She was not a pretty girl, and she did not interest me in the least. +Yet at this moment I was drawn to her. The brooding, plaintive +tones which resounded around us had a bewitching effect on me. +It filled me with yearning; it filled me with love. Gussie was a +woman to me now. My hand sought hers. It was an honest proffer +of endearment, for my soul was praying for communion with hers + +She withdrew her hand. "This should not be done in a hurry, +either," she explained, pensively + +"Gussie! Dear Gussie!" I said, sincerely, though not unaware of the +temporary nature of my feeling + +"Don't!" she implored me + +There was something in her plea which seemed to say: "You know +you don't care for me. It's my money that has brought you here. +Alas! It is not my lot to be loved for my own sake." + +Her unspoken words broke my heart + +"Gussie! I swear to you you're dear to me. Can't you believe me?" + +The singing night was too much for her. She yielded to my arms. +Urged on by the chill air, we clung together in a delirium of +love-making. There were passionate embraces and kisses. I felt +that her thin, dried-up lips were not to my taste, but I went on +kissing them with unfeigned fervor. + +The singing echoed dolefully. We remained in that secluded nook +until the growing chill woke us from our trance. I took her home. +When we reached a tiny square jammed with express-wagons we +paused to kiss once more, and when we found ourselves in front +of her stoop, which was now deserted, the vigorous hand-clasp +with which I took my leave was symbolic of another kiss. + +I went away without discovering the size of her hoard. I was to call +on her the next evening. + +As I trudged along through the swarming streets on my way home +the predominant feeling in my heart was one of physical distaste. +Poor thing! I felt that marrying her was out of the question + +Nevertheless, the next evening I went to see her as arranged. I +found her out. Her landlady handed me a letter. It was in Yiddish: + +Mr. Levinsky [it read], I do not write this myself, for I cannot +write, and I do not want you to think that I want to make believe +that I can. A man is writing it for me for ten cents. I am telling +him the words and he is writing just as I tell him. It was all a +mistake. You know what I mean. I don't care to marry you. You +are too smart for me and too young, too. I am afraid of you. I am a +simple girl and you are educated. I must look for my equal. If I +married you, both of us would be sorry for it. + +Excuse me, and I wish you well. Please don't come to see me any +more + +GUSSIE + +The message left me with a feeling of shame, sadness, and +commiseration. + +During that evening and the forenoon of the following day I was +badly out of spirits + +There was nothing to do at the shop, yet I went there just to see +Chaikin, so as to keep up his interest in my scheme. He was glad +to see me. He had a message from his wife, who wanted me to +call in the evening. Gussie's letter was blotted out of my memory. +I was once more absorbed in my project + +I spent the evening at the designer's house. Mrs. Chaikin made new +attempts at worming out the size of my fortune and, in addition, +something concerning its origin + +"Is it an inheritance?" she queried. + +"An inheritance? Why, would you like me to get one?" I said, +playfully, as though talking to a child + +She could not help laughing. "Well, then, is it from a rich brother +or a sister, or is it your own money?" she pursued, falling in with +the facetious tone that I was affecting + +"Any kind of money you wish, Mrs. Chaikin. But, seriously, there +will be no trouble about cash. The main point is that I want to go +into manufacturing and that I should prefer to have Mr. Chaikin +for my partner. There is plenty of money in cloaks, and I am bent +upon making heaps, great heaps, of it--for Mr. Chaikin and +myself. Really, isn't it maddening to think that he should be +making other people rich, while all he gets is a miserable few +dollars a week? It's simply outrageous." + +So speaking, I worked Mrs. Chaikin up to a high sense of the +absurdity of the thing. I was rapidly gaining ground with her + +And so, pending that mysterious something to which I was often +alluding as the source of my prospective fortune, I became a +frequent visitor at her house. Sometimes she would invite me to +supper; once or twice we spent Sunday together. As for little +Maxie, he invariably hailed me with joy. I was actually fond of +him, and I was glad of it. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE time I speak of, the late '80's and the early +'90's, is connected with an important and interesting chapter in the +history of the American cloak business. Hitherto in the control of +German Jews, it was now beginning to pass into the hands of their +Russian co-religionists, the change being effected under peculiar +conditions that were destined to lead to a stupendous development +of the industry. If the average American woman is to-day dressed +infinitely better than she was a quarter of a century ago, and if she +is now easily the best-dressed average woman in the world, the +fact is due, in a large measure, to the change I refer to + +The transition was inevitable. While the manufacturers were +German Jews, their contractors, tailors, and machine operators +were Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Russia or Austrian +Galicia. Although the former were of a superior commercial +civilization, it was, after all, a case of Greek meeting Greek, and +the circumstances were such that just because they represented a +superior commercial civilization they were doomed to be beaten + +The German manufacturers were the pioneers of the industry in +America. It was a new industry, in fact, scarcely twenty years old. +Formerly, and as late as the '70's, women's cloaks and jackets were +little known in the United States. Shawls were worn by the +masses. What few cloaks were seen on women of means and +fashion were imported from Germany. But the demand grew. + +So, gradually, some German-American merchants and an +American shawl firm bethought themselves of manufacturing +these garments at home. The industry progressed, the new-born +great Russian immigration--a child of the massacres of 1881 and +1882--bringing the needed army of tailors for it. There was big +money in the cloak business, and it would have been unnatural if +some of these tailors had not, sooner or later, begun to think of +going into business on their own hook. At first it was a hard +struggle. The American business world was slow to appreciate the +commercial possibilities which these new-comers represented, but +it learned them in course of time + +It was at the beginning of this transition period that my scheme +was born in my mind. Schemes of that kind were in the air + +Meyer Nodelman, the son of my landlady, had not the remotest +inkling of my plans, yet I had consulted him about them more than +once. Of course, it was all done in a purely abstract way. Like the +majority of our people, he was a talkative man so I would try to +keep him talking shop. By a system of seemingly casual +questioning I would pump him on sundry details of the clothing +business, on the differences and similarities between it and the +cloak trade, and, more especially, on how one started on a very +small capital + +He bragged and blustered, but oftentimes he would be carried +away by the sentimental side of his past struggles. Then he would +unburden himself of a great deal of unvarnished history. On such +occasions I would obtain from him a veritable treasure of +information and suggestions. + +Some of the generalizations of this homespun and quaint thinker, +too, were interesting. Talking of credit, for example, he once said: +"When a fellow is a beginner it's a good thing if he has a credit +face." + +I thought it was some sort of commercial term he was using, and +when I asked him what it meant he said: "Why, some people are +just born with the kind of face that makes the woolen merchant or +the bank president trust them. They are not more honest than +some other fellows. Indeed, some of them are plain pickpockets, +but they have a credit face, so you have got to trust them. You just +can't help it." + +"And if they don't pay?" + +"But they do. They get credit from somebody else and pay the +jobber or the banker. Then they get more credit from these people +and pay the other fellows. People of this kind can do a big +business without a cent of capital. In Russia a fellow who pays his +bills is called an honest man, but America is miles ahead of +Russia. Here you can be the best pay in the world and yet be a +crook. You wouldn't say that every man who breathes God's air is +honest, would you? Well, paying your bills in America is like +breathing. + +If you don't, you are dead." + +Chaikin, too, often let fall, in his hesitating, monosyllabic way, +some observation which I considered of value. Of the purely +commercial side of the industry he knew next to nothing, but then +he could tell me a thing or two concerning the psychology of +popular taste, the forces operating behind the scenes of fashion, +the methods employed by small firms in stealing styles from +larger ones, and other tricks of the trade. + +At last I resolved to act. It was the height of the season for winter +orders, and I decided to take time by the forelock + +One day when I called at the designer's, and Mrs. Chaikin asked +me for news (alluding to the thousands I was supposed to be +expecting), I said: "Well, I have rented a shop." + +"Rented a shop?" + +"That's what I did. It's no use missing the season. If a fellow wants +to do something, there is nothing for it but to go to work and do it, +else he is doomed to be a slave all his life." + +When I added that the shop was on Division Street her face fell + +"But what difference does it make where it is?" I argued, with +studied vehemence. "It's only a place to make samples in--for a +start." + +"Mr. Chaikin is not going into a wee bit of a business like that. No, +sir." + +In the course of our many discussions it had often happened that +after overruling me with great finality she would end by yielding +to my point of view. I hoped this would be the case in the present +instance + +"Don't be so hasty, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, with a smile. "Wait till +you know a little more about the arrangement." + +And dropping into the Talmudic singsong, which usually comes +back to me when my words assume an argumentative character, I +proceeded "In the first place, I don't want Mr. Chaikin to leave the +Manheimers--not yet. All I want him to do is to attend to our shop +evenings. Don't be uneasy: the Manheimers won't get wind of it. +Leave that to me. Well, all I want is some samples to go around +the stores with. The rest will come easy. + +We'll make things hum. See if we don't. When we have orders and +get really started we'll move out of Division Street. Of course we +will. But would it not be foolish to open up on a large scale and +have Mr. Chaikin give up his job before we have accomplished +anything? I think it would. Indeed, it's my money that's going to be +invested. Do you blame me for being careful, at the beginning at +least? I neither want Mr. Chaikin to risk his job nor myself to risk +big money." + +"But you haven't even told me how much you can put in," she +blurted out, excitedly. + +"As much as will be necessary. But what's the use dumping a big +lot at once? Many a big business has failed, while firms who start +in a modest way have worked themselves up. Why should Mr. +Chaikin begin by risking his position? Why? Why?" + +The long and short of it was that Mrs. Chaikin became enthusiastic +for my Division Street shop, and the next day her husband took +two hours off to accompany me to a nondescript woolen-store on +Hester Street, where we bought fifty dollars' worth of material + +The rent for the shop was thirty dollars a month. One month's rent +for two sewing-machines was two dollars. A large second-hand +table for designing and cutting and some old chairs cost me +twelve dollars more, leaving me a balance of over two hundred +dollars + +Before I went to rent the premises for our prospective shop I had +withdrawn my money from the savings-bank and deposited it in a +small bank where I opened a check account + +"Once I am to play the part of a manufacturer it would not do to +pay bills in cash," I reflected. "I must pay in checks, and do so like +one to the manner born." + +At this the magic word "credit" loomed in letters of gold before +me. I was aware of the fascination of check-books, so, being +armed with one, I expected to be able to buy things, in some +cases, at least, without having to pay for them at once. Besides, +my bank might be induced to grant me a loan. Then, too, one +might issue a check before one had the amount and thereby gain a +day's time. There seemed to be a world of possibilities in the long, +narrow book in my breast pocket. I was ever conscious of its +presence. I have a vivid recollection of the elation with which I +drew and issued my first check (in payment of thirty dollars, the +first month's rent for our prospective cloak-factory). Humanity +seemed to have become divided into two distinct classes--those +who paid their obligations in cash and those who paid them in +checks. I still have that first check-book of mine + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHAIKIN made up half a dozen sample garments. I +took them to the department store to which the Manheimer +Brothers catered, but the buyer of the cloak department would not +so much as let me untie my bundle. He was a middle-aged man +(women buyers were rare in those days), an Irish-American of +commanding figure. After sweeping me with a glance of cold +curiosity, he waved me aside. My Russian name and my +appearance were evidently against me. I tried the other +department stores --with the same result. The larger business +world of the city had not yet learned to take the Russian Jew +seriously as a factor in advanced commerce. The buyer of the +cloak department in the last store I visited was an American Jew, +a fair-complexioned little fellow, all aglitter with neatness. At first +he took an amused interest in me. When I had unpacked my goods +and was about to show him one of Chaikin's jackets he checked +me + +"Suppose we gave you an order for five hundred," he said, with a +smile; "five hundred jackets to be delivered at a certain date." + +"I would deliver it," I answered, boldly. "Why not?" + +"I don't know why. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. How +can we be sure you would?" Before I had time to answer he asked +me how long I had been in the country. + +When I told him, he complimented me on my English. I was sure it +meant business. I was thrilled + +"Have you got a shop?" he further questioned. "How many hands +do you employ?" + +"Seventy-five." + +He sized me up. "Where is your place?" + +"On Division Street." + +"Well, well! What is your rating?" I did not know what he meant. +So, for an answer, I made a new attempt to submit the contents of +my bundle for his inspection. At this he made a gesture of disgust +and withdrew. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead + +I had heard of the existence of small department stores in various +sections of the city, so I went in search of them + +I found myself in the vicinity of the City College. As I passed that +corner I studiously looked away. I felt like a convert Jew passing a +synagogue + +It was a warm day. My pack seemed to grow heavier with every +block I walked, and so did my heart. I was perspiring freely; my +collar wilted. All of which did anything but make me look as "a +man who paid his bills in checks." At last, walking up Third +Avenue I came across a place where there was quite a large +display of jackets in the windows. Upon my opening the door and +announcing my mission, two jaunty young fellows invited me in +with elaborate courtesy, almost with anxiety. My heart leaped for +joy. I fell to opening my bundle. The two young men inspected +every jacket, went into ecstasies over each of them, and then +asked me all sorts of irrelevant questions until it dawned upon me +that I was being made game of. It appeared that the father of the +two young men, the proprietor of the store, manufactured his own +goods, for wholesale as well as for retail trade + +I received much better treatment in a store on Avenue B, but my +goods proved too high for that neighborhood. As if to atone for +this, the proprietor of this store, a kindly Galician Jew, gave me a +list of the minor department stores I was looking for, and some +valuable suggestions in addition + +My dinner that day consisted of two ring-shaped rolls which I +bought in a Jewish grocery-store and which I ate on a bench in +Tompkins Square + +The day passed most discouragingly. It was about 7 o'clock when, +disheartened to the point of despair, I dragged my wearied limbs in +the direction of my "factory." When I got there I found my partner +waiting for me--not alone, but in the company of his wife + +"Well?" she shrieked, jumping to meet me + +"Splendid!" I replied, with enthusiasm. "It looks even better than I +expected. I could have got good orders at once, but a fellow must +not be too hasty. You have got to look around first--find out who +is who, you know." + +Mrs. Chaikin looked crestfallen. "So you did not get any orders at +all?" + +"What's your hurry?" her husband said, pleadingly. "Levinsky is +right. You can't sell goods unless you know who you deal with." + +The following two days were as barren of results as the first. Mrs. +Chaikin had lost all confidence in the venture. She was becoming +rather hard to handle + +"I don't want Ansel to bother any more," she said, peevishly. "You +know what the Americans say, 'Time is money.' Pay Ansel for his +work and let us be 'friends at a distance.'" + +"Very well," I said, and, producing my check-book, I asked, "How +much is it?" + +The sight of my check-book acted like a charm. The situation +suddenly assumed brighter colors in Mrs. Cbaikin's eyes + +"Look at him! He thought I really meant it," she grinned, +sheepishly + +Every night I would go to bed sick at heart and with my mind half +made up to drop it all, only to wake in the morning more resolute +and hopeful than ever. Hopeful and defiant. It was as though +somebody--the whole world--were jeering at my brazen-faced, +piteous efforts, and I was bound to make good, "just for spite." + +I learned of the existence of "purchasing offices" where the buyers +of several department stores, from so many cities, made their +headquarters in New York. Also, I discovered that in order to keep +track of the arrivals of these buyers I must follow a daily paper +called Hotel Reporter (the ordinary newspapers did not furnish +information of this character in those days). A man who +manufactured neckties in the same ramshackle building in which I +hoped to manufacture cloaks volunteered to let me look at his +Reporter every day. This man was naturally inclined to be +neighborly, but I had found that an occasional quotation or two +from the Talmud was particularly helpful in obtaining a small +favor from him + +I knocked about among the purchasing offices with bulldog +tenacity, but during the first few days my efforts in this direction +were as futile as in the case of the New York stores. Meanwhile, +time was pressing. So far as out-of-town buyers were concerned, +the "winter season" was drawing to a close. All I could see were +some belated stragglers. One of these was a man from the Middle +West, a stout, fleshy American with quick, nervous movements +which contradicted his well-fed, languid-looking face + +He shot a few glances at my samples, just to get rid of me, but he +liked the designs, and I could see that he found my prices +tempting + +"How soon will you be able to deliver five hundred?" he snarled + +"In three weeks." + +"Very well--go ahead!" And speaking in his jerky, impatient way, +he went on to specify how many cloaks he wanted of each kind + +I left him with my heart divided between unutterable triumph and +black despair. Five hundred cloaks! How would I raise the money +for so much raw material? It almost looked like another practical +joke + +By this time I was more than sure that the Chaikins had a +considerable little pile, but to turn to them for funds was +impossible. It would have let my cat out of the bag. I sought credit +at Claflin's and at half a dozen smaller places, but all in vain. I +could not help thinking of Nodelman's "credit face." Ah, if that +kind of a face had fallen to my lot! But it had not, it seemed. It +looked as if there were no hope for me + +Finally I took the necktie man into my confidence, the result being +that he unburdened himself of his own financial straits to me + +One afternoon I was moping around some of the side-streets off +lower Broadway in quest of some new place where I might try to +beg for credit, when I noticed the small sign-board of a +commission merchant. Upon entering the place I found a +fine-looking elderly American dictating something to a +stenographer. When the man had heard my plea be looked me over +from head to foot. + +I felt like a prisoner facing the jury which is about to announce its +verdict + +At last he said: "Well, you look pretty reliable. I guess I'll trust you +the goods for thirty days." + +It was all I could do to restrain myself from invoking benedictions +on his head and kissing his hands as my mother would have done +under similar circumstances + +"So I do have a 'credit face'!" I exclaimed to myself, gleefully + +When I found myself in the street again I looked at my reflection +in store windows, scanning my "credit face." + +The Chaikins took it for granted that I had paid for the goods on +the spot + +Things brightened up at our "factory." I ordered an additional +sewing-machine of the instalment agent and hired two +operators--poor fellows who were willing to work fourteen or +fifteen hours a day for twelve dollars a week. (The union had +again been revived, but it was weak, and my employees did not +belong to it.) As for myself, I toiled at my machine literally day +and night, snatching two or three hours' sleep at dawn, with some +bundles of cut goods or half-finished cloaks for a bed. Chaikin +spent every night, from 7 to 2, with me, cutting the goods and +doing the better part of the other work. Mrs. Chaikin, too, lent a +hand. Leaving Maxie in the care of her mother, she would spend +several hours a day in the factory, finishing the cloaks + +The five hundred cloaks were shipped on time. I was bursting with +consciousness of the fact that I was a manufacturer--that a big firm +out West (a firm of Gentiles, mind you!) was recognizing my +claim to the title. + +I was American enough to be alive to the special glamour of the +words, "out West." + +Goods in our line of business usually sold "for cash," which meant +ten days. + +Ten days more, then, and I should receive a big check from that +firm. That would enable me to start new operations. Accordingly, +I went out to look for more orders + +Whether my first success had put new confidence in me, or +whether my past experiences had somewhat rounded off my rough +edges and enabled me to speak to business people in a more +effective manner than I could have done before, the proprietor of +a small department store on upper Third Avenue let me show him +my samples. My prices made an impression on him. My cloaks +were five dollars apiece lower than he was in the habit of paying. +He looked askance at me, as though my figures seemed too good +to be true, until I found it the best policy to tell him the +unembellished truth. + +"The big manufacturers of whom you buy have big office +expenses," I explained. "They make a lot of fuss, and you've got to +pay for it. My principle is not to make fuss at the retailer's +expense. Our office costs us very, very little. We are plain people. +But that isn't all. Your big manufacturer pays for union labor, so +he takes it out of you. Now, we don't bother about these things. +We get the best work done for the lowest wages. +The big men in the business wouldn't even know where hands of +this kind could be got. We do." + +I took my departure with an order for three hundred cloaks, +expecting to begin work on them as soon as I received that check +"from out West." Things seemed to be coming my way. + +As I sat in an Elevated train going down-town I figured the profits +on the two orders and pictured other orders coming in. I beheld +our little factory crowded with machines, I heard their bewitching +whir-r, whir-r. Chaikin would have to leave the Manheimers, of +course + +In the afternoon of the sixth day, when I called at one of the +purchasing offices I have mentioned, I received the information +that the firm whose check I was awaiting so impatiently had +failed! + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE failure of the Western firm seemed to +have nipped my commercial career in the bud. The large order I +had received from its representative was apparently to be the +death as well as the birth of my glory. In my despair, I tried to +make a virtue of necessity. I was telling myself that it served me +right; that I had had no business to abandon my intellectual +pursuits. I was inclined to behold something like the hand of +Providence in the bankruptcy of that firm. At the same time I was +casting about in my mind for some way of raising new money +with which to pay the kindly commission merchant, get a new bill +of goods from him, and fill my new order. + +When I explained the matter to Mrs. Chaikin she was on the brink +of a fainting spell + +"You're a liar and a thief!" she shrieked. "There never was a +Western firm in the world. It's all a lie. You sold the goods for +cash." + +Her husband knew something about firms and credit, so I had no +difficulty in substantiating my assertion to him + +"It's only a matter of days when I shall get the big check that is +coming to me," I assured them. I went on to spin a long yarn, to +which she listened with jeers and outbursts of uncomplimentary +Yiddish + +One day I mustered courage and called on Mrs. Chaikin. I did so +on an afternoon when her husband was sure to be at work, +because I had a lurking feeling that, being alone with me, she +would be easier to deal with + +When she saw me she gasped. "What, you?" she said. "You have +the nerve to come up here?" + +"Come, come, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, earnestly. "Please be seated +and let us talk it all over in a business-like manner. With your +sense, and especially with your sense for business. you will +understand me." + +"Please don't flatter me," she demurred, sternly + +But I knew that nothing appealed to her vanity so much as being +thought a clever business woman, and I protested: "Flatter you! In +the first place, it is a well-known fact that women have more +sense than men. In the second place, it is the talk of every +cloak-shop that Mr. Chaikin owes his high position to you as +much as to his own ability. Everybody, everybody says so." + +I talked of "unforeseen difficulties," of a "well-known landlord" +whose big check I was expecting every day; I composed a story +about that landlord's father-in-law agreed with Mrs. Chaikin that it +had been a mistake on my part to trust the buyer of that Western +firm the goods without first consulting her; and the upshot was +that she made me stay to supper and that pending the arrival of +Chaikin I took Maxie to the Park + +The father-in-law of my story was Mr. Even, of course. I had +portrayed him vividly as coming to my rescue in my present +predicament, so vividly, indeed, that my own fib haunted me the +next day. The result was that in the evening I made myself as +presentable as I could, and repaired to the synagogue where he +spent much of his time reading Talmud + +I had not visited the place since that memorable day, my first day +in America. I recognized it at once. I was thrilled. The four-odd +years seemed twenty-four. + +Mr. Even was not there, but he soon came in. He had aged +considerably. He was beginning to look somewhat decrepit. His +dignity was tinged with the sadness of old age + +"Good evening, Mr. Even. Do you know me?" I began + +He scanned me closely, but failed to recognize me + +"I am David Levinsky, the 'green one' you befriended four and a +half years ago. Don't you remember me, Mr. Even? It was in this +very place where I had the good fortune to make your +acquaintance. I'm the son of the woman who was killed by +Gentiles, in Antomir," I added, mournfully + +"Oh yes, indeed!" he said, with a wistful smile, somewhat abashed. +He took snuff, looked me over once more, and, as if his memory +had been brightened by the snuff, he burst out: "Lord of the +World! You are that young man! Why, I confess I scarcely +recognize you. Of course I remember it all. Why, of course I +remember you. Well, well! How have you been getting along in +America?" + +"Can't complain. Not at all. You remember that evening? After you +provided me with a complete outfit, like a father fixing up his son +for his wedding-day, and you gave me five dollars into the +bargain, you told me not to call on you again until I was well +established in life. Do you remember that?" + +"Of course I do," he answered, with a beaming glance at two old +Talmudists who sat at their books close by + +"Well, here I am. I am running a cloak-factory." + +He began to question me about my affairs with sad curiosity. I said +that business was "good, too good, in fact," so that it required +somewhat more capital than I possessed. + +I soon realized, however, that he did not care for me now. My +Americanized self did not make the favorable impression that I +had made four and a half years before, when he gave me my first +American hair-cut + +I inquired after his daughter and his son-in-law, but my hint that +the latter might perhaps be willing to indorse a note for me +evoked an impatient grunt + +"My son-in-law! Why, you don't even know him!" he retorted, with +a suspicious look at me + +I turned it off with a joke and asked about the hen-pecked man. +Mr. Even had not seen him for four years. The other Talmudists +present had never even known him. A man with extremely long +black side-locks who spoke with a Galician accent became +interested. After Mr. Even went to his wonted seat at the east wall, +where he took up a book, this man said to me, with a sigh: "Oh, it +is not the old home. Over there people go to the same synagogue +all their lives, while here one is constantly on the move. They call +it a city. + +Pshaw! It is a market-place, a bazar, an inn, not a city! People are +together for a day and then, behold! they have flown apart. Where +to? Nobody knows. I don't know what has become of you and you +don't know what has become of me." + +"That's why there is no real friendship here," I chimed in, heartily. + +"That's why one feels so friendless, so lonely." + +My shop, of course, shut down, and I roamed about the streets a +good deal. I was restless. I continually felt nonplussed, ashamed to +look myself in the face, as it were. One forenoon I found myself +walking in the direction of Twenty-third Street and Lexington +Avenue. The college building was now a source of consolation. +Indeed, what was money beside the halo of higher education? I +paused in front of the building. There were several students on the +campus, all Jewish boys. I accosted one of them. I spoke to him +enviously, and left the place thrilling with a determination to drop +all thought of business, to take the entrance examination, and be a +college student at last. I was almost grateful to that Western firm +for going into bankruptcy + +And yet, even while I was tingling with this feeling, a voice +exclaimed in my heart, "Ah, if that Western firm had not failed!" + +The debt I owed the American commission merchant agonized me +without let-up. + +I couldn't help thinking of my "credit face." To disappoint him, of +all men, seemed to be the most brutal thing I had ever done. I +imagined myself obtaining just enough money to pay him; but, as +I did so, I could not resist the temptation of extending the sum so +as to go on manufacturing cloaks. I was incessantly cudgeling my +brains for some "angel" who would come to my financial rescue + +The spell of my college aspirations was broken once for all. My +Temple was destroyed. Nothing was left of it but vague yearnings +and something like a feeling of compunction which will assert +itself, sometimes, to this day + +The Talmud tells us how the destruction of Jerusalem and the +great Temple was caused by a hen and a rooster. The destruction +of my American Temple was caused by a bottle of milk. + +The physical edifice still stands, though the college has long since +moved to a much larger and more imposing building or group of +buildings. I find the humble old structure on Lexington Avenue +and Twenty-third Street the more dignified and the more +fascinating of the two. To me it is a sacred spot. It is the sepulcher +of my dearest ambitions, a monument to my noblest enthusiasm in +America. + + + + +BOOK IX + +DORA + + +CHAPTER I + + +"HOW about it?" Mrs. Chaikin said to me, ominously. + +"About what? What do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?" + +"Oh, you know what I mean. It is no use playing the fool and trying +to make a fool of me." + +The conversation was held in our deserted shop on an afternoon. +The three sewing-machines, the cutting-table, and the +pressing-table looked desolate. + +She spoke in an undertone, almost in a whisper, lest the secret of +her husband's relations with me should leak out and reach his +employers. She had been guarding that secret all along, but now, +that our undertaking had apparently collapsed, she was +particularly uneasy about it + +"I don't believe that store in the West has failed at all. In fact, I +know it has not. Somebody told me all about it." + +This was her method of cross-examining me. I read her a clipping +containing the news of the bankruptcy, but as she could not read it +herself, she only sneered. I reasoned with her, I pleaded, I swore; +but she kept sneering or nodding her head mournfully + +"I don't believe you. I don't believe you," she finally said, shutting +her eyes with a gesture of despair and exhaustion. "Do I believe a +dog when it barks? Neither do I believe you. I curse the day when +I first met you. It was the black year that brought you to us." She +fell to wringing her hands and moaning: "Woe is me! Woe is me!" + +Finally she tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs. In my +despair I longed for somebody to whom I could unbosom myself. I +thought of Meyer Nodelman. A self-made man and one who had +begun manufacturing almost penniless like myself, he seemed to +be just the man I needed. A thought glimmered through my mind, +"And who knows but he may come to my rescue I was going to call +at his warehouse, but upon second thought I realized that the seat +of his cold self-interest would scarcely be a favorable setting for +the interview and that I must try to entrap him in the humanizing +atmosphere of his mother's home for the purpose + +The next time I saw him at his mother's I took him up to my little +attic and laid my tribulations before him. I told him the whole +story, almost without embellishments, omitting nothing but +Chaikin's name + +"Is it all true?" he interrupted me at one point + +I swore that it was, and went on. At the end I offered to prove it all +to his satisfaction + +"You don't need to prove it to me," he replied. "What do I care?" +Then, suddenly, casting off his reserve, he blurted out: "Look here, +young fellow! If you think I am going to lend you money you are +only wasting time, for I am not." "And why not?" I asked, boldly, +with studied dignity + +"Why not! You better tell me why yes," he chuckled. "You have a +lot of spunk. That you certainly have, and you ought to make a +good business man, but I won't loan you money, for all that." + +"Weren't you once hard up yourself, Mr. Nodelman? You have +made a success of it, and now it would only be right that you +should help another fellow get up in the world. You won't lose a +cent by it, either. I take an oath on it." + +"You can't have an oath cashed in a bank, can you?" + +"Why did that commission merchant take a chance? If a Gentile is +willing to help a Jew, and one whom he had never seen before, +you should not hesitate, either." + +"Well, there is no use talking about it," was his final decision + +The following day I received a letter from him, inviting me to his +office + +His warehouse occupied a vast loft on a little street off Broadway. +Arrived there, I had to pass several men, all in their shirt-sleeves, +who were attacking mountains of cloth with long, narrow knives. +One of these directed me to a remote window, in front of which I +presently found Nodelman lecturing a man who wore a +tape-measure around his neck + +Nodelman kept me waiting, without offering me a scat, a good +half-hour. He was in his shirt-sleeves, like the others, yet he +looked far more dignified than I had ever seen him look before. It +was as though the environment of his little kingdom had made +another man of him + +Finally, he left the man with the tape-measure and silently led me +into his little private office, a narrow strip of partitioned-off space +at the other end of the loft + +When we were seated and the partition door was shut he said, with +grave mien, "Well," and fell silent again + +I gazed at him patiently + +"Well," he repeated, "I have thought it over." And again he paused. +At last he burst out: "I do want to help you, young fellow. You +didn't expect it, did you? I do want to help you. And do you know +why? Because otherwise you won't pay that Gentile and I don't +want a good-hearted Gentile to think that Jews are a bad lot. +That's number one. Number two is this: If you think Meyer +Nodelman is a hog, you don't know Meyer Nodelman. Number +three: I rather liked the way you talked yesterday. I said to myself, +said I: 'An educated fellow who can talk like that will be all right. +He ought to be given a lift, for most educated people are damn +fools.' Well, I'll tell you what I am willing to do for you. I'll get +you the goods for that order of yours, not for thirty days, but for +sixty. What do you think of that? Now is Nodelman a hog or is he +not? But that's as far as I am willing to go. I can only get you the +goods for that Third Avenue order. See? But that won't be enough +to help you out of your scrape, not enough for you to pay that good +Gentile on time." He engaged in some mental arithmetic by means +of which he reached the conclusion that I should need an +additional four hundred dollars, and he wound up by an +ultimatum: he would not furnish me the goods until I had +produced that amount + +"Look here, young fellow," he added; "since you were smart +enough to get that Gentile and Meyer Nodelman to help you out, it +ought not to be a hard job for you to get a third fellow to take an +interest in you. Do you remember what I told you about those +credit faces? I think you have got one." + +"I have an honest heart, too," I said, with a smile + +"Your heart I can't get into, so I don't know. See? Maybe there is a +rogue hiding there and maybe there isn't. But your face and your +talk certainly are all right. They ought to be able to get you some +more cash. And if they don't, then they don't deserve that I should +help you out, either. See?" He chuckled in appreciation of his own +syllogism + +"It's a nice piece of Talmud reasoning," I complimented him, with +an enthusiastic laugh. "But, seriously, Mr. Nodelman, I shall pay +you every cent. You run absolutely no risk." + +I pleaded with him to grant me the accommodation +unconditionally. I tried to convince him that I should contrive to +do without the additional cash. But he was obdurate, and at last I +took my leave + +"Wait a moment! What's your hurry? Are you afraid you'll be a +couple of minutes longer becoming a millionaire? There is +something I want to ask you." + +"What is it, Mr. Nodelman?" + +"How about your studying to be a doctor-philosopher?" he asked, +archly + +"Oh, well, one can attend to business and find time for books, too," +I answered + +I came away in a new transport of expectations and in a new agony +of despair at once. On the whole, however, my spirits were greatly +buoyed up. + +Encouraged by the result of taking Nodelman into my confidence, +I decided to try a similar heart-to-heart talk on Max Margolis, +better known to the reader as Maximum Max. He had some +money. + +I had seen very little of him in the past two years, having stumbled +upon him in the street but two or three times. But upon each of +these occasions he had stopped me and inquired about my affairs +with genuine interest. He was fond of me. I had no doubt about it. +And he was so good-natured. Our last chance meeting antedated +my new venture by at least six months, and he was not likely to +have any knowledge of it. I felt that he would be sincerely glad to +hear of it and I hoped that he would be inclined to help me launch +it. Anyhow, he seemed to be my last resort, and I was determined +to make my appeal to him as effective as I knew how + +As he had always seen me shabbily clad, I decided to overwhelm +him with a new suit of clothes. I needed one, at any rate + +After some seeking and inquiring, I found him in a Bowery +furniture-store, one of the several places from which he supplied +his instalment customers. + +It was about 10 o'clock in the morning + +"There is something I want to consult you about, Max," I said. +"Something awfully important to me. You're the only man I know +who could advise me and in whom I can confide," I added, with +an implication of great intimacy and affection. "It's a business +scheme, Max. I have a chance to make lots of money." + +The conversation was held in a dusky passage of the labyrinthine +store, a narrow lane running between two barricades of furniture + +"What is that? A business scheme?" he asked, in a preoccupied +tone of voice and straining his eyes to look me over. "You are +dressed up, I see. Quite prosperous, aren't you?" + +As we emerged into the glare of the Bowery he scrutinized my suit +once again. I quailed. I now felt that to have come in such a +screamingly new suit was a fatal mistake. I cursed myself for an +idiot of a smart Aleck. But he spoke to me with his usual +cordiality and my spirits rose again. However, he seemed to be +busy, and so I asked him to set an hour when he could see me at +leisure. We made an appointment for 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I +was to meet him at the same furniture-store; but upon second +thought, and with another glance at my new clothes, he said, +jovially: "Why, you are rigged out like a regular monarch! It is +quite an honor to invite you to the house. Come up, will you? +And, as I won't have to go out to meet you, you can make it 2 +o'clock, or half past." + + + +CHAPTER II + +MAX occupied the top floor of an old private house +on Henry Street, a small "railroad" apartment of two large, bright +rooms--a living-room and a kitchen--with two small, dark +bedrooms between them. The ceiling was low and the air +somewhat tainted with the odor of mold and dampness. I found +Max in the general living-room, which was also a dining-room, a +fat boy of three on his lap and a slender, pale girl of eight on a +chair close by. His wife, a slender young woman with a fine white +complexion and serious black eyes, was clearing away the lunch +things + +"Mrs. Margolis, Mr. Levinsky," he introduced us. "Plainly +speaking, this is my wifey and this is a friend of mine." + +As she was leaving the room for the kitchen he called after her, +"Dvorah! Dora! make some tea, will you?" + +She craned her neck and gave him a look of resentment. "It's a +good thing you are telling me that," she said. "Otherwise I +shouldn't know what I have got to do, should I?" + +When she had disappeared he explained to me that he variously +addressed her by the Yiddish or English form of her name + +"We are plain Yiddish folk," he generalized, good-humoredly + +A few minutes later, as Mrs. Margolis placed a glass of Russian +tea before me, he drew her to him and pinched her white cheek + +"What do you think of my wifey, Levinsky?" + +She smiled--a grave, deprecating smile--and took to pottering +about the house + +"And what do you think of these little customers?" he went on. +"Lucy, examine mamma in spelling. Quick! Dora, be a good girl, +sit down and let Levinsky see how educated you are." ("Educated" +he said in English, with the accent on the "a.") "What do you +want?" his wife protested, softly. "Mr. Levinsky wants to see you +on business, and here you are bothering him with all sorts of +nonsense + +"Never mind his business. It won't run away. Sit down, I say. It +won't take long." She yielded. Casting bashful side-glances at +nobody in particular, she seated herself opposite Lucy + +"Well?" she said, with a little laugh + +I thought her eyes looked too serious, almost angry. "Insane people +have eyes of this kind," I said to myself. I also made a mental note +of her clear, fresh, delicate complexion. Otherwise she did not +interest me in the least, and I mutely prayed Heaven to take her +out of the room + +"How do you spell 'great'?" the little girl demanded + +"G-r-e-a-t--great," her mother answered, with a smile + +"Book?" + +"B-o-o-k--book. Oh, give me some harder words." + +"Laughter." + +"L-a-u-g-h-t-e-r--laughter." + +"Is that correct?" Margolis turned to me, all beaming. "I wish I +could do as much. And nobody has taught her, either. She has +learned it all by herself. + +Little Lucy is the only teacher she ever had. But she will soon be +ahead of her. Won't she, Lucy?" + +"I'm afraid I am ahead of her already," Mrs. Margolis said, gaily, +yet flushed with excitement + +"You are not!" Lucy protested, with a good-natured pout + +"Shut up, bad girl you," her mother retorted, again with a bashful +side-glance + +"Is that the way you talk to your mamma?" Max intervened. "I'll +tell your teacher." + +I was on pins and needles to be alone with him and to get down to +the object of my visit + +Finally he said, brusquely: "Well, we have had enough of that. +Leave us alone, Dora. Go to the parlor and take the kids along." + +She obeyed + +When he heard of my venture he was interested. He often +interrupted me with boisterous expressions of admiration for my +subterfuges as well as for the plan as a whole. With all his +boisterousness, however, there was an air of caution about him, as +if he scented danger. When I finally said that all depended upon +my raising four hundred dollars his face clouded + +"I see, I see," he murmured, with sudden estrangement. "I see. I +see." "Don't lose courage," I said to myself. "Nodelman was +exactly like that at first. Go right ahead." + +I portrayed my business prospects in the most alluring colors and +gave Max to understand that if "somebody" advanced me the four +hundred dollars he would be sure to get it back in thirty days plus +any interest he might name + +"It would be terrible if I had to let it all go to pieces on account of +such a thing," I concluded + +There was a moment of very awkward silence. It was broken by +Max + +"It's really too bad. What are you going to do about it?" he said. +"Where can you get such a 'somebody'?" + +"I don't know. That's why I came to consult you. I thought you +might suggest some way. It would be a pity if I had to give it all +up on account of four hundred dollars." + +"Indeed it would. It would be terrible. Still, four hundred dollars is +not four hundred cents. I wish I were a rich man. I should lend it +to you at once. You know I should." + +"I should pay you every cent of it, Max." + +"You say it as if I had money. You know I have not." What I did +know was that he had, and he knew that I did + +He took to analyzing the situation and offering me advice. Why not +go to that kindly Gentile, the commission merchant, make a clean +breast of it, and obtain an extension of time? Why not apply to +some money-lender? Why not make a vigorous appeal to +Nodelman? He seemed to be an obliging fellow, so if I pressed +him a little harder he might give me the cash as well as the goods + +I was impelled to retort that advice was cheap, and he apparently +read my thoughts + +Presently he said, with genuine ardor: "I tell you what, Levinsky. +Why not try to get your old landlady to open her stocking? From +what you have told me, she ought not to be a hard nut to crack if +you only go about it in the right way. + +This suggestion made a certain appeal to me, but I would not +betray it. I continued resentfully silent + +"You just try her, Levinsky. She'll let you have the four hundred +dollars, or half of it, at least." + +"And if she does, her son will refuse to get me the goods," I +remarked, with a sneer. + +"Nonsense. If you know how to handle her, she will realize that +she must keep her mouth shut until after she gets the money +back." + +"Oh, what's the use?" I said, impatiently. "I must get the cash at +once, or all is lost." + +Again he spoke of money-lenders. He went into details about one +of them and offered to ascertain his address for me. He evidently +felt awkward about his part in the matter and eager to atone for it +in some way + +"Why should a usurer trust me?" I said, rising to go. + +"Wait. What's your hurry? If that money-lender hears your story, he +may trust you. He is a peculiar fellow, don't you know. When he +takes a fancy to a man he is willing to take a chance on him. Of +course, the interest would be rather high." He paused abruptly, +wrinkled his forehead with an effect of pondering some new +scheme, and said: "Wait. I think I have a better plan. + +I'll see if I can't get you the money without a money-lender." With +this he sprang to his feet and had his wife bring him his coat and +hat. "I'll be back in less than half an hour," he said. "Dvorah dear, +give Levinsky some more tea, will you? I am going out for a few +minutes. Don't let him be downhearted." Then, shaking a finger of +warning at me, he said, playfully, "Only take care that you don't +fall in love with her!" And he was gone + +"It's all play-acting," I thought. "He just wants me to believe he is +trying to do something for me." But, of course, I was not +altogether devoid of hope that I was mistaken and that he was +making a sincere effort to raise a loan for me + +Mrs. Margolis went into the kitchen immediately her husband +departed. + +Presently she came back, carrying a glass of tea on a saucer. She +placed it before me with an embarrassed side-glance, brought +some cookies, and seated herself at the far end of the table. I +uttered some complimentary trivialities about the children + +When a man finds himself alone with a woman who is neither his +wife nor a close relative, both feel awkward. It is as though they +heard a whisper, "There is nobody to watch the two of you." + +Still, confused as I was, I was fully aware of her tempting +complexion and found her angry black eyes strangely interesting. +Upon the whole, however, I do not think she made any appeal to +me save by virtue of the fact that she was a woman and that we +were alone. I was tense with the consciousness of that fact, and +everything about her disturbed me. She wore a navy-blue summer +wrapper and I noticed the way it set off the soft whiteness of her +neck. I remarked to myself that she looked younger than her +husband, that she must be about twenty-eight or thirty, perhaps. +My glances apparently caused her painful embarrassment. Finally +she got up again, making a pretense of bustling about the room. It +seemed to me that when she was on her feet she looked younger +than when she was seated + +I asked the boy his name, and he answered in lugubrious, but +distinct, accents: "Daniel Margolis." + +"He speaks like a grown person," I said + +"She used to speak like that, too, when she was of his age," my +hostess replied, with a glance in the direction of her daughter + +"Did you?" I said to Lucy + +The little girl grinned coyly + +"Why don't you answer the gentleman's question?" her mother +rebuked her, in English. "It's Mr. Levinsky, a friend of papa's." + +Lucy gave me a long stare and lost all interest in me. "Don't you +like me at all? Not even a little bit?" I pleaded + +She soon unbent and took to plying me with questions. Where did I +live? Was I a "customer peddler "like her papa? How long had I +been in America? (A question which a child of the East Side hears +as often as it does queries about the weather.) "Can you spell?" +"No," I answered. "Not at all?" + +"Not at all!" + +"Shame! But my papa can't spell, neither." + +"Shut up, you bad girl you!" her mother broke in with a laugh. +"Vere you lea'n such nasty things? By your mamma? The +gentleman will think by your mamma." + +She delivered her a little lecture in English, taking pains to +produce the "th" and the American "r," though her "w's" were "v's." + +She urged me not to let the tea get cold. As I took hold of the tall, +thin, cylindrical glass I noted that it was scrupulously clean and +that its contents had a good clear color. I threw a glance around +the room and I saw that it was well kept and tidy + +Mrs. Margolis took a seat again. Lucy, with part of a cooky in her +mouth, stepped over to her and seated herself on her lap, throwing +her arm around her. She struck me as the very image of her +mother. Presently, however, I discovered that she resembled her +father quite as closely. It seemed as though the one likeness lay on +the surface of her face, while the other loomed up from +underneath, as the reflection of a face does from under the surface +of water. Lucy soon wearied of her mother and walked over to my +side. I put her on my lap. She would not let me pat her, but she did +not mind sitting on my knees. + +"Are you a good speller?" I asked + +"I c'n spell all the words we get at school," she answered, sagely + +"How do you spell 'colonel'?" + +"We never got it at school. But you can't spell it, either." + +"How do you know I can't? Maybe I can. Well, let us take an easier +word. How do you spell 'because'?" + +She spelled it correctly, her mother joining in playfully. I gave +them other words, addressing myself to both, and they made a +race of it, each trying to head off or outshout the other. At first +Mrs. Margolis did so with feigned gaiety, but her face soon set +into a grave look and glowed with excitement + +At last I asked them to spell "coefficient." + +"We never got it at school," Lucy demurred + +"I don't know what it means," said Mrs. Margolis, with a shrug of +her shoulders. + +"It means something in mathematics, in high figuring," I explained +in Yiddish + +Mrs. Margolis shrugged her shoulders once more + +I asked Lucy to try me in spelling. She did and I acquitted myself +so well that she exclaimed: "Oh, you liar you! Why did you say +you didn't know how to spell?" + +Once more her mother took her to task for her manners + +"Is that the vay to talk to a gentleman? Shame! Vere you lea'n up to +be such a pig? Not by your mamma!" + +When Max came back Lucy hastened to inform him that I could +spell "awful good." To which he replied in Yiddish that he knew I +was a smart fellow, that I could read and write "everything," and +that I had studied to go to college and "to be a doctor, a lawyer, or +anything." + +His wife looked me over with bashful side-glances. "Really?" she +said. + +Max told me a lame story about his errand and promised to let me +know the "final result." It was clearer than ever to me that he was +making a fool of me. + + + +CHAPTER III + +WHEN I hear a new melody and it makes an appeal +to me its effect usually lasts only as long as I hear it, but it is +almost sure to reassert itself later on. I scarcely ever think of it +during the first two, three, or four days, but then, all of a sudden, +it will pop up in my brain and haunt me a few days in succession, +humming itself and nagging me like a living thing. + +This was precisely what happened to me with regard to Mrs. +Margolis. During the first two days after I left her house I never +gave her a thought, but on the third her shy side-glances suddenly +loomed up in my mind and would not leave it. Just her black, +serious eyes and those shy looks of theirs gleaming out of a white, +strikingly interesting complexion. Her face in general was a mere +blur in my memory + +I was incessantly racking my brain over my affairs. I was so +low-spirited and worried that I was unconscious of the food I ate +or of the streets through which I passed, yet her manner of darting +embarrassed glances out of the corner of her eye and her +complexion were never absent from my mind. I felt like seeing +her once more. However, the prospect of calling at her house was +now anything but alluring. I could almost see the annoyed air with +which her husband would receive me + +I sought out two usurers and begged each of them to grant me the +loan, but they unyieldingly insisted on more substantial security +than the bare story or my venture. I made other efforts to raise the +money. I approached several people, including the proprietor of +the little music-store. All to no purpose + +One afternoon, eight or ten days after my call at the Margolises', +when I came to my "factory" I found under the door a closed +envelope bearing the name of that Western firm. It contained a +typewritten letter and a check in full payment of my bill. Also a +circular explaining that the firm had been reorganized with plenty +of capital, and naming as one of its new directors a man who, +from the tone of the circular, seemed to be of high standing in the +financial world + +My head was in a whirl. The desolate-looking sewing-machines of +my deserted shop seemed to have suddenly brightened up. I +looked at the check again and again. The figure on it literally +staggered me. It seemed to be part of a fairy tale + +I rushed over to Nodelman's office, but found him gone for the +day. The next thing on my program was to carry the glad news to +the Chaikins and to discuss plans for the immediate future with +my partner. But Chaikin never came home before 7. So I first +dropped in on the Margolises to flash my check in Max's face and, +incidentally, to see his wife + +I found him playing with his fat boy + +"Hello, Max! I have good news!" I shouted, excitedly. Which +actually meant: "Don't be uneasy, Max. I am not going to ask you +for a loan again." + +When he had examined the check he said, sheepishly: "Now you +are all right. Why, something told me all along that you would get +it." His wife came in, apparently from the kitchen. She returned +my "Good evening" with free and easy amiability, without any +shyness or side-glances, and disappeared again. I felt annoyed. I +was tempted to call after her to come back and let me take a good +look at her + +"Say, Levinsky, you must have thought I would not trust you for +the four hundred dollars," Max said. "May I have four hundred +days of distress if I have a cent. What few dollars I do have is +buried in the business. So help me, God! Let a few of my +customers stop paying and I would have to go begging. It's the real +truth I am telling you. Honest." + +"I know, I know," I said, awkwardly. "Well, it was as if the check +had dropped from heaven. Thank God! Now I can begin to do +things." + +I went over the main facts of my venture, this time with a touch of +bluster. + +And he listened with far readier attention and more genuine +interest than he had done on the previous occasion. We discussed +my plans and my prospects. + +At one point, when I referred to the Western check, he asked to see +it again, just for curiosity's sake, and as I watched him look it over +I could almost see the change that it was producing in his attitude +toward me. I do not know to what extent he had previously +believed my story, if at all. One thing was clear: the magic check +now made it all real to him. As he handed me back the strip of +paper he gave me a look that seemed to say: "So you are a +manufacturer, you whom I have always known as a miserable +ragamuffin." + +Mrs. Margolis reappeared. Her husband told her of my great check +and she returned some trivialities. As we thus chatted, I made a +mental note of the fascinating feminine texture of her flesh + +He made me stay to supper. It was a cheery repast. As though to +make amends for his failure to respond when I knocked at his +door, Max overwhelmed me with attention + +We were eating cold sorrel soup, prepared in the old Ghetto way, +with cream, bits of boiled egg, cucumber, and scallions + +"How do you like it?" he asked + +"Delicious! And the genuine article, too." + +"'The genuine article'!" he mocked me. "What's the use praising it +when you eat it like a bird? What's the matter with you? Are you +bashful? Fire away, old man!" Then to his wife: "Why do you keep +quiet, Dvorah? Why don't you tell him to eat like a man and not +like a bird?" + +"Maybe he doesn't care for my cooking," she jested, demurely + +"Why, why," I replied. "The sorrel soup is fit for a king." + +"You mean for a president," Max corrected me. "We are in +America, not in Europe." + +"How do you know the President of the United States would care +for a plate of cold sorrel soup?" + +"And how do you know a king would?" "If you care for it, I am +satisfied," the hostess said to me + +"I certainly do. I haven't eaten anything like it since I left home," I +replied + +"Feed him well, Dvorah. Now is your chance. He will soon be a +millionaire, don't you know. Then he won't bother about calling +on poor people like us." + +"But I have said the sorrel soup is fit for a king, and a king has +many millions," I rejoined. "I shall always be glad to come, +provided Lucy and Dannie have no objection." "You remember +their names, don't you?" Mrs. Margolis said, beamingly. "You +certainly have a good memory." + +"Who else should have one?" her husband chimed in. "I have told +you he was going to study to be a doctor or a lawyer. Lucy, did +you hear what uncle said? If you let him in he will come to see us +even when he is worth a million. What do you say? Will you let +him in?" + +Lucy grinned childishly + +Max did most of the talking. He entertained me with stories of +some curious weddings which he said had recently been +celebrated in his dance-halls, and, as usual, it was not easy to +draw a line of demarkation between fact and fiction. Of one +bridegroom, who had agreed to the marriage under threats of +violence from the girl's father, he said: "You should have seen the +fellow! He looked like a man going to the electric chair. They +were afraid he might bolt, so the bride's father and brother, big, +strapping fellows both, stuck to him like two detectives. 'You had +better not make monkey business,' they said to him. 'If you don't +want a wedding, you'll have a funeral.' That's exactly what they +said to him. I was standing close to them and I heard it with my +own ears. May I not live till to-morrow if I did not." Mrs. +Margolis looked down shamefacedly. She certainly was not +unaware of her husband's failing, and she obviously took anything +but pride in it. As I glanced at her face at this moment it struck me +as a singularly truthful face. "Those eyes of hers do not express +anger, but integrity," I said to myself. And the more I looked at +her, watched her gestures, and listened to her voice, the stronger +grew my impression that she was a serious-minded, ingenuous +woman, incapable of playing a part. Her mannerisms were mostly +her version of manners, and those that were not were frankly +affected, as it were + +The meal over and the dishes washed, Mrs. Margolis caused Lucy +to bring her school reader and began to read it aloud, Lucy or I +correcting her pronunciation where it was faulty. She was frankly +parading her intellectual achievements before me, and I could see +that she took them quite seriously. + +She was very sensitive about the mistakes she made. She accepted +our corrections, Lucy's and mine, with great earnestness, often +with a gesture of annoyance and mortification at the failure of her +memory + +When I bade them good night Max said, heartily, in English, "Call +again, Levinsky." And he added, in a mixture of English and +Yiddish, "Don't be a stranger, even if you are a manufacturer." + +"Call again," his wife echoed, affably + +"Call again!" shouted Dannie, in his funereal voice + +I left with the comfortable feeling of having spent an hour or two +in a house where I was sincerely welcome + +"It's a good thing to have real friends," I soliloquized in a transport +of good spirits, on my way to the Elevated station. "Now I sha'n't +feel all alone in the world. There is at least one house where I can +call and feel at home." + +I beheld Mrs. Margolis's face and her slender figure and I was +conscious of a remote desire to see her again + +I was in high feather. While the Elevated train was carrying me +up-town I visioned an avalanche of new orders for my shop and a +spacious factory full of machines and men. I saw myself building +up a great business. An ugly thought flashed through my mind: +Why be saddled with a partner? Why not get rid of Chaikin? I +belittled the part which his samples had played in my successful +start, and it seemed to be a cruel injustice to myself to share my +fortune with a man who had no more brains than a cat. But I +instantly saw the other side of the situation: It was Chaikin's +models that had made the Manheimers what they were, and if I +clung to him until he could afford to let me announce him as my +partner the very news of it would be a tremendous boost for my +factory. And then I had a real qualm of compunction for having +entertained that thought even for a single moment. My heart +warmed to Chaikin and his family. "I shall be faithful to them," I +vowed inwardly. + +"They have been so good to me. We must be absolutely devoted to +each other. + +Their house, too, will be like a home to me. Oh, it is so sweet to +have friends, real friends." + +It was close upon 10 o'clock when I reached the Chaikins' flat in +Harlem. I had barely closed the door behind me when I whipped +out the check, and, dangling it before Mrs. Chaikin, I said, +radiantly: "Good evening. Guess what it is!" "The check you +expected from your uncle or cousin or whatever he is to you. + +Is it?" she conjectured + +"No. It's something far better," I replied. "It's a check from the +Western company, and for the full amount, too." And, although I +was fairly on the road to atheism, I exclaimed, with a thrill of +genuine pity, "Oh, God has been good to us, Mrs. Chaikin!" + +I let her see the figures, which she could scarcely make out. Then +her husband took a look at the check. He did know something +about figures, so he read the sum out aloud + +Instead of hailing it with joy, as I had expected her to do, she said +to me, glumly: "And how do we know that you did not receive +more?" + +"But that was the bill," her husband put in + +"I am not asking you, am I?" she disciplined him + +"But it is the amount on the bill," I said, with a smile + +"And how do we know that it is?" she demanded. "It's you who +write the bills, and it's you who get the checks. What do we +know?" + +"Mrs. Chaikin! Mrs. Chaikin!" I remonstrated. "Why should you be +so suspicious? Can't you see that I am the most devoted friend you +people ever had? God has blessed us; we are making a success of +our business so we must be devoted to one another, while here +you imagine all kinds of nonsense." + +"A woman will be a woman," Chaikin muttered, with his sheepish +smile + +The unfeigned ardor of my plea produced an impression on Mrs. +Chaikin. + +Still, she insisted upon receiving her husband's share of the profits +at once in spot cash. I argued again + +"Why, of course you are going to get your share of the profits," I +said, genially. "Of course you are. Only we must first pay for the +goods of those five hundred coats and for some other things. +Mustn't we? Then, too, there is that other order to fill. We need +more goods and cash for wages and rent and other expenses. + +"But you said you were going to get it all yourself, and now you +want us to pay for it. You think you are smart, don't you?" + +Her husband opened his mouth, but she waved it shut before she +had any idea what he wanted to say + +"Anybody could fool you," she said. "'When a fool goes shopping +there is rejoicing among the shopkeepers.'" + +With our joint efforts we finally managed to placate her, however, +and the next evening our shop was the scene of feverish activity. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +I FILLED my Third Avenue order and went on +soliciting other business. The season was waning, but I obtained a +number of small orders and laid foundations for future sales. Our +capital was growing apace, but we often lacked working cash + +After I paid the debt I owed Meyer Nodelman I obtained other +favors from him. He took a sponsorial interest in my business and +often offered me the benefit of his commercial experience in the +form of maxims + +"Don't bite off more than you can chew, Levinsky," he would tell +me. + +"Finding it easy to get people to trust you is not enough. You must +also find it easy to pay them." + +Some of his other rules were: "Be pleasant with the man you deal +with, even if he knows you don't mean it. + +He likes it, anyway." + +"Take it from me, Levinsky: honesty is the best policy. There is +only one line of business in which dishonesty pays: the burglar +business, provided the burglar does not get caught. If I thought +lying could help my business, I should lie day and night. But I +have learned that it hurts far more than it helps. Be sure that the +other fellow believes what you say. If you have his confidence you +have him by the throat." + +It was not always easy to comply with Meyer's tenets, however. +The inadequacy of my working capital often forced me to have +recourse to subterfuges that could not exactly be called honorable. +One day, when we had some bills to meet two days before I could +expect to obtain the cash, I made out and signed checks, but +inclosed each of them in the wrong envelope--this supposed act of +inadvertence gaining me the needed two days of grace. On another +occasion I sent out a number of checks without my signature, +which presumably I had forgotten to affix. There were instances +when I was so hard pressed for funds that the fate of our factory +hinged on seventy-five or a hundred dollars. In one of these crises +I bought two gold watches on the instalment plan, for the express +and sole purpose of pawning them for fifty dollars. I bought the +watches of two men who did not know each other, and returned +them as soon as I could spare the cash to redeem them, forfeiting +the several weekly payments which I had made on the pretended +purchases. + +There were instances, too, when I had to borrow of my employees +a few dollars with which to buy cotton. Needless to say that all +this happened in the early stages of my experience as a +manufacturer. I have long since been above and beyond such +methods. Indeed, business honor and business dignity are often a +luxury in which only those in the front ranks of success can +indulge. But then there are features of the game in which the small +man is apt to be more honorable and less cruel than the financial +magnate + +I was continually consulting Max on my affairs. Not that I needed +his advice or expected to act upon it. These confidential talks +seemed to promote our intimacy and to enhance the security of the +welcome I found in his house. A great immigrant city like New +York or Chicago is full of men and women who are alone amid a +welter of human life. For these nothing has a greater glamour than +a family in whose house they might be made to feel at home. I +was one of these desolate souls. I still missed my mother. The +anniversary of her death was still a feast of longing agony and +spiritual bliss to me. I scarcely ever visited the synagogue of the +Sons of Antomir these days, but on that great day I was sure to be +there. Forgetful of my atheism, I would place a huge candle for +her soul, attend all the three services, without omitting a line, and +recite the prayer for the dead with sobs in my heart. I had craved +some family who would show me warm friendship. The +Margolises were such a family (Meyer Nodelman never invited +me to his house). They were a godsend to me + +Max was essentially a hospitable man, and really fond of me. As +for his wife, who received me with the same hearty welcome as +he, her liking for me was primarily based, as she once put it +herself in the presence of her husband, upon my intellectual +qualifications + +"It's good to have educated people come to the house," she +remarked. "It's good for the children and for everybody else." "I +knew she would like you," Max said to me. "She would give her +head for education. Only better look out, you two. See that you +don't fall in love with each other. Ha, ha!" + +Sometimes there were other visitors in the house--some of Max's +friends, his and her fellow-townspeople, her relatives, or some +neighbor. Dora's great friend was a stout woman with flaxen hair +and fishy eyes, named Sadie, or Mrs. Shornik, whose little girl, +Beckie, was a classmate of Lucy's, the acquaintance and devoted +intimacy of the two mothers having originated in the intimacy of +the two school-girls. Sadie lived several blocks from the +Margolises, but she absolutely never let a day pass without calling +on her, if it were only for just time enough to kiss her. She was +infatuated with Dora, and Beckie was infatuated with Lucy + +"They just couldn't live without one another," Max said, after +introducing me to Sadie and explaining the situation + +"Suppose Lucy and Beckie had not happened to be in the same +school," I jested, addressing myself to the two women. "What +would you have done then?" + +"This shows that we have a good God in heaven," Sadie returned, +radiantly. + +"He put the children in the same school so that we might meet." + +"'A providential match,'" I observed. + +"May it last for many, many years," Sadie returned, devoutly + +"Say, women!" Max shouted, "you have been more than five +minutes without kissing. What's the matter with you?" + +At this, Sadie, with mock defiance, walked up to Mrs. Margolis, +threw her arms around her, and gave her a luscious smack on the +lips + +"Bravo! And now you, kids!" Max commanded + +With a merry chuckle the two little girls flew into each other's +arms and kissed. Lucy had dark hair like Dora's, and Beckie +flaxen hair like Sadie's, so when their heads were close together +they were an amusing reduced copy of their mothers as these had +looked embracing and kissing a minute before + +Max often dropped in to see me at my factory, and when I was not +busy we would talk of my cloaks, of his instalment business, or of +women. Women were his great topic of conversation, as usual. +But then these talks of his no longer found a ready listener in me. +Now, that I knew his wife, they jarred on me. A decided change +had come over me in this respect. I remember it vividly. It was as +if his lewd discourses desecrated her name and thereby offended +me. It may be interesting to note, however, that he never took up +this kind of topics when we were in his house, not even when his +wife was out + +Sometimes I would have supper at his house. More often, +however--usually on Monday, when Max seldom went to the +dance-halls--I would come after supper and spend the rest of the +evening there. Sometimes the Shorniks would drop in--Sadie, her +husband, and Beckie. Ben Shornik and Max would play a game of +pinochle, while I, who never cared for cards, would chat with the +women or entertain them by entertaining the children. Ben--as I +came into the habit of calling him--was a spare little man with an +extremely high forehead. He was an insurance-collector and only +one degree less illiterate than Max; but because he had the +"forehead of a learned man," and because it was his business to go +from house to house with a long, thick book under his arm, he +affected longish hair, flowing black neckties, and a certain +pomposity of manner. One of his ways of being tremendously +American was to snap his fingers ferociously and to say, "I don't +care a continental!" or, "One, two, three, and there you are!" The +latter exclamation he would be continually murmuring to himself +when he was absorbed in pinochle. + + + +CHAPTER V + +ONE evening, when the Shorniks and I were at +Max's house, and Max and Ben were having their game of +pinochle, the conversation between the women and myself turned +upon Dora's efforts to obtain education through her little daughter. +Encouraged by Sadie and myself, Dora let herself loose and told us +much of Lucy's history, or, rather, of her own history as Lucy's +mother. In her crude, lumbering way and with flushed cheeks she +talked with profound frankness and quaint introspective insight, in +the manner of one touching upon things that are enshined in +innermost recesses of one's soul + +She depicted the thrills of joyous surprise with which she had +watched Lucy, in her infancy, master the beginnings of speech. +Sometimes her delight would be accompanied by something akin +to fright. There had been moments when it all seemed unreal and +weird + +"The little thing seemed to be a stranger to me," she said. "Or else, +she did not seem to be a human being at all." + +The next moment she would recognize her, as it were, and then she +would kiss and yearn over her in a mad rush of passion + +The day when she took Lucy to school--about two years +before--was one of the greatest days in Dora's life. She would then +watch her learn to associate written signs with spoken words as +she had once watched her learn to speak. + +But that was not all. She became jealous of the child. She herself +had never been taught to read even Hebrew or Yiddish, much less +a Gentile language, while here, lo and behold! her little girl +possessed a Gentile book and was learning to read it. She was +getting education, her child, just like the daughter of the landlord +of the house in Russia in which Dora had grown up + +"C-a-t--cat," Lucy would spell out. "R-a-t--rat. M-a-t--mat." + +And poor Dora would watch the performance with mixed joy and +envy and exclamations like: "What do you think of that snip of a +thing! Did you ever?" + +Lucy's school-reader achievements stirred a novel feeling of rivalry +in Dora's breast. When the little girl could spell half a dozen +English words she hated herself for her inferiority to her + +"The idea of that kitten getting ahead of me! Why, it worried the +life out of me!" she said. "You may think it foolish, but I couldn't +help it. I kept saying to myself, 'She'll grow up and be an educated +American lady and she'll be ashamed to walk in the street with +me.' Don't we see things like that? People will beggar themselves +to send their children to college, only to be treated as fools and +greenhorns by them. I call that terrible. Don't you? Well, I am not +going to let my child treat me like that. Not I. I should commit +suicide first. I want my child to respect me, not to look down on +me. If she reads a book she is to bear in mind that her mother is no +ignorant slouch of a greenhorn, either." + +A next-door neighbor, a woman who could read English, would +help Lucy with her spelling lesson of an evening. This seemed to +have established special relations between the child and that +woman from which Dora was excluded + +She made up her mind to learn to read. If Lucy could manage it, +she, her mother, could. So she caused the child to teach her to +spell out words in her First Reader. At first she pretended to treat +it as a joke, but inwardly she took it seriously from the very +outset, and later, under the intoxicating effect of the progress she +was achieving, these studies became the great passion of her life. +Whenever Lucy recited some new lines, learned at school, she +would not rest until she, too, had learned them by heart. + +Here are two "pieces" which she proudly recited to us: "The snow +is white, The sky is blue, The sun is bright, And so are you." + +"Our ears were made to hear, Our tongues were made to talk, Our +eyes were made to see, Our feet were made to walk." + +Her voice, as she declaimed the lines, attracted Lucy's attention, so +she sent her and Beckie into the kitchen + +"She doesn't know what a treasure she is to me," she said to us. +Then, after she finished the two verses, she remarked, wistfully, +"Well, my own life is lost, but she shall be educated." + +"Why? Why should you talk like that, Dora?" Sadie protested, her +fishy eyes full of tragedy. "Why, you are only beginning to live." + +"Of course she is," I chimed in. + +"Well," Dora rejoined, "anyhow, I am afraid I love her too much. +Sometimes it seems to me I am going crazy over her. I love +Dannie, too, of course. + +When he happens to hurt a finger or to hit his dear little head +against something I can't sleep. Is he not my flesh and blood like +Lucy? Still, Lucy is different." She paused and then rose from her +seat, saying, with a smile: "Wait. I am going to show you +something." She went into the kitchen and came back, holding a +tooth-brush in either hand. "Guess what it is." + +"Two tooth-brushes," I answered, with perplexed gaiety + +"Aren't you smart! I know they are not shoe-brushes, but what kind +of tooth-brushes? How did I come by them? That's the question. +Did I use a tooth-brush in my mother's house?" + +She then told me how Lucy, coming from school one day, had +announced an order from the teacher that every girl in the class +must bring a tooth-brush the next morning + +Sadie nodded confirmation + +"Of course, I went to work and bought, not one brush, but two," +Dora pursued. "I am as good as Lucy, am I not? If she is worth +twelve cents, I am. And if she is American lady enough to use a +tooth-brush, I am." + +Lucy is not a usual name on the East Side. It was, in fact, the +principal of the school who had recommended it, at Dora's +solicitation. The little girl had hitherto been called Lizzie, the +commonplace East Side version of Leah, her Hebrew name. Dora +never liked it. It did not sound American enough, for there were +Lizzies or Lizas in Europe, too. Any "greenhorn" might bear such +a name. So she called on Lizzie's principal and asked her to +suggest some "nicer name" for her daughter + +"I want a real American one," she said + +The principal submitted half a dozen names beginning with "L," +and the result was that Lizzie became Lucy + +Dora went over every spelling lesson with the child. It was so +sweet to be helpful to her in this way. Lucy, on her part, had to +reciprocate by hearing her mother spell the same words, and often +they would have a spelling-match. + +All of which, as I could see, had invested Lucy with the fascination +of a spiritual companion + +The child had not been at school many weeks when she began to +show signs of estrangement from her mother-tongue. Her Yiddish +was rapidly becoming clogged with queer-sounding "r's" and with +quaintly twisted idioms. Yiddish words came less and less readily +to her tongue, and the tendency to replace them with their English +equivalents grew in persistence. Dora would taunt her on her +"Gentile Yiddish," yet she took real pride in it. Finally, Lucy +abandoned her native tongue altogether. She still understood her +parents, of course, but she now invariably addressed them or +answered their Yiddish questions in English. As a result, Dora +would make efforts to speak to her in the language that had +become the child's natural means of expression. It was a sorry +attempt at first; but she was not one to give up without a hard +struggle. She went at it with great tenacity, listening intently to +Lucy's English and trying to repeat words and phrases after her. +And so, with the child's assistance, conscious or unconscious, she +kept adding to her practical acquaintance with the language, until +by the end of Lucy's first school year she spoke it with +considerable fluency + +Dora tried her hand at writing, but little Lucy proved a poor +penmanship-teacher, and she was forced to confine herself to +reading. She forged ahead of her, reading pages which Lucy's +class had not yet reached. + +To take Lucy to school was one of the keen joys of Dora's +existence. Very often they would fall in with Lucy's bosom friend + +"Good morning, Lucy." + +"Good morning, Beckie." + +As she described the smiling, childishly lady-like way in which the +little girls exchanged their greetings and then intertwined their +little arms as they proceeded on their way together, Sadie's fishy +eyes filled with tears + +"Oh, how sweet it is to be a mother!" Dora said + +"I should say it was," her chum and follower echoed, wiping her +tears and laughing at once + +There was a curious element of superstition in Dora's attitude +toward her little girl. She had taken it into her head that Lucy had +been playing the part of a mascot in her life + +"I was a bag of bones until she was born," she said. "Why, people +who are put into the grave look better than I did. But my birdie +darling came, and, well, if I don't look like a monkey now, I have +her to thank. It was after her birth that I began to pick up." She +had formed the theory that the child was born to go to school for +her mother's sake as well as her own--a little angel sent down +from heaven to act as a messenger of light to her + +Her story made a strong impression on me. "Max is not worthy of +her," I reflected. I wondered whether she was fully aware what +manner of man he was + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SOMETIMES we would go to the Jewish theater +together, Max, Dora, and I, the children being left at Sadie's +house. Once, when Max's lodge had a benefit performance and he +had had some tickets for sale, we made up a party of five: the two +couples and myself. On that occasion I met Jake Mindels at the +playhouse. He was now studying medicine at the University +Medical College, and it was a considerable time since I had last +seen him. To tell the truth, I had avoided meeting him. I hated to +stand confessed before him as a traitor to my dreams of a college +education, and I begrudged him his medical books. + +I took Max and Dora to see an American play. He did not +understand much of what he saw and was bored to death. As for +her, she took in scarcely more than did her husband, though she +understood many of the words she heard, but then she reverently +followed the good manners of the "real Americans" on the stage, +and the sound of their "educated" English seemed to inspire her +with mixed awe and envy + +Once, on a Monday evening, when I called on the Margolises, I +found Max out. + +Dora seemed to be ill at ease in my company, and I did not stay +long. It seemed natural to fear that Max, who gave so much +attention to the relations between the sexes, should view visits of +this kind with misgivings. His playful warnings that we should +beware of falling in love with each other seemed to be always in +the air, and on that evening when he was away and we found +ourselves alone I seemed to hear their echo more distinctly than +ever. + +It had a disquieting effect on me, that echo, and I decided never to +call unless Max was sure to be at home. I enjoyed their hospitality +too much to hazard it rashly. Moreover, Max and Dora lived in +peace and I was the last man in the world to wish to disturb it + +To my surprise, however, he did not seem to be jealous of me in +the least. + +Quite the contrary. He encouraged my familiarities with her, so +much so that I soon drifted into the habit of addressing her as +Dora + +The better I knew her the greater was the respect with which she +inspired me. I thought her an unusual woman, and I looked up to +her + +It became a most natural thing that I should propose myself as a +boarder. + +Thousands of families like the Margolises kept boarders to lighten +the burden of rent-day + +The project had been trailing in my mind for some time and, I +must confess, the fact that Max stayed out till the small hours four +or five nights a week had something to do with it + +"You would be alone with her," Satan often whispered. Still, there +was nothing definitely reprehensible in this reflection. It was the +prospect of often being decorously alone with a woman who +inspired me with respect and interested me more and more keenly +that tempted me. Vaguely, however, I had a feeling that I was on +the road to falling in love with her + +One evening, as I complained of my restaurant meals and of +certain inconveniences of my lodgings, Max said: "Nothing like +being married, Levinsky. Take my advice and get you a nice little +wifey. One like mine, for instance." + +"Like yours! The trouble is that there is only one such, and you +have captured her." "Don't worry," Dora broke in. "There are +plenty of others, and better ones, too." + +"I have a scheme," I said, seriously. "Why shouldn't you people let +me board with you?" + +Natural as the suggestion was, it took them by surprise. For a +second or two Max gazed at his wife with a perplexed air. Then +he said: "That would not he a bad idea. Would it, Dora?" + +"I don't know, I am sure," she answered, with a shrug and an +embarrassed smile. "We have never kept boarders." + +"You will try to keep one now, then," I urged + +"If there were room in the house, I should be glad. Upon my health +and strength I should." "Oh, you can make room," I said. + +"Of course you can," Max put in, warming to the plan somewhat. +"He could have the children's bedroom, and they could sleep in +this room." + +She held to her veto + +"Oh, you don't know what an obstinate thing she is," Max said. +"Let her say that white is black, and black it must be, even if the +world turned upside down." + +"What do you want of me?" she protested. "Levinsky may think I +really don't care to have him. Let us move to a larger apartment +and I'll be but too glad to give him a room." + +The upshot was a compromise. For the present I was to content +myself with having my luncheons and dinners or suppers at their +house, Dora charging me cost price + +"Get him to move to one of those new houses with modern +improvements," she said to me, earnestly; "to an apartment of five +light rooms, and I shall give you a room at once. The rent would +come cheaper than it is now. But Max would rather pay more and +have the children grow in these damp rooms than budge." + +"Don't bother me. By and by we shall move out of here. All in due +time. + +Don't bother. Meanwhile see that your dinners and suppers are all +right. + +Levinsky thinks you a good cook. Don't disappoint him, then. Don't +run away with the idea it's on your own account he wants to board +with us. It is on account of your cooking. That's all. Isn't it, +Levinsky?" + +"It's a good thing to know that I am not a bad cook, at least," she +returned + +"But how about the profits you are going to make on him? I'll +deduct them from your weekly allowance, you know," he chaffed +her + +"Oh no. I am just going to save them and buy a house on Fifth +Avenue." + +"You ought to allow me ten per cent. for cash," I said. "She does +not want cash," Max replied. "Your note is good enough." + +I had been taking my meals with them a little over a month when +they moved into a new apartment, with me as their roomer and +boarder. The apartment was on the third floor of a corner house +on Clinton Street, one of a row of what was then a new type of +tenement buildings. It consisted of five rooms and bath, all +perfectly light, and it had a tiny private corridor or vestibule, a +dumb-waiter, an enameled bath-tub, electric and gas light, and an +electric door-bell. There was a rush for these apartments and Dora +paid a deposit on the first month's rent before the builder was +quite through with his work. + +My room opened into the vestibule, its window looking out upon a +side-street. The rent for the whole apartment was thirty-two +dollars, my board being five and a half dollars a week, which was +supposed to include a monthly rental of six dollars for my room. + +The Shorniks moved into the same house. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MY growing interest in Dora burst into flame all at +once, as it were. It happened at a moment which is distinctly fixed +in my mind. At least I distinctly remember the moment when I +became conscious of it + +It was on an afternoon, four days after the Margolises had taken +possession of the new place. The family was fully established in +it, while I had just moved in. I had seen my room, furniture and +all, several times before, but I had never seen it absolutely ready +for my occupancy as I did now. It was by far the brightest, airiest, +best-furnished, and neatest room that I had ever had all to myself. +Everything in it, from the wall-paper to the little wash-stand, was +invitingly new. I can still smell its grateful odor of freshness. +When I was left to myself in it for the first time and I shut its door +the room appealed to me as a compartment in the nest of a family +of which I was a member. My lonely soul had a sense of home and +domestic comfort that all but overpowered me. The sight of the +new quilt and of the fresh white pillow, coupled with the +knowledge that it was Dora whose fingers had prepared it all for +me, sent a glow of delight through my heart + +Dora's name was whispering itself in my mind. I paused at the +window, an enchanted man + +A few minutes later, when I re-entered the living-room, where she +was counting some freshly ironed napkins, her face seemed to +have acquired a new meaning. I felt that a great change had come +in my attitude toward her + +"Well, is everything all right?" she inquired + +"First rate," I answered, in a voice that sounded unnatural to myself + +Max was fussing with the rug in the parlor. The children were +gamboling from room to room, testing the faucets, the +dumb-waiter + +"Get avey from there!" Dora shouted. "You'll hurt yourself. Max, +tell Lucy not to touch the dumb-vaiter, vill you?" + +"Children! Children! What's a madder vitch you?" he called out +from the parlor, in English, with a perfunctory snarl. Presently he +came into the living-room. "Well, are you satisfied with your new +palace?" he addressed me in Yiddish. And for the hundredth time +he proceeded to make jokes at the various modern +"improvements," at the abundance of light, and at my new rank of +"real boarder." + +It is one of the old and deep-rooted customs of the Ghetto towns of +Europe for a young couple to live with the parents of the bride for +a year or two after the wedding. So Max gaily dubbed me his +"boarding son-in-law + +"Try to behave, boarding son-in-law," he bantered me. "If you don't +your mother-in-law will starve you." + +The pleasantry grated on me + +Dora's ambition to learn to read and spell English was a passion, +and the little girl played a more important part in the efforts she +made in this direction than Dora was willing to admit. Lucy would +tell her the meaning of new words as she had heard it at school, +but it often happened that the official definition she quoted was +incomprehensible to both. This was apt to irritate Dora or even +lead to a disagreeable scene + +If I happened to be around I would explain things to her, but she +seemed to accept my explanations with a grain of salt. She bowed +before my intellectual status in a general way, but since she had +good reason to doubt the quality of my English enunciation, she +doubted my Yiddish interpretations as well. Indeed, she doubted +everything that did not bear the indorsement of Lucy's school. +Whatever came from that sacred source was "real Yankee"; +everything else was "greenhorn." If she failed to grasp some of the +things that Lucy brought back from school, she would blame it on +the child. + +"Oh, you didn't understand what your teacher said," she would +scold her. + +"You must have twisted it all up, you stupid." + +One afternoon, when business was slow and there did not seem to +be anything to preclude my staying at home and breathing the air +that Dora breathed, I witnessed a painful scene between them. It +was soon after Lucy returned from school. Her mother wanted her +to go over her last reading-lesson with her, and the child would +not do so, pleading a desire to call on Beckie + +"Stay where you are and open your reader," Dora commanded + +Lucy obeyed, whimperingly. "Read!" "I want to go to Beckie." + +"Read, I say." And she slapped her hand + +"Don't," I remonstrated. "Let the poor child go enjoy herself." But +it only spoiled matters + +"Read!" she went on, with grim composure, hitting her on the +shoulder + +"I don't want to! I want to go down-stairs," Lucy sobbed, defiantly + +"Read!" And once more she hit her. + +My heart went out to the child, but I dared not intercede again + +Dora did not relent until Lucy yielded, sobbingly + +I left the room in disgust. The scene preyed upon my mind all that +afternoon. I remained in my room until supper-time. Then I found +Dora taciturn and downcast and I noticed that she treated Lucy +with exceptional, though undemonstrative, tenderness + +"Must have given her a licking," Max explained to me, with a wink + +I kept my counsel + +She beat her quite often, sometimes violently, each scene of this +kind being followed by hours of bitter remorse on her part. Her +devotion to her children was above that of the average mother. +Lucy had been going to school for over two years, yet she missed +her every morning as though she were away to another city; and +when the little girl came back, Dora's face would brighten, as if a +flood of new sunshine had burst into the house. + +On one occasion there was a quarrel between mother and daughter +over the result of a spelling-match between them which I had +umpired and which Lucy had won. Dora took her defeat so hard +that she was dejected all that evening + +I have said that despite her passionate devotion to Lucy she was +jealous of her. She was jealous not only of the school education +she was receiving, but also of her American birth + +She was feverishly ambitious to bring up her children in the "real +American syle," and the realization of her helplessness in this +direction caused her many a pang of despair. She was thirstily +seeking for information on the subject of table manners, and +whatever knowledge she possessed of it she would practise, and +make Lucy practise, with amusing pomp and circumstance. + +"Don't reach out for the herring, Lucy!" she would say, sternly. +"How many times must I tell you about it? What do you say?" + +"Pass me the herring, mamma, please." "Not 'mamma.'" + +"Pass me the herring, mother, please." + +The herring is passed with what Dora regards as a lady-like gesture + +"Thank you, ma'am," says Lucy + +"There is another way," Dora might add in a case of this kind. +"Instead of saying, 'Pass me the herring or the butter,' you can +say--What is it, Lucy?" + +"May I trouble you for the herring, mother?" + +I asked her to keep track of my table etiquette, too, and she did. +Whenever I made a break she would correct my error solemnly, or +with a burst of merriment, or with a scandalized air, as if she had +caught me in the act of committing a felony. This was her revenge +for my general intellectual superiority, which she could not help +admitting and envying + +"You just let her teach you and she will make a man of you," Max +would say to me. + +Sometimes, when I mispronounced an English word with which +she happened to be familiar, or uttered an English phrase in my +Talmudic singsong, she would mock me gloatingly. On one such +occasion I felt the sting of her triumph so keenly that I hastened to +lower her crest by pointing out that she had said "nice" where +"nicely" was in order + +"What do you mean?" she asked, perplexedly + +My reply was an ostentatious discourse on adjectives and +adverbs, something which I knew to be utterly beyond her depth. +It had the intended effect. She listened to my explanation stupidly, +and when I had finished she said, with resignation: "I don't +understand what you say. I wish I had time to go to evening school, +at least, as you did. I haven't any idea of these things. Lucy will be +educated for both of us, for herself and for her poor mamma. If my +mother had understood as much as I do it would have been +different." She uttered a sigh, fell silent, and then resumed: "But I +can't complain of my mother, either. She was a diamond of a +woman, and she was wise as daylight. But Russia is not America. +No, I can't complain of my parents. My father was a poor man, but +ask Max or some of our fellow-townspeople and they will tell you +what a fine name he had." + +She was talkative and somewhat boastful like the average woman +of her class, but there was about her an elusive effect of reserve +and earnestness that kept me at a distance from her. Moreover, the +tireless assiduity and precision which she brought to her +housework and, above all, the grim passion of her intellectual +struggles created an atmosphere of physical and spiritual tidiness +about her that inspired me with something like reverence. + +Living in that atmosphere seemed to be making a better man of me + +Attempting a lark with her, as I had done with Mrs. Dienstog and +Mrs. + +Levinsky, my first two landladies in New York, was out of the +question. + +Needless to explain that this respectful distance did not prevent my +eyes and ears from feasting upon her luxurious complexion, her +clear, honest voice, and all else that made me feel both happy +and forlorn in her company. Nor would she, aware as she +undoubtedly was of the meaning of my look or smile, hesitate to +respond to them by some legitimate bit of coquetry. In short, we +often held converse in that language of smiles, glances, blushes, +pauses, gestures, which is the gesture language of sex across the +barrier of decorum. + +These speechless flirtations cost me many an hour which I should +have otherwise spent at my shop or soliciting trade. When away +from the magnetic force of her presence I would attend to +business with unabated intensity. + +Her image visited my brain often, but it did not disturb me. Rather, +it was the image of some customer or creditor or of some new +style of jacket or cloak that would interfere with my peace of +mind. My brain was full of prices, bills, notes, checks, fabrics, +color effects, "lines." Not infrequently, while walking in the street +or sitting in a street-car, I would catch myself describing some of +those garment lines in the air. + +And yet, through all these preoccupations I seemed to be +constantly aware that something unusual had happened to me, +giving a novel tinge to my being; that I was a changed man + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MAX saw nothing. His wife was a very womanly +woman with a splendid, almost a gorgeous snow-white womanly +complexion, and I was a young man in whom, according to his +own dictum, women ought to be interested; yet he never seemed +to feel anything like apprehension about us. This man who plumed +himself upon his knowledge of women and love and who actually +had a great deal of insight in these matters, this man, I say, was +absolutely blind to his wife's power over me. He suspected every +man and every woman under the sun, yet he was the least jealous +of men so far as his wife was concerned, though he loved and was +proud of her. From time to time he would chaff Dora and myself +on the danger of our falling in love with each other, but that was +never more than a joke and, at any rate, I heard it from him far less +often than that other joke of his--about my being his and Dora's +son-in-law + +"Look out, mother-in-law," he would say to her. "If you don't treat +your son-in-law right you'll lose him." + +I have said that he was proud of her. One evening, while she stood +on a chair struggling with a recalcitrant window-shade, he drew +my attention to her efforts admiringly + +"Look at her!" he said under his breath. "Another woman would +make her husband do it. Not she. I can't kick. She is not a lazy +slob, is she?" + +"Certainly not," I asserted + +We watched her take the shade down, wind up the spring, fit the +pins back into their sockets, and then test the flap. It was in good +working order now + +"No, she is not a slob," he repeated, exultantly. "And she is not a +gossiping sort, either. She just minds her own business." + +At this point Dora came over to the table where we sat. "Move +along!" he said, gaily. "Don't disturb us. I am telling Levinsky +what a bad girl you are. Run along." + +She gave us a shy side-glance like those that had carried the first +germ of disquiet into my soul, and moved away + +"No, she is no slob, thank God," he resumed. He boasted of her +tidiness and of the way she had picked up her English and learned +to read and spell, with little Lucy for her teacher. He depicted the +tenacity and unflagging ardor with which she had carried on her +mental pursuits ever since Lucy began to go to school. "Once she +makes up her mind to do something she will stick to it, even if the +world went under. That's the kind of woman she is. And she is no +mean, foxy thing, either. When she says something you may be +sure she means it, if I do say so. You ought to know her by this +time. Have you ever heard her say things that are not so? Or have +you heard her talk about the neighbors as other women-folk will +do? Have you, now? Just tell me," he pressed me. + +"Of course I have not," I answered, awkwardly. "There are not +many women like her." + +"I know there are not. And, well, if she is not devoted to her hubby, +I don't know who is," he added, sheepishly. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IT was during this period that I received my first +baptism of dismay as patron of a high-class restaurant. The +occasion was a lunch to which I had invited a buyer from +Philadelphia. The word "buyer" had a bewitching sound for me, +inspiring me with awe and enthusiasm at once. The word "king" +certainly did not mean so much to me. The august person to whom +I was doing homage on the occasion in question was a man named +Charles M. Eaton, a full-blooded Anglo-Saxon of New England +origin, with a huge round forehead and small, blue, extremely +genial eyes. He was a large, fair-complexioned man, and the way +his kindly little eyes looked from under his hemispherical +forehead, like two swallows viewing the world from under the +eaves of a roof, gave him a striking appearance. The immense +restaurant, with its high, frescoed ceiling, the dazzling whiteness +of its rows and rows of table-cloths, the crowd of well-dressed +customers, the glint and rattle of knives and forks, the subdued +tones of the orchestra, and the imposing black-and-white figures +of the waiters struck terror into my Antomir heart. + +The bill of fare was, of course, Chinese to me, though I made a +pretense of reading it. The words swam before me. My inside +pocket contained sufficient money to foot the most extravagant +bill our lordly waiter was likely to present, but I was in constant +dread lest my treasure disappear in some mysterious way; so, from +time to time, I felt my breast to ascertain whether it was still there + +The worst part of it all was that I had not the least idea what I was +to say or do. The occasion seemed to call for a sort of table +manners which were beyond the resources not only of a poor +novice like myself, but also of a trained specialist like Dora + +Finally my instinct of self-preservation whispered in my ear, +"Make a clean breast of it." And so, dropping the bill of fare with +an air of mock despair, I said, jovially: "I'm afraid you'll have to +tell me what to do, Mr. Eaton. It's no use bluffing. I have never +been in such a fine restaurant in my life. I am scared to death, Mr. +Eaton. Take pity." + +The Philadelphian, who was a slow-spoken, slow-witted, though +shrewd, man, was perplexed at first + +"I see," he said, coloring, and looking confusedly at me. The next +minute he seemed to realize the situation and to enjoy it, too, but +even then he was apparently embarrassed. I cracked another joke +or two at my own expense, until finally he burst into a hearty +laugh and cheerfully agreed to act as master of ceremonies. Not +only did he do the ordering, explaining things to me when the +waiter was not around, but he also showed me how to use my +napkin, how to eat the soup, the fish, the meat, what to do with the +finger-bowl, and so forth and so on, to the minutest detail + +"I am afraid one lesson won't be enough," I said. "You must give +me another chance." + +"With pleasure," he replied. "Only the next 'lesson' will be on me." +And then he had to tell me what "on me" meant + +He took a fancy to me and that meant orders, not only from him, +but also from some people of his acquaintance, buyers from other +towns + +I sought to dress like a genteel American, my favorite color for +clothes and hats being (and still is) dark brown. It became my +dark hair well, I thought. The difference between taste and vulgar +ostentation was coming slowly, but surely, I hope. I remember the +passionate efforts I made to learn to tie a four-in-hand cravat, then +a recent invention. I was forever watching and striving to imitate +the dress and the ways of the well-bred American merchants with +whom I was, or trying to be, thrown. All this, I felt, was an +essential element in achieving business success; but the ambition +to act and look like a gentleman grew in me quite apart from these +motives + +Now, Dora seemed to notice these things in me, and to like them. +So I would parade my newly acquired manners before her as I did +my neckties or my English vocabulary. + +After that lecture I gave her on adverbs she no longer called my +English in question. To be educated and an "American lady" had, +thanks to Lucy's influence, become the great passion of her life. It +almost amounted to an obsession. She thought me educated and a +good deal of an American, so she looked up to me and would +listen to my harangues reverently. + + + +CHAPTER X + +ONE Saturday evening she said to me: "Lord! you +are so educated. I wish I had a head like yours." + +"Why, you have an excellent head, Dora," I replied. "You have no +reason to complain." + +She sighed + +"I wish I had not gone into business," I resumed + +I had already told her, more than once, in fact, how I had been +about to enter college when an accident had led me astray; so I +now referred to those events, dwelling regretfully upon the sudden +change I had made in my life plans + +"It was the devil that put it in my head to become a manufacturer," +I said, bitterly, yet with relish in the "manufacturer." "Well, one +can be a manufacturer and educated man at the same time," she +consoled me + +"Of course. That's exactly what I always say," I returned, joyously. +"Still, I wish I had stuck to my original plan. There was a lady in +Antomir who advised me to prepare for college. She was always +speaking to me about it." + +It was about 10 o'clock. Max was away to his dancing-schools. The +children were asleep. We were alone in the living-room + +I expected her to ask who that Antomir lady was, but she did not, +so I went on speaking of Matilda of my own accord. I sketched +her as an "aristocratic" young woman, the daughter of one of the +leading families in town, accomplished, clever, pretty, and +"modern." + +"It was she, in fact, who got me the money for my trip to +America," I said, lowering my voice, as one will when a +conversation assumes an intimate character + +"Was it?" Dora said, also in a low voice + +"Yes. It is a long story. It is nearly five years since I left home, but +I still think of it a good deal. Sometimes I feel as if my heart +would snap unless I had somebody to tell about it." + +This was my way of drawing Dora into a flirtation, my first +attempt in that direction, though in my heart I had been making +love to her for weeks + +I told her the story of my acquaintance with Matilda. She listened +with non-committal interest, with an amused, patronizing glimmer +of a smile + +"You did not fall in love with her, did you?" she quizzed me as she +might Lucy + +"That's the worst part of it," I said, gravely + +"Is it?" she asked, still gaily, but with frank interest now + +I recounted the episode at length. To put it in plain English, I was +using my affair with Matilda (or shall I say her affair with me?) as +a basis for an adventure with Dora. At first I took pains to gloss +over those details in which I had cut an undignified figure, but I +soon dropped all embellishments. The episode stood out so bold +in my memory. its appeal to my imagination was so poignant, that +I found an intoxicating satisfaction in conveying the facts as +faithfully as I knew how. To be telling a complete, unvarnished +truth is in itself a pleasure. It is as though there were a special +sense of truth and sincerity in our make-up (just as there is a sense +of musical harmony, for example), and the gratification of it were +a source of delight. + +Nor was this my only motive for telling Dora all. I had long since +realized that the disdain and mockery with which Matilda handled +me had been but a cloak for her interest in my person. So when I +was relating to Dora the scenes of my ignominy I felt that the +piquant circumstances surrounding them were not unfavorable to +me + +Anyhow, I was having a singularly intimate talk with Dora and she +was listening with the profoundest interest, all the little tricks she +employed to disguise it notwithstanding + +In depicting the scene of the memorable night when Matilda came +to talk to me at my bedside I emphasized the fact that she had +called me a ninny + +"I did not know what she meant," I said. + +Dora tittered, looking at the floor shamefacedly. "The nasty thing!" +she said + +"What do you mean?" I inquired, dishonestly + +"I mean just what I say. She is a nasty thing, that grand lady of +yours." And she added another word--the East Side name for a +woman of the streets--that gave me a shock + +"Don't call her that," I entreated. "Please don't. You are mistaken +about her. I assure you she is a highly respectable lady. She has a +heart of gold," I added, irrelevantly + +"Well, well! You are still in love with her, aren't you?" + +I was tempted to say: "No. It is you I now love." But I merely said, +dolefully: "No. Not any more." + +She contemplated me amusedly and broke into a soft laugh + +The next time we were alone in the house I came back to it. I +added some details. I found a lascivious interest in dwelling on +our passionate kisses, Matilda's and mine. Also, it gave me +morbid pleasure to have her behold me at Matilda's feet, lovelorn, +disdained, crushed, yet coveted, kissed, triumphant + +Dora listened intently. She strove to keep up an amused air, as +though listening to some childish nonsense, but the look of her +eye, tense or flinching, and the warm color that often overspread +her cheeks, betrayed her + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WE talked about my first love-affair for weeks. She +asked me many questions ahout Matilda, mostly with that +pretended air of amused curiosity. Every time I had something +good to say about Matilda she would assail her brutally + +The fact that Dora never referred to my story in the presence of her +husband was a tacit confession that we had a secret from him. +Outwardly it meant that the secret was mine, not hers; that she +had nothing to do with it; but then there was another secret--the +fact that she was my sole confidante in a matter of this +nature--and this secret was ours in common + +On one occasion, in the course of one of these confabs of ours, she +said, with ill-concealed malice: "Do you really think she cared for +you? Not that much," marking off the tip of her little finger + +"Why should you say that? Why should you hurt my feelings?" I +protested + +"It still hurts your feelings, then, does it? There is a faithful lover +for you! But what would you have me say? That she loved you as +much as you loved her?" + +At this Dora jerked her head backward, with a laugh that rang so +charmingly false and so virulent that I was impelled both to slap +her face and to kiss it + +"But tell me," she said, with a sudden affectation of sedate +curiosity, "was she really so beautiful?" + +"I never said she was 'so beautiful,' did I? You are far more +beautiful than she." "Oh, stop joking, please! Can't you answer +seriously?" + +"I really mean it." + +"Mean what?" + +"That you are prettier than Matilda." "Is that the way you are +faithful to her?" + +"Oh, that was five years ago. Now there is somebody else I am +faithful to." + +She was silent. Her cheeks glowed + +"Why don't you ask who that somebody is?" + +"Because I don't care. What do I care? And please don't talk like +that. I mean what I say. You must promise me never to talk like +that," she said, gravely + +During the following few days Dora firmly barred all more or less +intimate conversation. She treated me with her usual friendly +familiarity, but there was something new in her demeanor, +something that seemed to say, "I don't deny that I enjoy our talks, +but that's all the more reason why you must behave yourself." + +The story of my childhood seemed legitimate enough, so she let +me tell her bits of it, and before she was aware of it she was +following my childish love-affair with the daughter of one of my +despotic school-teachers, my struggles with Satan, and my early +dreams of marriage. Gradually she let me draw her out concerning +her own past. + +One evening, while Lucy was playing school-teacher, with Dannie +for the class, Dora told me of an episode connected with her +betrothal to Max + +"Was that a love match?" I asked, with a casual air, when she had +finished + +She winced. "What difference does it make?" she said, with an +annoyed look. + +"We were engaged as most couples are engaged. Much I knew of +the love business in those days." + +"You speak as though you married when you were a mere baby. +You certainly knew how you felt toward him." + +"I don't think I felt anything," she answered + +"Still," I insisted, "you said to yourself, 'This man is going to be my +husband; he will kiss me, embrace me.' How did you feel then?" + +"You want to know too much, Levinsky," she said, coloring. "You +know the saying, 'If you know too much you get old too quick.' +Well, I don't think I gave him any thought at all. I was too busy +thinking of the wedding and of the pretty dress they were making +for me. Besides. I was so rattled and so shy. Much I understood. I +was not quite nineteen." + +It called to my mind that in the excitement following my mother's +death I was so overwhelmed by the attentions showered on me +that it was a day or two before I realized the magnitude of my +calamity + +"Anyhow, you certainly knew that marriage is the most serious +thing in life," I persisted + +"Oh, I don't think I knew much of anything." + +"And after the wedding?" + +"After the wedding I knew that I was a married woman and must +be contented," she parried + +"But this is not love," I pressed her + +"Oh, let us not talk of these things, pray! Don't ask me questions +like that," she said in a low, entreating voice. "It isn't right." + +"I don't know if it is right or wrong," I replied, also in a low voice. +"All I do know is that I am interested in everything that ever +happened to you + +Silence fell. She was the first to break it. She tried to talk of +trivialities. I scarcely listened. She broke off again + +"Dora!" I said, amorously. "My heart is so full." + +"Don't," she whispered, with a gesture of pained supplication. +"Talk of something else, pray." + +"I can't. I can't talk of anything else. Nor think of anything else, +either." + +"You mustn't, you mustn't, you mustn't," she said, with sudden +vehemence, though still with a beseeching ring in her voice. "I +won't let you. May I not live to see my children again if I will. Do +you hear, Levinsky? Do you hear? Do you hear? I want you to +understand it. Be a man. Have a heart, Levinsky. You must behave +yourself. If you don't you'll have to move. There can't be any other +way about it. If you are a real friend of mine, not an enemy, you +must behave yourself." She spoke with deep, solemn earnestness, +somewhat in the singsong of a woman reading the Yiddish +Commentary on the Five Books of Moses or wailing over a grave. +She went on: "Why should you vex me? You are a respectable +man. You don't want to do what is wrong. You don't want to make +me miserable, do you? So be good, Levinsky. I beg of you. + +I beg of you. Be good. Be good. Be good. Let us never have +another talk like this. Do you promise?" + +I was silent + +"Do you promise, Levinsky? You must. You must. Do you promise +me never to come back to this kind of talk?" + +"I do," I said, like a guilty school-boy + +She was terribly in earnest. She almost broke my heart. I could not +thwart her will + +She was in love with me + +Days passed. There was no lack of unspoken tenderness between +us. That she was tremulously glad to see me every time I came +home was quite obvious, but she bore herself in such a manner +that I never ventured to allude to my feeling, much less to touch +her hand or sit close to her. + +"It is as well that I should not," I often said to myself. "Am I not +happy as it is? Is it not bliss enough to have a home--her home? It +would be too awful to forfeit it." I registered a vow to live up to +the promise she had exacted from me, but I knew that I would +break it + +She was in love with me. She had an iron will, but I hoped that +this, too, would soon be broken. + +There were moments when I would work myself up to an exalted, +religious kind of mood over it. "I should be a vile creature if I +interfered with the peace of this house," I would exhort myself, +passionately. "Max has been a warm friend to me. Oh, I will be +good." + +Dora talked less than usual. She, too, seemed to be a changed +person. She was particularly taciturn when we happened to be +alone in the house, and then it would be difficult for us to look +each other in the face. Such tête-à-têtes occurred once or twice a +week, quite late in the evening. I was very busy at the shop and I +could never leave it before 10, 11, or even 12, except on Sabbath +eve (Friday night), when it was closed. On those evenings when +Max stayed out very late I usually found her alone in the little +dining-room, sewing, mending, or--more often--poring over Lucy's +school reader or story-book + +After exchanging a few perfunctory sentences with her, each of us +aware of the other's embarrassment, I would take a seat a +considerable distance from her and take up a newspaper or +clipping from one, while she went on with her work or reading. +Lucy had begun to take juvenile books out of the circulating +library of the Educational Alliance, so her mother would read +them also. The words were all short and simple and Dora had not +much difficulty in deciphering their meaning. Anyhow, she now +never sought my assistance for her reading. I can still see her +seated at the table, a considerable distance from me, moving her +head from word to word and from line to line, and silently +working her lips, as though muttering an incantation. I would do +her all sorts of little services (though she never asked for any), all +silently, softly, as if performing a religious rite + +I have said that on such occasions I would read my newspaper or +some clipping from it. In truth I read little else in those days. +Editorials of the daily press interested me as much as the most +sensational news, and if some of the more important leading +articles in my paper had to be left unread on the day of their +publication I would clip them and glance them over at the next +leisure moment, sometimes days later + +The financial column was followed by me with a sense of being a +member of a caste for which it was especially intended, to the +exclusion of the rest of the world. At first the jargon of that +column made me feel as though I had never learned any English at +all. But I was making headway in this jargon, too, and when I +struck a recondite sentence I would cut the few lines out and put +them in my pocket, on the chance of coming across somebody who +could interpret them for me. Often, too, I would clip and put away +a paragraph containing some curious piece of information or a bit +of English that was an addition to my knowledge of the language. +My inside pocket was always full of all sorts of clippings + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +It was about this time that I found myself +confronted with an unexpected source of anxiety in my business +affairs. There were several circumstances that made it possible for +a financial midget like myself to outbid the lions of the +cloak-and-suit industry. Now, however, a new circumstance arose +which threatened to rob me of my chief advantage and to +undermine the very foundation of my future + +The rent of my loft, which was in the slums, was, comparatively +speaking, a mere trifle, while my overhead expense amounted to +scarcely anything at all. + +I did my own bookkeeping, and a thirteen-year-old girl, +American-born, school-bred, and bright, whose bewigged mother +was one of my finishers, took care of the shop while I was out, +helped me with my mail, and sewed on buttons +between-whiles--all for four dollars a week. Another finisher, a +young widow, saved me the expense of a figure woman. To which +should be added that I did business on a profit margin far beneath +the consideration of the well-known firms. All this, however, does +not include the most important of all the items that gave me an +advantage over the princes of the trade. That was cheap labor + +Three of my men were excellent tailors. They could have easily +procured employment in some of the largest factories, where they +would have been paid at least twice as much as I paid them. They +were bewhiskered, elderly people, strictly orthodox and extremely +old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in +my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be +employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to +wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of +ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. +These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the +insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors +away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work +on Saturdays there, while in my place one could work on Sunday +instead of Saturday + +My pressers were of the same class as my tailors. As for my +operators, who were younger fellows and had adopted American +ways, my shop had other attractions for them. For example, my +operations were limited to a very small number of styles, and, as +theirs was piece-work, it meant greater earnings. While the +employee of a Broadway firm (or of one of its contractors) was +engaged on a large variety of garments, being continually shifted +from one kind of work to another, a man working for me would be +taken up with the same style for many days in succession, thus +developing a much higher rate of speed and a fatter pay-envelope + +Altogether, I always contrived to procure the cheapest labor +obtainable, although this, as we have seen, by no means implied +that my "hands" were inferior mechanics. The sum and substance +of it all was that I could afford to sell a garment for less than what +was its cost of production in the best-known cloak-houses + +My business was making headway when the Cloak and Suit +Makers' Union sprang into life again, with the usual rush and +commotion, but with unusual portents of strength and stability. It +seemed as if this time it had come to stay. My budding little +establishment was too small, in fact, to be in immediate danger. It +was one of a scattered number of insignificant places which the +union found it difficult to control. Still, cheap labor being my +chief excuse for being, the organization caused me no end of worry + +"Just when a fellow is beginning to make a living all sorts of black +dreams will come along and trip him up," I complained to Meyer +Nodelman, bitterly. + +"A bunch of good-for-nothings, too lazy to work, will stir up +trouble, and there you are." + +"Oh, it won't last long," Meyer Nodelman consoled me. "Don't be +excited, anyhow. Business does not always go like grease, you +know. You must be ready for trouble too." + +He told me of his own experiences with unions and he drifted into +a philosophic view of the matter. "You and I want to make as +much money as possible, don't we?" he said. "Well, the +working-men want the same. Can you blame them? We are +fighting them and they are fighting us. The world is not a +wedding-feast, Levinsky. It is a big barn-yard full of chickens and +they are scratching one another, and scrambling over one another. +Why? Because there are little heaps of grain in the yard and each +chicken wants to get as much of it as possible. So let us try our +best. But why be mad at the other chickens? Scratch away, +Levinsky, but what's the use being excited?" + +He gave a chuckle, and I could not help smiling, but at heart I was +bored and wretched. + +The big manufacturers could afford to pay union wages, yet they +were fighting tooth and nail, and I certainly could not afford to +pay high wages. + +If I had to, I should have to get out of business. + +Officially mine had become a union shop, yet my men continued +to work on non-union terms. They made considerably more +money by working for non-union wages than they would in the +places that were under stringent union supervision. They could +work any number of hours in my shop, and that was what my +piece-workers wanted. To toil from sunrise till long after sunset +was what every tailor was accustomed to in Antomir, for instance. +Only over there one received a paltry few shillings at the end of +the week. while I paid my men many dollars + +So far, then, I had been successful in eluding the vigilance of the +walking delegates and my shop was in full blast from 5 in the +morning to midnight, whereas in the genuine union shops the +regular workday was restricted to ten hours, and overtime to three, +which, coupled with the especial advantage accruing from a +limited number of styles handled, made my shop a desirable place +to my "hands." + +A storm broke. All cloak-manufacturers formed a coalition and +locked out their union men. A bitter struggle ensued. As it was +rich in quaint "human-nature" material, the newspapers bestowed +a good deal of space upon it + +I made a pretense of joining in the lockout, my men clandestinely +continuing to work for me. More than that, my working force was +trebled, for, besides filling my own orders, I did some of the work +of a well-known firm which found it much more difficult to +procure non-union labor than I did. What was a great calamity to +the trade in general seemed to be a source of overwhelming +prosperity to me. But the golden windfall did not last long. + +The agitation and the picketing activities of the union, aided by the +Arbeiter Zeitung, a Yiddish socialist weekly, were spreading a +spell of enthusiasm (or fear) to which my men gradually +succumbed. My best operator, a young fellow who exercised +much influence over his shopmates and who had hitherto been +genuinely devoted to me, became an ardent convert to union +principles and led all my operatives out of the shop. I organized a +shop elsewhere, but it was soon discovered + +Somebody must have reported to the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung +that at one time I had been a member of the union myself, for that +weekly published a scurrilous paragraph, branding me as a traitor + +I read the paragraph with mixed rage and pain, and yet the sight of +my name in print flattered my vanity, and when the heat of my +fury subsided I became conscious of a sneaking feeling of +gratitude to the socialist editor for printing the attack on me. For, +behold! the same organ assailed the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the +Rothschilds, and by calling me "a fleecer of labor" it placed me in +their class. I felt in good company. I felt, too, that while there +were people by whom "fleecers" were cursed, there were many +others who held them in high esteem, and that even those who +cursed them had a secret envy for them, hoping some day to be +fleecers of labor like them + +The only thing in that paragraph that galled me was the appellation +of "cockroach manufacturer" by which it referred to me. I was +going to parade the "quip" before Max and Dora, but thought +better of it. The notion of Dora hearing me called "cockroach" +made me squirm + +But Max somehow got wind of the paragraph, and one evening as I +came home for supper he said, good-naturedly: "You got a +spanking, didn't you? I have seen what they say in the Arbeiter +Zeitung about you." + +"Oh, to the eighty black years with them!" I answered, blushing, +and hastened to switch the conversation to the lockout and strike +in general. + +"Oh, we'll get all the men we want," I said. "It's only a matter of +time. + +We'll teach these scoundrels a lesson they'll never forget." + +"If only you manufacturers stick together." + +"You bet we will. We can wait. We are in no hurry. We can wait +till those tramps come begging for a job," I said. For the benefit of +Dora I added a little disquisition on the opportunities America +offered to every man who had brains and industry, and on the +grudge which men like myself were apt to arouse in lazy fellows. +"Those union leaders have neither brains nor a desire to work. +That's why they can't work themselves up," I said. "Yes, and that's +why they begrudge those who can. All those scoundrels are able to +do is to hatch trouble." + +I spoke as if I had been a capitalist of the higher altitudes and of +long standing. That some of the big cloak firms had promised to +back me with funds to keep me from yielding to the union I never +mentioned. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MY shop being practically closed, I was at home +most of the time, not only in the evening, but many a forenoon or +afternoon as well. Dora and I would hold interminable +conversations. Our love was never alluded to. A relationship on +new terms seemed to have been established between us. It was as +if she were saying: "Now, isn't this better? Why can't we go on like +this forever?" + +Sometimes I would watch her read with Lucy. Or else I would take +up a newspaper or a book and sit reading it at the same table. +Dora was making rapid headway in her studies. It was July and +Lucy was free from school, so she would let her spend many an +hour in the street, but she caused her to spend a good deal of time +with her, too. If she did not read with her she would talk or listen +to her. I often wondered whether it was for fear of being too much +thrown into my company that she would make the child stay +indoors. At all events, her readings, spelling contests, or talks with +Lucy bore perceptible fruit. Her English seemed to be improving +every day, so much so that we gradually came to use a good deal +of that language even when we were alone in the house; even +when every word we said had an echo of intimacy with which the +tongue we were learning to speak seemed to be out of accord + +One evening mother and daughter sat at the open parlor window. +While I was reclining in an easy-chair at the other end of the room +Lucy was narrating something and Dora was listening, apparently +with rapt attention. I watched their profiles. Finally I said: "She +must be telling you something important, considering the interest +you are taking in it." + +"Everything she says is important to me," Dora answered + +"What has she been telling you?" + +"Oh, about her girls, about their brothers and their baseball games, +about lots of things," she said, with a far-away tone in her voice. "I +want to know everything about her. Everything. I wish I could get +right into her. I wish I could be a child like her. Oh, why can't a +person be born over again?" + +Her longing ejaculation had perhaps more to do with her feelings +for me than with her feelings for her child. Anyhow, what she said +about her being interested in everything that Lucy had to say was +true. And, whether she listened to the child's prattle or not, it +always seemed to me as though she absorbed every English word +Lucy uttered and every American gesture she made. The +American school-girl radiated a subtle influence, a spiritual +ozone, which her mother breathed in greedily + +"My own life is lost, but she shall be educated"-- these words +dropped from her lips quite often. On one occasion they came +from her with a modification that lent them unusual meaning. It +was on a Friday evening. Max was out, as usual, and the children +were asleep. "My own life is lost, but Lucy shall be happy," she +said + +"Why?" I said, feelingly. "Why should you think yourself lost? I +can't bear it, Dora." + +She made no answer. I attempted to renew the conversation, but +without avail. She answered in melancholy monosyllables and my +voice had a constrained note + +At last I burst out, in our native tongue: "Why do you torture me, +Dora? Why don't you let me talk and pour my heart out?" + +"'S-sh! You mustn't," she said, peremptorily, also in Yiddish. +"You'll get me in trouble if you do. It'll be the ruin of me and of +the children, too. + +You mustn't." + +"But you say your life is lost," I retorted, coming up close to the +chair on which she sat. "Do you think it's easy for me to hear it? +Do you think my heart is made of iron?" + +"'S-sh! You know everything without my speaking," she said, +slowly rising and drawing back. "You know well enough that I am +not happy. Can't you rest until you have heard me say so again and +again? Must you drink my blood? All right, then. Go ahead. Here. +I am unhappy, I am unhappy, I am unhappy. Max is a good +husband to me. I can't complain. And we get along well, too. And I +shall be true to him. May I choke right here, may darkness come +upon me, if I ever cease to be a faithful wife to him. But you know +that my heart has never been happy. Lucy will be happy and that +will be my happiness, too. She shall go to college and be an +educated American lady, and, if God lets me live, I shall see to it +that she doesn't marry unless she meets the choice of her heart. +She must be happy. She must make up for her mother's lost life, +too. If my mother had understood things as I do, I, too, should have +been happy. But she was an old-fashioned woman and she would +have me marry in the old-fashioned way, as she herself had +married: without laying her eyes on her 'predestined one' until the +morning after the wedding." She laughed bitterly. "Of course I did +see Max before the wedding, but it made no difference. I obeyed +my mother, peace upon her soul. I thought love-marriages were +something which none but educated girls could dream of. + +My mother--peace upon her soul--told me to throw all fancies out +of my mind, that I was a simple girl and must get married without +fuss. And I did. In this country people have different notions. But I +am already married and a mother. All I can do now is to see to it +that Lucy shall be both educated and happy, and, well, I beg of +you, I beg of you, I beg of you, Levinsky, never let me talk of +these things again. They must be locked up in my heart and the +key must be thrown into the river, Levinsky. It cannot be +otherwise, Levinsky. Do you hear?" + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE situation could not last. One morning about +three weeks subsequent to the above conversation Max left town +for a day. One of his debtors, a dancing-master, had disappeared +without settling his account and Max had recently discovered that +he was running a dance-hall and meeting-rooms in New Haven; so +he went there to see what he could do toward collecting his bill. +His absence for a whole day was nothing new, and yet the house +seemed to have assumed a novel appearance that morning. When, +after breakfast, Lucy ran out into the street I felt as though Dora +and I were alone for the first time, and from her constraint I could +see that she was experiencing a similar feeling. I hung around the +house awkwardly. She was trying to keep herself busy. Finally I +said: "I think I'll be going. Maybe there is some news about the +lockout." + +I rose to go to the little corridor for my hat, but on my way thither, +as I came abreast of her, I paused, and with amorous mien I drew +her to me. + +She made but a perfunctory attempt at resistance, and when I +kissed her she responded, our lips clinging together hungrily. It all +seemed to have happened in a most natural way. When our lips +parted at last her cheeks were deeply flushed and her eyes looked +filmed + +"Dearest," I whispered + +"I must go out," she said, shrinking back, her embarrassed gaze on +the floor. "I have some marketing to do." + +"Don't. Don't go away from me, Dora. Please don't," I said in +Yiddish, with the least bit of authority. "I love thee. I love thee, +Dora," I raved, for the first time addressing her in the familiar +pronoun + +"You ought not to speak to me like that," she said, limply, with +frank happiness in her voice. "It's terrible. What has got into me?" + +I strained her to me once again, and again we abandoned ourselves +to a transport of kisses and hugs + +"Dost thou love me, Dora? Tell me. I want to hear it from thine +own lips." + +She slowly drew me to her bosom and clasped me with all her +might. That was her answer to my question. Then, with a hurried +parting kiss on my forehead, she said: "Go. Attend to business, +dearest." As I walked through the street I was all but shouting to +myself: "Dora has kissed me! Dora dear is mine!" My heart was +dancing with joy over my conquest of her, and at the same time I +felt that I was almost ready to lay down my life for her. It was a +blend of animal selfishness and spiritual sublimity. I really loved +her + +I attended to my affairs (that is, to some of the affairs of the +Manufacturers' Organization) that day; but while thus engaged I +was ever tremulously conscious of my happiness, ever in an +uplifted state of mind. I was bubbling over with a desire to be +good to somebody, to everybody--except, of course, the +Cloak-makers' Union. My membership in the Manufacturers' +Association flattered my vanity inordinately, and I always danced +attendance upon the other members, the German Jews, the big men +of the trade; now, however, I ran their errands with an alacrity that +was not mere servility + +I was constantly aware of the fact that this was my second +love-affair, as if it were something to be proud of. My love for +Matilda was remote as a piece of art, while my passion for Dora +was a flaming reality. "Matilda only tortured me," I said to myself, +without malice. "She treated me as she would a dog, whereas +Dora is an angel. I would jump into fire for her. Dora dear! +Sweetheart mine!" I had not the patience to wait until evening. I +ran in to see her in the middle of the day + +She flung herself at me and we embraced and kissed as if we had +been separated for years. Then, holding me by both hands, she +gave me a long look full of pensive bliss and clasped me to her +bosom again. When she had calmed down she smoothed my hair, +adjusted my necktie, told me she did not like it and offered to get +me one more becoming + +"Do you love me? Do you really?" she asked, with deep +earnestness + +"I do, I do. Dora mine, I am crazy for you," I replied. "Now I know +what real love means." + +She sighed, and after a pause her grave, strained mien broke into a +smile + +"So all you told me about Matilda was a lie, was it?" she said, +roguishly. + +"There is no such person in the world, is there?" + +"Don't talk about her, pray. You don't understand me. I never was +happy before. Never in my life." + +"Never at all?" she questioned me, earnestly + +"Never, Dora dearest. Anyhow, let bygones be bygones. All I know +is that I love you, that I am going crazy for you. Oh, I do love +you." "And nobody else?" + +"And nobody else." + +"And you are not lying?" + +"Lying? Why should you talk like that, dearest?" + +"Why, have you forgotten Matilda so soon?" + +"Do you call that soon? It's more than five years." + +"But you told me that you had been in love with her a considerable +time after you came to this country. Will you forget me so soon, +too?" + +I squirmed, I writhed. "Don't be tormenting me, dearest," I +implored, my voice quavering with impatience. "I love thee and +nobody else." + +She fell into a muse. Then she said, with a far-away look in her +eyes: "I don't know where this will land me. It seems as if a great +misfortune had befallen me. But I don't care. I don't care. I don't +care. Come what may. I can't help it. At last I know what it means +to be happy. I have been dreaming of it all my life. Now I know +what it is like, and I am willing to suffer for it. Yes, I am willing +to suffer for you, Levinsky." She spoke with profound, +even-voiced earnestness, with peculiar solemnity, as though +chanting a prayer. I was somewhat bored. Presently she paused, +and, changing her tone, she asked. "Matilda talked to you of +education. She wanted you to be an educated man, did she? Yes, +but what did she do for you? She drank your blood, the leech, and +when she got tired of it she dropped you. A woman like that ought +to be torn to pieces. May every bit of the suffering she caused you +come back to her a thousandfold. May her blood be shed as she +shed yours." Suddenly she checked herself and said: "But, no, I am +not going to curse her. I don't want you to think badly of her. Your +love must be sacred, Levinsky. If you ever go back on me and love +somebody else, don't let her curse me. Don't let anybody say a +cross word about me." Max came home after midnight and I did +not see him until the next evening. + +When we met at supper (Dora was out at that moment) I had to +make an effort to meet his eye. But he did not seem to notice +anything out of the usual, and my awkwardness soon wore off + +Nor, indeed, was there any change in my feelings toward him. I +had expected that he would now be hateful to me. He was not. He +was absolutely the same man as he had always been, except, +perhaps, that I vaguely felt like a thief in his presence. Only I +hated to think of Dora while I looked at him + +Presently Dora made her appearance. My embarrassment returned, +more acute than ever. The consciousness of her confusion and, +above all, the consciousness of the three of us being together, was +insupportable. It was a terrible repast, though Max was absolutely +unaware of anything unnatural in our demeanor. I retired to my +room soon after supper + +I had a what-not half filled with books, so I drew a volume from it. +I found it difficult to get my mind on it. My thoughts were circling +round Dora and Max, round my precarious happiness, round the +novelty of carrying on a romantic conspiracy with a married +woman. Dora was so dear to me. I seemed to be vibrating with +devotion to her. Regardless of the fact that she was somebody +else's wife and a mother of two children, my love impressed me as +something sacred. I seemed to accept the general rule that a +wife-stealer is a despicable creature, a thief, a vile, immoral +wretch. But now, that I was not facing Max, that rule, somehow, +did not apply to my relations with Dora. + +Simultaneously with this feeling I had another one which excused +my conduct on the theory that everybody was at the bottom of his +heart likewise ready to set that rule at defiance and to make a +mistress of his friend's wife, provided it could be done with +absolute secrecy and safety. Max in my place would certainly not +have scrupled to act as I did. But then I hated to think of him in +this connection. I would brush all thoughts of him aside as I would +a vicious fly. I was too selfish to endure the pain even of a +moment's compunction. I treated myself as a doting mother does a +wayward son + +The book in my hands was the first volume of Herbert Spencer's +Sociology. My interest in this author and in Darwin was of recent +origin. It had been born of my hatred for the Cloak-makers' Union, +in fact. This is how I came to discover the existence of the two +great names and to develop a passion for the ideas with which +they are identified + +In my virulent criticism of the leaders of the union I had often +characterized them as so many good-for-nothings, jealous of those +who had succeeded in business by their superior brains, industry, +and efficiency. + +One day I found a long editorial in my newspaper, an answer to a +letter from a socialist. The editorial derived its inspiration from +the theory of the Struggle for Existence and the Survival of the +Fittest. Unlike many of the other editorials I had read, it breathed +conviction. It was obviously a work of love. When the central idea +of the argument came home to me I was in a turmoil of surprise +and elation. "Why, that's just what I have been saying all these +days!" I exclaimed in my heart. "The able fellows succeed, and the +misfits fail. Then the misfits begrudge those who accomplish +things." I almost felt as though Darwin and Spencer had +plagiarized a discovery of mine. Then, as I visualized the Struggle +for Existence, I recalled Meyer Nodelman's parable of chickens +fighting for food, and it seemed to me that, between the two of us, +Nodelman and I had hit upon the whole Darwinian doctrine. +Later, however, when I dipped into Social Statics, I was +over-borne by the wondrous novelty of the thing and by a sense of +my own futility, ignorance, and cheapness. I felt at the gates of a +great world of knowledge whose existence I had not even +suspected. I had to read the Origin of Species and the Descent of +Man, and then Spencer again. I sat up nights reading these books. +Apart from the purely intellectual intoxication they gave me, they +flattered my vanity as one of the "fittest." It was as though all the +wonders of learning, acumen, ingenuity, and assiduity displayed in +these works had been intended, among other purposes, to establish +my title as one of the victors of Existence + +A working-man, and every one else who was poor, was an object +of contempt to me--a misfit, a weakling, a failure, one of the ruck. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IT was August. In normal times this would have +been the beginning of the great "winter season" in our trade. As it +was, the deadlock continued. The stubbornness of the men, far +from showing signs of wilting under the strain of so many weeks +of enforced idleness and suffering, seemed to be gathering +strength, while our own people, the manufacturers, were frankly +weakening. + +The danger of having the great season pass without one being able +to fill a single order overcame the fighting blood of the most +pugnacious among them. + +One was confronted with the risk of losing one's best customers. +The trade threatened to pass from New York to Philadelphia and +Chicago. If you called the attention of a manufacturer to the +unyielding courage of the workmen, the reply invariably was, +first, that it was all mere bravado; and, second, that, anyhow, the +poor devils had nothing to lose, while the manufacturers had their +investments to lose + +The press supported the strikers. It did so, not because they were +working-people, but because they were East-Siders. Their district +was the great field of activity for the American University +Settlement worker and fashionable slummer. The East Side was a +place upon which one descended in quest of esoteric types and +"local color," as well as for purposes of philanthropy and "uplift" +work. To spend an evening in some East Side café was regarded +as something like spending a few hours at the Louvre so much so +that one such café, in the depth of East Houston Street, was +making a fortune by purveying expensive wine dinners to people +from up-town who came there ostensibly to see "how the other +half lived," but who only saw one another eat and drink in +freedom from the restraint of manners. Accordingly, to show +sympathy for East Side strikers was within the bounds of the +highest propriety. It was as "correct" as belonging to the Episcopal +Church. And so public opinion was wholly on the side of the +Cloak-makers' Union. This hastened the end. We succumbed. A +settlement was patched up. We were beaten. + +But even this did not appease the men. They repudiated the +agreement between their organization and ours, branding it as a +trap, and the strike was continued. Then the manufacturers +yielded completely, acceding to every demand of the union + +I became busy. I continued to curse the union, but at the bottom of +my heart I wished it well, for the vigor with which it enforced its +increased wage scale in all larger factories gave me greater +advantages than ever. I was still able to get men who were willing +to trick the organization. Every Friday afternoon these men +received pay-envelopes which bore figures in strict conformity +with the union's schedule, but the contents of which were +considerably below the sum marked outside. Subsequently this +proved to be a risky practice to pursue, for the walking delegates +were wide awake and apt to examine the envelopes as the +operatives were emerging from the shop. + +Accordingly, I adopted another system: the men would receive the +union pay in full, but on the following Monday each of them +would pay me back the difference between the official and the +actual wage. The usual practice was for the employee to put the +few dollars into his little wage-book, which he would then place +on my desk for the ostensible purpose of having his account +verified + +By thus cheating the union I could now undersell the bigger +manufacturers more easily than I had been able to do previous to +the lockout and strike. I had more orders than I could fill. Money +was coming in in floods + +The lockout and the absolute triumph of the union was practically +the making of me + +I saw much less of Dora than I had done during the five months of +the lockout, and our happiness when we managed to be left alone +was all the keener for it. Our best time for a tê-à-tˆte were the +hours between 10 and 12 on the evenings, when Max was sure to +be away at his dancing-schools, but then it often happened that +those were among my busiest hours at the shop. + +Sometimes I would snatch half an hour from my work in the +middle of a busy day to surprise her with my caresses. If a week +passed without my doing so she would punish me with mute +scenes of jealousy, of which none but she and I were aware. She +would avoid looking at me, and I would press my hand to my +heart and raise a pleading gaze at her, which said: "I couldn't get +away, dearest. Honest, I couldn't." + +One evening I bought her some roses. As I carried them home I +was thrilled as much by the fact that I, David of Abner's Court, +was taking flowers to a lady as I was by visioning the moment +when I should hand them to Dora. When I came home and put my +offering into her hand she was in a flurry of delight over it, but she +was scared to death lest it should betray our secret. After giving +way to bursts of admiration for the flowers and myself, and +smelling her fill, and covering me with kisses, she burned the +bouquet in the stove and forbade me to use this method of +showing her attention again + +"Your dear eyes are the best flowers you can bring me," she said + +Her love burned with a steady flame, bright and even. It +manifested itself in a thousand little things which she did for the +double purpose of ministering to my comfort and keeping me in +mind of herself. I felt it in the taste of the coffee I drank, in the +quality of my cup and saucer, in the painstaking darning on my +socks, in the frequency with which my room was swept, my towel +changed, my books dusted + +"Did you notice the new soap-dish on your wash-stand?" she asked +me, one morning. "Do you deserve it? Do you know how often I +am in your room every day? Just guess." + +"A million times a day." + +"To you it's a joke. But if you loved as I do you would not be up to +joking." + +"Very well, I'll cry." And I personated a boy crying. "Don't. It +breaks my heart," she said, earnestly. "I can't see you crying even +for fun." She kissed my eyes. "No, really, I go to your room twenty +times a day, perhaps. + +When I am there it seems to me that I am nearer to you. I kiss the +pillow on which you sleep. I pat the blanket, the pitcher, every +book of yours--everything your dear little hands touch. I want you +to know it. I want you to know how I love you. I knew that love +was sweet, but I never knew that it was so sweet. Oh, my loved +one!" + +She would pour out all sorts of endearments on me, some of them +rather of a fantastic nature, but "my loved one" became her +favorite appellation, while I found special relish in calling her "my +bride" or "bridie mine." + +I can almost feel her white fingers as they played with my +abundant dark hair or rested on my shoulders while she looked +into my eyes and murmured, yearningly: "My loved one! My loved +one! My loved one!" + +The set of my shoulders was a special object of her admiration. +She would shake them tenderly, call me monkey, and ask me if I +realized how much she loved me and if I deserved it all, bad boy +that I was + +She held me in check with an iron hand. Whenever my caresses +threatened to overstep the bounds of what she termed "respectable +love" she would stop them. With clouded eyes she would slap my +hand and then kiss it, saying: "Be a gentleman, Levinsky. Be a +gentleman. Can't you be a gentleman?" + +"Oh, you don't love me," I would grunt + +"I don't? I don't? I wish you would love me half as much," with a +sigh. "If you did you would not behave the way you do. That's all +your love amounts to--behaving like that. All men are hogs, after +all." With which she would take to lecturing me and pouring out +her infatuated heart in that solemn singsong of hers, which +somewhat bored me + +If she thought my kisses unduly passionate and the amorous look +of my eye dangerous she would move away from me + +"Don't be angry at me, sweetheart," she would say, cooingly + +"I am not angry, but you don't love me." + +"Why should you hurt my feelings like that? Why should you shed +my blood? Am I not yours, heart and soul? Am I not ready to cut +myself to pieces to please you? Why should you torture me?" + +"What are you afraid of? He won't know any more than he does +now," I once urged. + +She blushed, looking at the floor. After a minute's silence she said, +dolefully: "It isn't so much on account of that as on account of the +children. How could I look Lucy in the face?" + +Her eyes grew humid. My heart went out to her. + +"I understand. You are right," I yielded + +The scene repeated itself not many days after. It occurred again +and again at almost regular intervals. She fought bravely + +Many months passed, and still she was able "to look Lucy in the +face." + +At first, for a period of six or seven weeks, my moral conduct +outside the house was immaculate. Then I renewed my excursions +to certain streets. I made rather frequent calls at the apartment of a +handsome Hungarian woman who called herself Cleo. Once, in a +frenzy, I tried to imagine that she was Dora, and then I +experienced qualms of abject compunction and self-loathing + +Sometimes Lucy would arouse my jealous rancor, as a living +barrier between her mother and myself. But she was really dear to +me. I revered Dora for her fortitude, and Lucy appealed to me as +the embodiment of her mother's saintliness + +I would watch Lucy. She was an interesting study. Her manner of +speaking, her giggle, her childish little affectations seemed to +grow more American every day. She was like a little foreigner in +the house + +Dora was watching and studying her with a feeling akin to despair, +I thought. It was as though she was pursuing the little girl, with +outstretched arms, vainly trying to overtake her + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +I WAS rapidly advancing on the road to financial +triumphs. I was planning to move my business to larger quarters, +in the same modest neighborhood. Mrs. + +Chaikin, my partner's wife, failed to realize the situation, however. +She could not forgive me the false representations I had made to +her regarding my assets + +"And where is the treasure you were expecting?" she would twit +me. "You never tell a lie, do you? You simply don't know how to +do it. Poor thing!" + +When we were in the midst of an avalanche of lucrative orders +promising a brilliant winter season she took it into her head to +withdraw her husband from the firm, in which he was a silent +partner. Her decision was apparently based on the extreme efforts +she had once seen me making to raise five hundred dollars. As a +matter of fact, this was due to the rapidity of our growth. I lacked +capital. But then my credit was growing, too, and altogether things +were in a most encouraging condition + +"What is the use worrying along like that?" she said. "You +deceived me from the start. You made me believe you had a lot of +money, while you were really a beggar. Yes, you are a beggar, and +a beggar you are bound to stay. A beggar and a swindler--that's +what you are. You have fooled me long enough. + +You can't fool me any longer. So there!" + +Her husband was still employed by the German firm, attending to +the needs of our growing little factory surreptitiously every +evening and on Sundays. The day seemed near when it would pay +him to give all his time to our shop. And he was aware of it, too; +to some extent, at least. But Mrs. Chaikin ordained otherwise + +I attempted to present the actual state of affairs to her, but broke +off in the middle of a sentence. It suddenly flashed upon my mind +that it might all be to my advantage. "A designer can be hired," I +said to myself. "The business is progressing rapidly. To make him +my life partner is too high a price to pay for his skill. Besides, +having him for a partner actually means having his nuisance of a +wife for a partner. It will be a good thing to get rid of her." I +consulted Max, as I did quite often now. Not that I thought myself +in need of his advice, or anybody else's, for that matter. Success +had made me too self-confident for that. I played the intimate and +ardent friend, and this was simply part of my personation. To +flatter his vanity I would make him think his suggestions had been +acted upon and that they had brought good results. As a +consequence, he was developing the notion that my success was +largely due to his guidance, a notion which jarred on me, but +which I humored, nevertheless + +"Do you know what's the matter?" he said, sagely. "Mrs. Chaikin +must have found another partner for her husband. Some fellow +with big money, I suppose." + +"You are right, Max," I said, sincerely. "How stupid I am." + +"Why, of course they have got another partner. Of course they +have," he repeated, with elation. "So much the better for you. Let +them go to the eighty black years. Don't run after him. Just do as I +tell you and you'll be all right, Levinsky. My advice has never got +you in trouble, has it?" + +"Indeed not. Indeed not," I answered + +Max's blindness to what was going on between Dora and myself +was a riddle to which I vainly sought a solution. That this cynic +who charged every man and woman with immorality should, in +the circumstances, be so absolutely undisturbed in his confidence +regarding his wife seemed nothing short of a miracle. When I now +think of the riddle I see its solution in a modified version of the +old rule concerning the mote in thy neighbor's eye and the beam in +thine own eve. Your worst pessimist is, after all, an optimist with +regard to himself. We are quick to recognize the gravity of ill +health in somebody else, yet we ourselves may be on the very +brink of death without realizing it. It is a special phase of +selfishness. We are loath to connect the idea of a catastrophe with +our own person. Max, who saw a mote in the eye of everybody +else's wife, failed to perceive the beam in the eye of his own + +As for Sadie, who lived in the same house now, and who visited +Dora's apartment at all hours, she was too silly and too deeply +infatuated with her friend to suspect her of anything wrong + +I idolized Dora. It seemed to me that I adored her soul even more +than I did her body. I was under her moral influence, and the +firmness with which she maintained the distance between us +added to my respect for her. And yet I never ceased to dream of +and to seek her moral downfall + +I had extended my canvassing activities to a number of cities +outside New York, my territory being a semicircle with a radius of +about a hundred and fifty miles. I had long since picked up some +of the business jargon of the country and I was thirstily drinking in +more and more + +"What do you think of this number, Mr. So-and-so?" I would say, +self-consciously, to a merchant, as I dangled a garment in front of +him. + +"You can make a run on it. It's the kind of suit that gives the +wearer an air of distinction." + +If I heard a bit of business rhetoric that I thought effective I would +jot it down and commit it to memory. In like manner I would +write down every new piece of slang, the use of the latest popular +phrase being, as I thought, helpful in making oneself popular with +Americans, especially with those of the young generation. But +somehow a slang phrase would be in general use for a +considerable time before it attracted my attention. The Americans +I met were so quick to discern and adopt these phrases it seemed +as if they were born with a special slang sense which I, poor +foreigner that I was, lacked. + +That I was not born in America was something like a physical +defect that asserted itself in many disagreeable ways--a physical +defect which, alas! no surgeon in the world was capable of +removing + +Other things that I would enter in my note-book were names of +dishes on the bills of fare of the better restaurants, with +explanations of my own. I would describe the difference between +Roquefort cheese and Liederkranz cheese, between consommé +Celestine and consommé princesse; I would make a note of the +composition of macaroni au gratin, the appearance and taste of +potatoes Lyonnaise, of various salad-dressings. But I gradually +picked up this information in a practical way and really had no +need of my culinary notes. I had many occasions to eat in +high-class restaurants and I was getting to feel quite at home in +them + +Max's conjecture regarding Chaikin was borne out. The talented +designer had given up his job at the Manheimer Brothers' and +opened a cloak-and-suit house with a man who had made +considerable money as a cloak salesman, and as a landlord for a +partner. When Max heard of it he was overjoyed + +"I tell you what, Levinsky," he said, half in jest and half in earnest. +"Let the two of us make a partnership of it. I could put some +money into the business." + +I reflected that when I approached him for a loan of four hundred +dollars, on my first visit at his house, he had pleaded poverty + +"I could do a good deal of hustling, too," he added, gravely. +"Between the two of us we should make a great success of it." + +I gave him an evasive answer. I must have looked annoyed, for he +exclaimed: "Look at him! Look at him, Dora! Scared to death, isn't +he?" And to me: "Don't be uneasy, old chap! I am not going to +snatch your factory from you. + +But you are a big hog, all the same. I can tell you that. How will +you manage all alone? Who will take care of your business when +you go traveling?" + +"Oh, I'll manage it somehow," I answered, making an effort to be +pleasant. + +"Chaikin was scarcely ever in the shop, anyhow." + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +I TRAVELED quite often, sometimes staying +away from New York for two or three days, but more frequently +for only one day. On one occasion, however, I was detained on the +road for five days in succession. It was the beginning of June, a +little over a year since the Margolises moved into the Clinton +Street flat with myself as their boarder. I was homesick. I missed +Dora acutely. I loved her passionately, tenderly, devotedly. I now +felt it with special force. Her face and figure loomed up a hundred +times a day. + +"Dora dear! Bridie mine!" I would whisper, all but going to pieces +with tenderness and yearning + +One afternoon, after closing an unexpectedly large sale in a +department store, I went to the jewelry department of the same +firm and paid a hundred and twenty dollars for a bracelet. I knew +that she would not be able to wear it, yet I was determined to +make her accept it + +"Let her keep it in some hiding-place," I thought. "Let her steal an +occasional look at it. I don't care what she does with it. I want her +to know that I think of her, that I am crazy for her." + +It was Friday evening when I returned to New York, having been +on the road since the preceding Monday morning. I first went to +my place of business and then to a restaurant for supper. I would +not make my appearance at the house until half past 10, when the +coast was sure to be clear. With thrills of anticipation that verged +on physical pain I was looking forward to the moment when I +should close the bracelet about her slender white wrist + +At the fixed minute I was at the door of the Clinton Street +apartment. I pulled the bell. I expected an excited rush, a violent +opening of the door, a tremulous: "My loved one! My loved one!" + +There was a peculiar disappointment in store for me. She received +me icily, not letting me come near her + +"Why, what's the matter? What's up?" "Nothing," she muttered + +When we reached the light of the Sabbath candles in the +dining-room I noticed that she looked worn and haggard + +"What has happened?" I asked, greatly perplexed. "I have +something for you," I said, producing the blue-velvet box +containing the bracelet and opening it. "Here, my bride!" + +"How dare you call me 'bride,' you hypocrite?" she gasped. "Away +with you, your present and all!" + +"Why? Why? What does it all mean?" I asked, between mirth and +perplexity + +For an answer she merely continued: "You thought you could bribe +me by this present of yours, did you? You can fool me no longer. I +have found you out. + +You have fallen into your own trap. You have. How dare you buy +me presents?" + +At this she tore the bracelet out of my hand and flung it into the +little corridor. She was on the verge of a fit of hysterics. I fetched +her a glass of water, but she dashed it out of my hand. Then, +frightened and sobered by the crash, she first tiptoed to the +bedroom to ascertain if Lucy was not awake and listening, and +then went to the little corridor, picked up the bracelet and slipped +it into my pocket + +"If you have decided to get married, I can't stop you, of course," +she began, in a ghastly undertone, as she crouched to gather up the +fragments of the glass and to wipe the floor. + +"Decided to get married?" I interrupted her. "Where on earth did +you get that? What 'trap' are you talking about, Dora?" + +She made no answer. I continued to protest my innocence. Finally, +when she had removed the broken glass, she said: "It's no use +pretending you don't know anything about it. It won't do you any +good. You have been very foxy about it, but you made a break, and +there you are! You think you are very clever. If you were you +wouldn't let your shadchen [note] know where you live--" + +Oh, I see," I said, with a hearty laugh. "Has he been here?" And I +gave way to another guffaw + +Shadchen was a conspiracy name for a man who would bring an +employer together with cloak-makers who were willing to cheat +the union. The one who performed these services for me was one +of my own "hands." He was thoroughly dishonest, but he +possessed a gentle disposition and a certain gift of expression. +This gave him power over his shopmates. He was their "shop +chairman" and a member of their "price committee." He was the +only man in my employ who actually received the full union price. +In addition to this, I paid him his broker's commission for every +new man he furnished me, and various sums as bribes pure and +simple + +I explained it all to Dora. The ardor with which I spoke and the +details of my dealings with the shadchen must have made my +explanation convincing, for she accepted it at once + +"You're not fooling me, are you?" she asked, piteously, yet in a +tone of immense relief. + +"Strike me dumb if--" + +"'S-sh! Don't curse yourself," she said, clapping her hand over my +mouth. "I can't bear to hear it. I believe you. If you knew what I +have gone through!" + +"Poor, poor child!" I said, kissing her soft white fingers tenderly. +"Poor, poor baby! How could you think of such a thing! There is +only one bride for me in all the world, and that is my own Dora +darling." + +Her face shone with a wan, beseeching kind of light + +Again I drew forth the bracelet + +"Foolish child!" I said, examining it. "Thank God, it isn't damaged. +Not a bit." + +I took her by the hand, opened the bracelet, and closed it over her +wrist. + +She instantly took it off again, with an instinctive side-glance at +the door. Then, holding it up to the light admiringly, she said: +"Oh! Oh! Must have cost a pile of money! Why did you spend so +much? I can't wear it, anyway. Better return it." + +"Never! It's yours, my sweetheart. Do whatever you like with it. +Put it away somewhere. If you wear it for one minute every week I +shall be happy. If you only look at it once in a while I shall be +happy." + +"I am afraid to keep it. Somebody may come across it some day. +Better return it, my loved one! I am happy as it is. It would make +me nervous to have it in the house." + +She made me take it back + +"Thank God it wasn't a real shadchen! I thought I was going to +commit suicide," she said + +I seized her in my arms. She abandoned herself to a transport of +gratitude and happiness in which her usual fortitude melted away + +The next morning she had the appearance of one doomed to death. +Her eyes avoided everybody, not only her husband and Lucy, but +myself as well. She pleaded indisposition + +Max left for the synagogue, as he always did on Saturday morning. +I accompanied him out of the house, on my way to business. We +parted at a corner where I was to wait for a street-car. Instead of +boarding a car, however, I returned home. I was burning to be +alone with Dora, to cuddle her out of her forlorn mood + +"I have come back for a minute just to tell you how dear you are to +me," I whispered to her in the presence of the children, who were +having their breakfast. I signed to her to follow me into the parlor, +and she did. "Just one kiss, dearest!" I said, clasping her to me and +kissing her. "I'd let myself be cut to pieces for you." + +She nestled to me for a moment ,gave me a hasty kiss, and ran +back to the children, all without looking at me + +I went away with a broken heart + +Late that evening, when we found ourselves alone, and I rushed at +her, she gently pushed me off + +"Why? What's the trouble?" I asked. + +"No trouble at all," she answered, looking down, with shamefaced +gravity + +"Do you hate me?" + +"Hate you! I wish I could," she answered, with a sad smile, still +looking down. + +"Why this new way, then?" I said, rather impatiently. "You are +dearer than ever to me, Levinsky. Tell me to jump into fire, and I +will. But--can't we love each other and be good?" + +"What are you talking about, Dora? What has got into you? Do you +know what you are to me now?" I demanded, melodramatically + +I made another attempt at kissing her, but was repulsed again + +"Not now, anyway, my loved one," she said, entreatingly. "Let a +few days pass. You don't want me to feel bad, do you, dearest?" + +I looked sheepish. I was convinced that it was merely a passing +mood + +[note: shadchen]: Marriage broker, match-maker + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +NEXT Monday, when I was ready to go to my +place of business, Dora left the house, pitcher in hand, before I +rose from the breakfast-table. She was going for milk, but a +side-glance which she cast at the floor in my direction as she +turned to shut the door behind her told me that she wanted to see +me in the street. After letting some minutes pass I put on my +overcoat and hat, bade Max a studiously casual good-by, and +departed + +I awaited her on the stoop. Presently she emerged from the grocery +in the adjoining building + +"Could you be free at 4 o'clock this afternoon?" she asked, +ascending the few steps, and pausing by my side. "I want to have a +talk with you. + +Somewhere else. Not at home." + +"Why not at home, in the evening?" "No. That won't do," she +overruled me, softly. "Somebody might come in and interrupt me. +I'll wait for you in the little park on Second Avenue and Fifteenth +Street. You know the place, don't you?" + +She meant Stuyvesant Park, which the sunny Second Avenue cuts +in two, and she explained that our meeting was to take place on +the west side of the thoroughfare + +"Will you come?" she asked, nervously + +"I will, I will. But what's up? Why do you look so serious? Dora! +Dora mine!" + +"'S-sh! You had better go. When we meet I'll explain everything. +At 4 o'clock, then. Don't forget. As you come up the avenue, going +up-town, it is on the left-hand side. Write it down." + +To insure against any mistakes on my part she made me repeat it +and then jot it down. As she turned to go upstairs she said, in a +melancholy whisper: "Good-by, dearest." + +When I reached the appointed place the brass hands of the clock +on the steeple high overhead indicated ten minutes of 4. It was +June, but the day was a typical November day, mildly warm, clear, +and charged with the exhilarating breath of a New York autumn. +Dora had not yet arrived. The benches in the little park were for +the most part occupied by housewives or servant-girls who sat +gossiping in front of baby-carriages, amid the noise of romping +children. Here and there an elderly man sat smoking his pipe +broodingly. They were mostly Germans or Czechs. There were +scarcely any of our people in the neighborhood at the period in +question, and that was why Dora had selected the place + +I stood outside the iron gate, gazing down the avenue. The minutes +were insupportably long. + +At last her womanly figure came into dim view. My heart leaped. I +was in a flutter of mixed anxiety and joyous anticipation. "Oh, +she'll back down," I persuaded myself. + +She was walking fast, apparently under the impression that she +was late. Her face was growing more distinct every moment. The +blue hat she wore and the parasol she carried gave her a new +aspect. I had more than once seen her leave the house in street +array, but watching her come up the street thus formally attired +somehow gave her a different appearance. + +She looked so peculiarly dignified and so exquisitely lady-like she +almost seemed to be a stranger. This, added to her romantic +estrangement from me and to the clandestine nature of our tryst, +produced a singular effect upon me. + +"Am I very late?" she asked + +"No. Not at all, Dora!" I said, yearningly + +She made no answer + +We could not find an empty bench, and to let Germans overhear +our Yiddish, which is merely a German dialect, would have been +rather risky. So she delivered her message as we walked round +and round, both of us eying the asphalt all the while. Her beautiful +complexion and our manner attracted much attention. The people +on the benches apparently divined the romantic nature of our +interview. One white-haired little man with a terrier face never +took his eyes off her + +"First of all I want to tell you that this is one of the most important +days in my life," she began. "It is certainly not a happy day. It's +Yom Kippur [note] with me. I want to say right here that I am +willing to die for you, Levinsky. I am terribly in love with you, +Levinsky. Yes--" + +Her voice broke. She was confused and agitated, but she soon +regained her self-mastery. She spoke in sad, solemn, quietly +passionate tones, and gradually developed a homespun sort of +eloquence which I had never heard from her before. But then the +gift of homely rhetoric is rather a common talent among +Yiddish-speaking women + +The revolting sight of the dog-faced old fellow who was ogling +Dora so fascinated me that it interfered with my listening. I made +a point of looking away from him every time we came round to +his bench, but that only kept me thinking of him instead of +listening to Dora. Finally we confined our walk to the farther side +of the little park, giving him a wide berth + +"I love you more than I can tell you, Levinsky," she resumed. "But +it is not my good luck to be happy. I dreamed all my life of love, +and now that it is here, right here in my heart, I must choke it with +my own hands." "Why? Why?" I said, with vehemence. "Why +must you?" + +"Why!" she echoed, bitterly. "Because the Upper One brought you +to me only to punish me, to tease me. That's all. That's all. That's +all." + +"Why should you take it that way?" "Don't interrupt me, +Levinsky," she said, chanting, rather than speaking. As she +proceeded, her voice lapsed into a quaint, doleful singsong, not +unlike the lament of our women over a grave. "No, Levinsky. It is +not given to me to be happy. But I ask no questions of the Upper +One. I used to live in peace. I was not happy, but I lived in peace. +I did not know what happiness was, so I did not miss it much. I +only dreamed of it. But the Lord of the World would have me +taste it, so that I might miss it and that my heart might be left with +a big, big wound. I want you to know exactly how I feel. + +Oh, if I could turn this poor heart of mine inside out! Then you +could see all that is going on there. Listen, Levinsky. If it were not +for my children, my dear children, my all in all in the world, I +should not live with Margolis another day. If he gave me a +divorce, well and good; if not, then I don't know what I might do. I +shouldn't care. I love you so and I want to be happy. I do, I do, I +do." + +A sob rang through her voice as she repeated the words. "You do, +and yet you are bound to make both of us miserable," I said + +"Can I help it?" + +"If you would you could," I said, grimly. "Get a divorce and let us +be married and have it over." + +She shook her head sadly + +"Thousands of couples get divorced." She kept shaking her head + +"Then what's the use pretending you love me?" + +"Pretending! Shall I turn my heart inside out to show you how hard +it is to live without you? But you can't understand. No, Levinsky. I +have no right to be happy. Lucy shall be happy. She certainly +sha'n't marry without love. Her happiness will be mine, too. That's +the only kind I am entitled to. She shall go to college. She shall be +educated. She shall marry the loved one of her heart. She shall not +be buried alive as her mother was. Let her profit by what little +sense I have been able to pick up." + +A bench became vacant and we occupied it. The momentary +interruption and the change in her physical attitude broke the +spell. The solemnity was gone out of her voice. She resumed in a +distracted and somewhat listless manner, but she soon warmed up +again + +"What would you have me do? Let Lucy find out some day that her +mother was a bad woman? I should take poison first." + +"A bad woman!" I protested. "A better woman could not be found +anywhere in the world. You are a saint, Dora." + +"No, I am not. I am a bad, wicked, nasty woman. I hate myself." + +"'S-sh! You mustn't speak like that," I said, stopping my ears. " I +cannot bear it." + +"Yes, that's what I am, a nasty creature. I used to be pure as gold. +There was not a speck on my soul, and now, woe is me, pain is +me! What has come over me?" + +When she finally got down to the practical side of her resolution it +turned out that she wanted me to move out of her house and never +to see her again + +I was shocked. I flouted the idea of it. I argued, I poured out my +lovelorn heart. But she insisted with an iron-clad finality. I argued +again, entreated, raved, all to no purpose + +"I'll never come close to you. All I want is to be able to see you, to +live in the same house with you." + +"Don't be tearing my heart to pieces," she said. "It is torn badly +enough as it is. Do as I say, Levinsky." "Don't you want to see me +at all?" "Oh, it's cruel of you to ask questions like that. You have +no heart, Levinsky. It's just because I am crazy to see you that you +have got to move." + +"Don't you want me even to call at your house?" I asked, with an +ironical smile, as though I did not take the matter seriously + +"Well, that would look strange. Call sometimes, not often, though, +and never when Margolis is out." + +"Oh, I shall commit suicide," I snarled + +"Oh, well. It isn't as bad as all that." + +"I will. I certainly will," I said, knowing that I was talking +nonsense + +"Don't torment me, Levinsky. Don't sprinkle salt over my wound. +Take pity on me. Do as I wish and let the tooth be pulled out with +as little pain as possible." + +I accompanied her down the avenue as far as Houston Street, +where she insisted upon our parting. Before we did, however, she +indulged in another outburst of funereal oratory, bewailing her +happiness as she would a dead child. It was apparently not easy +for her to take leave of me, but her purpose to make our romance +a thing of the past and to have me move to other lodgings +remained unshaken + +"This is the last time I shall ever speak to you of my love, +Levinsky," she said. "I must tear it out of my heart, even if I have +to tear out a piece of my heart along with it. Such is my fate. +Good-by, Levinsky. Good luck to you. Be good. Be good. Be +good. Remember you have a good head. Waste no time. Study as +much as you can. God grant you luck in your business, but try to +find time for your books, too. You must become a great man. Do +you promise me to read and study a lot?" + +"I do. I do. But I won't move out. I can't live without you. We +belong to each other, and all you say is nothing but a woman's +whim. It's all bosh," I concluded, with an air of masculine +superiority. "I won't move out." + +"You shall, dearest. Good-by. Good-by." + +She broke into a fit of sobbing, but checked it, shook my hand +vehemently and hastened away. + +[note: Yom Kippur] Day of Atonement; figuratively, a day of +anguish and tears. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +I HOPED she would yield, but she did not. I +found myself in the grip of an iron will and I did as I was bidden + +When I set out in quest of a furnished room I instinctively betook +myself to the neighborhood of Stuyvesant Park. That park had +acquired a melancholy fascination for me. As though to make +amends for my agonies, I determined to move into a good, +spacious room, even if I had to pay three or four times as much as +I had been paying at the Margolises'. I found a sunny front room +with two windows in an old brown-stone house on East Nineteenth +Street, between Second Avenue and First, a short distance from +the little park and near an Elevated station. The curtains, the +carpet, the huge, soft arm-chair, and the lounge struck me as +decidedly "aristocratic." To cap the climax of comfort and +"swellness," the landlady--a gray little German-American--had, at +my request, a bookcase placed between the mantelpiece and one +of the windows. It was a "regular" bookcase, doors and all, not a +mere "what-not," and the sight of it swelled my breast + +"I shall forget all my troubles here," I thought. "I am going to buy a +complete set of Spencer and some other books. Won't the +bookcase look fine! I shall read, read, read." + +When I reported to Dora that I was ready to move, her face +clouded + +"You seem to be glad to," she said, with venom, dropping her eyes + +"Glad? Glad? Why, I am not going to move, then. May I stay here, +darling mine? May I?" + +"Are you really sorry you have to move?" she asked, fixing a +loving glance at me. "Do you really love me?" + +There were tears in her eyes. I attempted to come close to her, to +kiss her, but she held me back + +"No, dearest," she said, shaking her head. "Move out to-morrow, +will you? Let's be done with it." + +"And what will Max say?" I asked, sardonically. Will nothing seem +strange to him nothing at all?" + +"Never mind that." + +She never mentioned Max to me now, not even by pronoun + +"Then you must know him to be an idiot." Now I hated Max with +all my heart. + +"Don't," she implored + +"Oh, I see. He's dear to you now," I laughed + +"Have a heart, Levinsky. Have a heart. Must you keep shedding my +blood? Have you no pity at all?" + +"But it is all so ridiculous. It will look strange," I argued, seriously. + +"He is bound to get suspicious." + +"I have thought it all out. Don't be uneasy. I'll say we had a quarrel +over your board bill." + +"A nice dodge, indeed! It may fool Dannie, not him." + +"Leave it all to me. Better tell me what sort of lodgings you have +got. Is it a decent room? Plenty of air and sunshine? But, no. Don't +tell me anything. I mustn't know." I sneered + +She was absorbed in thought, flushed, nervous. + +Presently she said, with an effect of speaking to herself: "It's sweet +to suffer for what is right." + +I moved out according to her program. I came home at 10 the first +evening. + +My double room, with its great arm-chair, carpets, bookcase, +imposing lace curtains, and the genteel silence of the street +outside, was a prison to me. + +I attempted to read, but there was a lump in my throat and the lines +swam before me + +I went out, roamed about the streets, dropped in at a Hungarian +café, took another ramble, and returned to my room + +I tossed about on my great double bed. I sat up in front of one of +my two windows, gazing at a street-lamp. It was not solely Dora, +but also Lucy and Dannie that I missed. Only the image of Max +now aroused hostile feelings in me + +Max called at my shop the very next day. The sight of him cut me +to the quick. I received him in morose silence + +"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he inquired, with pained +amazement. + +"What did you two quarrel about?" + +I made no answer. His presence oppressed me. My surly reticence +was no mere acting. But I knew that he misinterpreted it into grim +resentment of Dora's sally, as though I said, "Your wife's conduct +had better be left undiscussed." + +"What nonsense! She charged you too much, did she? Is that the +way it all began? Did she insult you? Well, women-folk are liable +to flare up, you know. Tell me all about it. I'll straighten it out +between you. The children miss you awfully. Come, don't be a +fool, Levinsky. Who ever took the words of a woman seriously? +What did she say that you should take it so hard?" + +"You had better ask her," I replied, with a well-acted frown + +"Ask her! She gets wild when I do. I never saw her so wild. She +thinks you insulted her first. Well, she is a woman, but you aren't +one, are you? Come to the house this evening, will you?" + +"That's out of the question." + +"Then meet me somewhere else. I want to have a talk with you. It's +all so foolish." I pleaded important other engagements, but he +insisted that I should meet him later in the evening, and I had to +make the appointment. I promised to be at a Canal Street café on +condition that he did not mention the disagreeable episode nor +offer to effect a reconciliation between Dora and myself + +"You're a tough customer. As tough as Dora," he said + +When I came to the café, at about 11, I found him waiting for me. +He kept his promise about avoiding the subject of Dora, but he +talked of women, which jarred on me inordinately now. His +lecherous fibs and philosophy made him literally unbearable to +me. To turn the conversation I talked shop, and this bored him. + +About a week later he called on me again. He informed me that +Dora had taken a new apartment up in Harlem, where the rooms +were even more modern and cheaper than on Clinton Street + +"I wouldn't mind staying where we are," he observed. "But you +know how women are. Everybody is moving up-town, so she must +move, too." + +My face hardened, as if to say: "Why will you speak of your wife? +You know I can't bear to hear of her." At the same time I said to +myself: "Poor Dora! She must have found it awful to live in the +old place, now that I am no longer there." + +His next visit at my shop took place after a lapse of three or four +weeks. + +He descanted upon his new home and the Harlem dwellings in +general, and I made an effort to show him cordial attention and to +bear myself generally as though there were no cause for +estrangement between us, but I failed + +At last he said, resentfully: "What's the matter with you? Why are +you so sour? If you and Dora have had a falling out, is that any +reason why you and I should not be good friends?" "Why, why?" I +protested. "Who says I am sour?" + +We parted on very friendly terms. But it was a long time before I +saw him again, and then under circumstances that were a +disagreeable surprise to me + + + + +BOOK X + +ON THE ROAD + + + +CHAPTER I + +WEEKS went by. My desolation seemed to be growing in excruciating intensity. + +From time to time, when I chanced to recall some trait or trick of +Dora's, her person would come back to me with special vividness, +smiting me with sudden cruelty. The very odor of her flesh would +grip my consciousness. At such moments my agony would be so +great that I seemed to be on the brink of a physical collapse. +During intervals there was a steady gnawing pain. It was as though +the unrelenting tortures of a dull toothache had settled somewhere +in the region of my heart or stomach, I knew not exactly where. I +recognized the pang as an old acquaintance. It had the same flavor +as the terrors of my tantalizing love for Matilda + +My shop had lost all meaning to me. I vaguely longed to flee from +myself + +There was plenty to do in the shop and all sorts of outside +appointments to keep, not to speak of my brief trips as traveling +salesman. To all of which I attended with automatic regularity, +with listless doggedness. The union was a constant source of +worry. In addition, there was a hitch in my relations with the +"marriage broker." But even my worrying seemed to be done +automatically + +Having forfeited the invaluable services of Chaikin, who now gave +all his time to his newly established factory, I filled the gap with +all sorts of makeshifts and contrivances. An employee of one of +the big shops, a tailor, stole designs for me. These were used in +my shop by a psalm-muttering old tailor with a greenish-white +beard full of snuff, who would have become a Chaikin if he had +been twenty years younger. Later I hired the services of a newly +graduated cloak-designer who would drop in of an afternoon. +Officially the old man was my foreman, but in reality he acted as +a guiding spirit to that designer and one of my sample-makers, as +well as foreman + +I was forming new connections, obtaining orders from new +sources. Things were coming my way in spite of myself, as it +were. There was so much work and bustle that it became next to +impossible to manage it all single-handed. + +The need of a bookkeeper, at least, was felt more keenly every day. +But I simply lacked the initiative to get one + +While I was thus cudgeling my brains, hovering about my shop, +meeting people, signing checks, reading or writing letters, that +dull pain would keep nibbling, nibbling, nibbling at me. At times, +during some of those violent onslaughts I would seek the partial +privacy of my second-hand desk for the express purpose of +abandoning myself to the tortures of my helpless love. There is +pleasure in this kind of pain. It was as though I were two men at +once, one being in the toils of hopeless love and the other filled +with the joy of loving, all injunctions and barriers notwithstanding + +One October evening as I passed through the Grand Central +station on my way from an Albany train I was hailed with an +impulsive, "Hello, Levinsky!" + +It was Bender, my old-time evening-school instructor. I had not +seen him for more than three years, during which time he had +developed a pronounced tendency to baldness, though his apple +face had lost none of its roseate freshness. He looked spruce as +ever, his clothes spick and span, his "four-in-hand" tastefully tied, +his collar and cuffs immaculate. His hazel eyes, however, had a +worn and wistful look in them. + +"Quite an American, I declare," he exclaimed, with patronizing +admiration and pride, as who should say, "My work has borne +fruit, hasn't it?" + +"Well, how is the world treating you?" he questioned me, after +having looked me over more carefully. "You seem to be doing +well." + +When he heard that I was "trying to manufacture cloaks and suits" +he surveyed me once again, with novel interest + +"Are you really? That's good. Glad to hear you're getting on in the +world." + +"Do you remember the two books you gave me--Dombey and Son +and the little dictionary?" + +I told him how much good they had done me and he complimented +me on my English + +He wanted to know more about my business, and I sketched for +him my struggles during the first year and the progress I was now +making. My narrative was interspersed with such phrases as, "my +growing credit," "my "in my desk," "dinner with a buyer from +Ohio," all of which I uttered with great self-consciousness. He +congratulated me upon my success and upon my English again. +Whereupon I exuberantly acknowledged the gratitude I owed him +for the special pains he had taken with me when I was his pupil + +He still taught evening school during the winter months. When I +asked about his work at the custom-house, which had been his +chief occupation three years before, he answered evasively. By +little and little, however, he threw off his reserve and told, at first +with studied flippancy and then with frank bitterness, how "the +new Republican broom swept clean," and how he had lost his job +because of his loyalty to the Democratic party. He dwelt on the +civil-service reform of President Cleveland, charging the +Republicans with "offensive partisanship," a Cleveland phrase +then as new as four-in-hand neckties. And in the next breath he +proceeded to describe certain injustices (of which he apparently +considered himself a victim) within the fold of his own party. His +immediate ambition was to obtain a "permanent appointment" as +teacher of a public day school + +He was a singular surprise to me. Formerly I had looked up to him +as infinitely my superior, whereas now he struck me as being +piteously beneath me + +"Can't you think of something better?" I said, with mild contempt. +Then, with a sudden inspiration, I exclaimed: "I have a scheme for +you, Mr. + +Bender! Suppose you try to sell cloaks? There's lots of money in +it." + +The outcome of our conversation was that he agreed to spend a +week or two in my shop preparatory to soliciting orders for me, at +first in the city and then on the road + +Our interview lasted a little over an hour, but that hour produced a +world of difference in our relations. He had met me with a +patronizing, "Hello, Levinsky." When we parted there was a note +of gratitude and of something like obsequiousness in his voice + + + +CHAPTER II + +ON a Friday afternoon, during the first week of +Bender's connection with my establishment, as he and I were +crossing a side-street on our way from luncheon, I ran into the +loosely built, bulky figure of Max Margolis. Max and I paused +with a start, both embarrassed. I greeted him complaisantly + +"And how are you?" he said, looking at the lower part of my face + +I introduced my companion and after a brief exchange of +trivialities we were about to part, when Max detained me + +"Wait. What's your hurry?" he said. "There is something I want to +speak to you about. In fact, it was to your shop I was going." + +His manner disturbed me. "Were you? Come on, then," I said + +"Hold on. What's your hurry? We might as well talk here." + +Bender tipped his hat to him and moved away, leaving us to +ourselves + +"What is it?" I repeated, with studied indifference + +"Well, I should like to have a plain, frank talk with you, Levinsky," +he answered. "There is something that is bothering my mind. I +never thought I should speak to you about it, but at last I decided +to see you and have it out. I was going to call on you and to ask +you to go out with me, because you have no private office." + +There was a nervous, under-dog kind of air about him. His damp +lips revolted me + +"But what is it? What are all these preliminaries for? Come to the +point and be done with it. What is it?" Then I asked, with +well-simulated indignation, "Your wife has not persuaded you that +I have cheated her out of some money, has she?" + +"Why, no. Not at all," he answered, looking at the pavement. "It +isn't that at all. The thing is driving me mad." + +"But what is it?" I shouted, in a rage + +"'S-sh!" he said, nervously. "If you are going to be excited like that +it's no use speaking at all. Perhaps you are doing it on purpose to +get out of it." + +Get out of what? What on earth are you prating about?" I +demanded, with a fine display of perplexity and sarcasm + +We were attracting attention. Bystanders were eying us. An old +woman, leading a boy by the hand, even paused to watch us, and +then her example was followed by some others + +"Come on, for God's sake!" he implored me. "All I want is a +friendly talk with you. We might talk in your shop, but you have +no private office." + +"Whether I have one or not is none of your business" I retorted, +with irrelevant resentment + +We walked on. He proposed to take me to one of the ball and +meeting-room places in which he did business, and I acquiesced + +A few minutes later we were seated on a long cushion of red plush +covering one of the benches in a long, narrow meeting-hall. We +were close to the window, in the full glare of daylight. A few feet +off the room was in semi-darkness which, still farther off, lapsed +into night. As the plush cushions stretched their lengths into the +deepening gloom their live red died away. There was a touch of +weirdness to the scene, adding to the oppressiveness of the +interview + +"I want to ask you a plain question," he began, in a strange voice. +"And I want you to answer it frankly. I assure you I sha'n't be +angry. On the contrary, I shall be much obliged to you if you tell +me the whole truth. + +Tell me what happened between you and Dora." I was about to +burst into laughter, but I felt that it would not do. Before I knew +how to act he added, with a sort of solemnity: "She has confessed +everything." + +"Confessed everything!" I exclaimed, with a feigned compound of +hauteur, indignation, and amusement, playing for time + +"That's what she did." + +A frenzy of hate took hold of me. I panted to be away from him, to +be out of this room, semi-darkness, red cushions, and all, and let +the future take care of itself. And so, jumping to my feet, I said, in +a fury: "You always were a liar and an idiot. I don't want to have +anything to do with you." With which I made for the door + +"Oh, don't be excited. Don't go yet, Levinsky dear, please," he +implored, hysterically, running after me. "I have the best of +feelings for you. May the things that I wish you come to me. +Levinsky! Dear friend! Darling!" + +"What do you want of me?" I demanded, with quiet rancor, +pausing at the door and half opening it, without moving on + +"If you tell me it isn't true I'll believe you, even if she did confess. I +don't know if she meant what she said. If only you were not +excited! I want to tell you everything, everything." + +I laughed sardonically. My desire to escape the ordeal gave way to +strange curiosity. He seemed to be aware of it, for he boldly shut +the door. He begged me to take a seat again, and I did, a short +distance from the door, where the gloom was almost thick enough +to hide our faces from each other's view + +"Why, you are simply crazy, Max!" I said. "You probably bothered +the life out of her and she 'confessed' to put an end to it all. You +might as well have made her confess to murder." + +"That's what she says now. But I don't know. When she confessed +she confessed. I could see it was the truth." + +"You are crazy, Max! It is all nonsense. Ab-solutely." + +"Is it?" he demanded, straining to make out the expression of my +face through the dusk. "Do assure me it is all untrue. Take pity, +dear friend. Do take pity." + +"How can I assure you, seeing that you have taken that crazy +notion into your head and don't seem to be able to get rid of it? +Come, throw that stuff out of your mind!" I scolded him, +mentorially. "It's enough to make one sick. Come to reason. Don't +be a fool. I am no saint, but in this case you are absolutely +mistaken. Why, Dora is such an absolutely respectable woman, a +fellow would never dare have the slightest kind of fun with her. +The idea!"--with a little laugh. "You are a baby, Max. Upon my +word, you are. + +Dora and I had some words over my bill and--well, she insulted me +and I wouldn't take it from her. That's all there was to it. Why, +look here, Max. + +With your knowledge of men and women, do you mean to say that +something was going on under your very nose and you never +noticed anything? Don't you see how ridiculous it is?" + +"Well, I believe you, Levinsky," he said, lukewarmly. "Now that +you assure me you don't know anything about it, I believe you. I +know you are not an enemy of mine. I have always considered you +a true friend. You know I have. + +That's why I am having this talk with you. I am feeling better +already. But you have no idea what I have been through the last +few weeks. She is so dear to me. I love her so." His voice broke + +I was seized with a feeling of mixed abomination and sympathy + +"You are a child," I said, taking him by the hand. As I did so every +vestige of hostility faded out of me. My heart went out to him. +"Come, Max, pull yourself together! Be a man!" + +"I have always known you to be my friend. I believe all you say. I +first began to think of this trouble a few days after you moved out. +But at first I made no fuss about it. I thought she was not well. I +came to see you a few times and you did not behave like a fellow +who was guilty." + +I gave a silent little laugh + +He related certain intimate incidents which had aroused his first +twinge of suspicion. He was revoltingly frank + +"I spoke to her plainly," he said. "'What's the matter with you, +Dora?' I asked her. 'Don't you like me any more?' And she got wild +and said she hated me like poison. She never talked to me like +that before. It was a different Dora. She was always downhearted, +cranky. The slightest thing made her yell or cry with tears. It got +worse and worse. Oh, it was terrible! We quarreled twenty times a +day and the children cried and I thought I was going mad. + +Maybe she was just missing you. You were like one of the family, +don't you know. And, well, you are a good-looking fellow, +Levinsky, and she is only a woman." + +"Nonsense!" I returned, the hot color mounting to my cheeks. "I +am sure Dora had not a bad thought in her mind--" + +"But she confessed," he interrupted me. "She said she was crazy +for you and I could do as I pleased." + +"But you know she did not mean it. She said it just for spite, just to +make you feel bad, because you were quarreling with her." + +He quoted a brutal question which he had once put to her +concerning her relations with me, and then he quoted Dora as +answering: "Yes, yes, yes! And if you don't like it you can sue me +for divorce." + +I laughed, making my merriment as realistic as I could. "It's all +ridiculous nonsense, Max," I said. "You made life miserable to her +and she was ready to say anything. She may have been worried +over something, and you imagined all sorts of things. Maybe it +was something about her education that worried her. You know +how ambitious she is to be educated, and how hard she takes these +things." + +Max shook his head pensively + +"I am sure it is as I say," I continued. "Dora is a peculiar woman. +The trouble is, you judge her as if she were like the other women +you meet. Hers is a different character." + +This point apparently interested him + +"She is always taken up with her thoughts," I pursued. "She is not +so easy to understand, anyway. I lived over a year in your house, +and yet I'll be hanged if I know what kind of woman she is. Of +course you're her husband, but still--can you say you know what +she is thinking of most of the time?" + +"There is something in what you say," he assented, half-heartedly + +As we rose to go he said, timidly: "There is only one more question +I want to ask of you, Levinsky. You won't be angry, will you?" +"What is it?" I demanded, with a good-natured laugh. "What is +bothering your head?" + +"I mean if you meet her now, sometimes?" + +"Now, look here, Max. You are simply crazy," I said, earnestly. "I +swear to you by my mother that I have not seen Dora since I +moved out of your house, and that all your suspicions are +nonsense" (to keep the memory of my mother from desecration I +declared mutely that my oath referred to the truthful part of my +declaration only-- that is, exclusively to the fact that I no longer +met Dora) + +"I believe you, I believe you, Levinsky," he rejoined. We parted +more than cordially, Max promising to call on me again and to +spend an evening with me. + +I was left in a singular state of mind. I was eaten up with +compunction, and yet the pain of my love reasserted itself with the +tantalizing force of two months before. + +Max never called on me again. + + + +CHAPTER III + +AS a salesman Bender proved a dismal failure, but I +retained him in my employ as a bookkeeper and a sort of general +supervisor. I could offer him only ten dollars a week, with a +promise to raise his salary as soon as I could afford it, and he +accepted the job "temporarily." As general supervisor under my +orders he developed considerable efficiency, although he lacked +initiative and his naïveté was a frequent cause of annoyance to +me. I found him spotlessly honest and devoted + +I quickly raised his salary to fifteen dollars a week + +He was the embodiment of method and precision and he often +nagged me for my deficiency in these qualities. Sometimes these +naggings of his or some display of poor judgment on his part +would give rise to a tiff between us. + +Otherwise we got along splendidly. We were supposed to be great +chums. In reality, however, I would freely order him about, while +he would address me with a familiarity which had an echo of +respectful distance to it + +With him to take care of my place when I was away, it became +possible for me gradually to extend my territory as traveling +salesman till it reached Nebraska and Louisiana. Thus, having +failed as a drummer himself, he made up for it by enabling me to +act as one + +He had been less than a year with me when his salary was twenty +dollars + +Charles Eaton, the Pennsylvanian of the hemispherical forehead +and bushy eyebrows who had given me my first lesson in +restaurant manners, was now my sponsor at the beginning of my +career as a full-fledged traveling salesman. + +He took a warm interest in me. Having spent many years on the +road himself, more particularly in the Middle West and Canada, +he had formed many a close friendship among retailers, so he now +gave me some valuable letters of intro duction to merchants in +several cities + +When I asked him for suggestions to guide me on the road he +looked perplexed + +"Oh, well, I guess you'll do well," he said + +"Still, you have had so much experience, Mr. Eaton." + +"Well, I really don't know. It's all a matter of common sense, I +guess. And, after all, the merchandise is the thing, the +merchandise and the price." + +He added a word or two about the futility of laying down rules, +and that was all I could get out of him. That a man of few words +like him should have succeeded as a salesman was a riddle to me. +I subsequently realized that his reticence accentuated an effect of +solidity and helped to inspire confidence in the few words which +he did utter. But at the time in question I was sure that the "gift of +the gab" was an indispensable element of success in a salesman. + +Indeed, one of my faults as a drummer, during that period at least, +was that I was apt to talk too much. I would do so partly for the +sheer lust of hearing myself use the jargon of the market, but +chiefly, of course, from eagerness to make a sale, from +over-insistence. I was too exuberant in praising my own goods and +too harsh in criticising those of my competitors. + +Altogether there was more emphasis than dignity in my appeal. + +One day, as I was haranguing the proprietor of a small department +store in a Michigan town, he suddenly interrupted me by placing a +friendly hand on my shoulder. His name was Henry Gans. He was +a stout man of fifty, with the stamp of American birth on a strong +Jewish face. + +"Let me give you a bit of advice, young man," he said, with +paternal geniality. "You won't mind, will you?" + +I uttered a perplexed, "Why, no"; and he proceeded: "If you want +to make good as a salesman, observe these two rules: Don't knock +the other fellow and don't talk too much." + +For a minute I stood silent, utterly nonplussed. Then, pulling +myself together, I said, with a bow: "Thank you, sir. Thank you +very much. I am only a beginner, and only a few years in the +country. I know I have still a great deal to learn. It's very kind of +you to point out my mistakes to me. The gay light of Gans's eye gave +way to a look of heart-to-heart earnestness. + +"It ain't nice to run down your competitor," he said. "Besides, it +don't pay. It makes a bad impression on the man you are trying to +get an order from." + +We had a long conversation, gradually passing from business to +affairs of a personal nature. He was interested in my early +struggles in America, in my mode of living, in the state of my +business, and I told him the whole story. + +He seemed to be well disposed toward me, but it was evident that +he did not take my "one-horse" establishment seriously, and I left +his store without an order. I was berating myself for having +revealed the true size of my business. Somehow my failure in this +instance galled me with special poignancy. I roamed around the +streets, casting about for some scheme to make good my mistake + +Less than an hour after I left Gans's store I re-entered it, full of +fresh spirit and pluck. + +"I beg your pardon for troubling you again, Mr. Gans," I began, +stopping him in the middle of an aisle. "You've been so kind to +me. I should like to ask you one more question. Only one. I trust I +am not intruding?" + +"Go ahead," he said, patiently + +"I shall do as you advise me. I shall never knock the other fellow," +I began, with a smile. "But suppose his merchandise is really +good, and I can outbid him. Why should it not be proper for me to +say so? If you'll permit me"--pointing at one of the suits displayed +in the store, a brown cheviot trimmed with velvet. "Take that suit, +for instance. It's certainly a fine garment. It has style and dash. It's +really a beautiful garment. I haven't the least idea how much you +pay for it, of course, but I do know that I could make you the +identical coat for a much smaller price. So why shouldn't it be +right for me to say so?" + +He contemplated me for a moment, broke into a hearty laugh, and +said: "You're a pretty shrewd fellow. Why, of course, there's +nothing wrong in selling cheaper than your competitor. That's +what we're all trying to do. + +That's the game, provided you really can sell cheaper than the +other man, and there are no other drawbacks in doing business +with you." + +What I said about the brown suit piqued him. He had his +bookkeeper show me the bill, and defied me to sell him a garment +of exactly the same material, cut, and workmanship for less. I +accepted the challenge, offering to reduce the price by four dollars +and a half before I had any idea whether I could afford to do so. I +was ready to lose money on the transaction, so long as I got a start +with this man + +Gans expressed doubt of my ability to make good my offer. I +proceeded to explain the special conditions under which I ran my +business. I waxed eloquent + +"Doing business on a gigantic scale is not always an advantage, +Mr. Gans," I sang out, with an affected Yankee twang. "There are +exceptions. And the cloak-and-suit industry is one of these +exceptions, especially now that the Cloak-makers' Union has +come to stay. By dealing with a very big firm you've got to pay for +union labor, while a modest fellow like myself has no trouble in +getting cheap labor. And when I say cheap I don't mean poor labor, +but just the opposite. I mean the very best tailors, the most skilled +mechanics in the country. It sounds queer, doesn't it? But it's a +fact, nevertheless, Mr. Gans. It is a fact that the best ladies' tailors +are old-fashioned, pious people, green in the country, who hate to +work in big places, and who keep away from Socialists, +anarchists, unionists, and their whole crew. They need very little, +and they love their work. They willingly stay in the shop from +early in the morning till late at night." + +"They are dead stuck on it, hey?" Gans said, quizzically. "They are +used to it," I explained. "In Russia a tailor works about fourteen +hours a day. Of course, I don't let them overwork themselves. I +treat them as if they were my brothers or uncles. We get along like +a family, and they earn twice as much as the strict union people, +too." + +"I see. They get low wages and don't work too much and are ahead +of the game, after all. Is that it? Well, well. But you're a smart +fellow, just the same." + +I explained to him why my men earned more than they would in +the big shops, and the upshot was an order for a hundred suits. +Twenty of these were to be copies of the brown-cheviot garment +which was the subject of his challenge, I buying that suit of him, +so as to use it as a sample + +On my way home I exhibited that suit to merchants in other cities, +giving it out for my own product. It was really an attractive +garment and it brought me half a dozen additional sales. + +I developed into an excellent salesman. If I were asked to name +some single element of my success on the road I should mention +the enthusiasm with which I usually spoke of my merchandise. It +was genuine, and it was contagious. + +Retailers could not help believing that I believed in my goods. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE road was a great school of business and life to +me. I visited scores of cities. I met hundreds of human types. I saw +much of the United States. + +Every time I returned home I felt as though, in comparison with +the places which I had just visited, New York was not an +American city at all, and as though my last trip had greatly added +to the "real American" quality in me + +Thousands of things reminded me of my promotion in the world. I +could not go to bed in a Pullman car, walk over the springy +"runner" of a hotel corridor, unfold the immense napkin of a hotel +dining-room, or shake down my trousers upon alighting from a +boot-black's chair, without being conscious of the difference +between my present life and my life in Antomir + +I was full of energy, full of the joy of being alive, but there was +usually an undercurrent of sadness to all this. While on the road I +would feel homesick for New York, and at the same time I would +feel that I had no home anywhere, that my mother was dead and I +was all alone in the world. + +I missed Dora many months after she made me move from her +house. As for Max, the thought of him, his jealousy and the way +he groveled before me the last time I had seen him, would give me +a bad taste in the mouth. I both pitied and despised him, and I +hated my guilty conscience; so I would try to keep him out of my +mind. What I missed almost as much as I did Dora was her home. + +There was no other to take its place. There was not a single family +in New York or in any other American town who would invite me +to its nest and make me feel at home there. I saw a good deal of +Meyer Nodelman, but he never asked me to the house. And so I +was forever homesick, not for Antomir--for my native town had +become a mere poem--but for a home + +I did some reading on the road. There was always some book in +my hand-bag--some volume of Spencer, Emerson, or +Schopenhauer (in an English translation), perhaps. I would also +read articles in the magazines, not to mention the newspapers. But +I would chiefly spend my time in the smoker, talking to the other +drummers or listening to their talk. There was a good deal of +card-playing in the cars, but that never had any attraction for me. + +I tried to learn poker, but found it tedious. + +The cigarette stumps by which I had sought to counteract my +hunger pangs at the period of my dire need had developed the +cigarette habit in me. This had subsequently become a cigar habit. +I had discovered the psychological significance of smoking "the +cigar of peace and good will." I had realized the importance of +offering a cigar to some of the people I met. I would watch +American smokers and study their ways, as though there were a +special American manner of smoking and such a thing as smoking +with a foreign accent. I came to the conclusion that the dignity of +smoking a cigar lasted only while the cigar was still long and +fresh. There seemed to be special elegance in a smoker taking a +newly lighted cigar out of his mouth and throwing a glance at its +glowing end to see if it was smoking well. + +Accordingly, I never did so without being conscious of my +gestures and trying to make them as "American" as possible + +The other cloak salesmen I met on the road in those days were +mostly representatives of much bigger houses than mine. They +treated me with ill-concealed contempt, and I would retaliate by +overstating my sales. One of the drummers who were fond of +taunting me was an American by birth, a fellow named Loeb + +"Well, Levinsky," he would begin. "Had a big day, didn't you?" + +"I certainly did," I would retort. + +"How much? Twenty-five thousand?" "Well, it's no use trying to +be funny, but I've pulled in five thousand dollars to-day." "Is that +all?" + +"Well, if you don't believe me, what's the use asking? What good +would it do me to brag? If I say five thousand. it is five thousand. +As a matter of fact, it 'll amount to more." Whereupon he would +slap his knee and roar + +He was a good-looking, florid-faced man with sparkling black +eyes--a gay, boisterous fellow, one of those who are the first to +laugh at their own jests. He was connected with the largest house +in the cloak trade. Our relations were of a singular character. He +was incessantly poking fun at me; nothing seemed to afford him +more pleasure than to set a smokerful of passengers laughing at +my expense. At the same time he seemed to like me. + +But then he hated me, too. As for me, I reciprocated both feelings + +One day, on the road, he made me the victim of a practical joke +that proved an expensive lesson to me. The incident took place in +a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio. He "confidentially" let me see one of +his samples, hinting that it was his "leader," or best seller. He then +went to do some telephoning, leaving the garment with me the +while. Whereupon I lost no time in making a pencil-sketch of it, +with a few notes as to materials, tints, and other details. I +subsequently had the garment copied and spent time and money +offering it to merchants in New York and on the road. It proved an +unmitigated failure. + +"You are a nice one, you are," he said to me, with mock gravity, on +a subsequent trip. "You copied that garment I showed you in +Cincinnati, didn't you?" + +"What garment? What on earth are you talking about?" I lied, my +face on fire. + +"Come, come, Levinsky. You know very well what garment I +mean. While I was away telephoning you went to work and made +a sketch of it. It was downright robbery. That's what I call it. Well, +have you sold a lot of them?" And he gave me a merry wink that +cut me as with a knife + +One of the things about which he often made fun of me was my +Talmud gesticulations, a habit that worried me like a physical +defect. It was so distressingly un-American. I struggled hard +against it. I had made efforts to speak with my hands in my +pockets; I had devised other means for keeping them from +participating in my speech. All of no avail. I still gesticulate a +great deal, though much less than I used to + +One afternoon, on a west-bound train, Loeb entertained a group of +passengers of which I was one with worn-out stories of +gesticulating Russian Jews. He told of a man who never opened +his mouth when he was out of doors and it was too cold for him to +expose his hands; of another man who never spoke when it was so +dark that his hands could not be seen. I laughed with the others, +but I felt like a cripple who is forced to make fun of his own +deformity. It seemed to me as though Loeb, who was a Jew, was +holding up our whole race to the ridicule of Gentiles. I could have +executed him as a traitor to his people. Presently he turned on me + +"By the way, Levinsky, you never use a telephone, do you?" + +"Why? Who says I don't?" I protested, timidly + +"Because it's of no use to you," he replied. "The fellow at the other +end of the wire couldn't see your hands, could he?" And he broke +into a peal of self-satisfied mirth in which some of his listeners +involuntarily joined. + +"You think you're awfully smart," I retorted, in abject misery + +"And you think you're awfully grammatical." And once more he +roared + +"You are making fun of the Jewish people," I said, in a rage. +"Aren't you a Jew yourself?" + +"Of course I am," he answered, wiping the tears from his laughing +black eyes. "And a good one, too. I am a member of a synagogue. +But what has that got to do with it? I can speak on the telephone, +all right." And again the car rang with his laughter + +I was aching to hurl back some fitting repartee, but could think of +none, and to my horror the moments were slipping by, and +presently the conversation was changed + +At the request of a gay little Chicagoan who wore a skull-cap a +very fat Chicagoan told a story that was rather risqué. Loeb went +him one better. The man in the skull-cap declared that while he +could not bring himself to tell a smutty story himself, he was "as +good as any man in appreciating one." He then offered a box of +cigars for the most daring anecdote, and there ensued an orgy of +obscenity that kept us shouting (I could not help thinking of +similar talks at the cloak-shops). Loeb suggested that the +smoking-room be dubbed "smutty room" and was applauded by +the little Chicagoan. The prize was awarded, by a vote, to a man +who had told his story in the gravest tone of voice and without a +hint of a smile + +Frivolity gave way to a discussion of general business conditions. +A lanky man with a gray beard, neatly trimmed, and with the most +refined manners in our group, said something about competition +in the abstract. I made a remark which seemed to attract attention +and then I hastened to refer to the struggle for life and the survival +of the fittest. Loeb dared not burlesque me. I was in high feather + +Dinner was announced. To keep my traveling expenses down I was +usually very frugal on the road. I had not yet seen the inside of a +dining-car (while stopping at a hotel I would not indulge in a +dining-room meal unless I deemed it advisable to do so for +business considerations). On this occasion, however, when most +of our group went to the dining-car I could not help joining them. +The lanky man, the little Chicagoan, and the fleshy +Chicagoan--the three "stars" of the smoker--went to the same table, +and I hastened, with their ready permission, to occupy the +remaining seat at that table. I ordered an expensive dinner. At my +instance the chat turned on national politics, a subject in which I +felt at home, owing to my passion for newspaper editorials. I said +something which met with an encouraging reception, and then I +entered upon a somewhat elaborate discourse. My listeners +seemed to be interested. I was so absorbed in the topic and in the +success I was apparently scoring that I was utterly oblivious to the +taste of the food in my mouth. But I was aware that it was +"aristocratic American" food, that I was in the company of +well-dressed American Gentiles, eating and conversing with them, +a nobleman among noblemen. I throbbed with love for America + +"Don't be excited," I was saying to myself. "Speak in a calm, low +voice, as these Americans do. And for goodness' sake don't +gesticulate!" + +I went on to speak with exaggerated apathy, my hands so +strenuously still that they fairly tingled with the effort, and, of +course, I was so conscious of the whole performance that I did not +know what I was talking about. This state of my mind soon wore +off, however + +Neither the meal nor the appointments of the car contained +anything that I had not enjoyed scores of times before--in the +hotels at which I stopped or at the restaurants at which I would +dine and wine some of my customers; but to eat such a meal amid +such surroundings while on the move was a novel experience. The +electric lights, the soft red glint of the mahogany walls, the +whiteness of the table linen, the silent efficiency of the colored +waiters, coupled with the fact that all this was speeding onward +through the night, made me feel as though I were partaking of a +repast in an enchanted palace. The easy urbanity of the three +well-dressed Americans gave me a sense of uncanny gentility and +bliss + +"Can it be that I am I?" I seemed to be wondering + +The gaunt, elderly man, who was a member of a wholesale butcher +concern, was seated diagonally across the table from me, but my +eye was for the most part fixed on him rather than on the fat man +who occupied the seat directly opposite mine. He was the most +refined-looking man of the three and his vocabulary matched his +appearance and manner. He fascinated me. His cultured English +and ways conflicted in my mind with the character of his business. +I could not help thinking of raw beef, bones, and congealed blood. +I said to myself, "It takes a country like America to produce +butchers who look and speak like noblemen." The United States +was still full of surprises for me. + +I was still discovering America + +After dinner, when we were in the smoking-room again, it seemed +to me that the three Gentiles were tired of me. Had I talked too +much? Had I made a nuisance of myself? I was wretched + + + +CHAPTER V + +I LOST track of Loeb before the train reached +Chicago, but about a fortnight later, when I was in St. Louis, I +encountered him again. It was on a Monday morning. With +sample-case in hand, I was crossing one of the busiest spots in the +shopping district with preoccupied mien, when he hailed me: +"Hello, Levinsky! How long have you been here?" + +"Just arrived," I answered + +"Where are you stopping?" + +I named my hotel. I could see that he was taking note of the fact +that I was crossing the street to the Great Bazar, one of the largest +department stores in St. Louis + +"I am going to tackle Huntington this morning," I said, with mild +defiance + +"Are you? Wish you luck," he remarked, quite gravely. "You'll find +him a pretty tough customer, though." He was apparently too busy +to indulge in raillery. "Wish you luck," he repeated, and was off + +Huntington was the new head of the cloak-and-suit department in +the Great Bazar, and in this capacity he was said to be doing +wonders. It was not true that I had just arrived. I had been in the +city nearly three days, and the day before I had mailed a letter to +Huntington upon which I was building great hopes. I knew but too +well that he was a "tough customer," my previous efforts to obtain +an interview with him--in New York as well as here, in St. + +Louis--having proven futile. I was too small a fish for him. Nor, +indeed, was the Great Bazar the only large department store in the +country whose door was closed to me. Barring six or seven such +stores, in as many cities, with which I was in touch largely +through the good offices of Eaton, my business was almost +confined to small concerns. Eaton had given me letters to many +other large firms, but these had brought no result. For one thing, +my Russian name was against me. As I have said before, the +American business world had not yet learned to take our people +seriously + +And so I had written Huntington, making a special plea for a few +minutes of his "most valuable time." All I asked for was an +opportunity "to point out some specific conditions that enable our +house to reduce the cost of production to an unheard-of level." If +he had only read that letter! I had bestowed so much effort on it, +and I gave myself credit for having made a fine job of it + +Arriving at the big store, I made my way to the sample-rooms. I +did so by a freight-elevator, the passenger-cars being denied to +men carrying sample-cases. In the waiting-room of the buyers' +offices I found four or five men, all of them accompanied by +colored porters who carried their sample-cases for them. A +neat-looking office-boy, behind a small desk, was rocking on the +hind legs of his chair with an air of supreme indifference. + +"Will you take it in?" I said to him, handing him my card. "I want +to see Mr. Huntington." + +"Mr. Huntington is busy," he answered, mechanically, without +ceasing to rock. + +"Take it in, please," I whispered, imploringly. But he took no heed +of me. + +Had I been the only salesman in the room, I should have offered +him a bribe. + +As it was, there was nothing to do but to take a seat and wait + +"These office-boys treat salesmen like so many dogs," I muttered, +addressing myself to the man by my side + +He sized me up, without deigning an answer. + +Other salesmen made their appearance, some modestly, others +with a studied air of confidence, loudly greeting those they knew. +The presence of so many rivals and the frigidity of the office-boy +made my heart heavy. I was still a novice at the game, and the +least mark of hostility was apt to have a depressing effect on my +spirits, though, as a rule, it only added fuel to my ambition + +Some of the other salesmen were chatting and cracking jokes, for +all the world like a group of devoted friends gathered for some +common purpose. The ostensible meaning of it all was that the +competition in which they were engaged was a "mere matter of +business," of civilized rivalry; that it was not supposed to interfere +with their friendship and mutual sense of fair play. But I thought +that all this was mere pretense, and that at the bottom of their +hearts each of them felt like wiping the rest of us off the face of +the earth + +Presently the office-boy gathered up our cards and disappeared +behind a door. He was gone quite a few minutes. They were hours +to me. I was in the toils of suspense, in a fever of eagerness and +anxiety. As I sat gazing at the door through which the office-boy +had vanished, Mr. Huntington loomed in my imagination large +and formidable, mighty and stern. To be admitted to his presence +was at this moment the highest aim of my life. Running through +my anxious mind were various phrases from the letter I had sent +him. Some of these seemed to be highly felicitous. The epistle +was bound to make an impression. "Provided he has read it," I +thought, anxiously. "But why should he have bothered with it? He +probably receives scores like it. No, he has not read it." + +The next moment it became clear to me that the opening sentence +of my plea was sure to have arrested Huntington's attention, that +he had read it to the end, and would let me not only show him my +samples, but explain matters as well. Of a sudden, however, it +struck me, to my horror, that I had no recollection of having +signed that letter of mine + +A middle-aged woman with a Jewish cast of features passed +through the waiting-room. I knew that she was Huntington's +assistant and she was apparently going to his compartment of the +sample-room. The fact that she had a Jewish face seemed +encouraging. Not that the Jews I had met in business had shown +me more leniency or cordiality than the average Gentile. + +Nor was an assistant buyer, as a rule, in a position to do something +for a salesman unless his samples had been referred to her by her +superior. + +Nevertheless, her Jewish features spoke of kinship to me. They +softened the grimness of the atmosphere around me + +Finally the office-boy came back. My heart beat violently. Pausing +at his desk, with only two or three of all the cards he had taken to +the potentate, he looked at them, as he called out, with great +dignity: "Mr. Huntington will see Mr. Sallinger, Mr. Stewart, and +Mr. Feltman." + +My heart sank. I suspected that my poor card had never reached its +destination, that the boy had simply thrown it away, together with +some of the other cards, perhaps, on his way to Mr. Huntington's +room. Indeed, I knew that this was the fate of many a salesman's +card + +The boy called out Sallinger's name again, this time admitting him +to the inner precincts. All those whose cards had been ignored +except myself--there were about a dozen of them--picked up their +sample-cases or had their porters do so and passed out without +ado. As for me, I simply could not bring myself to leave + +"He didn't mark my card, did he?" I said to the boy + +"No, sir," he snapped, with a scowl. + +When I reached the street I paused for some minutes, as though +glued to the sidewalk. Was it all over? Was there no hope of my +seeing Huntington? My mind would not be reconciled to such an +outcome. I stood racking my brains for some subterfuge by which +I might be able to break through the Chinese wall that separated +me from the great Mogul, and when I finally set out on my way to +other stores I was still brooding over the question. I visited several +smaller places that day and I made some sales, but all the while I +was displaying my samples, quoting prices, arguing, cajoling, +explaining, jesting, the background of my brain never ceased +bothering about Huntington and devising means of getting at him + +The next morning I was in Huntington's waiting-room again. I +fared no better than on the previous occasion. I tried to speak to +Huntington on the telephone, but I only succeeded in speaking to +a telephone-girl and she told me that he was busy + +"Please tell Mr. Huntington I have a job to close out, a +seventeen-dollar garment for seven fifty." + +"Mr. Huntington is busy." + +At this moment it seemed to me that all talk of American liberty +was mere cant + +I asked the manager of the hotel at which I was stopping to give +me a letter of introduction to him, and received a polite no for an +answer. I discovered the restaurant where Huntington was in the +habit of taking lunch and I went there for my next noon-hour meal +for the purpose of asking him for an interview. I knew him by +sight, for I had seen him twice in New York, so when he walked +into the restaurant there was a catch at my heart. He was a spare +little man with a face, mustache, and hair that looked as though he +had just been dipped in a pail of saffron paint. He was +accompanied by another man. I was determined first to let him +have his lunch and then, on his way out, to accost him. Presently, +lo and behold! Loeb entered the restaurant and walked straight up +to Huntington's table, evidently by appointment. I nearly groaned. +I knew that Loeb had a spacious sample-room at his hotel, with +scores of garments hung out, and even with wire figures. + +It was clear that Huntington had visited it or was going to, while I +could not even get him to hear my prices. Was that fair? I saw the +law of free competition, the great law of struggle and the survival +of the fittest, defied, violated, desecrated + +I discovered the residence of Huntington's assistant, and called on +her. I had offered presents to other assistant buyers and some of +them had been accepted, so I tried the same method in this +case--with an unfortunate result. Huntington's assistant not only +rejected my bribe, but flew into a passion to boot, and it was all +my powers of pleading could do to have her promise me not to +report the matter to her principal + +I learned that Huntington was a member of the Elks and a +frequenter of their local club-house, but, unfortunately, I was not a +member of that order + +I went to the Yiddish-speaking quarter of St. Louis, made the +acquaintance of a man who was ready to sell me, on the +instalment plan, everything under the sun, from a house lot and a +lottery ticket to a divorce, and who undertook to find me (for ten +dollars) somebody who would give me a "first-class introduction" +to Huntington; but his eager eloquence failed to convince me. I +had my coat pressed by a Jewish tailor whose place was around +the corner from Huntington's residence and who pressed his suits +for him. I had a shave in the barber shop at which Huntington kept +his shaving-cup. I learned something of the great man's family +life, of his character, ways, habits. It proved that he lived quite +modestly, and that his income was somewhere between sixty and +seventy dollars a week. Mine was three times as large. That I +should have to rack my brains, do detective work, and be +subjected to all sorts of humiliation in an effort to obtain an +audience with him seemed to be a most absurd injustice + +I was losing precious time, but I could not bring myself to get +away from St. Louis without having had the desired interview. +Huntington's name was buzzing in my mind like an insect. It was a +veritable obsession + +My talk with his barber led me to a bowling-alley. Being a +passionate bowler, the cloak-buyer visited the place for an hour or +so three or four times a week. As a consequence of this discovery +I spent two afternoons and an evening there, practising a game +which I had never even heard of before + +My labors were not thrown away. The next evening I saw +Huntington and a son of his in the place and we bowled some +games together. Seen at close range, the cloak-buyer was a +commonplace-looking fellow. I thought that he did not look much +older than his son, and that both of them might have just stepped +out from behind a necktie counter. I searched the older man's +countenance for marks of astuteness, initiative, or energy, without +being able to find any. But he certainly was a forcible bowler + +When he made a sensational hit and there broke out a roar of +admiration I surpassed all the other bystanders in exuberance. "I +must not overdo it, though," I cautioned myself. "He cannot be a +fool. He'll see through me." His son was apparently very proud of +him, so I said to the young man: "Anybody can see your father is +an energetic man." + +"You bet he is," the young man returned, appreciatively. I led him +on and he told me about his father's baseball record. I dropped a +remark about his being "successful in business as well as in +athletics" and wound up by introducing myself and asking to be +introduced to his father. It was a rather dangerous venture, for the +older Huntington was apt to remember my name, in which case +my efforts might bring me nothing but a rebuff. Anyhow, I took +the plunge and, to my great delight, he did not seem ever to have +heard of me + +Ten minutes later the three of us were seated over glasses of lager +in the beer-garden with which the bowling-alley was connected. I +told them that I was from New York and that I had come to St. +Louis partly on business and partly to visit a sister who lived in +their neighborhood. The elder Huntington said something of the +rapid growth of New York, of its new high buildings. His English +was curiously interspersed with a bookish phraseology that +seemed to be traceable to the high-flown advertisements of his +department in the newspapers. I veered the conversation from the +architectural changes that had come over New York to changes of +an ethnographic character. + +"Our people, immigrants from Russia, I mean, are beginning to +play a part in the business life of the city," I said + +"Are you a Russian?" he asked + +"I used to be," I answered, with a smile. "I am an American now." + +"That's right." + +"You see, we are only new-comers. The German Jews began +coming a great many years ahead of us, but we can't kick, either." + +"I suppose not," he said, genially. + +"For one thing, we are the early bird that gets, or is bound to get, +the worm. I mean it in a literal sense. Our people go to business at +a much earlier hour and go home much later. There is quite a +number of them in your line of business, too." + +"I know," he said. "Of course, the 'hands' are mostly Russian +Hebrews, but some of them have gone into manufacturing, and I +don't doubt but they'll make a success of it." + +"Why, they are making a success of it, Mr. Huntington." + +I felt that I was treading on risky gound, that he might smell a rat +at any moment; but I felt, also, that when he heard why +manufacturers of my type were able to undersell the big old firms +he would find my talk too tempting to cut it short. And so I rushed +on. I explained that the Russian cloak-manufacturer operated on a +basis of much lower profits and figured down expenses to a point +never dreamed of before; that the German-American +cloak-manufacturer was primarily a merchant, not a tailor; that he +was compelled to leave things to his designer and a foreman, +whereas his Russian competitor was a tailor or cloak-operator +himself, and was, therefore, able to economize in ways that never +occurred to the heads of the old houses. + +"I see," Huntington said, with a queer stare at me + +"Besides, our people content themselves with small profits," I +pursued. "We are modest." + +Here I plagiarized an epigram I had heard from Meyer Nodelman: +"Our German co-religionists will spend their money before they +have made it, while we try to make it first." + +I expected Huntington to smile, but he did not. He was listening +with sphinx-like gravity. When I paused, my face and my ears +burning, he said, with some embarrassment: "What is your +business, may I ask?" "I am in the same line. Cloaks." "Are you?" +With another stare + +Tense with excitement, I said, with daredevil recklessness: "The +trouble is that successful men like yourself are so hard to get at, +Mr. + +Huntington." + +"What do you mean?" he said, with a cryptic laugh + +I made a clean breast of it + +Perhaps he was flattered by my picture of him as an inaccessible +magnate; perhaps he simply appreciated the joke of the thing and +the energy and tenacity I had brought to it, but he let me narrate +the adventure in detail. + +I told him the bare truth, and I did so with conscious +simple-heartedness, straining every nerve to make a favorable +impression + +As he listened he repeatedly broke into laughter, and when I had +finished he said to his son: "Sounds like a detective story, doesn't +it?" + +But his demeanor was still enigmatic, and I anxiously wondered +whether I impressed him as an energetic business man or merely +as an adventurer, a crank, or even a crook + +"All I ask for is an opportunity to show you my samples, Mr. +Huntington," I said. + +"Well," he answered, deliberately, "there can be no harm in that." +And after a pause, "You've bagged your game so far as that's +concerned." + +And he merrily made me an appointment for the next morning + +About a month later I came across Loeb on Broadway, New York + +"By the way," he said, in the course of our brief talk, with a +twinkle in his eve, "did you sell anything to Huntington?" +"Huntington? St. Louis? Why, he really is a hard man to reach," I +answered, glumly. + +At that very moment my cutters were at work on a big order from +Huntington, largely for copies from Loeb's styles. I had filled a +test order of his so promptly and so completely to his satisfaction, +and my prices were so overwhelmingly below those in Loeb's bill, +that the St. Louis buyer had wired me a "duplicate" for eight +hundred suits + +There was a buyer in Cleveland, a bright, forceful little man who +would not let a salesman quote his price until he had made a guess +at it. His name was Lemmelmann. He was an excellent business +man and a charming fellow, but he had a weakness for parading +his ability to estimate the price of a garment "down to a cent." The +salesmen naturally humored this ambition of his and every time +he made a correct guess they would applaud him without stint, and +I would follow their example. On one occasion I came to +Cleveland with two especially prepared compliments in my mind + +"Every human being has five senses," I said to the little buyer. +"You have six, Mr. Lemmelmann. You were born with a price +sense besides the ordinary five." + +"My, but it's a good one," he returned, jovially + +"Yes, you have more senses than anybody else, Mr. +Lemmelmann," I added. + +"You're the most sensible man in the world." + +"Why--why, you can send stuff like that to Puck or Judge and get a +five-dollar bill for it. How much will you charge me? Will that +do?" he asked, handing me a cigar + +The two compliments cemented our friendship. At least, I thought +they did + +Another buyer, in Atlanta, Georgia, had a truly wonderful memory. +He seemed to remember every sample he had ever seen--goods, +lines, trimmings, price, and all. He was an eccentric man. +Sometimes he would receive a crowd of salesmen in rapid +succession, inspect their merchandise and hear their prices +without making any purchase. Later, sometimes on the same day, +he would send out orders for the "numbers" that had taken his +fancy + +While showing him my samples one morning I essayed to express +amazement at his unusual memory. But in this case I mistook my +man + +"If everybody had your marvelous memory there would be little +work for bookkeepers," I jested + +Whereupon he darted an impatient glance at me and growled: +"Never mind my memory. You sell cloaks and suits, don't you? If +you deal in taffy, you'll have to see the buyer of the candy +department." + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HUNTINGTON was a rising man and the other +cloak-buyers were watchng him. + +When it became known that there was a young manufacturer +named Levinsky with whom he was placing heavy orders I began +to attract general attention. My reputation for selling "first-rate +stuff" for the lowest prices quoted spread. Buyers would call at my +rookery of a shop before I had time to seek an interview with +them. The appearance of my place and the crudity of my office +facilities, so far from militating against my progress, helped to +accelerate it. Skeptical buyers who had doubted my ability to +undersell the old-established houses became convinced of it when +they inspected my primitive-looking establishment. + +The place became far too small for me. I moved to much larger +quarters, consisting of the two uppermost floors and garret of a +double tenement-house of the old type. A hall bedroom was +converted into an office, the first separate room I ever had for the +purpose, and I enjoyed the possession of it as much as I had done +my first check-book. I had a lounge put in it, and often, at the +height of the manufacturing season, when I worked from daybreak +far into the night and lived on sandwiches, I would, instead of +going home for the night, snatch three or four hours' sleep on it. +The only thing that annoyed me was a faint odor of mold which +filled my bedroom-office and which kept me in mind of the +Margolises' old apartment. + +There was the pain of my second love-affair in that odor, for, +although I had not seen Dora nor heard of her for more than two +years, I still thought of her often, and when I did her image still +gave me pangs of yearning. + +There was an air of prosperity and growth about my new place, but +this did not interfere with the old air of skimpiness and cheapness +as to running expenses and other elements that go to make up the +cost of production + +Bender's salary had been raised substantially, so much so that he +had resigned his place as evening-school teacher, devoting +himself exclusively to my shop and office. He was provokingly +childish as ever, but he had learned a vast deal about the cloak +business, its mechanical branch as well as the commercial end of +it, and his usefulness had grown enormously + +One morning I was hustling about my garret floor, vibrating with +energy and self-importance, when he came up the stairs, saying: +"There is a woman on the main floor who wants to see you. She +says you know her." Was it Dora? I descended the stairs in a +flutter + +I was mistaken. It was Mrs. Chaikin. She looked haggard and more +than usually frowsy. The cause of her pitiable appearance was no +riddle to me. I knew that her husband's partner had made a mess +of their business and that Chaikin had lost all his savings. "Does +she want a loan?" I speculated + +My first impulse was to take her to my little office, but I instantly +realized that it would not be wise to flaunt such a mark of my +advancement before her. I offered her a chair in a corner of the +room in which I found her + +"How is Chaikin? How is Maxie?" + +"Thank God, Maxie is quite a boy," she answered, coyly. "Why +don't you come to see him? Have you forgotten him? He has not +forgotten you. Always asking about 'Uncle Levinsky.' Some little +children have a better memory than some grown people." + +Having delivered this thrust, she swept my shop with a sepulchral +glance, followed by a succession of nods. Then she said, with a +grin at once wheedling and malicious: "There are two more floors, +aren't there? And I see you're very busy, thank God. Plenty of +orders, hey? Thank God. Well, when Chaikin gets something +started and there is nobody to spoil it, it's sure to go well. Isn't it?" + +"Chaikin is certainly a fine designer," I replied, noncommittally, +wondering what she was driving at + +"A fine designer! Is that all?" she protested, with exquisite +sarcasm. "And who fixed up this whole business? styles got the +business started and gave it the name it has? Only 'a fine designer,' +indeed! It's a good thing you admit that much at least. Well, but +what's the use quarreling? I am here as a friend, not to make +threats. That's not in my nature." + +She gave me a propitiating look, and paused for my reply. "What +do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?" I asked, with an air of complaisant +perplexity + +"'What do you mean?'" she mocked me, suavely. "Poor fellow, he +doesn't understand what a person means. He has no head on his +shoulders, the poor thing. But what's the good beating about the +bush, Levinsky? I am here to tell you that we have decided to +come back and be partners again." + +I did not burst into laughter. I just looked her over, and said, in the +calmest and most business-like manner: "That's impossible, Mrs. +Chaikin. The business doesn't need any partner." + +"Doesn't need any partner! But it's ours, this business, as much as +yours; even more. It is our sweat and our blood. Why, you hadn't a +cent to your name when we started it, and you know it. And what +did you have, pray? Did you know anything about cloaks? Could +you do anything without Chaikin?" + +"We won't argue about it, Mrs. Chaikin." + +"Not argue about it?" + +She was working herself into a rage, but she nipped it in the bud. +"Now, look here, Levinsky," she said, with fresh suavity. "I have +told you I haven't come here to pick a quarrel. Maxie misses you +very much. He's always speaking about you." She tried a tone of +persuasion. "When Chaikin and you are together again the +business will go like grease. You know it will. He'll be the inside +man and you'll attend to the outside business. You won't have to +worry about anything around the shop, and, well, I needn't tell you +what his designs will do for the business. Why, the Manheimers +are just begging him to become their partner" (this was a lie, of +course), "but I say: 'No, Chaikin! Better let us stick to our own +business, even if it is much smaller, and let's be satisfied with +whatever God is pleased to give us.'" Her protestations and +pleadings proving ineffectual, she burst into another fury and +made an ugly scene, threatening to retain "the biggest lawyer in +the 'Nited States" and to commence action against me + +I smiled + +"Look at him! He's smiling!" she said, addressing herself to some +of my men. + +"He thinks he can swindle people and be left alone." + +"Better go home, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, impatiently. "I have no +time." "All right. We shall see!" she snapped, flouncing out. +Before she closed the door on herself she returned and, stalking up +to the chair which she had occupied a minute before, she seated +herself again, defiantly. "Chase me out, if you dare," she said, +with a sneer, her chin in the air. "I should just like to see you do it. +Should like to see you chase me out of my own shop. It's all mine! +all mine!" she shouted, her voice mounting hysterically. "All +mine! Chaikin's sweat and blood. You're a swindler, a thief! I'll +put you in Sing Sing." + +She went off into a swoon, more or less affected, and when I had +brought her to herself she shed a flood of quiet tears + +"Take pity, oh, do take pity!" she besought, patting my hand. "You +have a Jewish heart; you'll take pity." + +There was nothing for it but to edge out of the room and to hide +myself + +A week later she came again, this time with Maxie, whom I had +not seen for nearly three years and who seemed to have grown to +double his former size. + +On this occasion she threatened to denounce me to the +Cloak-makers' Union for employing scab labor. Finally she made +a scene that caused me to whisper to Bender to telephone for a +policeman. Before complying, however, he tried persuasion. + +"You had better go, madam," he said to her, meekly. "You are +excited." + +Partly because he was a stranger to her, but mainly, I think, +because of his American appearance and English, she obeyed him +at once. + +The next day her husband came. He looked so worn and wretched +and he was so ill at ease as he attempted to explain his errand that +I could scarcely make out his words, but I received him well and +my manner was encouraging, so he soon found his tongue + +"Don't you care to have it in the old way again?" he said, piteously + +"Why, I wish I could, Mr. Chaikin. I should be very glad to have +you here. I mean what I say. But it's really impossible." + +"I should try my best, you know." "I know you would." + +After a pause he said: "She'll drive me into the grave. She makes +my life so miserable." + +"But it was she who made you get out of our partnership," I +remarked, sympathetically + +"Yes, and now she blames it all on me. When she heard you had +moved to a larger place she fainted. Couldn't you take me back?" + +He finally went to work as a designer for one of the old firms, at a +smaller salary than his former employers had paid him + +For the present I continued to worry along with my free-lance +designer, but as a matter of fact Chaikin's wonderful feeling for +line and color was, unbeknown to himself, in my service. The +practice of pirating designs was rapidly becoming an open secret, +in fact. Styles put out by the big houses were copied by some of +their tailors, who would sell the drawing for a few dollars to some +of the smaller houses in plenty of time before the new cloak or +suit had been placed on the market. In this manner it was that I +obtained, almost regularly, copies of Chaikin's latest designs + +The period of dire distress that smote the country about this +time--the memorable crisis of 1893--dealt me a staggering blow, +but I soon recovered from it. The crisis had been preceded by a +series of bitter conflicts between the old manufacturers and the +Cloak-makers' Union, in the form of lockouts, strikes, and +criminal proceedings against the leaders of the union, which had +proved fatal to both. The union was still in existence, but it was a +mere shadow of the formidable body that it had been three years +before. And, as work was scarce, labor could be had for a song, as +the phrase goes. This enabled me to make a number of +comparatively large sales. + +To tell the truth, the decay of the union was a source of regret to +me, as the special talents I had developed for dodging it while it +was powerful had formerly given me an advantage over a majority +of my competitors which I now did not enjoy. Everybody was now +practically free from its control. + +Everybody could have all the cheap labor he wanted. + +Still, I was one of a minority of cloak-manufacturers who +contrived to bring down the cost of production to an +extraordinarily low level, and so I gradually obtained considerable +business, rallying from the shock of the panic before it was well +over. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE panic was followed by a carnival of +prosperity of which I received a generous share. My business was +progressing with leaps and bounds + +The factory and office were moved to Broadway. This time it was +a real office, with several bookkeepers, stenographers, model +girls, and golden legends on the doors. These legends were always +glittering in my mind + +People were loading me with flattery. Everybody was telling me +that I had "got there," and some were hinting, or saying in so many +words, that I was a man of rare gifts, of exceptional character. I +accepted it all as my due. + +Nay, I regarded myself as rather underestimated. "They don't really +understand me," I would think to myself. "They know that I +possess brains and grit and all that sort of thing, but they are too +commonplace to appreciate the subtlety of my thoughts and +feelings." + +Every successful man is a Napoleon in one thing at least--in +believing himself the ward of a lucky star. I was no exception to +this rule. I came to think myself infallible + +In short, prosperity had turned my head + +I looked upon poor people with more contempt than ever. I still +called them "misfits," in a Darwinian sense. The removal of my +business to Broadway was an official confirmation of my being +one of the fittest, and those golden inscriptions on my two office +doors seemed to proclaim it solemnly + +At the same time I did not seem to be successful enough. I felt as +though my rewards were inadequate. I was now worth more than +one hundred thousand dollars, and the sum did not seem to be +anything to rejoice over. My fortune was not climbing rapidly +enough. I was almost tempted to stamp my foot and snarlingly +urge it on. Only one hundred thousand! Why, there were so many +illiterate dunces who had not even heard of Darwin and Spencer +and who were worth more + +There were moments, however, when my success would seem +something incredible. That was usually when I chanced to think of +some scene of my past life with special vividness. Could it be +possible that I was worth a hundred thousand dollars, that I wore +six-dollar shoes, ate dollar lunches, and had an army of employees +at my beck and call? I never recalled my unrealized dreams of a +college education without experiencing a qualm of regret + +One day--it was a drizzly afternoon in April--as I walked along +Broadway under my umbrella I came across Jake Mindels, the +handsome young man who had been my companion during the +period when I was preparing for City College. I had not seen him +for over two years, but I had kept track of his career and I knew +that he had recently graduated from the University Medical +College and had opened a doctor's office on Rivington Street. His +studiously dignified carriage, his Prince Albert coat, the way he +wore his soft hat, the way he held his open umbrella, and, above +all, the beard he was growing, betrayed a desire to look his new +part. And he did look it, too. The nascent beard, the frock-coat, +and the soft hat became him. He was handsomer than ever, and +there was a new air of quiet, though conscious, intellectual +importance about him. + +The sight of him as I beheld him coming toward me gave me a +pang of envy + +"Levinsky! How are you? How are you?" he shouted, flinging +himself at me effusively + +"I hear you're practising medicine," I returned. And, looking him +over gaily, I added, "A doctor every inch of you." + +He blushed + +"And you're a rich man, I hear." + +"Vanderbilt is richer, I can assure you. I should change places with +you any time." In my heart I remarked, "Yes, I am worth a +hundred thousand dollars, while he is probably struggling to make +a living, but I can beat him at his own intellectual game, too, even +if he has studied anatomy and physiology." + +"Well, you will be a Vanderbilt some day. You're only beginning +to make money. People say you are a great success. I was so glad +to hear of it." + +"And I am glad to hear that you were glad," I jested, gratefully. +"And how are things with you?" + +"All right," he answered, firmly. "I can't complain. For the time I've +been practising I am doing very well. Very well, indeed." + +He told me of a case in which one of the oldest and most +successful physicians on the East Side had made a false diagnosis, +and where he, Mindels, had made the correct one and saved the +patient's life + +"The family wouldn't hear of another doctor now. They would give +their lives for me," he said, with a simper + +I took him up to my factory and showed him about. He was lavish +in his expressions of surprise at the magnitude of my concern, and +when I asked him to have dinner with me that evening he seemed +to be more than pleased. Apart from other feelings, he was +probably glad to renew acquaintance with a man who could afford +to pay a decent doctor's bill, and through whom he might get in +touch with other desirable patrons + +Presently he wrinkled his forehead, as though he had suddenly +remembered something + +"Oh! Let me see!" he said. "Couldn't we postpone it? I have a +confinement this evening. I expect to be called at any moment." + +We changed the date, and he departed. I was left somewhat excited +by the reminiscences that the meeting had evoked in me. I fell to +pacing the floor of my office, ruminating upon the change which +the past few years had wrought in his life and in mine. His +boastful garrulity was something new in him. Was it the struggle +for existence which was forcing it upon him? I wondered whether +that confinement story was not a fib invented to flaunt his +professional success. Thereupon I gave myself credit for my +knowledge of human nature. "That's one of the secrets of my +success," I thought. I complimented myself upon the possession of +all sorts of talents, but my keenest ambition was to be recognized +as an unerring judge of men + +The amusing part of it was that in 1894, for example, I found that +in 1893 my judgment of men and things had been immature and +puerile. I was convinced that now at last my insight was a +thoroughly reliable instrurnent, only a year later to look back upon +my opinions of 1894 with contempt. I was everlastingly revising +my views of people, including my own self + + + + +BOOK XI + +MATRIMONY + + +CHAPTER I + +ONE afternoon in January +or February I was on a Lexington Avenue car going up-town. At +Sixty-seventh Street the car was invaded by a vivacious crowd of +young girls, each with a stack of books under one of her arms. It +was evident that they were returning home from Normal College, +which was on that corner. Some of them preferred to stand, +holding on to straps, so as to face and converse with their seated +chums + +I was watching them as they chattered, laughed, or whispered, +bubbling over with the joy of being young and with the +consciousness of their budding womanhood, when my attention +was attracted to one of their number--a tall, lanky, long-necked +lass of fifteen or sixteen. She was hanging on to a strap directly +across the car from me. I could not see her face, but the shape of +her head and a certain jerk of it, when she laughed, looked +strikingly familiar to me. Presently she chanced to turn half-way +around, and I recognized her. It was Lucy. I had not seen her for +six years. She was completely changed and yet the same. Not yet +fully formed, elongated, attenuated, angular, ridiculously too tall +for her looks, and not quite so pretty as she had been at nine or +ten, but overflowing with color, with light, with blossoming life, +she thrilled me almost to tears. I was aching to call out her name, +to hear myself say "Lucy" as I had once been wont to do, but I was +not sure that it would be advisable to let her father hear of my +lingering interest in his family. While I was thus debating with +myself whether I should accost her, her glance fell on me. She +transferred it to one of the windows, and the next moment she fell +to eying me furtively. + +"She has recognized me, but she won't come over to me," I +thought. "She seems to be aware of her father's jealousy." It was a +painful moment + +Presently her fresh, youthful face brightened up. She bent over to +two of her girl friends and whispered something to them, and then +these threw glances at me. After some more whispering Lucy +faced about boldly and stepped over to me + +"I beg your pardon. Aren't you Mr. Levinsky?" she asked, with +sweet, girlish shyness + +"Of course I am, Lucy! Lucy dear, how are you? Quite a young +lady!" + +"I was wondering," she went on without answering. "At first I did +not know. + +You did seem familiar to me, but I could not locate your face. But +then, all at once, don't you know, I said to myself, 'Why, it's Mr. +Levinsky.' Oh, I'm so glad to see you." + +She was all flushed and beaming with the surprise of the meeting, +with consciousness of the eyes of her classmates who were +watching her, and with something else which seemed to say: "I am +Lucy, but not the little girl you used to play with. I am a young +woman." + +"And I was wondering who that tall, charming young lady was," I +said. "Lord! how you have grown, Lucy!" + +"Yes, I'm already taller than mother and father," she answered + +"Than both together?" + +"No, not as bad as all that," she giggled + +For children of our immigrants to outgrow their parents, not only +intellectually, but physically as well, is a common phenomenon. +Perhaps it is due to their being fed far better than their parents +were in their childhood and youth + +I asked Lucy to take a seat by my side and she did, cheerfully. (" +Maybe she does not know anything," I wondered.) "How is +Danny?" I asked. "Still fat?" + +"No, not very," she laughed. "He goes to school. I have a little +sister, too," she added, blushing the least bit. + +I winced. It was as though I had heard something revoltingly +unseemly. Then a thought crossed my mind, and, seized with an +odd feeling of curiosity, I asked: "How old is she?" + +"Oh, a little less than a year," Lucy replied. "She's awful cute," she +laughed + +"And how is papa?" I inquired, to turn the conversation + +"He's all right, thank you," she answered, gravely. "Only he lost a +lot of money on account of the hard times. Many of his customers +were out of work. + +Business is picking up, though." + +"And how is Becky? Are you still great friends?" + +"Why, she ought to be here!" she replied, gazing around the car. +"Must be in the next car." + +"In another car!" I exclaimed, in mock amazement. "Not by your +side?" Lucy laughed. "We are in the same class," she said + +"And, of course, the families still live in the same house?" She +nodded affirmatively, adding that they lived at One Hundred and +Second Street near Madison Avenue, about a block and a half +from the Park + +"Come up some time, won't you?" she gurgled, with childish +amiability, yet with apparent awkwardness + +I wondered whether she was aware of her father's jealousy. "If she +were she certainly would not invite me to the house," I reflected + +I made no answer to her invitation + +"Won't you come up?" she insisted. + +I thought: "She doesn't seem to know anything about it. She has +only heard that I had a quarrel with her mother." I shook my head, +smiling affectionately + +"Why, are you still angry at mother?" she pursued, shaking her +head, deprecatingly, as who should say, "You're a bad boy." + +I thought, "Of course she doesn't know." I smiled again. Then I +said: "You're a sweet girl, all the same. And a big one, too." + +"Thank you. Do come. Will you?" I shook my head + +"Will you never come?" she asked, playfully. "Never? Never?" + +"I have told you you're a charming girl, haven't I? What more do +you want?" + +The American children of the Ghetto are American not only in +their language, tastes, and ambitions, but in outward appearance +as well. Their bearing, gestures, the play of their features, and +something in the very expression of their Semitic faces proclaim +the land of their birth. All this was true of Lucy. She was +fascinatingly American, and I told her so + +"You're not simply a charming girl. You're a charming American +girl," I said. + +I wondered whether Dora had been keeping up her studies, and by +questioning Lucy about the books under her arm I contrived to +elicit the information that her mother had read not only such +works as the Vicar of Wakefield, Washington Irving's Sketch +Book, and Lamb's Shakespeare Stories, which had been part of +Lucy's course during her first year at college, but that she had also +read some of the works of Cooper, George Eliot, Dickens, +Thackeray, Hawthorne, and all sorts of cheaper novels + +"Mother is a great reader," Lucy said. "She reads more than I do. +Why, she reads newspapers and magazines--everything she can +lay her hands on! Father calls her Professor." + +She also told me that her mother had read a good deal of poetry, +that she knew the "Ancient Mariner" and "The Raven" by heart + +"She's always at me because I don't care for poetry as much as she +does," she laughed. + +"Well, you're not taller than your mother in this respect, are you?" + +"N-no," she assented, with an appreciative giggle + +She left the car on the corner of One Hundred and Second Street. I +was in a queer state of excitement + +It flashed upon my mind that the section of Central Park in the +vicinity of One Hundred and Second Street teemed with women +and baby-carriages, and that it was but natural to suppose that +Dora would be out every day wheeling her baby in that locality, +and reading a book, perhaps. I visioned myself meeting her there +some afternoon and telling her of my undying love. I even worked +out the details of the plan, but I felt that I should never carry it out + +I still loved Dora, but that was the Dora of six years before, an +image of an enshrined past. She was a dear, sad memory scarcely +anything more, and it seemed as though to disturb that sadness +were sacrilege + +"I shall probably run up against her some day," I said to myself, +dolefully + +And an echo seemed to add, "You are all alone in the world!" + + + +CHAPTER II + +I WAS a lonely man. I was pulsating with activity +and with a sense of triumph. I was receiving multitudes of new +impressions and enjoying life in a multitude of ways, with no +dearth of woman and song in the program. But at the bottom of +my consciousness I was always lonely + +There were moments when my desolation would assert itself rather +violently. + +This happened nearly every time I returned to New York from the +road. As the train entered the great city my sense of home-coming +would emphasize a feeling that the furnished two-room apartment +on Lexington Avenue which was waiting to receive me was not a +home + +Meyer Nodelman, whom I often met in a Broadway restaurant at +the lunch hour these days, would chaff or lecture me earnestly +upon my unmarried state + +"You don't know who you're working for," he would say, his sad, +Oriental face taking on an affectionate expression. "Life is short at +best, but when a fellow has nobody to bear his name after he is +gone it is shorter still. + +Get married, my boy. Get married." He took a lively interest in the +growth of my business. He rejoiced in it as though he ascribed my +successes to the loans he had given me when I struggled for a +foothold. He often alluded to those favors, but he was a devoted +friend, all the same. Moreover, he was a most attractive man to +talk to, especially when the conversation dealt with one's intimate +life. With all his illiteracy and crudity of language he had rare +insight into the human heart and was full of subtle sympathy. He +was the only person in America with whom I often indulged in a +heart-to-heart confab. He was keenly aware of my loneliness. It +seemed as though it disturbed him + +"You are not a happy man, Levinsky," he once said to me. "You +feel more alone than any bachelor I ever knew. You're an orphan, +poor thing. You have a fine business and plenty of money and all +sorts of nice times, but you are an orphan, just the same. You're +still a child. You need a mother. Well, but what's the use? Your +own mother--peace upon her--cannot be brought to life until the +coming of the Messiah, so do the next best thing, Levinsky. Get +married and you will have a mother--for your children. It isn't the +same kind, but you won't feel lonesome any longer." + +I laughed + +"Laugh away, Levinsky. But you can't help it. And the smart books +you read won't help you, either. You've got to get married whether +you want it or not. This is a bill that must be paid." + +I had lunch with him a day or two after my meeting with Lucy. The +sight of his affectionate, melancholy face and the warmth of his +greeting somehow made me think of the sentimental mood in +which I had been left by that encounter + +"I do feel lonesome," I said, with a smile, in the course of our chat. +"I met a girl the other day--" + +"Did you?" he said, expectantly. + +"Oh, she is a mere child, not the kind of girl you mean, Mr. +Nodelman. I once boarded in her mother's house. She was a mere +child then. She is still a child, but she goes to college now, and +she is taller than her mother. + +When I saw her I felt old." + +"Is that anything to be sad about? Pshaw! Get married, and you'll +have a daughter of your own, and when she grows up you won't be +sorry. Take it from me, Levinsky. There can be no greater +pleasure than to watch your kids grow." And he added, in a lower +tone, "I do advise you to get married." + +"Perhaps I ought to," I said, listlessly. "But then it takes two to +make a bargain." + +"Oh, there are lots of good girls, and you can have the best piece of +goods there is." "Oh, I don't know. It wouldn't be hard to find a +good girl, perhaps. The question is whether she'll be good after the +honeymoon is over." + +"You don't want a bond and mortgage to guarantee that you'll be +happy, do you? A fellow must be ready to take a chance." + +There is an old story of a rabbi who, upon being asked by a +bachelor whether he should marry, said: "If you do you will regret +it, my son; but then if you remain single you are sure to regret it +just as much; perhaps more. So get married like everybody else +and regret it like everybody else." Nodelman now quoted that +rabbi. I had heard the anecdote more than once before, but it +seemed as though its meaning had now revealed itself to me for +the first time. + +"According to that rabbi, marriage is not a pleasure, but a +miserable necessity," I urged + +"Well, it isn't all misery, either. People are fond of saying that the +best marriage is a curse. But it's the other way around. The worst +marriage has some blessing in it, Levinsky." + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Get married and you will. There is plenty of pleasure in the worst +of homes. Take it from me,. Levinsky. When I come home and +feel that I have somebody to live for, that it is not the devil I am +working for, then--take it from me, Levinsky--I should not give +one moment like that for all the other pleasures in the world put +together." + +I thought of his wife whom his mother had repeatedly described to +me as a "meat-ball face" and a virago, and of his home which I +had always pictured as hell. His words touched me + +"It isn't that I don't want to take chances, Mr. Nodelman. It's +something else. Were you ever in love, Mr. Nodelman?" + +"What? Was I in love? Why?" he demanded, coloring. "What put it +in your head to ask me such a funny question?" + +"Funny! There's more pain than fun in it. Well, I have loved, Mr. +Nodelman, and that's why it's so hard for me to think of marriage +as a cold proposition. I don't think I could marry a girl I did not +love." + +I expected an argument against love-marriages, but Nodelman had +none to offer. Instead, he had me dilate on the bliss and the agony +of loving. He asked me questions and eagerly listened to my +answers. I told him of my own two love-affairs, particularly of my +relations with Dora. I omitted names and other details that might +have pointed, ever so remotely, to Mrs. + +Margolis's identity. Nodelman was interested intensely. His +interrogations were of the kind that a girl of sixteen who had not +yet loved might address to a bosom friend who had. How does it +feel to be in doubt whether one's passion had found an echo? How +did I feel when our lips were joined in our first kiss? How did she +carry herself the next time I saw her? Was she shy? Did she look +happy? Was she afraid of her husband? Was I afraid? The +restaurant had been nearly deserted for about an hour, and we still +sat smoking cigars and whispering. + + + +CHAPTER III + +ONE day, as Nodelman took his seat across the +table from me at the restaurant, he said: "Well, Levinsky, it's no +use, you'll have to get married now. There will be no wriggling +out of it. My wife has set her mind on it." + +"Your wife?" I asked in surprise. + +"Yes. I have an order to bring you up to the house, and that's all +there is to it. Don't blame her, though. The fault is mine. I have +told her so much about you she wants to know you." + +"To know me and to marry me off, hey? And yet you claim to be a +friend of mine." + +"Well, it's no use talking. You'll have to come." + +I received a formal invitation, written in English by Mrs. +Nodelman, and on a Friday night in May I was in my friend's +house for supper, as Nodelman called it, or "dinner," as his wife +would have it + +The family occupied one of a small group of lingering, +brownstone, private dwellings in a neighborhood swarming with +the inmates of new tenement "barracks." + +"Glad to meechye," Mrs. Nodelman welcomed me. "Meyer should +have broughchye up long ago. Why did you keep Mr. Levinsky +away, Meyer? Was you afraid you might have reason to be +jealous?" + +"That's just it. She hit it right. I told you she was a smart girl, didn't +I, Levinsky?" + +"Don't be uneasy, Meyer. Mr. Levinsky won't even look at an old +woman like me. It's a pretty girl he's fishin' for. Ainchye, Mr. +Levinsky?" + +She was middle-aged, with small features inconspicuously traced +in a bulging mass of full-blooded flesh. This was why her +mother-in-law called her "meat-ball face." She had a hoarse voice, +and altogether she might have given me the impression of being +drunk had there not been something pleasing in her hoarseness as +well as in that droll face of hers. That she was American-born was +clear from the way she spoke her unpolished English. Was +Nodelman the henpecked husband that his mother advertised him +to be? I wondered whether the frequency with which his wife used +his first name could be accepted as evidence to the contrary + +They had six children: a youth of nineteen named Maurice who +was the image of his father and, having spent two years at college, +was with him in the clothing business; a high-school boy who had +his mother's face and whose name was Sidney--an appellation +very popular among our people as "swell American"; and four +smaller children, the youngest being a little girl of six. + +"What do you think of my stock, Levinsky?" Nodelman asked. +"Quite a lot, isn't it? May no evil eye strike them. What do you +think of the baby? Come here, Beatrice! Recite something for +uncle!" The command had barely left his mouth when Beatrice +sprang to her feet and burst out mumbling something in a +kindergarten singsong. This lasted some minutes Then she +courtesied, shook her skirts, and slipped back into her seat + +"She is only six and she is already more educated than her father," +Nodelman said. "And Sidney he's studyin' French at high school. +Sidney, talk some French to Mr. Levinsky. He'll understand you. +Come on, show Mr. Levinsky you ain't going to be as ignorant as +your pa." + +The scene was largely a stereotyped copy of the one I had +witnessed upon my first call at the Margolises' + +Sidney scowled + +"Come on, Sidney, be a good boy," Nodelman urged, taking him +by the sleeve + +"Let me alone," Sidney snarled, breaking away and striking the air +a fierce backward blow with his elbow + +"What do you want of him?" Mrs. Nodelman said to her husband, +frigidly + +My friend desisted, sheepishly + +"He does seem to be afraid of his American household," I said to +myself + +After the meal, when we were all in the parlor again, Nodelman +said to his wife, winking at me: "Poor fellow, his patience has all +given out. He wants to know about the girl you've got for him. He +has no strength any longer. Can't you see it, Bella? Look at him! +Look at him! Another minute and he'll faint." + +"What girl? Oh, I see! Why, there is more than one!" Mrs. +Nodelman returned, confusedly. "I didn't mean anybody in +particular. There are plenty of young ladies." + +"That's the trouble. There are plenty, and no one in particular," I +said + +"Don't cry," Nodelman said. "Just be a good boy and Mrs. +Nodelman will get you a peach of a young lady. Won't you, +Bella?" + +"I guess so," she answered, with a smile + +"Don't you understand?" he proceeded to explain. "She first wants +to know the kind of customer you are. Then she'll know what kind +of merchandise to look for. Isn't that it, Bella?" + +She made no answer + +"I hope Mrs. Nodelman will find me a pretty decent sort of +customer," I put in. + +"You're all right," she said, demurely. "I'm afraid it won't be an +easy job to get a young lady to suit a customer like you." + +"Try your best, will you?" I said. + +"I certainly will." + +She was less talkative now, and certainly less at her ease than she +had been before the topic was broached, which impressed me +rather favorably. + +Altogether she was far from the virago or "witch" her +mother-in-law had described her to be. As to her attitude toward +her husband, I subsequently came to the conclusion that it was a +blend of affection and contempt. + +Nodelman was henpecked, but not badly so + +I called on them three or four times more during that spring. +Somehow the question of my marriage was never mentioned on +these occasions, and then Mrs. Nodelman and the children, all +except Maurice, went to the seashore for the summer + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"YOU'LL examine the merchandise, and if you +don't like it nobody is going to make you buy it," said Nodelman +to me one day in January of the following winter. By +"merchandise" he meant a Miss Kalmanovitch, the daughter of a +wealthy furniture-dealer, to whom I was to be introduced at the +Nodelman residence four days later. "She is a peach of a girl, +beautiful as the sun, and no runt, either; a lovely girl." "Good +looks aren't everything. Beauty is skin deep, and handsome is as +handsome does," I paraded my English + +"Oh, she is a good girl every way: a fine housekeeper, +good-natured, and educated. Gee! how educated she is! Why, she +has a pile of books in her room, Bella says, a pile that high." He +raised his hand above his head. "She is dead stuck on her, Bella +is." + +Owing to an illness in the Kalmanovitch family, the projected +meeting could not take place, but Nodelman's birthday was to be +celebrated in March, so the gathering was to serve as a +match-making agency as well as a social function + +The great event came to pass on a Sunday evening. The prospect +of facing a girl who offered herself as a candidate for becoming +my wife put me all in a flutter. It took me a long time to dress and +I made my appearance at the Nodelmans' rather late in the +evening. Mrs. Nodelman, who met me in the hall, offered me a +tempestuous welcome + +"Here he is! Better late than never," she shrieked, hoarsely, as I +entered the hall at the head of the high stoop. "I was gettin' +uneasy. Honest I was." And dropping her voice: "Miss +Kalmanovitch came on time. She's a good girl. Always." And she +gave me a knowing look that brought the color to my face and a +coy smile into hers + +Her husband appeared a minute later. After greeting me warmly he +whispered into my ear: "Nobody knows anything about it, not +even the young lady. Only her mother does." + +But I soon discovered that he was mistaken. My appearance +produced a sensation, and the telltale glances of the women from +me to a large girl with black eyes who stood at the mantelpiece +not only showed plainly that they knew all about "it," but also +indicated who of the young women present was Miss +Kalmanovitch + +The spacious parlor was literally jammed. The hostess led the way +through the throng, introducing me to the guests as we proceeded. +There were Nodelman's father and mother among them, the +gigantic old tailor grinning childishly by the side of his wife, who +looked glum + +"That one, with the dark eves, by the mantelpiece," Meyer +Nodelman whispered to me, eagerly + +The girl pointed out was large and plump, with full ivory-hued +cheeks, and a dimple in her fleshy chin. Her black eyes were large +and round. That the object of my coming, and of her own, was no +secret to her was quite evident. + +She was blushing to the roots of her glossy black hair, and in her +apparent struggle with her constraint she put her stout, long arm +around the waist of a girl who stood by her side against the +mantelpiece + +Upon the whole, Miss Kalmanovitch impressed me more than +favorably; but a minute later, when I was introduced to her and +saw her double chin and shook her gently by a hand that was fat +and damp with perspiration, I all but shuddered. I felt as though +she exuded oil. I was introduced to her mother, a spare, +hatchet-face little woman with bad teeth, who looked me over in a +most business-like way, and to her father, a gray man with a goatee + +Miss Kalmanovitch and I soon found ourselves seated side by side. +Conscious of being the target of many eyes, I was as disconcerted +as I had been twelve years before, when Matilda played her first +practical joke upon my sidelocks. My would-be fiancée was the +first to recover her ease. She asked me if I was related to a +white-goods man named Levinsky, and when I said no she passed +to other topics. She led the conversation, and I scarcely followed +her. At one moment, for example, as I looked her in the face, +endeavoring to listen to what she was saying about the Purim ball +she had attended, I remarked to myself that the name +Kalmanovitch somehow seemed to go well with her face and +figure, and that she was too self-possessed for a "bridal +candidate." + +Presently we heard Mrs. Nodelman's hoarse voice: "Now Miss +Kalmanovitch will oblige us with some music. Won't you, please, +Miss Kalmanovitch?" + +A swarthy, middle-aged woman, with features that somewhat +resembled those of the host, whose cousin she was, and with huge +golden teeth that glistened good-naturedly, took Miss +Kalmanovitch by the arm, saying in a mannish voice: "Come on, +Ray! Show them what you can do!" + +My companion rose and, throwing gay glances at some of the other +girls, she walked over to the piano and seated herself. Then, with +some more smiles at the girls, she cold-bloodedly attacked the +keyboard + +"A nauctourrn by Chopin," her mother explained to me in an +audible whisper across the room + +Miss Kalmanovitch was banging away with an effect of showing +how quickly she could get through the nocturne. I am not musical +in the accepted meaning of the term, and in those days I was even +less so than I am now, perhaps, but I was always fond of music, +and had a discriminating feeling for it. At all events, I knew +enough to realize that my would-be fiancée was playing +execrably. But her mother, her father, the hostess, and the swarthy +woman with the golden teeth, were shooting glances at me that +seemed to say: "What do you think of that? Did you ever see such +fast playing?" and there was nothing for it but to simulate +admiration + +The woman with the great golden teeth, Meyer Nodelman's cousin, +was even more strenuous in her efforts to arouse my exultation +than Ray's mother. She was the wife of a prosperous teamster +whose moving-vans were seen all over the East Side. Gaunt, +flat-chested, with a solemn masculine face, she was known for her +jolly disposition and good-natured sarcasm. There was something +suggestive of Meyer Nodelman in her manner of speaking as well +as in her looks. She was childless and took an insatiable interest in +the love-affairs and matrimonial politics of young people. Her +name was Mrs. + +Kalch, but everybody called her Auntie Yetta + +When Ray finished playing Auntie Yetta led the applause, for all +the world like a ward heeler. When the acclaim had died down +she rushed at Ray, pressed her ample bosom to her own flat one, +kissed her a sounding smack on the lips, and exclaimed, with a +wink to me: "Ever see such a tasty duck of a girl?" + +Miss Kalmanovitch was followed by a bespectacled, anemic boy +of thirteen who played something by Wieniavsky on the violin, +and then Miss Kalmanovitch "obliged" us with a recitation from +"Macbeth." There were four other solos on the piano and on the +violin by boys and girls, children of the invited guests, the +violinists having brought their instruments with them. Not that the +concert was part of a preconceived program, although it might +have been taken for granted. The mothers of the performers had +simply seized the opportunity to display the talents of their +offspring before an audience. + +Only one boy--a curly-headed, long-necked little pianist, +introduced as Bennie Saminsky--played with much feeling and +taste. All the rest grated on my nerves + +I beguiled the time by observing the women. I noticed, for +instance, that Auntie Yetta, whose fingers were a veritable +jewelry-store, now and again made a pretense of smoothing her +grayish hair for the purpose of exhibiting her flaming rings. +Another elderly woman, whose fingers were as heavily laden, kept +them prominently interlaced across her breast. From time to time +she would flirt her interlocked hands, in feigned +absent-mindedness, thus flashing her diamonds upon the people +around her. At one moment it became something like a race +between her and Auntie Yetta. Nodelman's cousin caught me +watching it, whereupon she winked to me merrily and interlaced +her own begemmed fingers, as much as to say, "What do you +think of our contest?" and burst into a voiceless laugh + +I tried to listen to the music again. To add to my ordeal, I had to +lend an ear to the boastful chatter of the mothers or fathers on the +virtuosity of Bennie, Sidney, Beckie, or Sadie. The mother of the +curly-headed pianist, the illiterate wife of a baker, first wore out +my patience and then enlisted my interest by a torrent of musical +terminology which she apparently had picked up from talks with +her boy's piano-teacher. She interspersed her unsophisticated +Yiddish with English phrases like "rare technique," "vonderful +touch," "bee-youtiful tone," or "poeytic temperament." She +assured me that her son was the youngest boy in the United States +to play Brahms and Beethoven successfully. At first I thought that +she was prattling these words parrot fashion, but I soon realized +that, to a considerable extent, at least, she used them intelligently + +She had set her heart upon making the greatest pianist in the world +of Bennie, and by incessantly discussing him with people who +were supposed to know something about music she had gradually +accumulated a smattering acquaintance with the subject. That she +was full of it there could be no doubt. Perhaps she had a native +intuition for music. Perhaps, too, it was from her that her son had +inherited his feeling for the poetry of sound. She certainly had +imagination + +"Some boys play like monkeys," she said in Yiddish. "They don't +know what they are at. May I know evil if they do. My Bennie is +not that sort of a pianist, thank God! He knows what he is talking +about--on his piano, I mean. + +You saw for yourself that he played with head and heart, didn't +you?" + +"Indeed, I did," I said, with ardor. "I liked his playing very much." + +"Yes, it comes right from his heart," she pursued. "He has a golden +temperament. The piano just talks under his fingers. I mean what I +say. + +People think a piano is just a row of dead pieces of bone or wood. +It is not. No, sirrah. It has speech just like a human being, +provided you know how to get it out of the keyboard. Bennie +does." + +In a certain sense this unlettered woman was being educated by her +little boy in the same manner as Dora had been and still was, +perhaps, by Lucy + +There were at least three girls in the gathering who were decidedly +pretty. + +One of these was a graduate of Normal College. She was +dark-eyed, like Miss Kalmanovitch, but slender and supple and +full of life. Everybody called her affectionately by her first name, +which was Stella. At the supper-table, in the dining-room, I was +placed beside Miss Kalmanovitch, but I gave most of my attention +to Stella, who was seated diagonally across the table from us. + +I felt quite at home now + +"What was your favorite subject at college?" I questioned Stella, +facetiously. + +"That's my secret," she answered. + +"I can guess it, though." + +"Try." + +"Dancing." + +"That's right," she shouted, amidst an outburst of laughter + +"Well, have you learned it well?" I went on + +"Why don't you ask me for a waltz and find out for yourself?" + +"I wish I could, but unfortunately they did not take up dancing at +my college." + +"Did you go to college?" Stella asked, seriously + +"I don't look like one who did, I suppose. Well, I should like to say +I did, but I haven't the heart to tell you a lie." + +"Never mind," Nodelman broke in. "He's an educated fellar, all the +same. + +He's awful educated. That's what makes him such a smart business +man. By the way, Levinsky, how is the merchandise?" + +"This is no place to talk shop," I replied, deprecatingly. "Especially +when there are so many pretty ladies around." + +"That's right!" several of the women chimed in in chorus + +Mrs. Nodelman, the hostess, who stood in the doorway, beckoned +to her husband, and he jumped up from the table. As he passed by +my seat I seized him by an arm and whispered into his ear: "The +merchandise is too heavy. I want lighter goods." With this I +released him and he disappeared with Mrs. Nodelman + +A few minutes later he came back + +"Be a good boy. Show Ray a little more attention," he whispered +into my ear. + +"Do it for my sake. Will you?" + +"All right." + +I became aware of Mrs. Kalmanovitch's fire-flashing eyes, and my +efforts to entertain her daughter were a poor performance + +The Kalmanovitch family left immediately after supper, scarcely +making their farewells. Portentous sounds came from the hallway. +We could hear Mrs. + +Kalmanovitch's angry voice. A nervous hush fell over the parlor. +Auntie Yetta gave us all an eloquent wink + +"There's a woman with a tongue for you," she said in an undertone. +"Pitch and sulphur. When she opens her mouth people had better +sound the fire-alarm." After a pause she added: "Do you know +why her teeth are so bad? Her mouth is so full of poison, it has +eaten them up." + +Presently the younger Mrs. Nodelman made her appearance. Her +ruddy "meat-ball" face was fairly ablaze with excitement. Her +husband followed with a guilty air + +"What's the matter with you folks?" the hostess said. "Why ainchye +doin' somethin'?" + +"What shall we do?" the baker's wife answered in Yiddish. "We +have eaten a nice supper and we have heard music and now we +are enjoying ourselves quietly, like the gentlemen and the ladies +we are. What more do you want?" "Come, folks, let's have a +dance. Bennie will play us a waltz. Quick, Bennie darling! Girls, +get a move on you!" + +I called the hostess aside. "May I ask you a question, Mrs. +Nodelman?" I said, in the manner of a boy addressing his teacher + +"What is it?" she asked, awkwardly. + +"No, I won't ask any questions. I see you are angry at me." + +"I ain't angry at all," she returned, making an effort to look me +straight in the face. + +"Sure?" + +"Sure," with a laugh. "What is it you want to ask me about?" + +And again assuming the tone of a penitent pupil, I said, "May I ask +Stella to dance with me?" + +"But you don't dance." + +"Let her teach me, then." + +"Let her, if she wants to. I ain't her mother, am I?" + +"But you have no objection, have you?" + +"Where do I come in? On my part, you can dance with every girl in +the house." + +"Oh, you don't like me this evening, Mrs. Nodelman. You are +angry witn me. + +Else you wouldn't talk the way you do." + +She burst into a laugh, and said, "You're a hell of a fellow, you +are." + +"I know I misbehaved myself, but I couldn't help it. Miss +Kalmanovitch is too fat, you know, and her hands perspire so." + +"She's a charmin' girl," she returned, with a hearty laugh. "I wish +her mother was half so good." + +"Was she angry, her mother?" + +"Was she! She put all the blame on me. I invited her daughter on +purpose to make fun of her, she says. My, how she carried on!" + +"I'm really sorry, but it's a matter of taste, you know." + +"I know it is. I don't blame you at all." + +"So you and I are friends again, aren't we?" + +She laughed + +"Well, then, you have no objection to my being sweet on Stella, +have you?" + +"You are a hell of a fellow. That's just what you are. But I might as +well tell you it's no use trying to get Stella. She's already +engaged." + +"Is she really?" + +"Honest." + +"Well, I don't care. I'll take her away from her fellow. That's all +there is to it." "You can't do it," she said, gaily. "She is dead stuck +on her intended. + +They'll be married in June." + +I went home a lovesick man, but the following evening I went to +Boston for a day, and my feeling did not survive the trip + + + +CHAPTER V + +THAT journey to Boston is fixed in my memory by +an incident which is one of my landmarks in the history of my +financial evolution and, indeed, in the history of the American +cloak industry. It occurred in the afternoon of the Monday which I +spent in that city, less than two days after that birthday party at the +Nodelmans'. I was lounging in an easy-chair in the lobby of my +hotel, when I beheld Loeb, the "star" salesman of what had been +the "star" firm in the cloak-and-suit business. I had not seen him +for some time, but I knew that his employers were on their last +legs and that he had a hard struggle trying to make a living. Nor +was that firm the only one of the old-established cloak-and-suit +concerns that found itself in this state at the period in +question--that is, at the time of the economic crisis and the burst +of good times that had succeeded it. Far from filling their coffers +from the golden flood of those few years, they were drowned in it +almost to a man. The trade was now in the hands of men from the +ranks of their former employees, tailors or cloak operators of +Russian or Galician origin, some of whom were Talmudic +scholars like myself. It was the passing of the German Jew from +the American cloak industry + +We did profit by the abundance of the period. Moreover, there +were many among us to whom the crisis of 1893 had proved a +blessing. To begin with, some of our tailors, being unable to +obtain employment in that year, had been driven to make up a +garment or two and to offer it for sale in the street, huckster +fashion--a venture which in many instances formed a +stepping-stone to a cloak-factory. Others of our workmen had +achieved the same evolution by employing their days of enforced +idleness in taking lessons in cloak-designing, and then setting up a +small shop of their own + +Newfangled manufacturers of this kind were now springing up like +mushrooms. + +Joe, my old-time instructor in cloak-making, was one of the latest +additions to their number. They worked--often assisted by their +wives and children--in all sorts of capacities and at all hours. They +lived on bread and salmon and were content with almost a +nominal margin of profit. There were instances when the +clippings from the cutting-table constituted all the profit the +business yielded them. Pitted against "manufacturers" of this class +or against a fellow like myself were the old-established firms, +with their dignified office methods and high profit-rates, firms +whose fortunes had been sorely tried, to boot, by their bitter +struggle with the union + +Loeb swaggered up to me with quizzical joviality as usual. But the +smug luster of his face was faded and his kindly black eyes had an +unsteady glance in them that belied his vivacity. I could see at +once that he felt nothing but hate for me + +"Hello, Get-Rich-Quick Levinsky!" he greeted me. "Haven't seen +you for an age." + +"How are you, Loeb?" I asked, genially, my heart full of mixed +triumph and compassion + +We had not been talking five minutes before he grew sardonic and +venomous. + +As Division Street--a few blocks on the lower East Side--was the +center of the new type of cloak-manufacturing, he referred to us +by the name of that street. My business was on Broadway, yet I +was included in the term, "Division Street manufacturer." + +"What is Division Street going to do next?" he asked. "Sell a +fifteen-dollar suit for fifteen cents?" + +I smiled + +"That's a great place, that is. There are two big business streets in +New York--Wall Street and Division." He broke into a laugh at his +own joke and I charitably joined in. I endeavored to take his +thrusts good-naturedly and for many minutes I succeeded, but at +one point when he referred to us as "manufacturers," with a +sneering implication of quotation marks over the word, I flared up + +"You don't seem to like the Division Street manufacturers, do +you?" I said. + +"I suppose you have a reason for it." "I have a reason? Of course I +have," he retorted. "So has every other decent man in the +business." + +"It depends on what you call decent. Every misfit claims to be +more decent than the fellow who gets the business." + +He grew pale. It almost looked as though we were coming to +blows. After a pause he said, with an effect of holding himself in +leash: "Business! Do you call that business? I call it peanuts." + +"Well, the peanuts are rapidly growing in size while the oranges +and the apples are shrinking and rotting. The fittest survives." ("A +lot he knows about the theory of the survival of the fittest!" I +jeered in my heart. "He hasn't even heard the name of Herbert +Spencer.") "Peanuts are peanuts, that's all there's to it," he returned + +"Then why are you excited? How can we hurt you if we are only +peanuts?" + +He made no answer + +"We don't steal the trade we're getting, do we? If the American +people prefer to buy our product they probably like it." + +"Oh, chuck your big words, Levinsky. You fellows are killing the +trade, and you know it." + +He laughed, but what I said was true. The old cloak-manufacturers, +the German Jews, were merely merchant. Our people, on the other +hand, were mostly tailors or cloak operators who had learned the +mechanical part of the industry, and they were introducing a +thousand innovations into it, perfecting, revolutionizing it. We +brought to our work a knowledge, a taste, and an ardor which the +men of the old firms did not possess. And we were shedding our +uncouthness, too. In proportion as we grew we adapted American +business ways + +Speaking in a semi-amicable vein, Loeb went on citing cases of +what he termed cutthroat competition on our part, till he worked +himself into a passion and became abusive again. The drift of his +harangue was that "smashing" prices was something distasteful to +the American spirit, that we were only foreigners, products of an +inferior civilization, and that we ought to know our place. + +"This way of doing business may be all right in Russia, but it won't +do in this country," he said. "I tell you, it won't do." + +"But it does do. So it seems." + +As he continued to fume and rail at us, and I sat listening with a +bored air, an idea flashed upon my mind, and, acting upon it on +the spur of the moment, I suddenly laid a friendly hand on his arm + +"Look here, Loeb," I said. "What's the use being excited? I have a +scheme. + +What's the matter with you selling goods for me?" + +He was taken aback, but I could see that he was going to accept it + +"What do you mean?" he asked, flushing + +"I mean what I say. I want you to come with me. You will make +more money than you have ever made before. You're a first-rate +salesman, Loeb, and--well, it will pay you to make the change. +What do you say?" + +He contemplated the floor for a minute or two, and then, looking +up awkwardly, he said: "I'll think it over. But you're a smart +fellow, Levinsky. I can tell you that." + +We proceeded to discuss details, and I received his answer--a +favorable one--before we left our seats + +To celebrate the event I had him dine with me that evening, our +pledges of mutual loyalty being solemnized by a toast which we +drank in the costliest champagne the hotel restaurant could furnish + +It was not a year and a half after this episode that Chaikin entered +my employ as designer + + + +CHAPTER VI + +I SAW other girls with a view to marriage, but I +was "too particular," as my friends, the Nodelmans, would have it. +I had two narrow escapes from breach-of-promise suits. + +"He has too much education," Nodelman once said to his wife in +my presence. + +"Too much in his head, don't you know. You think too much, +Levinsky. That's what's the matter. First marry, and do your +thinking afterward. If you stopped to think before eating you +would starve to death, wouldn't you? Well, and if you keep on +thinking and figuring if this girl's nose is nice enough and if that +girl's eyes are nice enough, you'll die before you get married, and +there are no weddings among the dead, you know." + +My matrimonial aspirations made themselves felt with fits and +starts. There were periods when I seemed to be completely in their +grip, when I was restless and as though ready to marry the first +girl I met. Then there would be many months during which I was +utterly indifferent, enjoying my freedom and putting off the +question indefinitely + +Year after year slid by. When my thirty-ninth birthday became a +thing of the past and I saw myself entering upon my fortieth year +without knowing who I worked for I was in something like a state +of despair. When I was a boy forty years had seemed to be the +beginning of old age. This notion I now repudiated as ridiculous, +for I felt as young as I had done ten, fifteen, or twenty years +before; and yet the words "forty years" appalled me. The wish to +"settle down" then grew into a passion in me. The vague portrait of +a woman in the abstract seemed never to be absent from my mind. +Coupled with that portrait was a similarly vague image of a +window and a table set for dinner. That, somehow, was my +symbol of home. Home and woman were one, a complex charm +joining them into an inseparable force. There was the glamour of +sex, shelter, and companionship in that charm, and of something +else that promised security and perpetuity to the successes that +fate was pouring into my lap. It whispered of a future that was to +continue after I was gone + +My loneliness often took on the pungence of acute physical +discomfort. The more I achieved, the more painful was my +self-pity + +Nothing seemed to matter unless it was sanctified by marriage, and +marriage now mattered far more than love + +Girls had acquired a new meaning. They were not merely girls. +They were matrimonial possibilities + +Odd as it may appear, my romantic ideals of twenty years ago now +reasserted their claim upon me. It was my ambition to marry into +some orthodox family, well-to-do, well connected, and with an +atmosphere of Talmudic education--the kind of match of which I +had dreamed before my mother died, with such modifications as +the American environment rendered natural + +There were two distinct circumstances to account for this new +mood in me + +In the first place, my sense of approaching middle age somehow +rekindled my yearning interest in the scenes of my childhood and +boyhood. Memories of bygone days had become ineffably dear to +me. I seemed to remember things of my boyhood more vividly +than I did things that had happened only a year before + +I was homesick for Antomir again + +To revisit Abner's Court or the Preacher's Synagogue, to speak to +Reb Sender, or to the bewhiskered old soldier, the skeepskin +tailor, if they were still living, was one of my day-dreams. + +Eliakim Zunzer, the famous wedding-bard whose songs my mother +used to sing in her dear, sonorous contralto, had emigrated to +America several years before and I had heard of it at the time of +his arrival, yet I had never thought of going to see him. Now, +however, I could not rest until I looked him up. It appeared that he +owned a small printing-shop in a basement on East Broadway, so I +called at his place one afternoon on the pretext of ordering some +cards. When I saw the poet--an aged little man with a tragic, tired +look on a cadaverous face--I was so unstrung that when a young +man in the shop asked me something about the cards, he had to +repeat the question before I understood it + +"My mother used to sing your beautiful songs, Mr. Zunzer," I said +to the poet some minutes later, my heart beating violently again. + +"Did she? Where do you come from?" he asked, with a smile that +banished the tired look, but deepened the tragic sadness of his +death-like countenance + +Everything bearing the name of my native place touched a tender +spot in my heart. It was enough for a cloak-maker to ask me for a +job with the Antomir accent to be favorably recommended to one +of my foremen. A number of the men who received special +consideration and were kept working in my shop in the slack +seasons, when my force was greatly reduced, were +fellow-townspeople of mine. This had been going on for several +years, in fact, till gradually an Antomir atmosphere had been +established in my shop, and something like a family spirit of +which I was proud. We had formed a Levinsky Antomir Benefit +Society of which I was an honorary member and which was made +up, for the most part, of my own employees + +All this, I confess, was not without advantage to my business +interests, for it afforded me a low average of wages and +safeguarded my shop against labor troubles. The Cloak-makers' +Union had again come into existence, and, although it had no real +power over the men, the trade was not free from sporadic conflicts +in individual shops. My place, however, was absolutely immune +from difficulties of this sort--all because of the Levinsky Antomir +Benefit Society + +If one of my operatives happened to have a relative in Antomir, a +women's tailor who wished to emigrate to America, I would +advance him the passage money, with the understanding that he +was to work off the loan in my employ. + +That the "green one" was to work for low wages was a matter of +course. But then, in justice to myself, I must add that I did my +men favors in numerous cases that could in no way redound to my +benefit. Besides, the fiscal advantages that I did derive from the +Antomir spirit of my shop really were not a primary consideration +with me. I sincerely cherished that spirit for its own sake. +Moreover, if my Antomir employees were willing to accept from +me lower pay than they might have received in other places, their +average earnings were actually higher than they would have been +elsewhere. I gave them steady work. Besides, they felt perfectly at +home in my shop. I treated them well. I was very democratic + +Compared to the thoughts of home that had oppressed me during +my first months in America, my new visions of Antomir were like +the wistful lights of a sunset as compared with the glare of +midday. But then sunsets produce deeper, if quieter, effects on the +emotions than the strongest daylight + +It was my new homesickness, then, which inclined me to an +American form of the kind of marriage of which I used to dream +in the days of my Talmudic studies. Another motive that led me to +matrimonial aspirations of this kind lay in my new ideas of +respectability as a necessary accompaniment to success. Marrying +into a well-to-do orthodox family meant respectability and +solidity. It implied law and order, the antithesis of anarchism, +socialism, trade-unionism, strikes + +I was a convinced free-thinker. Spencer's Unknowable had +irrevocably replaced my God. Yet religion now appealed to me as +an indispensable instrument in the great orchestra of things. From +what I had seen of the world, or read about it in the daily press, I +was convinced that but few people of wealth and power had real +religion in their hearts. I felt sure that most of them looked upon +churches or synagogues as they did upon police-courts; that they +valued them primarily as safeguards of law and order and +correctness, and this had become my attitude. For the rest, I felt +that a vast number of the people who professed Christianity or +Judaism did so merely because to declare oneself an atheist was +not a prudent thing to do from a business or social point of view, +or that they were in doubt and chose to be on the safe side of it, +lest there should be a God, "after all," while millions of other +people were not interested enough even to doubt, or to ask +questions, and were content to do as everybody did. But there were +some who did ask questions and did dare to declare themselves +atheists. I was one of these, and yet I looked upon religion as a +most important institution, and was willing to contribute to its +support + +My business life had fostered the conviction in me that, outside of +the family, the human world was as brutally selfish as the jungle, +and that it was worm-eaten with hypocrisy into the bargain. From +time to time the newspapers published sensational revelations +concerning some pillar of society who had turned out to be a +common thief on an uncommon scale. I saw that political +speeches, sermons, and editorials had, with very few exceptions, +no more sincerity in them than the rhetoric of an advertisement. + +I saw that Americans who boasted descent from the heroes of the +Revolution boasted, in the same breath, of having spent an +evening with Lord So-and-so; that it was their avowed ambition to +acquire for their daughters the very titles which their ancestors +had fought to banish from the life of their country. I saw that +civilization was honeycombed with what Max Nordau called +conventional lies, with sham ecstasy, sham sympathy, sham +smiles, sham laughter + +The riot of prosperity introduced the fashion of respectable women +covering their faces with powder and paint in a way that had +hitherto been peculiar to women of the streets, so I pictured +civilization as a harlot with cheeks, lips, and eyelashes of artificial +beauty. I imagined mountains of powder and paint, a deafening +chorus of affected laughter, a huge heart, as large as a city, full of +falsehood and mischief + +The leaders of the Jewish socialists, who were also at the head of +the Jewish labor movement, seemed to me to be the most +repulsive hypocrites of all. I loathed them + +I had no creed. I knew of no ideals. The only thing I believed in +was the cold, drab theory of the struggle for existence and the +survival of the fittest. This could not satisfy a heart that was +hungry for enthusiasm and affection, so dreams of family life +became my religion. Self-sacrificing devotion to one's family was +the only kind of altruism and idealism I did not flout + +I was worth over a million, and my profits had reached enormous +dimensions, so I was regarded a most desirable match, and +match-makers pestered me as much as I would let them, but they +found me a hard man to suit + +There was a homesick young man in my shop, a native of +Antomir, with whom I often chatted of our common birthplace. +His name was Mirmelstein. He was a little fellow with a massive +head and a neck that seemed to be too slender to support it. I liked +his face for its honest, ingenuous expression, but more especially +because I thought his eyes had a homesick look in them. He was a +poor mechanic, but I found him a steady job in my shipping +department + +He could furnish me no information about Reb Sender, of whom +he had never heard before; he knew of the Minsker family, of +course, and he told me that Shiphrah, Matilda's mother, was dead; +that Yeffim, Matilda's brother, had been sent to Siberia some +three years before for complicity in the revolutionary movement, +and that Matilda herself had had a hair-breadth escape from arrest +and was living in Switzerland + +He wrote to Antomir, and a few weeks later he brought me the sad +information that Reb Sender had been dead for several years, and +that his wife had married again + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ONE day in November less than six months after I +had learned of Yeffim Minsker's arrest and of Matilda's escape, as +I was making the rounds of my several departments, little +Mirmelstein accosted me timidly + +"Yeffim Minsker and his sister are here," he said, with the smile of +one breaking an interesting surprise + +I paused, flushing. I feigned indifference and preoccupation, but +the next moment I cast off all pretense + +"Are they really?" I asked + +He produced a clipping from a socialist Yiddish daily containing +an advertisement of a public meeting to be held at Cooper +Institute under the auspices of an organization of Russian +revolutionists for the purpose of welcoming Yefflm and another +man, a Doctor Gorsky, both of whom had recently escaped from +Siberia. The revolutionary movement was then at its height in +Russia, and the Jews were among its foremost and bravest leaders +(which, by the way, accounts for the anti-Jewish riots and +massacres which the Government inspired and encouraged quite +openly). As was mentioned in an early chapter of this book, the +then Minister of the Interior was the same man who had been +Director of Police over the whole empire at the time of the +anti-Jewish riots which followed the assassination of Czar +Alexander II. in 1881, and which started the great emigration of +Jews to America. From time to time some distinguished +revolutionist would be sent to America for subscriptions to the +cause. This was the mission of Doctor Gorsky and Yeffim. They +were here, not as immigrants, but merely to raise funds for the +movement at home + +As for Matilda, it appeared that Doctor Gorsky was her husband. +Whether he had married her in Russia, before his arrest, or in +Switzerland, where he and her brother had spent some time after +their escape from exile, Mirmelstein could not tell me. Matilda's +name was not mentioned in the advertisement, but my +shipping-clerk had heard of her arrival and marriage from some +Antomir people. + +I could scarcely do anything that day. I was in a fever of +excitement. "Do I still love her?" I wondered + +I made up my mind to attend the Cooper Institute meeting. It was a +bold venture, for the crowd was sure to contain some socialist +cloak-makers who held me in anything but esteem. But then I had +not had a strike in my shop for several years, and it did not seem +likely that they would offer me an insult. Anyhow, the temptation +to see Matilda was too strong. I had to go. + +She was certain to be on the platform, and all I wanted was to take +a look at her from the auditorium. "And who knows but I may +have a chance to speak to her, too," I thought. + +It was a cold evening in the latter part of November. I went to the +meeting in my expensive fur coat (although fur coats were still a +rare spectacle in the streets), with a secret foretaste of the +impression my prosperity would make upon Matilda. It was a fatal +mistake + +It was twenty minutes to 8 when I reached the front door of the +historical meeting-hall, but it was already crowded to +overflowing, and the policemen guarding the brightly illuminated +entrance tumed me away with a crowd of others. I was in despair. +I tried again, and this time, apparently owing to my mink coat, I +was admitted. Every seat in the vast underground auditorium was +occupied. But few people were allowed to stand, in the rear of the +hall, and I was one of them. From the chat I overheard around me +I gathered that there were scores of men and women in the +audience who had been in the thick of sensational conflicts in the +great crusade for liberty that was then going on in Russia. I +questioned a man who stood beside me about Doctor Gorsky, and +from his answers I gained the impression that Matilda's husband +was considered one of the pluckiest men in the struggle. At the +time of his arrest he was practising medicine + +Ranged on the platform on either side of the speaker's desk were +about a hundred chairs, several of which in the two front rows +were kept vacant. + +Presently there was a stir on the platform. A group of men and +women made their appearance and seated themselves on the +unoccupied chairs. They were greeted with passionate cheers and +applause + +One of them was Matilda. I recognized her at once. Her curly +brown hair was gray at the temples, and her oval little face was +somewhat bloated, and she was stouter than she had been +twenty-one years before; but all this was merely like a new dress. +Had I met her in the street, I might have merely felt that she +looked familiar to me, without being able to trace her. As it was, +she was strikingly the same as I had known her, though not +precisely the same as I had pictured her, of late years, at least. +Some errors had stolen into my image of her, and now, that I saw +her in the flesh, I recalled her likeness of twenty-one years before, +and she now looked precisely as she had done then. She was as +interesting as ever. I was in such a turmoil that I scarcely knew +what was happening on the platform. Did I still love her, or was it +merely the excitement of beholding a living memory of my youth? +One thing was certain--the feeling of reverence and awe with +which I had once been wont to view her and her parents was +stirring in my heart again. For the moment I did not seem to be the +man who owned a big cloak-factory and was worth over a million +American dollars + +The chairman had been speaking for some time before I became +aware of his existence. As his address was in Russian and I had +long since unlearned what little I had ever known of that +language, his words were Greek to me + +Matilda was flanked by two men, both with full beards, one fair +and the other rather dark. The one of the fair complexion and +beard was Yeffim, although I recognized him by his resemblance +to Matilda and more especially to her father, rather than by his +image of twenty-one years ago. I supposed that the man on the +other side of her, the one with the dark beard, was her husband, +and I asked the man by my side about it, but he did not know + +Several speakers made brief addresses of welcome. One of these +spoke in Yiddish and one in English, so I understood them. They +dealt with the revolution and the anti-Semitic atrocities, and paid +glowing tributes to the new-comers. They were interrupted by +outburst after outburst of enthusiasm and indignation. When +finally Doctor Gorsky was introduced (it was the man with the +dark beard) there was a veritable pandemonium of applause, +cheers, and ejaculations that lasted many minutes. He spoke in +Russian and he seemed to be a poor speaker. I searched his face +for evidence of valor and strength, but did not seem to find any. I +thought it was rather a weak face--weak and kindly and +girlish-looking. His beard, which was long and thin, did not +become him. I asked myself whether I was jealous of him, and the +question seemed so incongruous, so remote. He made a good +impression on me. The fact that this man, who was possessed of +indomitable courage, had a weak, good-natured face interested me +greatly, and the fact that he had gone through much suffering +made a strong appeal to my sympathies (somehow his martyrdom +was linked in my mind to his futility as a speaker). I warmed to +him + +He was followed by Yeffim, and the scene of wild enthusiasm was +repeated + +When Minsker had finished the chairman declared the meeting +closed. There was a rush for the platform. It was quite high above +the auditorium floor; unless one reached it by way of the +committee-room, which was a considerable distance to the right, +it had to be mounted, not without an effort, by means of the chairs +in the press inclosure. After some hesitation I made a dash for one +of these chairs, and the next minute I was within three or four feet +from Matilda, but with an excited crowd between us. Everybody +wanted to shake hands with the heroes. The jam and scramble +were so great that Doctor Gorsky, Yeffim, and Matilda had to +extricate themselves and to escape into the spacious +committee-room in the rear of the platform + +Some minutes later I stood by her side in that room, amid a cluster +of revolutionists, her husband and Yeffim being each the center of +another crowd in the same room + +"I beg your pardon," I began, with a sheepish smile. "Do you know +me." + +Her glittering brown eyes fixed me with a curious look. "My name +is David Levinsky," I added. "'Dovid,' the Talmudic student to +whom you gave money with which to go to America." + +"Of course I know you," she snapped. taking stock of my mink +overcoat. "And I have heard about you, too. You have a lot of +money, haven't you? I see you are wearing a costly fur coat." And +she brutally turned to speak to somebody else + +My heart stood still. I wanted to say something, to assure her that I +was not so black as the socialists painted me. I had an impulse to +offer her a generous contribution to the cause, but I had not the +courage to open my mouth again. The bystanders were eying me +with glances that seemed to say, "The idea of a fellow like this +being here!" I was a despicable "bourgeois," a "capitalist" of the +kind whose presence at a socialist meeting was a sacrilege + +I slunk out of the room feeling like a whipped cur. "Why, she is a +perfect savage!" I thought. "But then what else can you expect of a +socialist?" + +I thought of the scenes that had passed between her and myself in +her mother's house and I sneered. "A socialist, a good, pure soul, +indeed!" I mused, gloatingly. "That's exactly like them. A bunch +of hypocrites, that's all they are." + +At the same time I was nagging myself for having had so little +sense as to sport my prosperity before a socialist, of all the people +in the world + +A few days later the episode seemed to have occurred many years +before. It did not bother me. Nor did Matilda + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IT was an afternoon in April. My chief +bookkeeper, one of my stenographers, Bender, and myself were +hard at work at my Broadway factory amid a muffled turmoil of +industry. There were important questions of credit to dispose of +and letters to answer. I was taking up account after account, +weighing my data with the utmost care, giving every detail my +closest attention. And all the while I was thus absorbed, seemingly +oblivious to everything else, I was alive to the fact that it was +Passover and the eve of the anniversary of my mother's death; that +three or four hours later I should be solemnizing her memorial day +at the new Synagogue of the Sons of Antomir; that while there I +should sit next to Mr. Kaplan, a venerable-looking man to whose +daughter I had recently become engaged, and that after the service +I was to accompany Mr. Kaplan to his house and spend the +evening in the bosom of his family, by the side of the girl that was +soon to become my wife. My consciousness of all this grew +keener every minute, till it began to interfere with my work. + +I was getting fidgety. Finally I broke off in the middle of a +sentence + +I washed myself, combed my plentiful crop of dark hair, carefully +brushed myself, and put on my spring overcoat and derby +hat--both of a dark-brown hue + +"I sha'n't be back until the day after to-morrow," I announced to +Bender, after giving him some orders + +"Till day after to-morrow!" he said, with reproachful amazement + +I nodded + +"Can't you put it off? This is no time for being away," he grumbled + +"It can't be helped." + +"You're not going out of town, are you?" + +"What difference does it make?" After a pause I added: "It isn't on +business. It's a private matter." + +"Oh!" he uttered, with evident relief. Nothing hurt his pride more +than to suspect me of having business secrets from him. + +He was a married man now, having, less than a year ago, wedded a +sweet little girl, a cousin, who was as simple-hearted and +simple-minded as himself, and to whom he had practically been +engaged since boyhood. His salary was one hundred and +twenty-five dollars a week now. I was at home in their +well-ordered little establishment, the sunshine that filled it having +given an added impulse to my matrimonial aspirations + +I betook myself to the new Antomir Synagogue. The congregation +had greatly grown in prosperity and had recently moved from the +ramshackle little frame building that had been its home into an +impressive granite structure, formerly a Presbyterian church. This +was my first visit to the building. + +Indeed, I had not seen the inside of its predecessor, the little old +house of prayer that had borne the name of my native town, years +before it was abandoned. In former years, even some time after I +had become a convinced free-thinker, I had visited it at least twice +a year-on my two memorial days--that is, on the anniversaries of +the death of my parents. I had not done so since I had read +Spencer. This time, however, the anniversary of my mother's +death had a peculiar meaning for me. Vaguely as a result of my +new mood, and distinctly as a result of my betrothal, I was lured +to the synagogue by a force against which my Spencerian +agnosticism was powerless + +I found the interior of the building brilliantly illuminated. The +woodwork of the "stand" and the bible platform, the +velvet-and-gold curtains of the Holy Ark, and the fresco paintings +on the walls and ceiling were screamingly new and gaudy. So +were the ornamental electric fixtures. Altogether the place +reminded me of a reformed German synagogue rather than of the +kind with which my idea of Judaism had always been identified. +This seemed to accentuate the fact that the building had until +recently been a Christian church. The glaring electric lights and +the glittering decorations struck me as something unholy. Still, the +scattered handful of worshipers I found there, and more +particularly the beadle, looked orthodox enough, and I gradually +became reconciled to the place as a house of God + +The beadle was a new incumbent. Better dressed and with more +authority in his appearance than the man who had superintended +the old place, he comported well with the look of things in the +new synagogue. After obsequiously directing me to the pew of my +prospective father-in-law, who had not yet arrived, he inserted a +stout, tall candle into one of the sockets of the "stand" and lit it. It +was mine. It was to burn uninterruptedly for my mother's soul for +the next twenty-four hours. Mr. + +Kaplan's pew was in a place of honor--that is, by the east wall, near +the Holy Ark. To see my memorial candle I had to take a few +steps back. I did so, and as I watched its flame memories and +images took possession of me that turned my present life into a +dream and my Russian past into reality. + +According to the Talmud there is a close affinity between the +human soul and light, for "the spirit of man is the lamp of God," +as Solomon puts it in his Parables. Hence the custom of lighting +candles or lamps for the dead. And so, as I gazed at that huge +candle commemorating the day when my mother gave her life for +me, I felt as though its light was part of her spirit. The gentle +flutter of its flame seemed to be speaking in the sacred whisper of +a grave-yard + +"Mother dear! Mother dear!" my heart was saying. And then: +"Thank God, mother dear! I own a large factory. I am a rich man +and I am going to be married to the daughter of a fine Jew, a man +of substance and Talmud. And the family comes from around +Antomir, too. Ah, if you were here to escort me to the wedding +canopy!" + +The number of worshipers was slowly increasing. An old woman +made her appearance in the gallery reserved for her sex. At last +Mr. Kaplan, the father of my fiancée, entered the synagogue--a +man of sixty, with a gray patriarchal beard and a general +appearance that bespoke Talmudic scholarship and prosperity. He +was a native of a small town near Antomir, where his father had +been rabbi, and was now a retired flour merchant, having come to +America in the seventies. He had always been one of the pillars of +the Synagogue of the Sons of Antomir. In the days when I was a +frequenter at the old house of prayer the social chasm between +him and myself was so wide that the notion of my being engaged +to a daughter of his would have seemed absurd. Which, by the +way, was one of the attractions that his house now had for me + +"Good holiday, Mr. Kaplan!" some of the other worshipers saluted +him, as he made his way toward his pew + +"Good holiday! Good holiday!" he responded, with dignified +geniality + +I could see that he was aware of my presence but carefully avoided +looking at me until he should be near enough for me to greet him. +He was a kindly, serious-minded man, sincerely devout, and not +over-bright. He had his little vanities and I was willing to humor +them + +"Good holiday, Mr. Kaplan!" I called out to him + +"Good holiday! Good holiday, David!" he returned, amiably. "Here +already? Ahead of me? That's good! Just follow the path of +Judaism and everything will be all right." "How's everybody?" I +asked + +"All are well, thank God." + +"How's Fanny?" + +"Now you're talking. That's the real question, isn't it?" he chaffed +me, with dignity. "She's well, thank God." + +He introduced me to the cantor--a pug-nosed man with a pale face +and a skimpy little beard of a brownish hue + +"Our new cantor, the celebrated Jacob Goldstein!" he said. "And +this is Mr. + +David Levinsky, my intended son-in-law. An Antomir man. Was a +fine scholar over there and still remembers a lot of Talmud." + +The newly arrived synagogue tenor was really a celebrated man, in +the Antomir section of Russia, at least. His coming had been +conceived as a sensational feature of the opening of the new +synagogue. While "town cantor" in Antomir he had received the +highest salary ever paid there. The contract that had induced him +to come over to America pledged him nearly five times as much. +Thus the New York Sons of Antomir were not only able to parade +a famous cantor before the multitude of other New York +congregations, but also to prove to the people at home that they +were the financial superiors of the whole town of their birth. So +far, however, as the New York end of the sensation was +concerned, there was a good-sized bee in the honey. The imported +cantor was a tragic disappointment. The trouble was that his New +York audiences were far more critical and exacting than the people +in Antomir, and he was not up to their standard. For one thing, +many of the Sons of Antomir, and others who came to their +synagogue to hear the new singer, people who had mostly lived in +poverty and ignorance at home, now had a piano or a violin in the +house, with a son or a daughter to play it, and had become +frequenters of the Metropolitan Opera House or the Carnegie +Music Hall; for another, the New York Ghetto was full of good +concerts and all other sorts of musical entertainments, so much so +that good music had become all but part of the daily life of the +Jewish tenement population; for a third, the audiences of the +imported cantor included people who had lived in much larger +European cities than Antomir, in such places as Warsaw, Odessa, +Lemberg, or Vienna, for example, where they had heard much +better cantors than Goldstein. Then, too, life in New York had +Americanized my fellow-townspeople, modernized their tastes, +broadened them out. As a consequence, the methods of the man +who had won the admiration of their native town seemed to them +old-fashioned, crude, droll + +Still, the trustees, and several others who were responsible for the +coming of the pug-nosed singer, persisted in speaking of him as "a +greater tenor than Jean de Rezske," and my prospective +father-in-law was a trustee, and a good-natured man to boot, so he +had compassion for him + +"In the old country when we meet a new-comer we only say, 'Peace +to you,'" I remarked to the cantor, gaily. "Here we say this and +something else, besides. We ask him how he likes America." + +"But I have not yet seen it," the cantor returned, with a broad smile +in which his pug nose seemed to grow in size + +I told him the threadbare joke of American newspaper reporters +boarding an incoming steamer at Sandy Hook and asking some +European celebrity how he likes America hours before he has set +foot on its soil + +"That's what we call 'hurry up,'" Kaplan remarked + +"That means quick, doesn't it?" the cantor asked, with another +broad smile + +"You're picking up English rather fast," I jested + +"He has not only a fine voice, but a fine head, too," Kaplan put in + +"I know what 'all right' means, too," the cantor laughed. I thought +there was servility in his laugh, and I ascribed it to the lukewarm +reception with which he had met. I was touched. We talked of +Antomir, and although a conversation of this kind was nothing +new to me, yet what he said of the streets, market-places, the +bridge, the synagogues, and of some of the people of the town +interested me inexpressibly + +Presently the service was begun--not by the imported singer, but by +an amateur from among the worshipers, the service on a Passover +evening not being considered important enough to be conducted +by a professional cantor of consequence + +My heart was all in Antomir, in the good old Antomir of +synagogues and Talmud scholars and old-fashioned marriages, not +of college students, revolutionists, and Matildas + +When the service was over I stepped up close to the Holy Ark and +recited the Prayer for the Dead, in chorus with several other men +and boys. As I cast a glance at my "memorial candle" my mother +loomed saintly through its flame. I beheld myself in her arms, a +boy of four, on our way to the synagogue, where I was to be taught +to parrot the very words that I was now saying for her spirit + +The Prayer for the Dead was at an end. "A good holiday! A merry +holiday!" rang on all sides, as the slender crowd streamed +chatteringly toward the door + +Mr. Kaplan, the cantor, and several other men, clustering together, +lingered to bandy reminiscences of Antomir, interspersing them +with "bits of law." + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Kaplans occupied a large, old house on Henry +Street that had been built at a period when the neighborhood was +considered the best in the city. While Kaplan and I were taking off +our overcoats in the broad, carpeted, rather dimly lighted hall, a +dark-eyed girl appeared at the head of a steep stairway + +"Hello, Dave! You're a good boy," she shouted, joyously, as she ran +down to meet me with coquettish complacency + +She had regular features, and her face wore an expression of ease +and self-satisfaction. Her dark eyes were large and pretty, and +altogether she was rather good-looking. Indeed, there seemed to +be no reason why she should not be decidedly pretty, but she was +not. Perhaps it was because of that self-satisfied air of hers, the air +of one whom nothing in the world could startle or stir. +Temperamentally she reminded me somewhat of Miss +Kalmanovitch, but she was the better-looking of the two. I was not +in love with her, but she certainly was not repulsive to me + +"Good holiday, dad! Good holiday, Dave!" she saluted us in +Yiddish, throwing out her chest and squaring her shoulders as she +reached us + +She was born in New York and had graduated at a public +grammar-school and English was the only language which she +spoke like one born to speak it, and yet her Yiddish greeting was +precisely what it would have been had she been born and bred in +Antomir + +Her "Good holiday, dad. Good holiday, Dave!" went straight to my +heart + +"Well, I've brought him to you, haven't I? Are you pleased?" her +father said, with affectionate grimness, in Yiddish + +"Oh, you're a dandy dad. You're just sweet," she returned, in +English, putting up her red lips as if he were her baby. And this, +too, went to my heart + +When her father had gone to have his shoes changed for slippers +and before her mother came down from her bedroom, where she +was apparently dressing for supper, Fanny slipped her arm around +me and I kissed her lips and eyes + +A chuckle rang out somewhere near by. Standing in the doorway +of the back parlor, Mefisto-like, was Mary, Fanny's +twelve-year-old sister + +"Shame!" she said, gloatingly + +"The nasty thing!" Fanny exclaimed, half gaily, half in anger + +"You're nasty yourself," returned Mary, making faces at her sister + +"Shut up or I'll knock your head off." + +"Stop quarreling, kids," I intervened. Then, addressing myself to +Mary, "Can you spell 'eavesdropping'?" + +Mary laughed + +"Never mind laughing," I insisted. "Do you know what +eavesdropping means? Is it a nice thing to do? Anyhow, when +you're as big as Fanny and you have a sweetheart, won't you let +him kiss you?" As I said this I took Fanny's hand tenderly + +"She has sweethearts already," said Fanny. "She is running around +with three boys." + +"I ain't," Mary protested, pouting. + +"Well, three sweethearts means no sweetheart at all," I remarked + +Fanny and I went into the front parlor, a vast, high-ceiled room, as +large as the average four-room flat in the "modern +apartment-house" that had recently been completed on the next +block. It was drearily too large for the habits of the East Side of +my time, depressingly out of keeping with its sense of home. It +had lanky pink-and-gold furniture and a heavy bright carpet, all of +which had a forbidding effect. It was as though the chairs and the +sofa had been placed there, not for use, but for storage. Nor was +there enough furniture to give the room an air of being inhabited, +the six pink-and-gold pieces and the marble-topped center-table +losing themselves in spaces full of gaudy desolation + +"She's awful saucy," said Fanny. + +I caught her in my arms. "I have not three sweethearts. I have only +one, and that's a real one," I cooed + +"Only one? Really and truly?" she demanded, playfully. She +gathered me to her plump bosom, planting a deep, slow, sensuous +kiss on my lips + +I cast a side-glance to ascertain if Mary was not spying upon us + +"Don't be uneasy," Fanny whispered. "She won't dare. We can kiss +all we want." + +I thought she was putting it in a rather matter-of-fact way, but I +kissed her with passion, all the same + +"Dearest! If you knew how happy I am," I murmured + +"Are you really? Oh, I don't believe you," she jested, +self-sufficiently. + +"You're just pretending, that's all. Let me kiss your sweet mouthie +again." + +She did, and then, breaking away at the sound of her mother's +lumbering steps, she threw out her bosom with an upward jerk, a +trick she had which I disliked + +Ten minutes later the whole family, myself included, were seated +around a large oval table in the basement dining-room. Besides +the members already known to the reader, there was Fanny's +mother, a corpulent woman with a fat, diabetic face and large, +listless eyes, and Fanny's brother, Rubie, a boy with intense +features, one year younger than Mary. Rubie was the youngest of +five children, the oldest two, daughters, being married + +Mr. Kaplan was in his skull-cap, while I wore my dark-brown +derby. + +Everything in this house was strictly orthodox and as old-fashioned +as the American environment would permit + +That there was not a trace of leavened bread in the house, its place +being taken by thin, flat, unleavened "matzos," and that the repast +included "matzo balls," wine, mead, and other accessories of a +Passover meal, is a matter of course + +Mr. Kaplan was wrapped up in his family, and on this occasion, +though he presided with conscious dignity, he was in one of his +best domestic moods, talkative, and affectionately facetious. The +children were the real masters of his house + +Watching his wife nag Rubie because he would not accept another +matzo ball, Mr. Kaplan said: "Don't worry, Malkah. Your matzo +balls are delicious, even if your 'only son' won't do justice to them. +Aren't they, David?" + +"They certainly are," I answered. "What is more, they have the +genuine Antomir taste to them." + +"Hear that, Fanny?" Mr. Kaplan said to my betrothed. "You had +better learn to make matzo balls exactly like these. He likes +everything that smells of Antomir, you know." "That's all right," +said Malkah. "Fanny is a good housekeeper. May I have as good a +year." + +"It's a good thing you say it," her husband jested. "Else David +might break the engagement." + +"Let him," said Fanny, with a jerk of her bosom and a theatrical +glance at me. "I really don't know how to make matzo balls, and +Passover is nearly over, so there's no time for mamma to show me +how to do it." + +"I'll do so next year," her mother said, with an affectionate smile +that kindled life in her diabetic eyes. "The two of you will then +have to pass Passover with us." + +"I accept the invitation at once," I said + +"Provided you attend the seder, too," remarked Kaplan, referring to +the elaborate and picturesque ceremony attending the first two +suppers of the great festival + +I had been expected to partake of those ceremonial repasts on the +first and second nights of this Passover, but had been unavoidably +kept away from the city. Kaplan had resented it, and even now, as +he spoke of the next year's seder, there was reproach in his voice. + +"I will, I will," I said, ardently. + +"One mustn't do business on a seder night. It isn't right." + +"Give it to him, pa!" Fanny cut in. + +"I am not joking," Kaplan persisted. "One has got to be a Jew. +Excuse me, David, for speaking like that, but you re going to be as +good as a son of mine and I have a right to talk to you in this +way." + +"Why, of course, you have!" I answered, with filial docility + +His lecture bored me, but it did me good, too. It was sweet to hear +myself called "as good as a son" by this man of Talmudic +education who was at the same time a man of substance and of +excellent family + +The chicken was served. My intended wife ate voraciously, biting +lustily and chewing with gusto. The sight of it jarred on me +somewhat, but I overruled myself. "It's all right," I thought. "She's +a healthy girl. She'll make me a strong mate, and she'll bear me +healthy children." + +I had a temptation to take her in my arms and kiss her. "I am not in +love with her, and yet I am so happy," I thought. "Oh, love isn't +essential to happiness. Not at all. Our old generation is right." + +Fanny's reading, which was only an occasional performance, was +confined to the cheapest stories published. Even the popular +novels of the day, the "best sellers," seemed to be beyond her +depth. Her intellectual range was not much wider than that of her +old-fashioned mother, whose literary attainments were restricted +to the reading of the Yiddish Commentary on the Pentateuch. She +often interrupted me or her mother; everybody except her father. +But all this seemed to be quite natural and fitting. "She is +expected to be a wife, a mother, and a housekeeper," I reflected, +"and that she will know how to be. Everything else is nonsense. I +don't want to discuss Spencer with her, do I?" + +Kaplan quoted the opening words of a passage in the Talmud +bearing upon piety as the bulwark of happiness. I took it up, +finishing the passage for him + +"See?" he said to his wife. "I have told you he remembers his +Talmud pretty well, haven't I?" + +"When a man has a good head he has a good head," she returned, +radiantly + +Rubie went to a public school, but he spent three or four hours +every afternoon at an old-fashioned Talmudic academy, or +"yeshivah." There were two such "yeshivahs" on the East Side, +and they were attended by boys of the most orthodox families in +the Ghetto. I had never met such boys before. That an American +school-boy should read Talmud seemed a joke to me. I could not +take Rubie's holy studies seriously. As we now sat at the table I +banteringly asked him about the last page he had read. He +answered my question, and at his father's command he ran +up-stairs, into the back parlor, where stood two huge bookcases +filled with glittering folios of the Talmud and other volumes of +holy lore, and came back with one containing the page he had +named + +"Find it and let David see what you can do," his father said + +Rubie complied, reading the text and interpreting it in Yiddish +precisely as I should have done when I was eleven years old. He +even gesticulated and swayed backward and forward as I used to +do. To complete the picture, his mother, watching him, beamed as +my mother used to do when she watched me reading at the +Preacher's Synagogue or at home in our wretched basement. I was +deeply affected + +"He's all right!" I said + +"He's a loafer, just the same," his father said, gaily. "If he had as +much appetite for his Talmud as he has for his school-books he +would really be all right." "What do you want of him?" Malkah +interceded. "Doesn't he work hard enough as it is? He hardly has +an hour's rest." + +"There you have it! I didn't speak respectfully enough of her 'only +son.' I beg your pardon, Malkah," Mr. Kaplan said, facetiously + +The wedding had been set for one of the half-holidays included in +the Feast of Tabernacles, about six months later. Mrs. Kaplan said +something about her plans concerning the event. Fanny objected. +Her mother insisted, and it looked like an altercation, when the +head of the family called them to order + +"And where are you going for your honeymoon, Fanny?" asked +Mary + +"That's none of your business," her sister retorted + +"She's stuck up because she's going to be married," Mary jeered + +"Shut your mouth," her father growled + +"Do you know my idea of a honeymoon?" said I. "That is, if it were +possible--if Russia didn't have that accursed government of hers. +We should take a trip to Antomir." "Wouldn't that be lovely!" said +Fanny. "We would stop in Paris, wouldn't we?" + +Fanny and her mother resumed their discussion of the preparations +for the wedding. I scarcely listened, yet I was thrilled. I gazed at +Fanny, trying to picture her as the mother of my first child. "If it's +a girl she'll be named for mother, of course," I mused. I reflected +with mortification that my mother's name could not be left in its +original form, but would have to be Americanized, and for the +moment this seemed to be a matter of the gravest concern to me + +My attitude toward Fanny and our prospective marriage was +primitive enough, and yet our engagement had an ennobling effect +on me. I was in a lofty mood. + +My heart sang of motives higher than the mere feathering of my +own nest. The vision of working for my wife and children +somehow induced a yearning for altruism in a broader sense. +While free from any vestige of religion, in the ordinary meaning +of the word, I was tingling with a religious ecstasy that was based +on a sense of public duty. The Synagogue of the Sons of Antomir +seemed to represent not a creed, but unselfishness. I donated +generously to it. Also, I subscribed a liberal sum to an East Side +hospital of which Kaplan was a member, and to other institutions. +The sum I gave to the hospital was so large that it made a stir, and +a conservative Yiddish daily printed my photograph and a short +sketch of my life. I thought of the promise I had given Naphtali, +before leaving Antomir, to send him a "ship ticket." I had thought +of it many times before, but I had never even sought to discover +his whereabouts. This time, however, I throbbed with a firm +resolution to get his address, and, in case he was poor, to bring him +over and liberally provide for his future + +My wedding loomed as the beginning of a new era in my life. It +appealed to my imagination as a new birth, like my coming to +America. I looked forward to it with mixed awe and bliss + +Three or four months later, however, something happened that +played havoc with that feeling + + + + +BOOK XII + +MISS TEVKIN + + +CHAPTER I + +ON a Saturday morning +in August I took a train for Tannersville, Catskill Mountains, +where the Kaplan family had a cottage. I was to stay with them +over Sunday. I had been expected to be there the day before, but +had been detained, August being part of our busiest season. While +in the smoking-car it came over me that from Kaplan's point of +view my journey was a flagrant violation of the Sabbath and that +it was sure to make things awkward. + +Whether my riding on Saturday would actually offend his religious +sensibilities or not (for in America one gets used to seeing such +sins committed even by the faithful), it was certain to offend his +sense of the respect I owed him. And so, to avoid a sullen +reception I decided to stop overnight in another Catskill town and +not to make my appearance at Tannersville until the following day + +The insignificant change was pregnant with momentous results + +It was lunch-time when I alighted from the train, amid a hubbub of +gay voices. Women and children were greeting their husbands and +fathers who had come from the city to join them for the week-end. +I had never been to the mountains before, nor practically ever +taken a day's vacation. It was so full of ozone, so full of +health-giving balm, it was almost overpowering. I was inhaling it +in deep, intoxicating gulps. It gave me a pleasure so keen it +seemed to verge on pain. It was so unlike the air I had left in the +sweltering city that the place seemed to belong to another planet + +I stopped at the Rigi Kulm House. There were several other hotels +or boarding-houses in the village, and all of them except one were +occupied by our people, the Rigi Kulm being the largest and most +expensive hostelry in the neighborhood. lt was crowded, and I had +to content myself with sleeping-accommodations in one of the +near-by cottages, in which the hotel-keeper hired rooms for his +overflow business, taking my meals in the hotel + +The Rigi Kulm stood at the end of the village and my cottage was +across the main country road from it. Both were on high ground. +Viewed from the veranda of the hotel, the village lay to the right +and the open country--a fascinating landscape of meadowland, +timbered hills, and a brook that lost itself in a grove--to the left. +The mountains rose in two ranges, one in front of the hotel and +one in the rear + +The bulk of the boarders at the Rigi Kulm was made up of families +of cloak-manufacturers, shirt-manufacturers, +ladies'-waist-manufacturers, cigar-manufacturers, clothiers, +furriers, jewelers, leather-goods men, real-estate men, physicians, +dentists, lawyers--in most cases people who had blossomed out +into nabobs in the course of the last few years. The crowd was +ablaze with diamonds, painted cheeks, and bright-colored silks. It +was a babel of blatant self-consciousness, a miniature of the +parvenu smugness that had spread like wild-fire over the country +after a period of need and low spirits. + +In addition to families who were there for the whole season--that +is, from the Fourth of July to the first Monday in October--the +hotel contained a considerable number of single young people, of +both sexes--salesmen, stenographers, bookkeepers, +librarians--who came for a fortnight's vacation. + +These were known as "two-weekers." They occupied tiny rooms, +usually two girls or two men in a room. Each of these girls had a +large supply of dresses and shirt-waists of the latest style, and +altogether the two weeks' vacation ate up, in many cases, the +savings of months + +To be sure, the "two-weekers" of the gentle sex were not the only +marriageable young women in the place. They had a number of +heiresses to compete with + +I was too conspicuous a figure in the needle industries for my +name to be unknown to the guests of a hotel like the Rigi Kulm +House. Moreover, several of the people I found there were my +personal acquaintances. One of these was Nodelman's cousin, +Mrs. Kalch, or Auntie Yetta, the gaunt, childless woman of the +solemn countenance and the gay disposition, of the huge gold +teeth, and the fingers heavily laden with diamonds. I had not seen +her for months. + +As the lessee of the hotel marched me into his great dining-room +she rushed out to me, her teeth aglitter with hospitality, and made +me take a seat at a table which she shared with her husband, the +moving-van man, and two middle-aged women. I could see that +she had not heard of my engagement, and to avoid awkward +interrogations concerning the whereabouts of my fiancée I +omitted to announce it + +"I know what you have come here for," she said, archly. "You can't +fool Auntie Yetta. But you have come to the right place. I can tell +you that a larger assortment of beautiful young ladies you never +saw, Mr. Levinsky. And they're educated, too. If you don't find +your predestined one here you'll never find her. What do you say, +Mr. Rivesman?" she addressed the proprietor of the hotel, who +stood by and whom I had known for many years + +"I agree with you thoroughly, Mrs. Kalch," he answered, smilingly. +"But Mr. + +Levinsky tells me he can stay only one day with us." + +"Plenty of time for a smart man to pick a girl in a place like this. + +Besides, you just tell him that you have a lot of fine, educated +young ladies, Mr. Rivesman. He is an educated gentleman, Mr. +Levinsky is, and if he knows the kind of boarders you have he'll +stay longer." "I know Mr. Levinsky is an educated man," +Rivesman answered. "As for our boarders, they're all +fine--superfine." + +"So you've got to find your predestined one here," she resumed, +turning to me again. "Otherwise you can't leave this place. See?" + +"But suppose I have found her already--elsewhere?" + +"You had no business to. Anyhow, if she doesn't know enough to +hold you tight and you are here to spend a week-end with other +girls, she does not deserve to have you." + +"But I am not spending it with other girls." + +"What else did you come here for?" And she screwed up one-half +of her face into a wink so grotesque that I could not help bursting +into laughter + +About an hour after lunch I sat in a rocking-chair on the front +porch, gazing at the landscape. The sky was a blue so subtle and +so noble that it seemed as though I had never seen such a sky +before. "This is just the kind of place for God to live in," I mused. +Whereupon I decided that this was what was meant by the word +heaven, whereas the blue overhanging the city was a "mere sky." +The village was full of blinding, scorching sunshine, yet the air +was entrancingly ref reshing. The veranda was almost deserted, +most of the women being in their rooms, gossiping or dressing for +the arrival of their husbands, fathers, sweethearts, or possible +sweethearts. Birds were embroidering the silence of the hour with +a silvery whisper that spoke of rest and good-will. The slender +brook to the left of me was droning like a bee. Everything was +charged with peace and soothing mystery. A feeling of lassitude +descended upon me. I was too lazy even to think, but the landscape +was continually forcing images on my mind. A hollow in the slope +of one of the mountains in front of me looked for all the world +like a huge spoon. + +Half of it was dark, while the other half was full of golden light. It +seemed as though it was the sun's favorite spot. "The enchanted +spot," I named it. I tried to imagine that oval-shaped hollow at +night. I visioned a company of ghosts tiptoeing their way to it and +stealing a night's lodging in the "spoon," and later, at the approach +of dawn, behold! the ghosts were fleeing to the woods near by + +Rising behind that mountain was the timbered peak of another one. +It looked like the fur cap of a monster, and I wondered what that +monster was thinking of + +When I gazed at the mountain directly opposite the hotel I had a +feeling of disappointment. I knew that it was very high, that it +took hours to climb it, but I failed to realize it + +It was seemingly quite low and commonplace. Darkling at the foot +of it was what looked like a moat choked with underbrush and +weeds. The spot was about a mile and a half from the hotel, yet it +seemed to be only a minute's walk from me. But then a bird that +was flying over that moat at the moment, winging its way straight +across it, was apparently making no progress. Was this region +exempt from the laws of space and distance? The bewitching azure +of the sky and the divine taste of the air seemed to bear out a +feeling that it was exempt from any law of nature with which I +was familiar. The mountain-peak directly opposite the hotel +looked weird now. Was it peopled with Liliputians? Another bird +made itself heard somewhere in the underbrush flanking the +brook. It was saying something in querulous accents. I knew +nothing of birds, and the song or call of this one sounded so queer +to me that I was almost frightened. All of which tended to +enhance the uncanny majesty of the whole landscape + +Presently I heard Mrs. Kalch calling to me. She was coming along +the veranda, resplendent in a purple dress, a huge diamond +breastpin, and huge diamond earrings + +"All alone? All alone?" she exclaimed, as she paused, interlocking +her bediamonded fingers in a posture of mock amazement. "All +alone? Aren't you ashamed of yourself to sit moping out here, +when there are so many pretty young ladies around? Come along; +I'll find you one or two as sweet as sugar," kissing the tips of her +fingers + +"Thank you, Mrs. Kalch, but I like it here." + +"Mrs. Kalch! Auntie Yetta, you mean." And the lumps of gold in +her mouth glinted good-naturedly + +"Very well. Auntie Yetta." + +"That's better. Wait! Wait'll I come back." + +She vanished. Presently she returned and, grabbing me by an arm, +stood me up and convoyed me half-way around the hotel to a +secluded spot on the rear porch where four girls were chatting +quietly + +"Perhaps you'll find your predestined one among these," she said + +"But I have found her already," I protested, with ill-concealed +annoyance + +She took no heed of my words. After introducing me to two of the +girls and causing them to introduce me to the other two, she said: +"And now go for him, young ladies! You know who Mr. Levinsky +is, don't you? It isn't some kike. It's David Levinsky, the +cloak-manufacturer. Don't miss your chance. Try to catch him." + +"I'm ready," said Miss Lazar, a pretty brunette in white + +"She's all right," declared Auntie Yetta. "Her tongue cuts like a +knife that has just been sharpened, but she's as good as gold." + +"Am I? I ain't so sure about it. You had better look out, Mr. +Levinsky," the brunette in white warned me + +"Why, that just makes it interesting," I returned. "Danger is +tempting, you know. How are you going to catch me--with a net or +a trap?" + +Auntie Yetta interrupted us. "I'm off," she said, rising to go. "I can +safely leave you in their hands, Mr. Levinsky. They'll take care of +you," she said, with a wink, as she departed + +"You haven't answered my question," I said to Miss Lazar + +"What was it?" + +"She has a poor memory, don't you know," laughed a girl in a +yellow shirt-waist. She was not pretty, but she had winning blue +eyes and her yellow waist became her. "Mr. Levinsky wants to +know if you're going to catch him with a net or with a trap." + +"And how about yourself?" I demanded. "What sort of tools have +you?" + +"Oh, I don't think I have a chance with a big fish like yourself," she +replied + +Her companions laughed + +"Well, that's only her way of fishing," said Miss Lazar. "She tells +every fellow she has no chance with him. That's her way of getting +started. You'd better look out, Mr. Levinsky." + +"And her way is to put on airs and look as if she could have +anybody she wanted," retorted the one of the blue eyes + +"Stop, girls," said a third, who was also interesting. "If we are +going to give away one another's secrets there'll be no chance for +any of us." + +I could see that their thrusts contained more fact than fiction and +more venom than gaiety, but it was all laughed off and everybody +seemed to be on the best of terms with everybody else. I looked at +this bevy of girls, each attractive in her way, and I became aware +of the fact that I was not in the least tempted to flirt with them. "I +am a well-behaved, sedate man now, and all because I am +engaged," I congratulated myself. "There is only one woman in +the world for me, and that is Fanny, my Fanny, the girl that is +going to be my wife in a few weeks from to-day + +Directly in front of us and only a few yards off was a tennis-court. +It was unoccupied at first, but presently there appeared two girls +with rackets and balls and they started to play. One of these +arrested my attention violently, as it were. I thought her strikingly +interesting and pretty. I could not help gazing at her in spite of the +eyes that were watching me, and she was growing on me rapidly. +It seemed as though absolutely everything about her made a strong +appeal to me. She was tall and stately, with a fine pink +complexion and an effective mass of chestnut hair. I found that her +face attested intellectual dignity and a kindly disposition. I liked +her white, strong teeth. I liked the way she closed her lips and I +liked the way she opened them into a smile; the way she ran to +meet the ball and the way she betrayed disappointment when she +missed it. I still seemed to be congratulating myself upon my +indifference to women other than the one who was soon to bear +my name, when I became conscious of a mighty interest in this +girl. I said to myself that she looked refined from head to foot and +that her movements had a peculiar rhythm that was irresistible + +Physically her cast of features was scarcely prettier than Fanny's, +for my betrothed was really a good-looking girl, but spiritually +there was a world of difference between their faces, the difference +between a Greek statue and one of those lay figures that one used +to see in front of cigar-stores + +The other tennis-player was a short girl with a long face. I +reflected that if she were a little taller or her face were not so long +she might not be uninteresting, and that by contrast with her +companion she looked homelier than she actually was + +Miss Lazar watched me closely + +"Playing tennis is one way of fishing for fellows," she remarked + +"So the racket is really a fishing-tackle in disguise, is it?" I +returned. + +"But where are the fellows?" + +"Aren't you one?" "No." + +"Oh, these two girls go in for highbrow fellows," said a young +woman who had hitherto contented herself with smiling and +laughing. "They're highbrow themselves." + +"Do they use big words?" I asked. + +"Well, they're well read. I'll say that for them," observed Miss +Lazar, with a fine display of fairness + +"College girls?" + +"Only one of them." + +"Which?" + +"Guess." + +"The tall one." + +"I thought she'd be the one you'd pick. You'll have to guess again." + +"What made you think I'd pick her for a college girl?" "You'll have +to guess that, too. Well, she is an educated girl, all the same." + +She volunteered the further information that the tall girl's father +was a writer, and, as though anxious lest I should take him too +seriously, she hastened to add: "He doesn't write English, though. +It's Jewish, or Hebrew, or something." + +"What's his name?" I asked + +"Tevkin," she answered, under her breath + +The name sounded remotely familiar to me. Had I seen it in some +Yiddish paper? Had I heard it somewhere? The intellectual East +Side was practically a foreign country to me, and I was proud of +the fact. I knew something of its orthodox Talmudists, but +scarcely anything of its modern men of letters, poets, thinkers, +humorists, whether they wrote in Yiddish, in Hebrew, in Russian, +or in English. If I took an occasional look at the socialist Yiddish +daily it was chiefly to see what was going on in the Cloak-makers' +Union. Otherwise I regarded everything that was written for the +East Side with contempt, and "East Side writer" was synonymous +with "greenhorn" and "tramp." Worse than that, it was identified +in my mind with socialism, anarchism, and trade-unionism. It was +something sinister, absurd, and uncouth + +But Miss Tevkin was a beautiful girl, nevertheless. So I pitied her +for being the daughter of an East Side writer + +The tennis game did not last long. Miss Tevkin and her companion +soon went indoors. I went out for a stroll by myself. I was thinking +of my journey to Tannersville the next morning. The enforced loss +of time chafed me. Of the strong impression which the tall girl +had produced on me not a trace seemed to have been left. She +bothered me no more than any other pretty girl I might have +recently come across. Young women with strikingly interesting +faces and figures were not rare in New York + +I had not been walking five minutes when I impatiently returned to +the hotel to consult the time-tables + + + +CHAPTER II + +I WAS chatting with Rivesman, the lessee of the +hotel, across the counter that separated part of his office from the +lobby. As I have said, I had known him for many years. He had +formerly been in the insurance business, and he had at one time +acted as my insurance broker. He was a Talmudist, and well +versed in modern Hebrew literature, to boot. He advised me +concerning trains to Tannersville, and then we passed to the hotel +business and mutual acquaintances + +Presently Miss Tevkin, apparently on her way from her room, +paused at the counter, by my side, to leave her key. She was +dressed for dinner, although it was not yet half past 4 o'clock and +the great Saturday-evening repast, for which train after train was +bringing husbands and other "weekenders" to the mountains, was +usually a very late affair + +The dress she now wore was a modest gown of navy blue trimmed +with lace. The change of attire seemed to have produced a partial +change in her identity. + +She was interesting in a new way, I thought + +"Going to enjoy the fresh air?" Rivesman asked her, gallantly + +"Ye-es," she answered, pleasantly. "It's glorious outside." And she +vanished + +"Pretty girl," I remarked + +"And a well-bred one, too--in the real sense of the word." + +"One of your two-week guests, I suppose," I said, with studied +indifference. + +"Yes. She is a stenographer." Whereupon he named a well-known +lawyer, a man prominent in the affairs of the Jewish community, +as her employer. "It was an admirer of her father who got the job +for her." + +From what followed I learned that Miss Tevkin's father had once +been a celebrated Hebrew poet and that he was no other than the +hero of the romance of which Naphtali had told me a few months +before I left my native place to go to America, and that her mother +was the heroine of that romance. In other words, her mother was +the once celebrated beauty, the daughter of the famous Hebrew +writer (long since deceased), Doctor Rachaeless of Odessa + +"It was her father, then, who wrote those love-letters!" I exclaimed, +excitedly. "And it was about her mother that he wrote them! +Somebody told me on the veranda that her name was Miss +Tevkin. I did think the name sounded familiar, but I could not +locate it." The discovery stirred me inordinately. I was palpitating +with reminiscent interest and with a novel interest in the beautiful +girl who had just stood by my side + +At my request Rivesman, followed by myself, sought her out on +the front porch and introduced me to her as "a great admirer of +your father's poetry." + +Seated beside her was a bald-headed man with a lone wisp of hair +directly over his forehead whom the hotel-keeper introduced as +"Mr. Shapiro, a counselor," and who by his manner of greeting me +showed that he was fully aware of my financial standing + +The old romance of the Hebrew poet and his present wife, and +more especially the fact that I had been thrilled by it in Antomir, +threw a halo of ineffable fascination around their beautiful +daughter + +"So you are a daughter of the great Hebrew poet," I said in English + +"It's awfully kind of you to speak like that," she returned + +"Mr. Levinsky is known for his literary tastes, you know," Shapiro +put in + +"I wish I deserved the compliment," I rejoined. "Unfortunately, I +don't. I am glad I find time to read the newspapers + +"The newspapers are life," observed Miss Tevkin, "and life is the +source of literature, or should be." + +"'Or should be!'" Shapiro mocked her, fondly. "Is that a dig at the +popular novels?" And in an aside to me, "Miss Tevkin has no use +for them, you know." + +She smiled + +"Still worshiping at the shrine of Ibsen?" he asked her + +"More than ever," she replied, gaily. + +"I admire your loyalty, though I regret to say that I am still unable +to share your taste." + +"It isn't a matter of taste," she returned. "It depends on what one is +looking for in a play or a novel." + +She smiled with the air of one abstaining from a fruitless +discussion + +"She's a blue-stocking," I said to myself. "Women of this kind are +usually doomed to be old maids." And yet she drew me with a +magnetic force that seemed to be beyond my power of resistance + +It was evident that she enjoyed the discussion and the fact that it +was merely a pretext for the lawyer to feast his eyes on her + +I wondered why a bald-headed man with a lone tuft of hair did not +repel her + +A younger brother of Shapiro's, a real-estate broker, joined us. He +also was bald-headed, but his baldness formed a smaller patch +than the lawyer's + +The two brothers did most of the talking, and, among other things, +they informed Miss Tevkin and myself that they were graduates of +the City College. With a great display of reading and repeatedly +interrupting each other they took up the cudgels for the "good old +school." I soon discovered, however, that their range was limited +to a small number of authors, whose names they uttered with great +gusto and to whom they returned again and again. These were +Victor Hugo, Dumas, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, +Coleridge, Edgar Poe, and one or two others. If the lawyer added a +new name, like Walter Pater, to his list, the real-estate man would +hasten to trot out De Quincey, for example. For the rest they +would parade a whole array of writers rather than refer to any one +of them in particular. The more they fulminated and fumed and +bullied Miss Tevkin the firmer grew my conviction that they had +scarcely read the books for which they seemed to be ready to lay +down their lives + +Miss Tevkin, however, took them seriously. She followed them +with the air of a "good girl "listening to a lecture by her mother or +teacher + +"I don't agree with you at all," she would say, weakly, from time to +time, and resume listening with charming resignation + +The noise made by the two brothers attracted several other +boarders. One of these was a slovenly-looking man of forty-five +who spoke remarkably good English with a very bad accent (far +worse than mine). That he was a Talmudic scholar was written all +over his face. By profession he was a photographer. + +His name was Mendelson. He took a hand in our discussion, and it +at once became apparent that he had read more and knew more +than the bald-headed brothers. He was overflowing with withering +sarcasm and easily sneered them into silence + +Miss Tevkin was happy. B.ut the slovenly boarder proved to be +one of those people who know what they do not want rather than +what they do. And so he proceeded, in a spirit of chivalrous +banter, to make game of her literary gods as well. + +"You don't really mean to tell us that you enjoy an Ibsen play?" he +demanded. "Why, you are too full of life for that." + +"But that's just what the Ibsen plays are--full of life," she answered. +"If you're bored by them it's because you're probably looking for +stories, for 'action.' But art is something more significant than that. +There is moral force and beauty in Ibsen which one misses in the +old masters." + +"That's exactly what the ministers of the gospel or the up-to-date +rabbis are always talking about--moral force, moral beauty, and +moral clam-chowder," Mendelson retorted + +The real-estate man uttered a chuckle + +"Would you turn the theater into a church or a reform synagogue?" +the photographer continued. "People go to see a play because they +want to enjoy themselves, not because they feel that their morals +need darning." + +"But in good literature the moral is not preached as a sermon," +Miss Tevkin replied. "It naturally follows from the life it presents. +Anyhow, the other kind of literature is mere froth. You read page +after page and there doesn't seem to be any substance to it." She +said it plaintively, as though apologizing for holding views of this +kind + +"Is that the way you feel about Thackeray and Dickens, too?" I +ventured + +"I do," she answered, in the same doleful tone + +She went on to develop her argument. We did not interrupt her, the +two brothers, the photographer, and myself listening to her with +admiring glances that had more to do with her beautiful face and +the music of her soft, girlish voice than with what she was saying. +There was a congealed sneer on the photographer's face as he +followed her plea, but it was full of the magic of her presence + +"You're a silly child," his countenance seemed to say. "But I could +eat you, all the same." + +She dwelt on the virtues of Ibsen, Strindberg, Knut Hamsen, +Hauptmann, and a number of others, mostly names I did not +recollect ever having heard before, and she often used the word +"decadent," which she pronounced in the French way and which I +did not then understand. Now and then she would quote some +critic, or some remark heard from a friend or from her father, and +once she dwelt on an argument of her oldest brother, who seemed +to be well versed in Russian literature and to have clear-cut +opinions on literature in general. + +She spoke with an even-voiced fluency, with a charming gift of +language. + +Words came readily, pleasantly from her pretty lips. It was evident, +too, that she was thoroughly familiar with the many authors whose +praises she was sounding. Yet I could not help feeling that she had +not much to say. The opinions she voiced were manifestly not her +own, as though she was reciting a well-mastered lesson. And I was +glad of it. "She's merely a girl, after all," I thought, fondly. "She's +the sweetest thing I ever knew, and her father is the man who +wrote those love-letters, and her mother is the celebrated beauty +with whom he was in love." + +Whether the views she set forth were her own or somebody else's, I +could see that she relished uttering them. Also, that she relished +the euphony and felicity of her phrasing, which was certainly her +own. Whether she spoke from conviction or not, one thing seemed +indisputable: the atmosphere surrounding the books and authors +she named had a genuine fascination for her. There was a naive +sincerity in her rhetoric, and her delivery and gestures had a +rhythm that seemed to be akin to the rhythm of her movements in +the tennis-court + +Miss Lazar passed by us, giving me a smiling look, which seemed +to say, "I knew you would sooner or later be in her company." I +felt myself blushing. + +"To-morrow I'll be in Tannersville and all this nonsense will be +over," I said to myself + +The long-faced, short girl with whom Miss Tevkin had played +tennis emerged from the lobby door and was introduced to me as +Miss Siegel. As I soon gathered from a bit of pleasantry by the +lawyer, she was a school-teacher + +At Miss Tevkin's suggestion we all went to see the crowd waiting +for the last "husband train." + +As we rose to go I made a point of asking Miss Tevkin for the +name of the best Ibsen play, my object being to be by her side on +our walk down to the village. The photographer hastened to +answer my question, thus occupying the place on the other side of +her + +We were crossing the sloping lawn, Miss Tevkin on a narrow +flagged walk, while we were trotting along through the grass on +either side of her, with the other three of our group bringing up +the rear. Presently, as we reached the main sidewalk, we were +held up by Auntie Yetta, who was apparently returning from one +of the cottages across the road + +"Is this the one you are after?" she demanded of me, with a wink in +the direction of Miss Tevkin. And, looking her over, "You do +know a good thing when you see it." Then to her: "Hold on to him, +young lady. Hold on tight. + +Mr. Levinsky is said to be worth a million, you know." + +"She's always joking," I said, awkwardly, as we resumed our walk + +Miss Tevkin made no answer, but I felt that Auntie Yetta's joke +had made a disagreeable impression on her. I sought to efface it +by a humorous sketch of Auntie Yetta, and seemed to be +successful + +The village was astir. The great "husband train," the last and +longest of the day, was due in about ten minutes. Groups of +women and children in gala dress were emerging from the various +boarding-houses, feeding the main human stream. Some boarders +were out to meet the train, others were on their way to the +post-office for letters. A sunset of pale gold hung broodingly over +the mountains. Miss Tevkin's voice seemed to have something to +do with it + +Presently we reached the crowd at the station. The train was late. +The children were getting restless. At last it arrived, the first of +two sections, with a few minutes' headway between them. There +was a jam and a babel of voices. Interminable strings of +passengers, travel-worn, begrimed, their eyes searching the +throng, came dribbling out of the cars with tantalizing slowness. +Men in livery caps were chanting the names of their respective +boarding-houses. Passengers were shouting the pet names of their +wives or children; women and children were calling to their newly +arrived husbands and fathers, some gaily, others shrieking, as +though the train were on fire. There were a large number of +handsome, well-groomed women in expensive dresses and +diamonds, and some of these were being kissed by puny, but +successful-looking, men. "They married them for their money," I +said to myself. An absurd-looking shirt-waist-manufacturer of my +acquaintance, a man with the face of a squirrel, swooped down +upon a large young matron of dazzling animal beauty who had +come in an automobile. He introduced me to her, with a beaming +air of triumph. "I can afford a machine and a beautiful wife," his +radiant squirrel-face seemed to say. He was parading the fact that +this tempting female had married him in spite of his ugliness. He +was mutely boasting as much of his own homeliness as of her +coarse beauty + +Prosperity was picking the cream of the "bride market" for her +favorite sons. I thought of Lenox Avenue, a great, broad +thoroughfare up-town that had almost suddenly begun to swarm +with good-looking and flashily gowned brides of Ghetto upstarts, +like a meadow bursting into bloom in spring + +"And how about your own case?" a voice retorted within me. +"Could you get a girl like Fanny if it were not for your money? +Ah, but I'm a good-looking chap myself and not as ignorant as +most of the other fellows who have succeeded," I answered, +inwardly. "Yes, and I am entitled to a better girl than Fanny, too." +And I became conscious of Miss Tevkin's presence by my side + +Conversation with the poet's daughter was practically monopolized +by the misanthropic photographer. I was seized with a desire to +dislodge him. I was determined to break into the conversation and +to try to eclipse him. With a fast-beating heart I began: "What an +array of beautiful women! Present company" --with a bow to Miss +Tevkin and her long-faced chum-- "not excepted, of course. Far +from it." + +The two girls smiled + +"Why! Why! Whence this sudden fit of gallantry?" asked the +photographer, his sneer and the rasping Yiddish enunciation with +which he spoke English filling me with hate + +"Come, Mr. Mendelson," I answered, "it's about time you cast off +your grouch. Look! The sky is so beautiful, the mountains so +majestic. Cheer up, old man." + +The real-estate man burst into a laugh. The two girls smiled, +looking me over curiously. I hastened to follow up my advantage + +"One does get into a peculiar mood on an evening like this," I +pursued. "The air is so divine and the people are so happy." +"That's what we all come to the mountains for," the photographer +retorted + +Ignoring his remark, I resumed: "It may seem a contradiction of +terms, but these family reunions, these shouts of welcome, are so +thrilling it makes one feel as if there was something pathetic in +them." + +"Pathetic?" the bald-headed real-estate man asked in surprise + +"Mr. Levinsky is in a pathetic mood, don't you know," the +photographer cut in. + +"Yes, pathetic," I defied him. "But pathos has nothing to do with +grouch, has it?" I asked, addressing myself to the girls + +"Why, no," Miss Siegel replied, with a perfunctory smile. "Still, I +should rather see people meet than part. It's heartbreaking to +watch a train move out of a station, with those white +handkerchiefs waving, and getting smaller, smaller. Oh, those +handkerchiefs!" + +It was practically the first remark I had heard from her. It produced +a stronger impression on my mind than all Miss Tevkin had said. +Nevertheless, I felt that I should much rather listen to Miss Tevkin + +"Of course, of course," I said. "Leave-taking is a very touching +scene to witness. But still, when people meet again after a +considerable separation, it's also touching. Don't you think it is?" + +"Yes, I know what you mean," Miss Siegel assented, somewhat +aloofly + +"People cry for joy," Miss Tevkin put in, non-committally + +"Yes, but they cry, all the same. There are tears," I urged + +"I had no idea you were such a cry-baby, Mr. Levinsky," the +photographer said. "Perhaps you'll feel better when you've had +dinner. But I thought you said this weather made you happy." + +"It simply means that at the bottom of our hearts we Jews are a sad +people," Miss Tevkin interceded. "There is a broad streak of +tragedy in our psychology. It's the result of many centuries of +persecution and homelessness. Gentiles take life more easily than +we do. My father has a beautiful poem on the theme. But then the +Russians are even more melancholy than we are. Russian +literature is full of it. My oldest brother, who is a great stickler for +everything Russian, is always speaking about it." + +"Always referring to her papa and her brother," I thought. "What a +sweet child." + +Presently she and her long-faced chum were hailed by a group of +young men and women, and, excusing themselves to us, they ran +over to join them. I felt like a man sipping at a glass of wine when +the glass is suddenly seized from his hand + +Some time later I sat on a cane chair amid flower-beds in front of +the Rigi Kulm, inhaling the scented evening air and gazing down +the sloping side of the lawn. Women and girls were returning +from the post-office, many of them with letters in their hands. +Some of these were so impatient to know their contents that they +were straining their eyes to read them in the sickly light that fell +from a sparse row of electric lamps. I watched their faces. + +In one case it was quite evident that the letter was a love-message, +and that the girl who was reading it was tremendously happy. In +another I wondered whether the missive had come from a son. It +was for Miss Tevkin's return that I was watching. But the +dinner-gong sounded before she made her appearance + + + +CHAPTER III + +DINNER at the Rigi Kulm on a Saturday evening +was not merely a meal. It was, in addition, or chiefly, a great +social function and a gown contest + +The band was playing. As each matron or girl made her +appearance in the vast dining-room the female boarders already +seated would look her over with feverish interest, comparing her +gown and diamonds with their own. It was as though it were +especially for this parade of dresses and finery that the band was +playing. As the women came trooping in, arrayed for the +exhibition, some timid, others brazenly self-confident, they +seemed to be marching in time to the music, like so many +chorus-girls tripping before a theater audience, or like a +procession of model-girls at a style-display in a big department +store. Many of the women strutted affectedly, with "refined" mien. +Indeed, I knew that most of them had a feeling as though wearing a +hundred-and-fifty-dollar dress was in itself culture and education + +Mrs. Kalch kept talking to me, now aloud, now in whispers. She +was passing judgment on the gowns and incidentally initiating me +into some of the innermost details of the gown race. It appeared +that the women kept tab on one another's dresses, shirt-waists, +shoes, ribbons, pins, earrings. She pointed out two matrons who +had never been seen twice in the same dress, waist, or skirt, +although they had lived in the hotel for more than five weeks. Of +one woman she informed me that she could afford to wear a new +gown every hour in the year, but that she was "too big a slob to +dress up and too lazy to undress even when she went to bed"; of +another, that she would owe her grocer and butcher rather than go +to the country with less than ten big trunks full of duds; of a third, +that she was repeatedly threatening to leave the hotel because its +bills of fare were typewritten, whereas "for the money she paid +she could go to a place with printed menu-cards." + +"Must have been brought up on printed menu-cards," one of the +other women at our table commented, with a laugh + +"That's right," Mrs. Kalch assented, appreciatively. "I could not say +whether her father was a horse-driver or a stoker in a bath-house, +but I do know that her husband kept a coal-and-ice cellar a few +years ago." + +"That'll do," her bewhiskered husband snarled. " "It's about time +you gave your tongue a rest." + +Auntie Yetta's golden teeth glittered good-humoredly. The next +instant she called my attention to a woman who, driven to despair +by the superiority of her "bosom friend's" gowns, had gone to the +city for a fortnight, ostensibly to look for a new flat, but in reality +to replenish her wardrobe. She had just returned, on the big +"husband train," and now "her bosom friend won't be able to eat or +sleep, trying to guess what kind of dresses she brought back." + +Nor was this the only kind of gossip upon which Mrs. Kalch +regaled me. She told me, for example, of some sensational +discoveries made by several boarders regarding a certain mother +of five children, of her sister who was "not a bit better," and of a +couple who were supposed to be man and wife, but who seemed +to be "somebody else's man and somebody else's wife." + +At last Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel entered the dining-room. +Something like a thrill passed through me. I felt like exclaiming, +"At last!" + +"That's the one I met you with, isn't it? Not bad-looking," said Mrs. +Kalch + +"Which do you mean?" + +"'Which do you mean'! The tall one, of course; the one you were so +sweet on. + +Not the dwarf with the horse-face." + +"They're fine, educated girls, both of them," I rejoined. "Both of +them! As if it was all the same to you!" At this she bent over and +gave me a glare and a smile that brought the color to my face. +"The tall one is certainly not bad-looking, but we don't call that +pretty in this place." + +"Are there many prettier ones?" I asked, gaily + +"I haven't counted them, but I can show you some girls who shine +like the sun. There is one!" she said, pointing at a girl on the other +side of the aisle. "A regular princess. Don't you think so?" + +"She's a pretty girl, all right," I replied, "but in comparison with +that tall one she's like a nice piece of cotton goods alongside of a +piece of imported silk." + +"Look at him! He's stuck on her. Does she know it? If she does not, +I'll tell her and collect a marriage-broker's commission." + +I loathed myself for having talked too much. + +"I was joking, of course," I tried to mend matters. "All girls are +pretty." Luckily Mrs. Kalch's attention was at this point diverted +by the arrival of the waiter with a huge platter laden with roast +chicken, which he placed in the middle of the table. There ensued +a silent race for the best portions. + +One of the other two women at the table was the first to obtain +possession of the platter. Taking her time about it, she first made +a careful examination of its contents and then attacked what she +evidently considered a choice piece. By way of calling my +attention to the proceeding, Auntie Yetta stepped on my foot +under the table and gave me a knowing glance + +The noise in the dining-room was unendurable. It seemed as +though everybody was talking at the top of his voice. The +musicians--a pianist and two violinists--found it difficult to make +themselves heard. They were pounding and sawing frantically in a +vain effort to beat the bedlam of conversation and laughter. It was +quite touching. The better to take in the effect of the turmoil, I +shut my eyes for a moment, whereupon the noise reminded me of +the Stock Exchange + +The conductor, who played the first violin, was a fiery little fellow +with a high crown of black hair. He was working every muscle +and nerve in his body. + +He played selections from "Aïda," the favorite opera of the +Ghetto; he played the popular American songs of the day; he +played celebrated "hits" of the Yiddish stage. All to no purpose. +Finally, he had recourse to what was apparently his last resort. He +struck up the "Star-spangled Banner The effect was +overwhelming. The few hundred diners rose like one man, +applauding. The children and many of the adults caught up the +tune joyously, passionately. It was an interesting scene. Men and +women were offering thanksgiving to the flag under which they +were eating this good dinner, wearing these expensive clothes. +There was the jingle of newly-acquired dollars in our applause. +But there was something else in it as well. Many of those who +were now paying tribute to the Stars and Stripes were listening to +the tune with grave, solemn mien. It was as if they were saying: +"We are not persecuted under this flag. At last we have found a +home." Love for America blazed up in my soul. I shouted to the +musicians, "My Country," and the cry spread like wildfire. The +musicians obeyed and we all sang the anthem from the bottom of +our souls + + + +CHAPTER IV + +I WAS in the lobby, chatting with the clerk across +his counter and casting glances at the dining-room door. Miss +Tevkin had not yet finished her meal and I was watching for her to +appear. Presently she did, toying with Miss Siegel's hand + +"Feeling better now?" I asked, stepping up to meet them. "I hope +you enjoyed your dinner." + +"Oh, we were so hungry, I don't think we knew what we were +eating," Miss Tevkin returned, politely + +"Going to take the air on the veranda?" + +"Why--no. We are going out for a walk," she answered in a tone +that said as clearly as words that my company was not wanted. +And, nodding with exaggerated amiability, they passed out + +The blood rushed to my face as though she had slapped it. I stood +petrified. + +"It's all because of Mrs. Kalch's tongue, confound her!" I thought. + +"To-morrow I shall be in Tannersville and this trifling incident will +be forgotten." But at this I became aware that I did not care to go +to Tannersville and that the prospect of seeing Fanny had lost its +attraction for me. I went back to the counter and attempted to +resume my conversation with the clerk, but he was a handsome +fellow, which was one of his chief qualifications for the place, +and so I soon found myself in the midst of a bevy of girls and +married women. However, they all seemed to know that I was a +desirable match and they gradually transferred their attentions to +me, the girls in their own interests and the older matrons in those +of their marriageable daughters. Their crude amenities sickened +me. One middle-aged woman tried to monopolize me by a +confidential talk concerning the social inferiority of the Catskills + +"The food is good here," she said, in English. "There's no kick +comin' on that score. But my daughter says with her dresses she +could go to any hotel in Atlantic City, and she's right, too. I don't +care what you say." + +I fled as soon as I could. I went to look for a seat on the spacious +veranda. I said to myself that Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel must +have had an appointment with some one else and that I had no +cause for feeling slighted by them + +I felt reassured, but I was lonely. I was yearning for some +congenial company, and blamed fate for having allowed Miss +Tevkin to make another engagement--if she had + +The veranda was crowded and almost as noisy as the dining-room +had been. + +There was a hubbub of broken English, the gibberish being mostly +spoken with self-confidence and ease. Indeed, many of these +people had some difficulty in speaking their native tongue. Bad +English replete with literal translations from untranslatable +Yiddish idioms had become their natural speech. The younger +parents, however, more susceptible of the influence of their +children, spoke purer English. + +It was a dark night, but the sky was full of stars, full of golden +mystery. + +The mountains rose black, vast, disquieting. A tumultuous choir of +invisible katydids was reciting an interminable poem on an +unpoetic subject that had something to do with Miss Tevkin. The +air was even richer in aroma than it had been in the morning, but +its breath seemed to be part of the uncanny stridulation of the +katydids. The windows of the dancing-pavilion beyond the level +part of the lawn gleamed like so many sheets of yellow fire. +Presently its door flew open, sending a slanting shaft of light over +the grass + +I found a chair on the veranda, but I was restless, and the chatter of +two women in front of me grated on my nerves. I wondered where +Miss Tevkin and her companion were at this minute. I was saying +to myself that I would never come near them again, that I was +going to see Fanny; but I did not cease wondering where they +were. The two women in front of me were discussing the relative +virtues and faults of little boys and little girls. They agreed that a +boy was a "big loafer" and a great source of trouble, and that a +little girl was more obedient and clinging. It appeared that one of +these two mothers had a boy and two girls and that, contrary to +her own wish, he was her great pet, although he was not the +"baby." + +"I am just crazy for him," she said, plaintively + +She boasted of his baseball record, whereupon she used the slang +of the game with so much authority that it became entertaining, +but by a curious association of ideas she turned the conversation +to the subject of a family who owed the hotel-keeper their last +summer's board and who had been accepted this time in the hope +that they would pay their old debt as well as their new bills + +Two men to the right of me were complaining of the unions and +the walking delegates, of traveling salesmen, of buyers. Then they +took up the subject of charity, whereupon one of them enlarged on +"scientific philanthropy," apparently for the sheer lust of hearing +himself use the term + +I recalled that one of the things I was booked to do in Tannersville +was to attend a charity meeting of East Side business men, of +which Kaplan was one of the organizers. Two subscriptions were +to be started--one for a home for aged immigrants and one for the +victims of the anti-Jewish riots in Russia--and I was expected to +contribute sums large enough to do credit to my prospective +father-in-law + +The multitudinous jabber was suddenly interrupted by the sound of +scampering feet accompanied by merry shrieks. A young girl burst +from the vestibule door, closely followed by three young men. She +was about eighteen years old, well fed, of a ravishing +strawberries-and-cream complexion, her low-cut evening gown +leaving her plump arms and a good deal of her bust exposed. One +of the rocking-chairs on the porch impeding her way, she was +seized by her pursuers, apparently a willing victim, and held +prisoner. Two of her captors gripped her bare arms, while the +third clutched her by the neck. Thus they stood, the men stroking +and kneading her luscious flesh, and she beaming and giggling +rapturously. Then one of the men gathered her to him with one +arm, pressing his cheek against hers + +"She's my wife," he jested. "We are married. Let go, boys." + +"I'll sue you for alimony then," piped the girl + +Finally, they released her, and the next minute I saw them walking +across the lawn in the direction of the dancing-pavilion + +The man who had talked scientific philanthropy spat in disgust + +"Shame!" he said. "Decent young people wouldn't behave like that +in Russia, would they?" + +"Indeed they wouldn't," his interlocutor assented, vehemently. +"People over there haven't yet forgotten what decency is." + +"Oh, well, it was only a joke, said a woman + +"A nice joke, that!" retorted the man who had dwelt on scientific +charity + +"What would you have? Would you want American-born young +people to be a lot of greenhorns? This is not Russia. They are +Americans and they are young, so they want to have some fun. +They are just as respectable as the boys and the girls in the old +country. Only there is some life to them. That's all." + +Young people were moving along the flagged walk or crossing the +lawn from various directions, all converging toward the pavilion. +They walked singly, in twos, in threes, and in larger groups, some +trudging along leisurely, others proceeding at a hurried pace. +Some came from our hotel, others from other places, the strangers +mostly in flocks. I watched them as they sauntered or scurried +along, as they receded through the thickening gloom, as they +emerged from it into the slanting shaft of light that fell from the +pavilion, and as they vanished in its blazing doorway. I gazed at +the spectacle until it fascinated me as something weird. The +pavilion with its brightly illuminated windows was an immense +magic lamp, and the young people flocking to it so many huge +moths of a supernatural species. As I saw them disappear in the +glare of the doorway I pictured them as being burned up. I was +tempted to join the unearthly procession and to be "burned" like +the others. Then, discarding the image, I visioned men and women +of ordinary flesh and blood dancing, and I was seized with a +desire to see the sexes in mutual embrace. But I exhorted myself +that I was soon to be a married man and that it was as well to keep +out of temptation's way + +Presently I saw Miss Tevkin crossing the lawn, headed for the +pavilion. She was one of a bevy of girls and men. I watched her +get nearer and nearer to that shaft of light. When she was finally +swallowed up by the pavilion the lawn disappeared from my +consciousness. My thoughts were in the dance-hall, and a few +minutes later I was there in the flesh + +It was a vast room and it was crowded. It was some time before I +located Miss Tevkin. The chaotic throng of dancers was a welter +of color and outline so superb, I thought, that it seemed as though +every face and figure in it were the consummation of youthful +beauty. However, as I contemplated the individual couples, in +quest of the girl who filled my thoughts, I met with disillusion +after disillusion. Then, after recovering from a sense of watching +a parade of uncomeliness, I began to discover figures or faces, or +both, that were decidedly charming, while here and there I came +upon a young woman of singular beauty. The number of +good-looking women or women with expressive faces was +remarkably large, in fact. As I scanned the crowd for the third +time it seemed to me that the homely women looked cleverer than +the pretty ones. Many of the girls or matrons were dressed far +more daringly than they would have been a year or two before. +Almost all of them were powdered and painted. Prosperity was +rapidly breaking the chains of American Puritanism, rapidly +"Frenchifying" the country, and the East Side was quick to fall +into line + +The band was again playing with might and main. The vehement +little conductor was again exerting every nerve and muscle. His +bow, which was also his baton, was pouring vim and sex mystery +into the dancers. As I looked at him it seemed to me as though the +music, the thunderous clatter of feet, and the hum of voices all +came from the fiery rhythm of his arm + +Finally, I discovered Miss Tevkin. She was dancing with a +sallow-faced, homely, scholarly-looking fellow. The rhythmic +motion of her tall, stately frame, as it floated and swayed through +the dazzling light, brought a sob to my throat + +When the waltz was over and her cavalier was taking her to a seat I +caught her eye. I nodded and smiled to her. She returned the +greeting, but immediately averted her face. Again I felt as if she +had slapped my cheek. + +Was I repugnant to her? I thought of my victory over the +acrimonious photographer at the railroad station. Had I not won +her favor there? And it came over me that even on that occasion +she had shown me but scant cordiality. Was it all because of +Auntie Yetta's idiotic jest? She beckoned to Miss Siegel, who was +on the other side of the hall, and presently she was joined by her +and by some other young people. + +She danced indefatigably, now with this man, now with that, but +always of the same "set." I watched her. Sometimes, as she +waltzed, she talked and laughed brokenly, exchanging jokes with +her partner or with some other dancing couple. Sometimes she +looked solemnly absorbed, as though dancing were a sacred +function. I wondered whether she was interested in any one of +these fellows in particular. I could see that it gave her special +pleasure to waltz with that sallow-faced man, but he was the best +dancer in her group, and so homely that I discarded the theory of +her caring for him otherwise than as a waltzing partner as absurd. +Nor did she seem to be particularly interested in anybody else on +the floor. As I scrutinized the men of her "set" I said to myself: +"They seem to be school-teachers or writers, or beginning +physicians, perhaps. They probably make less than one-third of +what I pay Bender. Yet they freely talk and joke with her, while I +cannot even get near her." + +Miss Lazar, half naked, had been dancing with various partners, +most of all with a freckled lad of sixteen or seventeen who looked +as though he were panting to kiss her. She and I had exchanged +smiles and pleasantry, but in her semi-nudity she was far less +prepossessing than she had been in the afternoon, and I had an +uncontrollable desire to announce it to her, or to hurt her in some +other way. Finally, seeing a vacant seat by my side, she abruptly +broke away from the freckled youth and took it + +"You'll have to excuse me, Ben," she said. "I'm tired." + +Ben looked the picture of despair + +"Don't cry, Ben. Go out and take a walk, or dance with some other +girl." + +"Is this your catch after many days of fishing?" I asked + +"Nope. I'm angling for bigger fish. He's just Ben, a college boy. He +has fallen in love with me this evening. When I dance with +somebody else he gets awful jealous." She laughed. + +"He's a manly-looking boy, for all his freckles." + +"He is. But how would you like a little girl to fall in love with +you?" I made no answer + +"Why don't you dance?" she asked + +"Not in my line." "Why?" + +"Oh, I never cared to learn it," I answered, impatiently + +"Come. I'll show you how. It's very simple." + +"Too old for that kind of thing." "Too old? How old are you?" + +"That's an indiscreet question. Would you tell me your age?" + +"Indeed I would. Why not?" she said, with sportive defiance. "Only +you wouldn't believe me." + +"Why wouldn't I? Do you look much older?" + +"Oh, you cruel thing! I'm just twenty-three years and four months +to-day. + +There!" she said, with embarrassed gaiety. + +"A sort of birthday, isn't it? I congratulate you." + +"Thank you." + +"You're welcome." + +A pause + +"So you won't tell me how old you are, will you?" she resumed + +"What do you want to know it for? Are you in the life-insurance +business?" + +Another pause + +"Look at that girl over there," she said, trying to make +conversation. + +"She's showing off her slender figure. She thinks she looks awful +American." + +"You do have a sharp tongue." + +"But you remember what Mrs. Kalch said: 'A sharp tongue, but a +kind heart.'" + +The band struck up a two-step + +Ben was coming over to her, his freckled face the image of +supplication. She shut her eyes and shook her head and the boy +stopped short, his jaw dropping as he did so + +"Don't be hard on the poor boy," I pleaded + +"That's none of your business. I want you to dance with me. Come +on. I'll teach you + +I shut my eyes and shook my head precisely as she had done to +Ben + +She burst into a laugh. "Ain't you tired of being a wall-flower?" + +"I love it." + +"Do you really? Or maybe you want to watch somebody?" + +"I want to watch everybody," I replied, coloring the least bit. +"When you were dancing I watched you, and I thought--well, I +won't tell you what I thought." + +A splash of color overspread her face + +"Go ahead. Speak out!" she said, with a sick smile + +I took pity on her. "I'm joking, of course. But I do like to watch +people when they dance," I said, earnestly. "They do it in so many +different ways, don't you know." I proceeded to point out couple +after couple, commenting upon their peculiar manner and the +special expression of their faces. One man was seemingly about to +hurl his partner at somebody. Another man was eying other women +over the shoulder of the one with whom he danced, apparently his +wife. One woman was clinging to her partner with all her might, +while her half-shut eyes and half-opened mouth seemed to say, +"My, isn't it sweet!" + +Miss Lazar greeted my observations with bursts of merry approval. +Encouraged by this and full of mischief and malice, I made her +watch a man with tapering white side-whiskers and watery eyes +who was staring at the bare bust of a fat woman + +"You had better look out, for his watery eyes will soon be on you." + +Miss Lazar lowered her head and burst into a confused giggle + +"You're a holy terror," she declared. + +I was tempted to take her out into the night and hug and kiss her +and tell her that she was a nuisance, but the fear of a +breach-of-promise suit held me in leash + +I rose to go. As I picked my way through the crowd I watched Miss +Tevkin, who sat between Miss Siegel and one of their cavaliers. +Our eyes met, but she hastened to look away + +"She has certainly made up her mind to shun me," I thought, +wretchedly. "She knows I am worth about a million, and yet she +does not want to have anything to do with me. Must be a Socialist. +The idea of a typewriter girl cutting me! Pooh! I could get a +prettier girl than she, and one well-educated, too, if I only cared +for that kind of thing in a wife. Let her stick to her beggarly +crowd!" + +It all seemed so ridiculous. I was baffled, perplexed, full of +contempt and misery at once. "Perhaps she is engaged, after all," I +comforted myself, feeling that there was anything but comfort in +the reflection + +I was burning to have an explanation with her, to remove any bad +impression I might have made upon her + +An asphalt walk in front of the pavilion and the adjoining section +of the lawn were astir with boarders. A tall woman of thirty, of +excellent figure, and all but naked, passed along like a flame, the +men frankly gloating over her flesh. + +"Wait a moment! What's your hurry?" a young stallion shouted, +running after her hungrily + +In another spot, on the lawn, I saw a young man in evening dress +chaffing a bare-shouldered girl who looked no more than fifteen + +"What! Sweet sixteen and not yet kissed?" he said to her, aloud. +"Go on! I don't believe it. Anyhow, I'd like to be the fellow who's +going to get you." + +"Would you? I'll tell your wife about it," the little girl replied, with +the good humor of a woman of forty + +"Never mind my wife. But how about the fellow who is going to +marry you?" + +"I'd like to see him myself. I hope he ain't going to be some boob." + +The air was redolent of grass, flowers, ozone, and sex. All this was +flavored with Miss Tevkin's antipathy for me + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE next morning I awoke utterly out of sorts. That +I was going to take the first train for Tannersville seemed to be a +matter of course, and yet I knew that I was not going to take that +train, nor any other that day. I dressed myself and went out for a +walk up the road, some distance beyond the grove. + +The sun was out, but it had rained all night and the sandy road was +damp, solid, and smooth, like baked clay. It was half an hour +before breakfast-time when I returned to my cottage across the +road from the hotel. + +As I was about to take a chair on the tiny porch I perceived the +sunlit figure of Miss Tevkin in the distance. She wore a large +sailor hat and I thought it greatly enhanced the effect of her tall +figure. She was making her way over a shaky little bridge. Then, +reaching the road, she turned into it. I remained standing like one +transfixed. The distance gave her new fascination. Every little +while she would pause to look up through something that glittered +in the sunshine, apparently an opera-glass. I had never heard that +opera-glasses were used for observing birds, but this was evidently +what she was doing at this moment, and the proceeding quickened +my sense not only of her intellectual refinement, but also of her +social distinction. + +Presently she turned into a byway, passed the grove, and was lost +to view + +I seated myself, my eye on the spot where I had seen her disappear. +Somebody greeted me from the hotel lawn. I returned the +salutation mechanically and went on gazing at that spot. I knew +that I was making a fool of myself, but I could not help it. My +will-power was gone as it might from the effect of some drug + +When she reappeared at last and I saw her coming back I crossed +over to the hotel veranda so as to be near her when she should +arrive. I found several of the boarders there, including the lawyer, +the photographer, and a jewelry merchant of my acquaintance. We +all watched her coming. At one moment, as she leveled her +opera-glass at a bird, the lawyer said: "Studying birds. She's a great +girl for studying. She is." + +"Studying nothing!" the photographer jeered. "It's simply becoming +to her. + +It's effective, don't you know." + +The lawyer smiled sagely, as if what Mendelson said was precisely +what he himself had meant to intimate + +I was inclined to think that Mendelson was right, but this did not +detract from the force that drew me to Miss Tevkin + +When she reached the veranda the lawyer gallantly offered her a +chair, but she declined it, pleasantly, and went indoors. Her high +heels had left deep, dear-cut imprints in a small patch of damp, +sandy ground near the veranda. + +This physical trace of her person fascinated me. It was a trace of +stern hostility, yet I could not keep my eye away from it. I gazed +and gazed at those foot-prints of hers till I seemed to be growing +stupid and dizzy. "Am I losing my head?" I said to myself. "Am I +obsessed? Why, I saw her yesterday for the first time and I have +scarcely spoken to her. What the devil is the matter with me?" + +After breakfast we returned to the veranda. The jewelry-dealer and +the lawyer bored me unmercifully. Finally I was saved from them +by the arrival of the Sunday papers, but my reading was soon +disturbed by the intrusions of a mother and her marriageable +daughter. There was no escape. I had to lay down my paper and +let them torture me. There was a striking family resemblance +between the two, yet the daughter was as homely as the mother +was pretty. "She isn't as prepossessing as her ma, of course," the +older woman seemed to be saying to me, "but she's charming, all +the same, isn't she?" + +Miss Lazar was watching me at a respectful distance. Mrs. Kalch +was deep in a game of pinochle in a small ground-floor room that +gave out on the veranda. The window was open and I could hear +Mrs. Kalch's voice. She seemed to have been losing. The little +room, by the way, was used both as a synagogue and a +gambling-room. In the mornings, before breakfast, it was filled +with old men in praying-shawls and phylacteries, while the rest of +the day, until late at night, it was in the possession of card-players + +I wanted to wire Bender to send a message to Fanny, in my name, +stating that I had been unavoidably detained in the city, but I +lacked the energy to do so. I had not even the energy to extricate +myself from the attentions of the pretty mother of the homely girl + +That charity meeting bothered me more than anything else. One +was apt to impute my absence to meanness. I pictured Kaplan's +disappointment, and I felt like going to Tannersville for his sake, +if for no other reason. The next best thing would have been to +have Bender wire my contribution to each of the two funds. But I +did not stir + +The hotel-keeper came out to remind me of my train + +"Thank you," I said, with a smile. "But the weather is too +confoundedly good. I'm too lazy to leave your place, Rivesman. +You must have ordered this weather on purpose to detain me." + +I was hoping, of course, that my presence in this hotel would be +unknown to the Kaplans, for some time at least. Soon, however, +something happened which made it inevitable that they should +hear of it that very evening + +On Sundays the Jewish summer hotels are usually visited by +committees of various philanthropic institutions who go from +place to place making speeches and collecting donations. One +such committee appeared in the dining-room of the Rigi Kulm at +the dinner-hour, which on Sundays was between 1 and 3. It +represented a day nursery, an establishment where the children of +the East Side poor are taken care of while their mothers are at +work, and it consisted of two men, one of whom was an eloquent +young rabbi. + +As the ecclesiastic took his stand near the piano and began his +appeal my heart sank within me. I had once met him at Kaplan's +house, where he was a frequent visitor, and had given him a +check. It goes without saying that I had to give him a contribution +now and to talk to him. At this I learned, to my consternation, that +he was going to Tannersville that very afternoon + +"Shall I convey your regards?" he asked + +"Very kind of you," I answered, and I added in an undertone, out of +Mrs. + +Kalch's hearing, "Please tell Mr. Kaplan I'm here on an important +matter and that I have been detained longer than I expected." + +When he had gone over to the next table I said to myself: "I don't +care. + +Come what may." + +In the evening, as the crowd swarmed out of the dining-room, it +was greeted by a gorgeous sunset. Everybody appreciated its +beauty, but Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel went into ecstasies over +it, with something of the specialist in their exclamations. As for +me, it was the first rich sunset I had seen since I crossed the +ocean, and then I had scarcely known what it was. The play of +color and light in the sky was a revelation to me. The edge of the +sun, a vivid red, was peeping out of a gray patch of cloud that +looked like a sack, the sack hanging with its mouth downward and +the red disk slowly emerging from it. Spread directly underneath +was a pool of molten gold into which the sun was seemingly about +to drop. As the disk continued to glide out of the bag it gradually +grew into a huge fiery ball of magnificent crimson, suffusing the +valley with divine light. At the moment when it was just going to +plunge into the golden pool the pool vanished. The crimson ball +kept sinking until it was buried in a region of darkness. When the +last fiery speck of it disappeared the sky broke into an evensong of +color so solemn, so pensive that my wretched mood interpreted it +as a visible dirge for the dead sun. Rose lapsed into purple, purple +merged into blue, the blue bordering on a field of hammered gold +that was changing shape and hue; all of which was eloquent of +sadness. It seemed as though the heavens were in an ecstasy of +grief and everybody about me were about to break into tears + +some of the old women gasped. "How nice!" "Isn't it lovely?" said +several girls + +"Isn't that glorious?" said Miss Tevkin. "It's one of the most +exquisite sunsets I have seen in a long time." And she referred to +certain "effects," apparently in the work of a well-known +landscape painter, which I did not understand + +I discovered a note of consciousness in her rapture, something like +a patronizing approval of the sky by one who looked at it with a +professional eye. Nevertheless, I felt that my poor soul was +cringing before her + +An epigram occurred to me, something about the discrepancy +between the spiritual quality of the sunset and the after-supper +satisfaction of the onlookers. I essayed to express it, but was so +embarrassed that I made a muddle of my English. Miss Tevkin +took no notice of the remark. + +The sunset was transformed into a thousand lumps of pearl, here +and there edged with flame. In some places the pearl thinned +away, dissolving into the color of the sky, while the outline of the +lump remained--a map of glowing tracery on a ground of the +subtlest blue. Drifts of gold were gleaming, blazing, going out. A +vast heap of silver caught fire. The outlined map disappeared, its +place being taken by a raised one, with continents, islands, +mountains, and seas of ravishing azure + +What was the power behind this sublime spectacle? Where did it +come from? What did it all mean? I visioned a chorus of angels. +My heart was full of God, full of that stately girl, full of misery. + +"If I only got a chance to have a decent talk with her!" I said to +myself again and again. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IT was Monday afternoon. The week-end boarders +and many others had left, and I was still idling my precious time +away on the big veranda, listening to the gossip of women who +bored me and trying to keep track of a girl who shunned me. My +establishment in New York was feverishly busy and my presence +was urgently needed there. It was more than probable that Bender +had wired to Tannersville to call me home. The situation was +extremely awkward. + +Moreover, I was beginning to feel uneasy about certain payments +that required my personal attendance. + +It was a quiet, pleasant afternoon. The boarders were scattered +over the various parts of the hotel and its surroundings. +Twenty-four of them, forming two coach parties, had gone to see +some celebrated Catskill views, one to the Old Mountain House +and the other to East Windham. Some were in the village. Miss +Tevkin, wearing her immense straw hat, and with her opera-glass +in her hand, was looking at birds in the vicinity of the hotel. + +Thus rambling about leisurely, she sauntered over to the main road +near the grove. A few minutes later she turned into the same path +where I had watched her disappear on the morning of the day +before. And once more I saw her vanish there + +I went out for a walk in the opposite direction. Soon, however, I +turned back, strolling with studied aimiessness, toward that spot + +What was my purpose? At first I did not know, but by little and +little, as I moved along, an idea took shape in my brain: If I met +her alone I might force her to listen to me and let her see the stuff +I was made of. I lacked courage, however. While I was priming +myself for the coup I wished that it would be postponed. I +dawdled. There were swarms of strange insects on the road, +creatures I had never seen before. At first I thought they were +grasshoppers, but they were gray and had wings. Every now and +then I would pause to watch them leap (or were they flying?) and +drop to the ground again, becoming part of the dusty road. I +followed them with genuine interest, yet all the time I kept +working on the speech that I was going to deliver to Miss Tevkin + +I was lingering at a spot a few yards from the grove on the opposite +side of the main road when suddenly twilight fell over half of the +valley. I raised my eyes. Behold! an inky cloud was crawling over +the mountains, growing in size as it advanced. A flash of lightning +snapped across the heavens. It was as though the sky screened a +world of dazzling glory into which a glimpse had now been +offered by a momentary crack in the screen. The flash was +followed by a devout peal of thunder, as if a giant whose abode +was in those dark clouds broke into a murmur of glorification at +sight of the splendors above the sky. The trees shuddered, +awe-stricken. I went under cover. A farmer was chasing a cow. As +my eyes turned toward the grove they fell on Miss Tevkin, who +was standing at the farther end of it, under its leafy roof, facing +the main road. My heart beat fast. I dared not stir + +A shower broke loose, a great, torrential downpour. It came in +sheets, with an impetuous, though genial, clatter. It seemed as +though the valley was swiftly filling with water and in less than an +hour's time it would reach the tops of the trees. I thought of Noah's +flood. I could almost see his dove winging her way over the +waters. The storm had been in progress but seven or eight minutes +when it came to an end. The sky broke into a smile again, as if it +had all been a joke. + +Miss Tevkin left the shelter of the trees and set out in the direction +of the hotel. I do not know whether she was aware of my +proximity + +It was clearing beautifully, when a new cloud gathered. This time a +great, stern force, violent, vengeful, came into play. A lash of fire +smote the firmament with frantic suddenness, shattering it into a +myriad of blinding sparks, yet leaving it uninjured. There was a +pause and then came a ferocious crash. The universe was falling +to pieces. Then somebody seemed to be tearing an inner heaven of +metal as one tears a sheet of linen. This released a torrent that +descended with the roar of Niagara, as though the metal vault that +had just been rent asunder had been its prison. Miss Tevkin ran +back to cover. The torrent slackened, settling down to a steady +rain, spirited, zealous, amicable again + +In a turmoil of agitation I crossed over to her. Instead, however, of +beginning at the beginning of my well-prepared little speech, I +blurted out something else + +"You can't run away from me now," I said, with timid flippancy + +"Please, leave me alone," she besought, turning away + +I was literally stunned. Instead of trying to say what I had in my +mind and to force her to listen, I slunk away, in the rain, like a +beaten dog + +The shock seemed to have a sobering effect on me. I suddenly +realized the imbecility of the part I had been playing, even the +humor of it. The first thing I did upon reaching the hotel was to +ask the clerk about the next train--not to Tannersville, but direct to +New York. Going to see Fanny was out of the question now. + +There was a late train connecting with a Hudson River boat and I +took it. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WHEN I got home and my business reasserted its +multitudinous demands on my attention, the Catskill incident +seemed to be fading into the character of a passing summer-resort +episode, but I was mistaken; the pang it left in my heart persisted + +A fortnight after my return to the city I forced myself to take a trip +to Tannersville. Fanny came to meet me at the train. As we kissed +it was borne in upon me that I was irretrievably estranged from +her. I tried to play my part, with poor success + +"Are you worried, Dave? What's the matter with you?" Fanny +demanded again and again. + +Her "What's the matter with you?" jarred on me + +I offered her sundry excuses, but I did not even take pains to make +them ring true + +Finally she had a cry and I kissed her tears away. While doing so I +worked myself into a mild fit of love, but my lips had scarcely +released hers when it was again clear to me that she was not going +to be my wife + +Our engagement was broken shortly after the family came back to +the city. + +That burden lifted, it seemed as though the memory of my +unfortunate acquaintance with Miss Tevkin had suddenly grown +in clarity and painful acuteness + +Our rush season had passed, but we were busy preparing for our +removal to new quarters, on Fifth Avenue near Twenty-third +Street. That locality had already become the center of the +cloak-and-suit trade, being built up with new sky-scrapers, full of +up-to-date cloak-factories, dress-factories, and +ladies'-waist-factories. The sight of the celebrated Avenue +swarming with Jewish mechanics out for their lunch hour or going +home after a day's work was already a daily spectacle + +The new aspect of that section of the proud thoroughfare marked +the advent of the Russian Jew as the head of one of the largest +industries in the United States. Also, it meant that as master of +that industry he had made good, for in his hands it had increased a +hundredfold, garments that had formerly reached only the few +having been placed within the reach of the masses. Foreigners +ourselves, and mostly unable to speak English, we had +Americanized the system of providing clothes for the American +woman of moderate or humble means. The ingenuity and +unyielding tenacity of our managers, foremen, and operatives had +introduced a thousand and one devices for making by machine +garments that used to be considered possible only as the product +of handwork. This--added to a vastly increased division of labor, +the invention, at our instance, of all sorts of machinery for the +manufacture of trimmings, and the enormous scale upon which +production was carried on by us--had the effect of cheapening the +better class of garments prodigiously. We had done away with +prohibitive prices and greatly improved the popular taste. Indeed, +the Russian Jew had made the average American girl a +"tailor-made" girl. + +When I learned the trade a cloak made of the cheapest satinette +cost eighteen dollars. To-day nobody would wear it. One can now +buy a whole suit made of all-wool material and silk-lined for +fifteen dollars + +What I have said of cloaks and suits applies also to skirts and +dresses, the production of which is a branch of our trade. It was +the Russian Jew who had introduced the factory-made gown, +constantly perfecting it and reducing the cost of its production. +The ready-made silk dress which the American woman of small +means now buys for a few dollars is of the very latest style and as +tasteful in its lines, color scheme, and trimming as a high-class +designer can make it. A ten-dollar gown is copied from a +hundred-dollar model. + +Whereupon our gifted dress-designers are indefatigably at work on +the problem of providing a good fit for almost any figure, with as +little alteration as possible, and the results achieved in this +direction are truly phenomenal. Nor is it mere apish copying. We +make it our business to know how the American woman wants to +look, what sort of lines she would like her figure to have. Many a +time when I saw a well-dressed American woman in the street I +followed her for blocks, scanning the make-up of her cloak, jacket, +or suit. I never wearied of studying the trend of the American +woman's taste. The subject had become a veritable idée fixé with +me + +The average American woman is the best-dressed average woman +in the world, and the Russian Jew has had a good deal to do with +making her one. + +My Fifth Avenue establishment occupied four vast floors, the rent +being thirty-eight thousand dollars a year. The office floor, which +was elaborately furnished, had an immense waiting-room with +gold letters on doors of dull glass bearing the legends: "General +Offices," "Show-rooms," "Private Offices," "Salesmen. Please +show samples of merchandise between 9 and 12 A.M.," and +"Information." The "Private Office" door led to a secluded little +kingdom with the inscription "David Levinsky" on one of its +several doors, another door leading from my private office to the +showrooms + +I employed a large staff of trained bookkeepers, stenographers, +clerks, and cloak models. These models were all American girls +of Anglo-Saxon origin, since a young woman of other stock is not +likely to be built on American lines--with the exception of +Scandinavian and Irish girls, who have the American figure. But +the figure alone was not enough, I thought. In selecting my +model-girls, I preferred a good-looking face and good manners, +and, if possible, good grammar. Experience had taught me that +refinement in a model was helpful in making a sale, even in the +case of the least refined of customers. Indeed, often it is even +more effectual than a tempting complexion + +My new place was the talk of the trade. Friends came to look it +over. I received numerous letters of congratulation, from mill +men, bankers, retail merchants, buyers, private friends. My range +of acquaintance was very wide. + +In hundreds of American cities and towns there were business +people with whom my firm was in correspondence or whom I +knew personally, who called me Dave and whom I called Jim, +Jack, or Ned. So, many of these people, having received my +circular describing my new place, sent their felicitations. Some of +these letters were inspired by genuine admiration for my enterprise +and energy. All of them had genuine admiration for my success. +Success! Success! Success! It was the almighty goddess of the +hour. Thousands of new fortunes were advertising her gaudy +splendors. Newspapers, magazines, and public speeches were full +of her glory, and he who found favor in her eyes found favor in +the eyes of man + +Nodelman scarcely ever left my place during the first three days. +He would show visitors over the four floors with a charming +pride, like that of a mother. Among the things he exhibited was +the stub-book of my first check account, a photograph of the +rickety house where I had had my first shop, and letters of +congratulation from some well-known financiers. Bender, with a +big, shining bald disk on his head, slender and spruce as ever, was +fussing around with the gruff air of an unappreciated genius, while +Loeb, also bald-headed, but fat and beaming, was telling +everybody about the scraps he and I used to have on the road +when he was a star drummer and I a struggling beginner + +One of the men who came to congratulate me at my magnificent +new place on Fifth Avenue was the kindly American commission +merchant who had been the first to grant me credit when I was +badly in need of it. As I took him over my immense factory, +splendid showrooms, and offices, we recalled the days when it +took a man of special generosity to treat a beginning manufacturer +of my type as he had treated me. That was the time when +woolen-mills would even refuse to bother with a check of a +Russian Jew; he had to bring cash. + +In the rôle of manufacturer he was regarded as a joke. By hard +work, perseverance, thrift, and ingenuity, however, we had +completely changed all that. By the time I moved to the avenue +our beginners could get any amount of credit. The American +merchants dealing in raw material had gradually realized our +energy, ability, and responsibility--realized that we were a good +risk, while we, on our part, had assimilated the ways of the +advanced American business man + +Another man who came to see my new establishment was Eaton, +the Philadelphia buyer who had given me my first lesson in table +manners. He had a small, but well-established, business of his +own now, and it was with my financial aid that he had founded it. +Our friendship had never flagged. Sometimes I go to spend a day +or two in his cozy little house in North Philadelphia, where I feel +as much at home as I do in Bender's or Nodelman's house + +I assigned one of my office men to the special duty of looking up +and inviting Mr. Even, the kindly old man who had bought me my +first American suit of clothes and paid for my first American bath. +He came back with the report that Mr. Even had been dead for +over four years. The news was a genuine shock to me. It was as +though it had come from my birthplace and concerned the death +of a half-forgotten relative. It stirred a swarm of memories; but, of +course, impressions and moods of this kind do not last long. I +received requests for donations from all sorts of East Side +institutions and I responded liberally. Mindels, the handsome +doctor, made me contribute twenty-five hundred dollars to a +prospective hospital in which he expected to be one of the leading +spirits + +There was dining and wining. I was being toasted, complimented, +blessed + +One of these dinners was given in my honor by my office +employees, salesmen, designers, and foremen. Bender, who +presided, told, in an elaborate and high-flown oration, of his +experiences as my school-teacher, of our walks after school hours, +and of our chance meeting a few years later + +Loeb made a rough-and-ready speech, the gist of which was a joke +on the bottle of milk which I had spilled while in the employ of +Manheimer Brothers and which had led to my becoming a +manufacturer. His concluding words were: "There's at least one +saying that has come true. I mean the saying, 'There's no use +crying over spilled milk.' Mr. Levinsky, you certainly have no +reason to cry over the milk you spilled at Manheimer's, have +you?" + +I had heard the witticism from him more than once before. So had +some of the other men present. Nevertheless, he now delivered it +with gusto, and it was received with a hearty roar of merriment, in +which his own laughter was the loudest + +Among the people who came to rejoice in my success were some +whose appearance was an amusing surprise to me. One of these +was Octavius, the violinist, who had had nothing but contempt for +me in the days when to go twenty-four hours without food was a +usual experience with me. He had scarcely changed. He entered +my office with bohemian self-importance + +"Glad to see you, Levinsky. I was glad to hear of your rise in the +world," he said, somewhat pompously. "I can't complain, either, +though. However, our fields are so different." + +The implication was that, while I had succeeded as a prosaic, +pitiable cloak-manufacturer, he had conquered the world by the +magic of his violin and compositions. He never referred to olden +times. Instead, he boasted of his successes, present and future. +The upshot of the interview was that I sent a check to the treasurer +of the free conservatory of which Octavius was one of the +founders + +I was elated and happy, but there was a fly in the ointment of my +happiness. + +The question, "Who are you living for?" reverberated through the +four vast floors of my factory, and the image of Miss Tevkin +visited me again and again, marring my festive mood. My sense of +triumph often clashed with a feeling of self-pity and yearning. The +rebuff I had received at her hands in the afternoon of that storm +lay like a mosquito in my soul + + + + +BOOK XIII + +AT HER FATHER'S HOUSE + + +CHAPTER I + +I MADE it my business to visit a well-known Hebrew book-store on Canal +Street. I asked for Tevkin's works. It appeared that before he +emigrated to America he had published three small volumes of +verse and prose, that they had once aroused much interest, but that +they were now practically out of print. I tried two other stores, +with the same result. I was referred to the Astor Library, whose +Hebrew department was becoming one of the richest in the world. +Sitting down in a public library to read a book seemed to be an +undignified proceeding for a manufacturer to engage in, but my +curiosity was beyond considerations of this sort. Whenever I +thought of Miss Tevkin I beheld the image of those three +books--the only things related to her with which I was able to +come in contact + +Finally, on a Saturday afternoon, I found myself at one of the green +tables of Astor Library. I was reading poetry written in the holy +tongue, a language I had not used for more than eighteen years + +Two of Tevkin's three little volumes were made up of poetry, +while the third consisted of brief essays, prose, poems, +"meditations," and epigrams. I came across a "meditation" entitled +"My Children," and took it up eagerly. It contained but three +sentences: "My children love me, yet my heart is hungry. They are +mine, yet they are strangers. I am homesick for them even when I +clasp them to my bosom." + +The next "meditation," on the same page, had the word "Poetry" +for its head-line + +"The children of Israel have been pent up in cities," it ran. "The +stuffy synagogue has been field and forest to them. But then there +is more beauty in a heaven visioned by a congregation of +worshipers than in the bluest heaven sung by the minstrel of +landscapes. They are not worshipers. They are poets. It is not God +they are speaking to. It is a sublime image. It is not their Creator. +It is their poetic creation." + +Several of the poems were dedicated to Doctor Rachaeles, and of +these one of two stanzas seemed to contain a timid allusion to +Tevkin's love for his daughter. Here it is in prosaic English: "Saith +Koheleth, the son of David: 'All the rivers run into the sea, yet the +sea is not full.' Ah! the rivers are flowing and flowing, yet they are +full as ever. And my lips are speaking and speaking, yet my heart +is full as ever + +"Behold! The brook is murmuring and murmuring, but I know not +of what. My heart is yearning and yearning, and I know not of +what. I cherish the murmur of the brook. I cherish the pang of my +lonely heart." + +The following lines, which were also dedicated to Doctor +Rachaeles and which were entitled "Night," betray a similar +mood, perhaps, without distinctly referring to the poet's yearnings + +"Hush! the night is speaking. Each twinkle of a star is a word from +the world beyond. It is the language of men who were once here, +but are no more. + +A thousand generations of departed souls are speaking to us in +words of twinkling stars. I seem to be one of them. I hear my own +ghost whispering to me: 'Alas!' it says, 'Alas!'" + +The three volumes were full of Biblical quaintness, and my +estrangement from the language only added to the bizarre effect +of its terse grammatical construction. I read a number of the +poems, and several of the things in the prose volume. His Hebrew +is truly marvelous, and much of the strength and charm of his +message is bound up in it. As I read his poetry or prose I seemed +to be listening to Jeremiah or Isaiah. The rhythm of his lines is not +the only thing that is lost in my translation. There is a prehistoric +vigor and a mystic beauty to them which elude the English at my +command. To be sure, every word I read in his three little volumes +was tinged with the fact that the author was the father of the girl +who had cast her spell over me. + +But then the thought that she had grown up in the house of the man +who had written these lines intensified the glow of her nimbus + +As I returned the books to the official in charge of the Hebrew +department I lingered to draw him into conversation. He was a +well-known member of the East Side Bohème. I had heard of him +as a man who spoke several languages and was amazingly well +read--a walking library of knowledge, not only of books, but also +of men and things. Accordingly, I hoped to extract from him some +information about Tevkin. He was a portly man, with a round, +youthful face and a baby smile. He smiled far more than he spoke. +He answered my questions either by some laconic phrase or by +leaving me for a minute and then returning with some book, +pamphlet, or newspaper-clipping in which he pointed out a +passage that was supposed to contain a reply to my query. I had +quite a long talk with him. Now and then we were interrupted by +some one asking for or returning a book, but each time he was +released he readily gave me his attention again + +Speaking of Tevkin, I inquired, "Why doesn't he write some more +of those things?" For an answer he withdrew and soon came back +with several issues of The Pen, a Hebrew weekly published in +New York, in which he showed me an article by Tevkin + +"Have you read it?" I asked + +He nodded and smiled + +"Is it good?" + +"It isn't bad," he answered, with a smile + +"Not as good as the things in those three volumes?" + +He smiled + +"This kind of thing doesn't pay, does it? How does he make a +living?" + +"I don't know. I understand he has several grown children." + +"So they support the family?" + +"I suppose so. I am not sure, though." + +"Can't a Hebrew writer make a living in New York?" + +He shook his head and smiled + +The dailies of the Ghetto, the newspapers that can afford to pay, +are published, not in the language of Isaiah and Job, but in +Yiddish, the German dialect spoken by the Jewish masses of +to-day. I asked the librarian whether Tevkin wrote for those +papers, and he brought me several clippings containing some of +Tevkin's Yiddish contributions. It appeared, however, that the +articles he wrote in his living mother-tongue lacked the spirit and +the charm that distinguished his style when he used the language +of the prophets. Altogether, Tevkin seemed to be accounted one +of the "has-beens" of the Ghetto + +One of the bits of information I squeezed out of the librarian was +that Tevkin was a passionate frequenter of Yampolsky's café, a +well-known gathering-place of the East Side Bohème + +I had heard a good deal about the resort. I knew that many or most +of its patrons were Socialists or anarchists or some other kind of +"ists." After my experience at the Cooper Institute meeting, +Yampolsky's café seemed to be the last place in the world for me +to visit. But I was drawn to it as a butterfly is to a flame, and +finally the temptation got the better of me + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE café was a spacious room of six corners and a +lop-sided general appearance. + +It was about 4 o'clock of an afternoon. I sat at the end of one of the +tables, a glass of Russian tea before me. There were two other +customers at that table, both poorly clad and, as it seemed to me, +ill-fed. Two tables in a narrow and dingier part of the room were +occupied by disheveled chess-players and three or four lookers-on. +Altogether there were about fifteen people in the place. Some of +the conversations were carried on aloud. A man with curly dark +hair who was eating soup at the table directly in front of me was +satirizing somebody between spoonfuls, relishing his acrimony as +if it were spice to his soup. A feminine voice back of me was +trying to prove to somebody that she did much more for her sister +than her sister did for her. I was wretchedly ill at ease at first. I +loathed myself for being here. I felt like one who had strayed into +a disreputable den. In addition, I was in dread of being +recognized. The man who sat by my side had the hair and the +complexion of a gipsy. He looked exhausted and morose. + +Presently he had a fried steak served him. It was heavily laden with +onions. + +As he fell to cutting and eating it hungrily the odor of the fried +onions and the sound of his lips sickened me. The steak put him in +good humor. He became sociable and turned out to be a gay, +though a venomous, fellow. His small talk raised my spirits, too. +Nor did anybody in the café seem to know who I was or to take +any notice of me. I took a humorous view of the situation and had +the gipsy-faced man tell me who was who + +"Shall I begin with this great man?" he asked, facetiously, pointing +his fork at himself. "I am the world-renowned translator and +feuilleton writer whose writings have greatly increased the +circulation of the Yiddish Tribune." + +Under the guise of playful vanity he gave vent to a torrent of +self-appreciation. He then named all the "other notables +present"--a poet, a cartoonist, a budding playwright, a +distinguished Russian revolutionist, an editor, and another +newspaper man--maligning and deriding some of them and +grudgingly praising the others. Much of what he said was lost upon +me, for, although he knew that I was a rank outsider, he used a +jargon of nicknames, catch-phrases, and allusions that was +apparently peculiar to the East Side Bohème. He was part of that +little world, and he was unable to put himself in the place of one +who was not. I subsequently had occasion to read one of his +articles and I found it full of the same jargon. The public did not +understand him, but he either did not know it or did not care + +As he did not point out Tevkin to me, I concluded that the Hebrew +poet was not at the café + +"Do you know Tevkin?" I inquired. + +"There he is," he answered, directing my glance to a gray-haired, +clean-shaven, commonplace-looking man of medium stature who +stood in the chess corner, watching one of the games. "Do you +know him?" + +"No, but I have heard of him. You did not include him in your list +of notables, did you?" + +"Oh, well, he was a notable once upon a time. Our rule is, 'Let the +dead past bury it's dead.'" + +I felt sorry for poor Tevkin. Turning half-way around in my seat, I +took to eying the Hebrew poet. I felt disappointed. That this +prosaic-looking old man should have written the lines that I had +read at the Astor Library seemed inconceivable. The fact, +however, that he was the father of the tall, stately, beautiful girl +whose image was ever before me ennobled his face + +I stepped over to him and said: "You are Mr. Tevkin, aren't you? +Allow me to introduce myself. Levinsky." + +He bowed, grasping my hand, evidently loath to take his eyes off +the chess-players + +"I read some of your poems the other day," I added + +"My poems?" he asked, coloring + +"Yes; I had heard of them, and as I happened to be at the Astor +Library I asked for your three volumes. I read several things in +each of them. I liked them tremendously." + +He blushed again. "It seems an age since they were written," he +said, in confusion. "Those were different days." + +We sat down at a secluded table. To propitiate the proprietor and +the waiter I ordered hot cheese-cakes. I offered to order something +for Tevkin, but he declined, and he ordered a glass of tea, with the +tacit understanding that he was to pay for it himself + +"Why don't you give us some more poems like those?" + +He produced his business card, saying, "This is the kind of poetry +that goes in America." + +The card described him as a "general business agent and real-estate +broker." This meant that he earned, or tried to earn, an income by +acting as broker for people who wanted to sell or buy +soda-and-cigarette stands, news-stands, laundries, grocery-stores, +delicatessen-stores, butcher shops, cigar-stores, book-stores, and +what not, from a peddier's push-cart to a "parcel" of real estate or +an interest in a small factory. Scores of stores and stands change +hands in the Ghetto every day, the purchaser being usually a +workman who has saved up some money with an eye to business + +"Does it pay?" I ventured to ask. + +"I am not in it merely for the fun of it, am I?" he returned, +somewhat resentfully. "Business is business and poetry is poetry. I +hate to confound the two. One must make a living. Thank God, I +know how to look things in the face. I am no dreamer. It is sweet +to earn your livelihood." + +"Of course it is. Still, dreaming is no crime, either." + +"Ah, that's another kind of dreaming. Do you write?" + +"Oh no," I said, with a laugh. "I am just a prosaic business man." +And by way of showing that I was not, I veered the conversation +back to his poetry. + +I sought to impress him with a sense of my deep and critical +appreciation of what I had read in his three volumes. I spoke +enthusiastically of most of it, but took exception to the basic idea +in a poem on Job and Solomon + +"It's fine as poetry," I said. "Some lines in it are perfectly beautiful. + +But the parallel is not convincing." + +"Why not?" he said, bristling up. + +We locked horns. He was pugnacious, bitter, but ineffectual. He +quoted Hebrew, he spoke partly in Yiddish and partly in English; +he repeatedly used the words "subjective" and "objective"; he +dwelt on Job's "obvious tragedy" and Solomon's "inner sadness," +but he was a poor talker and apparently displeased with his own +argument + +"Oh, I don't make myself clear," he said, in despair + +"But you do," I reassured him. "I understand you perfectly." + +"No, you don't. You're only saying it to please me. But then what +matters it whether a business agent has a correct conception of +Solomon's psychology or not?" he said, bitterly. "Seriously, Mr. +Levinsky, I am often out of sorts with myself for hanging around +this café. This is the gathering-place of talent, not of business +agents." + +"Why? Why?" I tried to console him. "I am sure you have more +talent than all of them put together. Do you think anybody in this +café could write verse or prose like yours?" + +He looked down, his features hardening into a frown. "Anyhow, I +cannot afford the time. While I loiter here I am liable to miss a +customer. I must give myself entirely to my business, entirely, +entirely--every bit of myself. I must forget I ever did any +scribbling." "You are taking it too hard, Mr. Tevkin. One can +attend to business and yet find time for writing." + +All at once he brightened up bashfully and took to reciting a +Hebrew poem. + +Here is the essence of it: "Since the destruction of the Temple +instrumental music has been forbidden in the synagogues. The +Children of Israel are in mourning. They are in exile and in +mourning. Silent is their harp. So is mine. I am in exile. I am in a +strange land. My harp is silent." "Is it your poem?" I asked. + +He nodded bashfully + +"When did you compose it?" + +"A few weeks ago." + +"Has it been printed?" He shook his head + +"Why?" + +"I could have it printed in a Hebrew weekly we publish here, +but--well, I did not care to." + +"You mean The Pen?" + +"Yes. Do you see it sometimes?" + +"I did, once. I am going to subscribe for it. Anyhow, the poem +belies itself. It shows that your harp has not fallen silent." + +He smiled, flushed with satisfaction, like a shy schoolboy, and +proceeded to recite another Hebrew poem: "Most song-birds do +not sing in captivity. I was once a song-bird, but America is my +cage. It is not my home. My song is gone." + +"This poem, too, gives itself the lie!" I declared. "But the idea of +America being likened to a prison!" + +"It is of my soul I speak," he said, resentfully. "Russia did not +imprison it, did it? Russia is a better country than America, +anyhow, even if she is oppressed by a czar. It's a freer country, +too--for the spirit, at least. + +There is more poetry there, more music, more feeling, even if our +people do suffer appalling persecution. The Russian people are +really a warm-hearted people. Besides, one enjoys life in Russia +better than here. Oh, a thousand times better. There is too much +materialism here, too much hurry and too much prose, and--yes, +too much machinery. It's all very well to make shoes or bread by +machinery, but alas! the things of the spirit, too, seem to be +machine-made in America. If my younger children were not so +attached to this country and did not love it so, and if I could make +a living in Russia now, I should be ready to go back at once." + +"'Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God,'" I quoted, +gaily. + +"It's all a matter of mood. Poets are men of moods." And again I +quoted, "'Attend unto me, O my friend, and give ear unto me, O +my comrade.'" I took up the cudgels for America + +He listened gloomily, leaving my arguments unanswered. By way +of broaching the subject of his daughter I steered my talk to a +point that gave me a chance to refer to his little "meditation," "My +Children." "How well you do remember my poor little volumes," +he said, greatly flattered. "Yes, 'My children love me.' They are +not children, but angels. + +And yet--God save me from having to be supported by them. They +bring in a considerable sum at the end of the week, and they hate +to see me work or worry. But, oh, how sweet it is to earn one's +own living! Thank God, I do earn my share and my wife's. My +children are bitterly opposed to it. They beg me to stay home, but +I say: 'No, children mine! As long as your father can earn his +bread, his bread he will earn.' That's why my humdrum occupation +is so sweet to me." At this he lowered his eyes and said, with the +embarrassed simper which seemed to accompany every remark of +his that implied self-appreciation, "I wrote something on this +subject the other day, just a line or two: 'There are instances when +the jewel of poetry glints out of the prose of trade.'" + +The fact that his children contributed to the maintenance of the +family nest was evidently a sore spot in his heart + +His face, sensitive and mobile in the extreme, was like a +cinematographic film. It recorded the subtlest change in his mood. +The notion of its being a commonplace face seemed to me absurd +now. It was a different image almost every minute, and my mental +portrait of it was as unlike my first impression of it as a motion +picture is unlike any of its component photographs + +I parted from him without referring to his daughter, but I felt that I +had won his heart, and it seemed to be a matter of days when he +would invite me to his house + +The next time I saw him, on an afternoon at Yampolsky's café +again, there was an elusive deference in his demeanor. He seemed +to me more reserved and ill at ease than he had been on the +previous occasion. Finally he said, "I had no idea you were David +Levinsky, the cloak-manufacturer." + +My vanity was so flattered that I was unable to restrain my face +from betraying it. I answered, with a beaming smile, "I told you I +was in the cloak business, didn't I?" + +"I don't think you did. Anyhow, I did not know what kind of a +cloak-factory yours was," he said + +"What kind do you mean?" I laughed. + +"Well, I am glad to know you are so successful. There was +somebody who recognized you last time you were here. Your +secret leaked out." + +"Secret! Well, what difference does it all make? To possess a +talent like yours is a far greater success than to own a factory, +even if mine were the largest in the world." + +He waved his hand deprecatingly + +Our conversation was disturbed by a quarrel between two men at a +near-by table. I was at a loss to make out what it was all about. +Tevkin attempted to enlighten me, but I listened to him only +partly, being interested in the darts of the two belligerents. All I +could gather was that they were story-writers of two opposing +schools. I felt, however, that their hostility was based upon +professional jealousy rather than upon a divergence of artistic +ideals + +Finally one of them paid his check and departed. Tevkin told me +more about them. He spoke of the one who stayed in the café +with admiration. "He's a real artist; some of his stories are perfect +gems," he said. "He's a good fellow, too. Only he thinks too much +of himself. But then perhaps this is an inevitable part of talent, the +shadow that is inseparable from the light of genius." + +"Perhaps it's the engine that sets it in motion, gives it incentive." + +"Perhaps. I wish I had some of it." I reflected that he did seem to +have some of "it." At all events, he did not seem to begrudge +others their success. He spoke of the other people in the café with +singular good-will, and even enthusiasm, in fact + +Some of the people present I had seen on my previous visit. Of the +others Tevkin pointed out a man to me who knew six languages +well and had a working acquaintance with several more; another +who had published an excellent Hebrew translation of some of the +English poets, and a third whose son, a young violinist, "had taken +Europe by storm." + +An intellectual-looking Gentile made his entry. He shook hands +with one of the men I had seen on the former occasion and seated +himself by his side + +"Either a journalist in search of material," Tevkin explained to me +in answer to a question, "or simply a man of literary tastes who is +drawn to the atmosphere of this place." + +The café rose in my estimation + +I learned from Tevkin that many of Yampolsky's patrons were poor +working-men and that some of these were poets, writers of stories, +or thinkers, but that the café was also frequented by some +professional and business men. At this he directed my attention to +a "Talmud-faced" man whom he described as a liquor-dealer who +"would be a celebrated writer if he were not worth half a million." +The last piece of information was a most agreeable surprise to me. +It made me feel safe in the place. I regarded the liquor-dealer with +some contempt, however. "Pshaw! half a million. He's probably +worth a good deal less. + +Anyhow, I could buy and sell him." At the same time I said to +myself, "He's well-to-do and yet he chums around with people in +whom intellectual Gentiles take an interest." I envied him. I felt +cheap + +I felt still cheaper when I heard that the literary liquor-dealer +generously contributed to the maintenance of The Pen, the +Hebrew weekly with which Tevkin was connected, and that he, +the liquor-dealer, wrote for that publication + +It appeared that Tevkin had an office which was a short distance +from the bohemian café. I asked to see it, and he yielded +reluctantly + +"You can take it for granted that your office is a more imposing +one than mine," he jested + +"Ah, but there was a time when all my office amounted to was an +old desk. So there will be a time when yours will occupy a +splendid building on Wall Street." + +"That's far more than I aspire to. All I want is to make a modest +living, so that my daughters should not have to go to work. They +don't work in a shop, of course. One is a stenographer in a fine +office and the other a school-teacher. But what difference does it +make?" + +His office proved to be the hall bedroom of an apartment occupied +by the family of a cantor named Wolpert. We first entered the +dining-room, a door connecting it with Tevkin's "office" being +wide open. It was late and the gas-light was burning. Seated at a +large oval table, covered with a white oil-cloth, was Wolpert and +two other men, all the three of them with full beards and with the +stamp of intellectual life on their faces + +"There are some queer people in the world who will still read my +poetry," Tevkin said to them, by way of introducing me. "Here is +one of them. Mr. + +Levinsky, David Levinsky, the cloak-manufacturer." + +The announcement made something of a stir. + +Mrs. Wolpert brought us tea. From the ensuing conversation I +gleaned that these people, including Tevkin, were ardent Zionists +of a certain type, and that they were part of a group in which the +poet was a ruling spirit. When I happened to drop a remark to the +effect that Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, was a dead +language, Wolpert exclaimed: "Oh no! Not any longer, Mr. +Levinsky. It has risen from the dead." + +The other two chimed in, each in his way, the burden of their +argument being that Hebrew was the living tongue of the Zionist +colonists in Palestine + +"The children of our colonists speak it as American children do +English," said Tevkin, exultingly. "They speak it as the sons and +daughters of Jerusalem spoke it at the time of the prophets. We +are no dreamers. We can tell the difference between a dream and +a hard fact, can't we?"--to the other two. "For centuries the tongue +of our fathers spoke from the grave to us. Now, however, it has +come to life again." + +He took me into his "office," lighting the gas-jet in it. A few +minutes later he shut the dining-room door, his face assuming an +extremely grave mien + +"By the way, an idea has occurred to me," he said. "But first I want +you to know that I do not mean to profit by our spiritual friendship +for purposes of a material nature. Do you believe me?" + +"I certainly do. Go ahead, Mr. Tevkin." + +"What I want to say is a pure matter of business. Do you +understand? If you don't want to go into it, just say so, and we +shall drop it." + +"Of course," I answered + +We were unable to look each other in the face. + +"There is a parcel of real estate in Brooklyn," he resumed. "One +could have it for a song." + +"But I don't buy real estate," I replied, my cheeks on fire. He +looked at the floor and, after a moment's silence, he said: "That's +all. Excuse me. I don't want you to think I want to presume upon +our acquaintance." + +"But I don't. On the contrary, I wish it were in my line. I should be +glad to--" + +"That's all," he cut me short. "Let us say no more about it." And he +made an awkward effort to talk Zionism again + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE real-estate "boom" which had seized upon the +five Ghettos of Greater New York a few years before was still +intoxicating a certain element of their population. Small +tradesmen of the slums, and even working-men, were investing +their savings in houses and lots. Jewish carpenters, house-painters, +bricklayers, or instalment peddlers became builders of tenements +or frame dwellings, real-estate speculators. Deals were being +closed, and poor men were making thousands of dollars in less +time than it took them to drink the glass of tea or the plate of +sorrel soup over which the transaction took place. Women, too, +were ardently dabbling in real estate, and one of them was Mrs. +Chaikin, the wife of my talented designer + +Tevkin was not the first broker to offer me a "good thing" in real +estate. + +Attempts in that direction had been made before and I had warded +them all off + +Instinct told me not to let my attention be diverted from my regular +business to what I considered a gamble. "Unreal estate," I would +call it. My friend Nodelman was of the same opinion. "It's a poker +game traveling under a false passport," was his way of putting it. + +Once, as I sat in a Brooklyn street-car, I was accosted by a +bewigged woman who occupied the next seat and whom I had +never seen before + +"You speak Yiddish, don't you?" she began, after scrutinizing me +quite unceremoniously + +"I do. Why?" + +"I just wanted to know." + +"Is that all?" + +"Well, it is and it is not," she said, with a shrewd, good-natured +smile. + +"Since we are talking, I might as well ask you if you would not +care to take a look at a couple of new houses in East New York." + +I did not interrupt her and she proceeded to describe the houses +and the bargain they represented + +When she finally paused for my answer and I perpetrated a labored +witticism about her "peddling real estate in street-cars" she flared +up: "Why not? Is it anything to be ashamed of or to hide? Did I +steal those houses? I can assure you I paid good money for them. +So why should I be afraid to speak about them? And when I say it +is a bargain, I mean it. That, too, I can say aloud and to everybody +in the world, because it is the truth, the holy truth. May I not live +to see my children again if it is not. + +There!" After a pause she resumed: "Well?" + +I made no reply + +"Will you come along and see the houses? It is not far from here." + +"I have no time." + +She took up some details tending to show that by buying those two +frame buildings of hers and selling them again I was sure to +"clear" a profit of ten thousand dollars + +I made no reply + +"Well? Will you come along?" + +"Leave me alone, please." + +"Ah, you are angry, aren't you?" she said, sneeringly. "Is it because +you haven't any money?" + +The awkward scene that had attended Tevkin's attempt to get me +interested in his parcel haunted me. I craved to see him again and +to let him sell me something. To be sure, my chief motive was a +desire to cultivate his friendship, to increase my chances of being +invited to his house. The risk of buying some city lots in Brooklyn +seemed to be a trifling price to pay for the prospect of coming into +closer relations with him. Besides, the "parcel" seemed to be a +sure investment. But I was also eager to do something for him for +his own sake. And so I made an appointment with him by +telephone and called at his wretched little office again + +"Where is the parcel you mentioned the other day?" I began. +"Where is it located?" + +"Never mind that," he said, hotly. "There shall be no business +between you and me. Nothing but pure spiritual friendship. I made +a foolish mistake last time. I hate myself for it. If you were a +smaller man financially I should not mind it, perhaps. As it is, it +would simply mean that you help me out. + +It would mean charity." + +I laughed and argued and insisted, and he succumbed. We made an +appointment to meet at Malbin's, a large restaurant on Grand +Street that was known as the "Real Estate Exchange" of the +Ghetto. There I was introduced to a plain-looking man who +proved to be the then owner of the parcel, and closed a contract +for a deed. + +Encouraged by this transaction, Tevkin rapidly developed some +far-reaching real-estate projects in which he apparently expected +me to be the central figure. One afternoon as we sat over glasses +of tea at Malbin's he said: "If you want to drink a glass of real +Russian tea, come up some evening. We shall all be very glad to +see you." + +I felt the color mounting to my face as I said, "I don't think your +daughter would like it." + +"My daughter?" he asked, in amazement. "But I have three +daughters." + +"The one that spent some time at the Rigi Kulm in the Catskills +last summer." + +"Anna?" he asked, with still greater surprise, as it were + +"I don't know her first name, but I suppose that's the one." + +"If she was at the Rigi Kulm, it's Anna." + +"Well, I had the pleasure of meeting her there, but I am afraid I +was somewhat of a persona non grata with her," I said, in a partial +attempt to make a joke of it + +He dropped his glance, leveled it at me once more, and dropped it +again + +"Why, what was the matter?" he inquired, in great embarrassment + +"Nothing was the matter. A case of dislike at first sight, I +suppose." + +"Still--" + +"You'd better ask her, Mr. Tevkin." He made no reply, nor did he +repeat his invitation. He was manifestly on pins and needles to get +away, without having the courage to do so. + +"So that's what you wanted to meet me for?" he muttered looking +at the wall + +"Well, I'll tell you frankly how it was, Mr. Tevkin," I said, and +began with a partial lie calculated to bribe him: "I became +interested in her because I heard that she was your daughter, and +afterward, when I had returned to the city, I made it my business +to go to the library and to read your works. My enthusiasm for +your writings is genuine, however, I assure you, Mr. Tevkin. + +And when I went to that café it was for the purpose of making +your acquaintance, as much for your own sake as for hers. There, I +have told you the whole story." + +There was mixed satisfaction and perplexity in his look + +The next morning my mail included a letter from him. It was +penned in Hebrew. It read like a chapter of the Old Testament. He +pointed out, with exquisite tact, that it was merely as a would-be +courtier that I had failed to find favor in his daughter's +eyes--something that is purely a matter of taste and chance. He +then went on to intimate that if the unfortunate little situation +rendered it at all inconvenient for me to visit his house he did not +see why he and I could not continue our friendly relations + +"If I have found as much grace in thine eyes as thou hast found in +mine," he wrote, "it would pain me to forfeit thy friendship. Let +the unpleasant incident be forgotten, then. I have a very important +business proposition to make, but should it fail to arouse thine +interest, why, then, let all business, too, be eliminated, and let our +bond be one of unalloyed friendship. I have been hungry for a +fellow-spirit for years and in thee I have found one at last. Shall I +be estranged from thee for external causes?" + +Whereupon he went into raptures over a prospective real-estate +company of which he wanted me to be a leading shareholder. +Companies or "combines" of this sort were then being formed on +the East Side by the score and some of them were said to be +reaping fabulous profits. + +My Hebrew, which had never been perfect (for the Talmud is +chiefly in Chaldaic and Aramaic), was by now quite out of gear. +So my answer was framed partly in Yiddish, but mostly in +English, the English being tacitly intended for his daughter, +although he understood the language perfectly. I said, in +substance, that I was going to be as frank as he was, that I did not +propose to invest more money in real estate, and that I asked to be +allowed to call on his daughter. The following passage was +entirely in English: "I have made a misleading impression on Miss +Tevkin. I have done myself a great injustice and I beg for a chance +to repair the damage. In business I am said to know how to show +my goods to their best advantage. Unfortunately, this instinct +seems often to desert me in private life. There I am apt to put my +least attractive wares in the show-window, to expose some +unlovable trait of my character, while whatever good there may be +in me eludes the eye of a superficial acquaintance. + +"Please assure your daughter that it is not to force my attentions +upon her that I am asking for an interview. All I want is to try to +convince her that her image of me is, spiritually speaking, not a +good likeness." + +Two days passed. In the morning of the third I received a +telephone-call from Tevkin, asking to meet me. Impelled by a +desire to impress him with my importance, I invited him to my +place of business. When he came I designedly kept him in my +waiting-room for some minutes before I received him. When he +was finally admitted to my private office he faced me with studied +indifference. He said he had only a minute's time, yet he stayed +nearly an hour. He asked me to come to his house. He spoke +guardedly, giving vague answers to my questions. The best I could +make of his explanation was that his daughter had been prejudiced +against me by the fact that everybody at the Rigi Kulm had looked +upon me as a great matrimonial "catch." + +"Mv children have extremely modern ideas," he said. "Topsy-turvy +ones." His face brightened, and he added: "The old rule is, +'Poverty is no disgrace.' Their rule is, 'Wealth is a disgrace.'" And +he flushed and burst into a little laugh of approbation at his own +epigram + +"I suppose your daughter regarded me as a parvenu, an upstart, an +ignoramus," I remarked + +"No, not at all. She says she heard you say some clever things." + +"Did she?" + +"Still, your letter was a surprise to her. She had not thought you +capable of writing such things." + +What really had occurred between father and daughter concerning +my desire to call I never learned + +Tevkin's house was apparently full of Socialism. Indeed, so was +the house of almost every intellectual family among our +immigrants. I hated and dreaded that world as much as ever and I +dreaded Miss Tevkin more than ever, but, moth-like, I was drawn +to the flame with greater and greater force. I went to the Tevkins' +with the feeling of one going to his doom + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE family occupied a large, old, private house in +the Harlem section of Fifth Avenue, a locality swarming with our +people. I called at 8 in the evening. It was in the latter part of +March, nearly eight months after my unfortunate experience in the +Catskills. I was received in the hall by Tevkin. He took me into a +spacious parlor whose walls were lined with old book-cases and +book-stands. There I found Anna and two of the other children of +the numerous family. She wore a blouse of green velvet and a +black four-in-hand tie. She welcomed me with a cordial +handshake and a gay smile, as though all that had transpired +between us had been a childish misunderstanding, but she was ill +at ease. As for me, I was literally panic-stricken. It was at this +moment, when I came face to face with her for the first time in the +eight months following that Catskill incident, that I became aware +of being definitely in love with her + +The book-cases and book-stands were full to bursting. There was a +piano in the room and two tables littered with books, prints, and +photographs. The space between book-cases and over the piano +was hung with etchings, crayons, pen-and-ink drawings, and +photographs. The other two of Tevkin's children present were a +chubby girl of twelve, named Gracie, and a young man of +twenty-eight, two or three years older than Anna, named Sasha. +Sasha had a half-interest in an evening preparatory school in +which he taught mathematics, being now confined to the house by +a slight indisposition + +Mrs. Tevkin made her appearance--a handsome old woman of +striking presence, tall, almost majestic, with a mass of white hair, +with the beautiful features of the girl who was the cause of my +being there. I thought of Naphtali. I had a desire to discover his +address and to write him about my meeting with the hero and +heroine of the romance of which he had told me a few months +before I left Antomir. "I go to their house. She is still beautiful," I +pictured myself saying to him. Her demeanor and the very +intonation of her speech seemed to proclaim the fact that she was +the daughter of that illustrious physician of Odessa. It did not take +me long to discover, however, that under the surface of her good +breeding and refinement was a woman of scant intellect + +Seeing me look at the book-cases, she said: "These are not all the +books we have. There are some in the other rooms, too. Plenty of +them. It's quite a job for an American servant-girl to dust them." + +Anna smiled good-humoredly + +The next utterance of Mrs. Tevkin's was to the effect that one had +to put up with crowded quarters in America--a hint at the better +days which the family had seen in Russia + +Anna's younger sister, Elsie, a school-teacher, came in. She had +quicker movements and a sharper look than the stenographer and +she bore strong resemblance to her father. Anna was the prettier +of the two. We went down into the dining-room, where we found +Russian tea, cake, and preserves. + +Presently we were joined by George, an insurance-collector, who +was between Anna and Sasha, and Emil, an artist employed on a +Sunday paper, who was between Anna and Elsie. Emil was a +handsome fellow with a picturesque face which betrayed his +vocation. The crayons and the pen-and-ink drawings that I had +seen in the library were his work. He had a pale, high forehead and +a thick, upright grove of very soft, brown hair which I pictured as +billowing in a breeze like a field of rye. "Just the kind of son for a +poet to have," I thought + +There was another son, Moissey. He was married and I did not see +him that evening. His mother was continually referring to him + +"I can see that you miss him," I said + +"I should say so," Anna broke in. "He's her pet." + +"Don't mind what she says, Mr. Levinsky," her mother exhorted +me. "She just loves to tease me." + +"Mother is right," Elsie interposed. "Moissey is not her pet. lf +somebody is, it's I, isn't it, ma?" + +Anna smiled good-naturedly + +"Gracie is my pet," Mrs. Tevkin rejoined + +"Gracie and Moissey, both," Tevkin amended. "Moissey is her +first-born, don't you know. But the great point is that he has been +married only three months, and she has not yet got used to having +him live somewhere else. She feels as if somebody had snatched +him from her. When a day passes without her seeing him she is +uneasy." + +"Not at all," Mrs. Tevkin demurred. "I am thinking of him just now +because--because--well, because we have all been introduced to +Mr. Levinsky except him!" + +"If two or three of the family were missing it wouldn't be so +marked," Tevkin supported her, chivalrously. "But only one is +missing, only one. That somehow makes you think of him. I feel +the same way." + +As he spoke it seemed to me that in his home atmosphere he bore +himself with more self-confidence and repose than at the café or +at his office. His hospitality had made him ill at ease at first, but +that had worn off + +"You can depend on father to find some defense for mother," +remarked the picturesque Emil + +At her husband's suggestion and after some urging the hostess led +the way back to the parlor, or library, where she was to play us +something. As we were passing out of the dining-room and up the +stairs Tevkin seized the opportunity to say to me: "We live on the +communistic principle, as you see. Each of us, except Mrs. + +Tevkin and the little one contributes his earnings or part of them to +the general treasury, my wife acting as treasurer and manager. +Still, in the near future I hope to be able to turn the commune into +a family of the good old type. My affairs are making headway, +thank God. I sha'n't need my children's contributions much +longer." + +Mrs. Tevkin played some classical pieces. She had a pleasing tone +and apparently felt at home at the keyboard, but it was to my eye +rather than to my ear that her playing appealed. A white-haired +Jewish woman at a piano was something which, in Antomir, had +been associated in my mind with the life of the highest aristocracy +exclusively. But then Mrs. Tevkin's father had been a physician, +and Jewish physicians belonged, in the conception of my +childhood and youth, to the highest social level. Another mark of +her noble birth, according to my Antomir ideas, was the fact that +she often addressed her husband and her older children, not in +Yiddish or English, but in Russian. Compared to her, Matilda's +mother was a plebeian + +The only other person in the family who played the piano with +facility and confidence was Emil. + +I had never been in a house of this kind in my life. I was fascinated +beyond expression + +Anna's constraint soon wore off and she treated me with charming +hospitality. So did Elsie. There was absolutely no difference in +their manner toward me. Elsie gave me the attention which a girl +usually accords to a close friend of her father's, and this was also +the sort of attention I received from her older sister. It was as if +the Catskill episode had never taken place and she were now +seeing me for the first time + +I met Moissey and his wife at my next visit. He was a man of +thirty-two or more, tall, wiry, nervous, with large, protruding, dark +eyes. He was "a dentist by profession and a Russian social +democrat by religion," as his father introduced him to me + +"Karl Marx is his god and Pleenanoff, the Russian socialist leader, +is his Moses," the old man added + +Moissey's wife looked strikingly Semitic. She seemed to have just +stepped out of the Old Testament. She had been only about a year +in the country, and the only language she could speak was +Russian, which she enunciated without a trace of a Jewish accent +or intonation. She scarcely understood Yiddish. + +All this was uncannily at variance with her Biblical face. It seemed +incredable that her speech and outward appearance should belong +to the same person. To add to the discrepancy, she was smoking +cigarette after cigarette, a performance certainly not in keeping +with one's notion of a Jewish woman of the old type + +The oldest two sons, Moissey and Sasha, spoke English with a +Russian accent from which the English of all the other children +was absolutely free. Mrs. + +Tevkin's Russian sounded more Russian than her husband's. Emil, +Elsie, and Gracie did not speak Russian at all + +Barring Mrs. Tevkin, each adult in the family worshiped at the +shrine of some "ism." Anna professed Israel Zangwill's modified +Zionism or Territorialism. This, however, was merely a platonic +interest with her. It took up little or none of her time. Her real +passion was Minority, a struggling little magazine of "modernistic +literature and thought." It was published by a group of radicals of +which she was a member. Elsie, on the other hand, who was a +socialist, was an ardent member of the Socialist party and of the +Socialist Press Club. Politically the two sisters were supposed to +be irreconcilable opponents, yet Anna often worked in the interests +of Elsie's party. Indeed, the more I knew them the clearer it +became to me that the older sister was under the influence of the +younger + +The two girls and their brothers had many visitors--socialist and +anarchist writers, poets, critics, artists. These were of both sexes +and some of them were Gentiles. Two of the most frequent callers +were Miss Siegel and the sallow-faced, homely man who had +danced with Anna at the Rigi Kulm pavilion. + +He was an instructor in an art school. From his talks with Emil and +Anna I learned of a whole world whose existence I had never even +suspected--the world of East Side art students, of the gifted boys +among them, some of whom had gone to study in Paris, of their +struggles, prospects, jealousies. I was introduced to several of +these people, but I never came into sympathetic touch with them. I +was ever conscious, never my real self in their midst. + +Perhaps it was because they did not like me; perhaps it was +because I failed to appreciate a certain something that was the key +note to their mental attitude. However that may have been, I +always felt wretched in their company, and my attempts at saying +something out of the common usually missed fire + +Was Anna interested in any of the young men who came to the +house? I was inclined to think that she was not, but I was not sure + +Among Elsie's closest friends or "comrades" was an American +millionaire--a member of one of the best-known families in New +York--and his wife, who was a Jewess, of whom I had read in the +papers. I never saw them at the Tevkins', but I knew that they +occasionally called on the school-teacher and that she saw a good +deal of them at their house and at various meetings, a fact the +discovery of which produced a disheartening impression on me. It +was as though the sole advantage I enjoyed over Anna--the +possession of money--suddenly had been wiped out + +I sometimes wondered whether at the bottom of her heart Elsie did +not feel elated by her close relations with that couple. That she +herself was a stranger to all money interests there could be no +doubt, however. And this was true of Anna and the other children. +Elsie and Moissey were the strongest individualities in the family. +Theirs were truly religious natures, and socialism was their +religion in the purest sense of the term. + +Elsie scarcely had any other great interest in life. Her socialism +amused me, but her devotion to it inspired me with reverence. As +for Moissey, good literature, as the term is understood in Russia, +was nearly as much of a passion with him as Marxian socialism. +His fervent talks of what he considered good fiction and his +ferocious assaults upon what he termed "candy stories" were very +impressive, though I did not always understand what he was +talking about. Sometimes he would pick a quarrel with Anna over +Minority and her literary hobbies generally. Once he brought her to +tears by his attacks. I could not see why people should quarrel +over mere stories. I thought Moissey crazy, but I must confess that +his views on literature were not without influence upon my tastes. +I did not do much reading in these days, so I may not have become +aware of it at once. But at a later period, when I did do much +reading, Moissey's opinions came back to me and I seemed to find +myself in accord with them + +To return to my visits at the Tevkins'. I told myself again and again +that their world was not mine, that there was no hope for me, and +that there was nothing for it but to discontinue my calls, but I had +not the strength to do so. I never went away from this house +otherwise than dejected and forlorn + +Tevkin was charming in the fervent, yet tactful, hospitality with +which he endeavored to assuage the bitterness of my visits. He +seemed to say, "I see everything, my dear friend, and my heart +goes out to you, but how can I help you?" + +His wife tried to be diplomatic + +"American young people imagine they own the earth," she once +said to me, with a knowing glint in her beautiful eyes. "Some day +they'll find out their mistake." + +The hot months set in. The family nominally moved to Rockaway +Beach for the season and my visits were suspended. Nominally, +because Elsie and the boys and old Tevkin himself slept in the +Harlem house more often than in their summer home. Elsie was +wrapped up in the socialist campaign, which kept her busy every +night from the middle of July to Election Day. She practically had +no vacation. Anna made arrangements to spend her brief vacation +with some of her literary friends who had a camp in Maine, but +while she was in the city she came home to her mother and Gracie +almost every evening. As for her father, whom I saw several times +during that summer, he often sat up far into the night in Malbin's +or some other restaurant, talking "parcels." He had become so +absorbed in his real-estate speculations that he was rarely seen at +Yampolsky's café these days. One evening, when he was dining +with me at the private hotel in which I lived, and we were +discussing his ventures, he said: "Do you know, my friend, I have +made more than twelve thousand dollars?" + +He tried to say it in a matter-of-fact, business-like way, but his face +melted into an expression of joy before he finished the sentence. + +"I tell it to you because I know that you are a real friend and that +you will be sincerely glad to hear it," he went on + +"I certainly am. I'm awfully glad," I rejoined, fervently + +"I expect to make more. No more chipping in by the children! +Anna shall give up her typewriting and Elsie her teaching. Yes, +things are coming my way at last." + +"Still, if I were you, I should go slow. The real-estate market is an +uncertain thing, after all." + +"Of course it is," he answered, mechanically + +Since I bought that Brooklyn parcel and refused to go into further +real-estate operations he had never approached me with business +schemes again. There was not the slightest alloy of self-interest in +his friendship, and he was careful not to have it appear that there +was. He never initiated me into the details of his speculations, lest +I should offer him a loan. He was quite squeamish about it + +One day I offered him a hundred-dollar check for The Pen, the +Hebrew weekly with which he was connected and upon which I +knew him to spend more than he could afford + +"I don't want it," he said, reddening and shaking his head + +"Why?" I asked, also reddening + +I was sorely hurt and he noticed it + +"I know that you do it whole-heartedly," he hastened to explain, +"but I don't want to feel that you do it for my sake." + +"But I don't do it for your sake. I just want to help the paper. Can't +I--" He interrupted me with assurances of his regard for me and +for my motives, and accepted the check. + +Was he dreaming of Anna ultimately agreeing to marry me--and +my money? He certainly considered me a most desirable match. +But I felt sure that he was fond of me on my personal account and +that he would have liked to have me for his son-in-law even if my +income had not exceeded three or four thousand dollars a year. He +did not share the radical views of his children. He was much +nearer to my point of view than they + + + +CHAPTER V + +IT was December. There was an air of prosperity in +Tevkin's house, but the girls would not give up their jobs. I was a +frequent caller again. I was burning to take Anna, Elsie, and their +parents to the theater, but was afraid the two girls would spurn the +invitation + +One day I was agreeably surprised by Elsie asking me to buy some +tickets for a socialist ball. They were fifty cents apiece + +"How many do you want me to take?" I asked + +"As many as you can afford," she answered, roguishly + +"Will you sell me twenty-five dollars' worth?" + +"Oh, that would be lovely!" she said, in high glee + +When I handed her the money I was on the brink of asking if it +might not be rejected as "tainted," but suppressed the pleasantry + +For me to attend a socialist ball would have meant to face a crowd +of union men. It was out of the question. But the twenty-five +dollars somehow brought me nearer to Elsie, and that meant to +Anna also. I began to feel more at home in their company. Elsie +was as dear as a sister to me. I went so far as to venture to invite +them and their parents to the opera, and my invitation was +accepted. I was still merely "a friend of father's," something like an +uncle, but I saw a ray of hope now + +"Suppose a commonplace business man like myself offered you a +check for Minority," I once said to Anna. + +"A check for Minority?" she echoed, with joyful surprise. "Well, it +would be accepted with thanks, of course, but you would first +have to withdraw the libel 'the commonplace business man.' +Another condition is that you must promise to read the magazine." +As I was making out the check I told her that I had read some +issues of it and that I "solemnly swore" to read it regularly now. +That I had found it an unqualified bore I omitted to announce. +Shortly after that opera night Tevkin provided a box at one of the +Jewish theaters for a play by Jacob Gordin + +I was quite chummy with the girls. They would jokingly call me +"Mr. + +Capitalist" and, despite their father's protests, "bleed" me for all +sorts of contributions. One of these came near embroiling me with +Moissey. It was for a revolutionary leader, a Jew, who had +recently escaped from a Siberian prison in a barrel of cabbage and +whose arrival in New York (by way of Japan and San Francisco) +had been the great sensation of the year among the socialists of +the East Side. The new-comer was the founder of a party of +terrorists and had organized a plot which had resulted in the killing +of an uncle of the Czar and of a prime minister. Now, Moissey, in +his rabid, uncompromising way, sympathized with another party +of Russian revolutionists, with one that was bitterly opposed to +the theories and methods of the terrorists. So when he learned that +Anna was collecting funds for the man who had been smuggled +out of jail in a barrel, and that I had given her a check for him, he +flared up and called her "busybody." + +"You had better mind your own affairs, Moissey," she retorted, +coloring + +She essayed to defend her position, contending that the methods of +the Russian Government rendered terrorism not only justifiable, +but inevitable + +"The question is not whether it is justifiable, but whether there is +any sense to it," Moissey replied, sneeringly. "Revolutions are not +made by plotting or bomb-throwing. They must take the form of +an uprising by the masses." + +"As if the Russian terrorists did not have the masses back of them! +The peasantry and the educated classes are with them." + +"How do you know they are?" Moissey asked, with a good-natured, +but patronizing, smile + +He spoke of the Russian working class as the great element that +was destined to work out the political and economic salvation of +the country, and at this he tactlessly dwelt on the Russian +trade-unions, on what he termed their revolutionary strikes, and +upon the aid Russian capitalists gave the Government in its +crusade upon the struggle for liberty + +I felt quite awkward. I wondered whether he was not saying these +things designedly to punish me for the check I had given Anna for +the terrorists. + +He had always seemed to hold aloof from me, as if he were +opposed to the visits of the "money-bag" that I was at his father's +house. At this minute I felt as though his eyes said, "The idea of +this fleecer of labor contributing to the struggle for liberty!" + +I was burning to tell him that he lacked manners, and to assail +trade-unionism, but I restrained myself, of course + +Sometimes the girls and I would discuss the social question or +literature, subjects upon which they assured me that I held +"naïve" views. But all my efforts to get Anna into a more intimate +conversation failed. For all our familiarity, it seemed as if we held +our conversations through a thick window-pane. Nevertheless, in +a very vague way, and for no particular reason that I was aware of, +I thought that I sensed encouragement + +Tevkin never again approached me with his real-estate ventures, +but the very air of his house these days was full of such ventures. I +met other real-estate men at his home. Their talk was tempting. +my enormous income notwithstanding. Huge fortunes seemed to +be growing like mushrooms all over the five Ghettos of New York +and Brooklyn. I saw men who three years ago had not been worth +a cent and who were now buying and selling blocks of property. +How much they were actually worth was a question which in the +excitement of the "boom" did not seem to matter. It is never a rare +incident among our people for a man with a nebulous fortune of a +few hundred dollars to plunge into a commercial undertaking +involving many thousands; but during that period this was an +every-day affair. At first I treated it like something that was going +on in another country. But I had a good deal of uninvested money +and my resistance was slackening. + +At last I succumbed + +One of the men I met at Tevkin's was Volodsky, the old-time street +peddler, the man of the beautiful teeth whose push-cart had +adjoined mine in those gloomy days when I tried to sell goods in +the streets, and who had told me of the dower-money which his +sister had lent him for his journey to America. + +I had not seen him since then--an interval of over twenty +years--and we recognized each other with some difficulty + +The real-estate boom had found him eking out a wretched +livelihood by selling goods on the instalment plan. Most of his +business had been in the Italian quarter and he had learned to +speak Italian far more fluently than he had English. A short time +before I stumbled upon him at the Tevkins' he had built an +enormous block of high, brick apartment-houses in Harlem. He +had gone into the undertaking with only five thousand dollars of +his own, and before the houses were half completed he had sold +them all, pocketing an enormous profit. When we were peddlers +together he had been considered a failure and a fool. He now +struck me as a clever fellow, full of dash. + +Nor did Volodsky represent the only metamorphosis of this kind +that I came across. It was as though there were something in the +atmosphere which turned paupers into capitalists and inane +milksops into men of brains and pluck. + +Volodsky succeeded in luring me into a network of speculations + +Tevkin had an interest in some of these operations, and, as they +were mostly concerned with property in Harlem or in the Bronx, +his house became my real-estate headquarters. There were two +classes of callers at his home now: the socialists and the literary +men or artists who visited Tevkin's children and the "real-estate +crowd" who came to see Tevkin himself. It came to be tacitly +understood that the library was to be left to the former, while the +dining-room, in the basement, was used as Tevkin's office. Being +"a friend of the family," I had the freedom of both + +"You're making a big mistake, Levinsky," Nodelman once said to +me, with a gesture of deep concern. "What is biting you? Aren't +you making money fast enough? Mark my word, if you try to +swallow too fast you'll choke. Any doctor will tell you that." + +I urged him to join me, but he would not hear of it. Instead, he +exhorted me to sell out my holdings and give all my attention to +my cloak business + +"Take pity on your hard-earned pennies, Levinsky," he would say. +"Else you'll wake up some day like the fellow who has dreamed he +has found a treasure. He's holding on to the treasure tight, and +when he opens his eyes he finds it's nothing but a handful of +wind." "I'll tell you what, Levinsky," he began on one occasion. +"You ought to see some of those magician fellows." + +"What for?" I asked + +"Did you ever see them at their game? They'll put an egg into a +hat; say, 'One, two, three,' and pull out a chicken. And then they +say, 'One, two, three,' again and there's neither a chicken nor an +egg. That's the way all this real-estate racket will end. Mark my +word, Levinsky." + +Bender nagged and pleaded with me without let-up. If I had had +the remotest doubt of his devotion to me it would have been +dispelled now. I was at my great mahogany desk every morning, +as usual, but I seldom stayed more than two hours, and even +during those two hours my mind was divided between cloaks and +real estate or between cloaks and Anna. Bender was practically in +full charge of the business. Instead, however, of welcoming the +power it gave him, he made unrelenting efforts to restore things to +their former state. He was constantly haranguing me on the risks I +was incurring, beseeching me to drop my new ventures, and +threatening to leave me unless I did so. Once, as he was thus +expostulating with me, he broke down + +"I appeal to you as your friend, as your old-time teacher," he said, +and burst into tears + +If it had not been for him I should have neglected my cloak +business beyond repair. He handled me as a gambler's wife does +her husband. He would seek me out in front of some unfinished +building, at Tevkin's, or at some "boom" café, and make me sign +some checks, consult me on something or other, or wheedle me +into accompanying him to my factory for an hour or two. But the +next day he would have to go hunting for me again + +I had invested considerable money in my new affairs, and releasing +it at short notice would not have been an easy matter. But the +great point was that I was literally intoxicated by my new +interests, and the fact that they were intimately associated with the +atmosphere of Anna's home had much--perhaps everything--to do +with it + +I loved her to insanity. She was the supreme desire of my being. I +knew that she was weaker in character and mind than Elsie, for +example, but that seemed to be a point in her favor rather than +against her. "She is a good girl," I would muse, "mild, kindly, +girlish. As for her 'radical' notions, they really don't matter much. I +could easily knock them out of her. I should be happy with her. +Oh, how happy!" And, in spite of the fact that I thought her weak, +the sight of her would fill me with awe. + +One's first love is said to be the most passionate love of which one +is capable. I do not think it is. I think my feeling for Anna was +stronger, deeper, more tender, and more overpowering than either +of my previous two infatuations. But then, of course, there is no +way of measuring and comparing things of this kind. Anna was +the first virgin I had ever loved. + +Was that responsible for the particular depth of my feeling? "Oh, I +must have her or I'll fall to pieces," I would say to myself, +yearning and groaning and whining like a lunatic + +My gambling mania was really the aberration of a love-maddened +brain. How could Bender or Nodelman understand it? I found +myself in the midst of other lunatics, of men who had simply been +knocked out of balance by the suddenness of their gains. My +money had come slowly and through work and worry. Theirs had +dropped from the sky. So they could scarcely believe their senses +that it was not all a dream. They were hysterical with gleeful +amazement; they were in a delirium of ecstasy over themselves; +and at the same time they looked as though they were tempted to +feel their own faces and hands to make sure that they were real + +One evening I saw a man whose family was still living on fifteen +dollars a week lose more than six hundred dollars in poker and +then take a group of congenial spirits out for a spree that cost him +a few hundred dollars more. + +One man in this party, who was said to be worth three-quarters of a +million, had only recently worked as a common brick-layer. He is +fixed in my memory by his struggles to live up to his new +position, more especially by the efforts he would make to break +himself of certain habits of speech. He always seemed to be on his +guard lest some coarse word or phrase should escape him, and +when a foul expression eluded his vigilance he would give a start, +as if he had broken something. There was often a wistful look in +his eye, as if he wondered whether his wealth and new mode of +living were not merely a cruel practical joke. Or was he yearning +for the simpler and more natural life which he had led until two +years ago? We had many an expensive meal together, and often, +as he ate, he would say: "Oh, it's all nonsense, Mr. Levinsky. All +this fussy stuff does not come up to one spoon of my wife's +cabbage soup." + +Once he said: "Do you really like champagne? I don't. You may +say I am a common, ignorant fellow, but to me it doesn't come up +to the bread cider mother used to make. Honest." And he gave a +chuckle + +I knew a man who bought a thousand-dollar fur coat and a +full-dress suit before he had learned to use a handkerchief. He +always had one in his pocket, but he would handle it gingerly, as +if he had not the heart to soil it, and then he would carefully fold it +again. The effect money had on this man was of quite another +nature than it was in the case of the bricklayer. + +It had made him boisterously arrogant, blusteringly disdainful of +his intellectual superiors, and brazenly foul-mouthed. It was as +though he was shouting: "I don't have to fear or respect anybody +now! I have got a lot of money. I can do as I damn please." More +than one pure man became dissolute in the riot of easily gotten +wealth. A real-estate speculator once hinted to me, in a fit of +drunken confidence, that his wife, hitherto a good woman and a +simple home body, had gone astray through the new vistas of life +that had suddenly been flung open to her. One fellow who was +naturally truthful was rapidly becoming a liar through the practice +of exaggerating his profits and expenditures. There was an +abundance of side-splitting comedy in the things I saw about me, +but there was no dearth of pathos, either. One day, as I entered a +certain high-class restaurant on Broadway, I saw at one of the +tables a man who looked strikingly familiar to me, but whom I was +at first unable to locate. Presently I recognized him. Three or four +years before he had peddled apples among the employees of my +cloak-shop. He had then been literally in tatters. That was why I +was now slow to connect his former image with his present +surroundings. I had heard of his windfall. He had had a job as +watchman at houses in process of construction. While there he had +noticed things, overheard conversations, put two and two together, +and finally made fifty thousand dollars in a few months as a +real-estate broker + +We were furtively eying each other. Finally our eyes met. He +greeted me with a respectful nod and then his face broke into a +good-humored smile. He moved over to my table and told me his +story in detail. He spoke in brief, pithy sentences, revealing a +remarkable understanding of the world. In conclusion he said, +with a sigh: "But what is the good of it all? The Upper One has +blessed me with one hand, but He has punished me with the +other." + +It appeared that his wife had died, in Austria, just when she was +about to come to join him and he was preparing to surprise her +with what, to her, would have been a palatial apartment + +"For six years I tried to bring her over, but could not manage it," he +said, simply. "I barely made enough to feed one mouth. When +good luck came at last, she died. She was a good woman, but I +never gave her a day's happiness. For eighteen years she shared +my poverty. And now, that there is something better to share, she +is gone." + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ONE of the many Jewish immigrants who were +drawn into the whirl of real-estate speculation was Max Margolis, +Dora's husband. I had heard his name in connection with some +deals, and one afternoon in February we found ourselves side by +side in a crowd of other "boomers." The scene was the corner of +Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, two blocks +from Tevkin's residence, a spot that usually swarmed with +Yiddish-speaking real-estate speculators in those days. It was a +gesticulating, jabbering, whispering, excited throng, resembling +the crowd of curb-brokers on Broad Street. Hence the nickname +"The Curb" by which that corner was getting to be known + +I was talking to Tevkin when somebody slapped me on the back + +"Hello, Levinsky! Hello!" + +"Margolis!" + +His face had the florid hue of worn, nervous, middle age. "I heard +you were buying. Is it true? Well, how goes it, great man?" + +"How have you been?" + +"Can't kick. Of course, compared to a big fellow like David +Levinsky, I am a fly." + +I excused myself to Tevkin and took Margolis to the quieter side of +the Avenue + +"Glad to see you, upon my word," he said. "Well, let bygones by +bygones. + +It's about time we forgot it all." + +"There is nothing to forget." + +"Honest?" + +"Honest! Is that idiotic notion still sticking in your brain?" + +"Why, no. Not at all. May I not live till to-morrow if it does. You +are not angry at me, are you? Come, now, say that you are not." + +I smiled and shrugged my shoulders + +"Well, shake hands, then." + +We did and he offered to sell me a "parcel." As I did not care for it, +he went on to talk of the real-estate market in general. There was +a restaurant on that side of the block--The Curb Café we used to +call it--so we went in, ordered something, and he continued to +talk. He was plainly striving to sound me, in the hope of "hanging +on" to some of my deals. Of a sudden he said: "Say, you must +think I'm still jealous? May I not live till to-morrow if I am." And +to prove that he was not he added: "Come, Levinsky, come up to +the house and let's be friends again, as we used to be. I have +always wished you well." He gave me his address. "Will you +come?" + +"Some day." + +"You aren't still angry at Dora, are you?" + +"Why, no. But then she may be still angry at me," I said, +indifferently + +"Nonsense. Perhaps it is beneath your dignity to call on small +people like us? Come, forget that you are a great capitalist and let +us all spend an evening together as we used to." Was he ready to +suppress his jealousy for the prospect of getting under my +financial wing? The answer to this question came to me through a +most unexpected channel + +The next morning, when I came to my Fifth Avenue office (it was +some eighty blocks--about four miles--downtown from "The +Curb" section of Fifth Avenue), I found Dora waiting for me. I +recognized her the moment I entered the waiting-room on my +office floor. Her hair was almost white and she had grown rather +fleshy, but her face had not changed. She wore a large, becoming +hat and was quite neatly dressed generally + +The blood surged to my face. Her presence was a bewildering +surprise to me + +There were three other people in the room and I had to be on my +guard + +"How are you?" I said, rushing over to her + +She stood up and we shook hands. I took her into my private office +through my private corridor. + +"Dora! Well, well!" I murmured in a delirium of embarrassment + +"I have come to tell you not to mind Margolis and not to call at the +house," she said, gravely, looking me full in the face. "It would be +awful if you did. He is out of his mind. He is--" + +"Wait a minute, Dora," I interrupted her. "There'll be plenty of +time to talk of that. First tell me something about yourself. How +have you been? How are the children?" She was like an old song +that had once held me under its sway, but which now appealed to +me as a memory only. I was conscious of my consuming passion +for Anna. Dora interested and annoyed me at once + +I treated her as a dear old friend. She, however, persisted in +wearing a mask of politeness, as if she had come strictly on +business and there had never been any other relations between us + +"Everybody is all right, thank you," she answered + +"Is Lucy married?" + +"Oh, she has a beautiful little girl of two years. But I do want to +tell you about Margolis. The man is simply crazy, and I want to +warn you not to take him seriously. Above all, don't let him take +you up to the house. Not for anything in the world. That's what +brings me here this morning." + +"Why? What's the trouble?" + +"Oh, it would take too long to tell," she answered. "And it isn't +important, either. The main thing is that you should not let him +get into business relations with you, or into any other kind of +relations, for that matter." + +Her English was a striking improvement upon what it had been +sixteen years before. As we continued to talk it became evident to +me that she was a well-read, well-informed woman. I made some +efforts to break her reserve, but they failed. Nor, indeed, was I +over-anxious to have them succeed. She did speak of her +husband's jealousy, however (though she dropped her glance and +slurred over the word as she did so); and from what she said, as +well as by reading between the lines of her statement, I gathered a +fairly clear picture of the situation. Echoes of Max's old jealousy +would still make themselves felt in his domestic life. A clash, an +irritation, would sometimes bring my name to his lips. He still, +sometimes, tortured her with questions concerning our relations + +"I never answer these questions of his," she said, her eyes on my +office rug. "Not a word. I just let him talk. But sometimes I feel +like putting an end to my life," she concluded, with a smile + +I listened with expressions of surprise and sympathy and with a +feeling of compunction. A thought was sluggishly trailing through +my mind: "Does she still care for me?" + +Margolis had built up some sort of auction business, but his +real-estate mania had ruined it and eaten up all he had except +three thousand dollars, which Dora had contrived to save from the +wreck. With this she had bought a cigar-and-stationery store on +Washington Heights by means of which she now supported the +family. He spent his days and evenings hanging around real-estate +haunts as a penniless drunkard does around liquor-shops. He was +always importuning Dora for "a couple of hundred dollars" for a +"sure thing." This was often the cause of an altercation. Quarrels +had, in fact, never been such a frequent occurrence in the house as +they had been since he lost his money in real estate, and one of his +favorite thrusts in the course of these brawls was to allude to me + +"If Levinsky asked you for money you would not refuse him, +would you?" he would taunt her + +Now, that he had met me at "The Curb," he had taken it into his +head that his jealousy had worn off long since and that he had the +best of feelings for me. His heart was set upon regaining my +friendship. He had spoken to her of our meeting as a "predestined +thing" that was to result in my "letting him in" on some of my +deals. Dora, however, felt sure that a renewal of our acquaintance +would only rekindle the worst forms of his jealousy and make life +impossible to her. She dreaded to imagine it + +We spoke of Lucy again. It was so stirring to think of her as a +mother. Dora told me that Lucy's husband was in the jewelry +business and quite well-to-do + +She rose to go. I escorted her, continuing to question her about +Lucy, Dannie, her husband. It would have been natural for me to +take her out by way of my private little corridor, but I preferred to +pilot her through my luxurious show-rooms. We found two +customers there to whom some of my office men and a designer +were showing our "line." I greeted the customers, and, turning to +Dora again, I asked her to finish an interrupted remark. We +paused by one of the windows. What she was saying about Lucy +was beginning to puzzle me. She did not seem to be pleased with +her daughter's marriage + +"She has three servants and a machine," she said, with a peculiar +smile. + +"She wanted it and she got what she wanted." + +"Why?" I said, perplexed + +"Everything is all right," she answered, with another smile + +We spoke in an undertone, so that nobody could overhear us. The +fact, however, that we were no longer alone had the effect of +relieving our constraint. Dora unbent somewhat. A certain note of +intimacy that had been lacking in our talk while we were by +ourselves stole into it now that we were in the presence of other +people + +In the course of our love-affair she had often spoken to me of her +determination not to let Lucy repeat her mistake, not to let her +marry otherwise than a man she loved. We were both thinking of +it at this minute, and it seemed to be tacitly understood between +us that we were + +At last I ventured to ask: "What's the trouble, Dora: Tell me all +about it. + +It interests me very much." + +"I don't know whether there's anything to tell," she answered, +coloring slightly. "She says she cares for her husband, and they +really get along very well. He certainly worships her. Why +shouldn't he? She is so beautiful--a regular flower--and he is old +enough to be her father." + +"You don't say!" I ejaculated, with genuine distress + +"She is satisfied." + +"Are you?" + +"As if it mattered whether I was or not. I had other ideas about her +happiness, but I am only a mother and was not even born in this +country. So what does my opinion amount to? I begged her not to +break my heart, but she would have her automobile." + +"Perhaps she does love him." + +She shook her head ruefully. "She was quite frank about it. She +called it being practical. She thought my ideas weren't American, +that I was a dreamer. + +She talked that way ever since she was eighteen, in fact. 'I don't +care if I marry a man with white hair, provided he can make a nice +living for me,' she used to say. I thought it would drive me mad. +And the girls she went with had the same ideas. When they got +together it would be, 'This girl married a fellow who's worth a +hundred thousand,' and, 'That girl goes with a fellow who's worth +half a million.' If that's what they learn at college, what's the use +going to college?" + +"It's prosperity ideas," I suggested. "It's a temporary craze." + +"I don't care what it is. A girl should be a girl. She ought to think +of love, of real happiness." (Her glance seemed to be the least bit +unsteady.) "But I ain't 'practical,' don't you know. Exactly what my +mother--peace upon her [this in Hebrew]--used to say. She, too, +did not think it was necessary to be in love with the man you +marry. But then she did not go to college, not even to school. Of +what good is education, then?" + +It was evident that she spoke from an overflowing heart, and that +she could speak for hours on the subject. But she cut herself short +and took another tack + +"You must not think her husband is a kike, though," she said. "He +is no fool and he writes a pretty good English letter. And he is a +very nice man." + +She started to go + +"Tell me some more about Dannie," I said, on our way to the +elevator + +"He's going to college. Always first or second in his class. And one +of the best men on the football team, too." She smiled, the first +radiant smile I had seen on her that morning + +"He's all right," she continued. And in Yiddish, "He is my only +consolation." And again in English, "If it wasn't for him life +wouldn't be worth living. Good-by," she said, as we paused in +front of the elevator door. "Don't forget what I told you." She was +ill at ease again + +The elevator came down from the upper floors. We shook hands +and she entered it. It sank out of sight. I stood still for a second +and then returned to my private office with a sense of relief and +sadness. My heart was full of love for Anna + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN a vague, timid way I had been planning to +propose to Anna all along. My meeting with Dora gave these +plans shape. Her unexpected visit revived in my mind the whole +history of my acquaintance with her. I said to myself: "It was +through tenacity and persistence that I won her. It was persistence, +too, that gave me success in business. Anna is a meek, +good-natured girl. + +She has far less backbone than Dora. I can win her, and I will." It +seemed so convincing. It was like a discovery. It aroused the +fighting blood in my veins. I was throbbing with love and +determination. I was priming myself for a formal proposal. I +expected to take her by storm. I was only waiting for an +opportunity. In case she said no, I was prepared for a long and +vigorous campaign. "I won't give her up. She shall be mine, +whether she wants it or not," I said to myself again and again. +These soliloquies would go on in my mind at all hours and in all +kinds of circumstances--while I was pushing my way through a +crowded street-car, while I was listening to some of Bender's +scoldings, while I was parleying with some real-estate man over a +piece of property. They often made me so absent-minded that I +would pace the floor of my hotel room, for instance, with one foot +socked and the other bare, and then distressedly search for the +other sock, which was in my hand. One morning as I sat at my +mahogany desk in my office, with the telephone receiver to my +ear, waiting to be connected with a banker, I said to myself: +"Women like a man with a strong will. My very persistence will +fascinate her." And this, too, seemed like a discovery to me. The +banker answered my call. It was an important matter, yet all the +while I spoke or listened to him I was conscious of having hit +upon an invincible argument in support of my hope that Anna +would be mine + +At last I thought I saw my opportunity. It was an evening in April. + +According to the Jewish calendar it was the first Passover night, +when Israel's liberation from the bondage of Egypt is +commemorated by a feast and family reunion which form the +greatest event in the domestic life of our people + +Two years before, when I was engaged to Fanny, I deeply regretted +not being able to spend the great evening at her father's table. This +time I was an invited guest at the Tevkins'. They were not a +religious family by any means. Tevkin had been a free-thinker +since his early manhood, and his wife, the daughter of the Jewish +Ingersoll, had been born and bred in an atmosphere of aggressive +atheism. And so religious faith never had been known in their +house. Of late years, however--that is, since Tevkin had espoused +the cause of Zionism or nationalism--he had insisted on the +Passover feast every year. He contended that to him it was not a +religious ceremony, but merely a "national custom," but about this +his children were beginning to have their doubts. It seemed to +them that the older their father grew the less sure he was of his +free thought. They suspected that he was getting timid about it, +fearful of the hereafter. As a rule, they saw only the humorous +side of the change that was apparently coming over him, but +sometimes they would awaken to the pathos of it + +As we all sat in the library, waiting to be called to the great feast, +he delivered himself of a witticism at the expense of the +prospective ceremony + +"You needn't take his atheism seriously, Mr. Levinsky," said Anna, +the sound of my name on her lips sending a thrill of delight +through me. "'Way down at the bottom of his heart father is +getting to be really religious, I'm afraid." And, as though taking +pity on him, she crossed over to where he sat and nestled up to +him in a manner that put a choking sensation into my throat and +filled me with an impulse to embrace them both + +At last the signal was given and we filed down into the +dining-room. A long table, flanked by two rows of chairs, with a +sofa, instead of the usual arm-chair, at its head, was set with +bottles of wine, bottles of mead, wine-glasses, and little piles of +matzos (thin, flat cakes of unleavened bread). The sofa was +cushioned with two huge Russian pillows, inclosed in fresh white +cases, for the master of the house to lean on, in commemoration +of the freedom and ease which came to the Children of Israel upon +their deliverance from Egypt. Placed on three covered matzos, +within easy reach of the master, were a shank bone, an egg, some +horseradish, salt water, and a mush made of nuts and wine. These +were symbols, the shank bone being a memorial of the pascal +lamb, and the egg of the other sacrifices brought during the +festival in ancient times, while the horseradish and the salt water +represented the bitter work that the Sons of Israel had to do for +Pharaoh, and the mush the lime and mortar from which they made +brick for him. A small book lay in front of each seat. That was the +Story of the Deliverance, in the ancient Hebrew text, accompanied +by an English translation + +Moissey, the uncompromising atheist and Internationalist, was +demonstratively absent, much to the distress of his mother and +resentment of his father. His Biblical-looking wife was at the +table. So were Elsie and Emil. They were as uncompromising in +their atheism as Moissey, but they had consented to attend the +quaint supper to please their parents. As to Anna, Sasha, and +George, each of them had his or her socialism "diluted" with some +species of nationalism, so they were here as a matter of principle, +their theory being that the Passover feast was one of the things +that emphasized the unity of the Jews of all countries. But even +they, and even Tevkin himself, treated it all partly as a joke. In the +case of the poet, however, it was quite obvious that his levity was +pretended. For all his jesting and frivolity, he looked nervous. I +could almost see the memories of his childhood days which the +scene evoked in his mind. I could feel the solemnity that swelled +his heart. It appeared that this time he had decided to add to the +ceremony certain features which he had foregone on the previous +few Passover festivals he had observed. He was now bent upon +having a Passover feast service precisely like the one he had seen +his father conduct, not omitting even the white shroud which his +father had worn on the occasion. As a consequence, several of +these details were a novel sight to his children. A white shroud lay +ready for him on his sofa, and as he slipped it on, with smiles and +blushes, there was an outburst of mirth + +"Oh, daddy!" Anna shouted + +"Father looks like a Catholic priest," said Emil + +"Don't say that, Emil," I rebuked him + +Fun was made of the big white pillows upon which Tevkin leaned, +"king-like," and of the piece of unleavened bread which he "hid" +under them for Gracie to "steal." + +As he raised the first of the Four Cups of wine he said, solemnly, +with an effort of shaking off all pretense of flippancy: "Well, let +us raise our glasses. Let us drink the First Cup." + +We all did so, and he added, "This is the Fourth of July of our +unhappy people." After the glasses were drained and refilled he +said: "Scenes like this bind us to the Jews of the whole world, and +not only to those living, but to the past generations as well. This is +no time for speaking of the Christian religion, but as I look at this +wine an idea strikes me which I cannot help submitting: The +Christians drink wine, imagining that it is the blood of Jesus. +Well, the wine we are drinking to-night reminds me of the martyr +blood of our massacred brethren of all ages." + +Anna gave me a merry wink. I felt myself one of the family. I was +in the seventh heaven. She seemed to be particularly attentive to +me this evening + +"I shall speak to her to-night," I decided. "I sha'n't wait another +day." And the fact that she was a nationalist and not an +unqualified socialist, like Elsie, for instance, seemed to me a new +source of encouragement. I was in a quiver of blissful excitement + +The Four Questions are usually asked by the youngest son, but +Emil, the Internationalist, could not be expected to take an active +part in the ceremony, so Sasha, the Zionist, took his place. Sasha, +however, did not read Hebrew, and old Tevkin had to be content +with having the Four Questions read in English, the general +answer to them being given by Tevkin and myself in Hebrew. It +reminded me of an operatic performance in which the part of +Faust, for instance, is sung in French, while that of Margarita is +performed in some other language. We went on with the Story of +the Deliverance. Tevkin made frequent pauses to explain and +comment upon the text, often with a burst of oratory. Mrs. Tevkin +and some of the children were obviously bored. + +Gracie pleaded hunger + +Finally the end of the first part of the story was reached and supper +was served. It was a typical Passover supper, with matzo balls, +and it was an excellent repast. Everybody was talkative and gay. I +addressed some remarks to Anna, and she received them all +cordially + +By way of attesting her recognition of Passover as a "national +holiday" she was in festive array, wearing her newest dress, a +garment of blue taffeta embroidered in old rose, with a crêpe +collar of gray. It mellowed the glow of her healthful pink +complexion. She was the most beautiful creature at the table, +excluding neither her picturesque younger brother nor her majestic +old mother. She shone. She flooded my soul with ecstasy + +Tevkin's religion was Judaism, Zionism. Mine was Anna. The +second half of the story is usually read with less pomp and +circumstance than the first, many a passage in it being often +skipped altogether. So Tevkin dismissed us all, remaining alone at +the table to chant the three final ballads, which he had +characterized to his children as "charming bits of folk-lore." + +When Mrs. Tevkin, the children, and myself were mounting the +stairs leading up from the dining-room, I was by Anna's side, my +nerves as taut as those of a soldier waiting for the command to +charge. I charged sooner than I expected. + +"Sasha asked the Four Questions," I found myself saying. "There is +one question which I should like to ask of you, Miss Tevkin." + +I said it so simply and at a moment so little suited to a proposal of +marriage that the trend of my words was lost upon her + +"Something about Jewish nationalism?" she asked + +"About that and about something else." + +We were passing through the hallway now. When we entered the +library I took her into a corner, and before we were seated I said: +"Well, my question has really nothing to do with nationalism. It's +quite another thing I want to ask of you. Don't refuse me. Marry +me. Make me happy." + +She listened like one stunned + +"I am terribly in love with you," I added + +"Oh!" she then exclaimed. Her delicate pink skin became a fiery +red. She looked down and shook her head with confused stiffness. + +"I see you're taken aback. Take a seat; get your bearings," I said, +lightly, pulling up a chair that stood near by, "and say, 'Yes.'" + +"Why, that's impossible!" she said, with an awkward smile, +without seating herself. "I need not tell you that I have long since +changed my mind about you--" + +"I am no more repellent, am I?" I jested + +"No. Not at all," she returned, with another smile. "But what you +say is quite another thing. I am very sorry, indeed." She made to +move away from me, but I checked her + +"That does not discourage me," I said. "I'll just go on loving you +and waiting for a favorable answer. You are still unjust to me. +You don't know me well enough. Anyhow, I can't give you up. I +won't give you up. ("That's it," I thought. "I am speaking like a +man of firm purpose.") "I am resolved to win you." + +"Oh, that's entirely out of the question," she said, with a gesture of +impatience and finality. And, bursting into tears of child-like +indignation, she added: "Father assured me you would never hint +at such a thing--never. + +If you mean to persist, then--" + +The sentence was left eloquently unfinished. She turned away, +walked over to her mother and took a seat by her side, like a little +girl mutely seeking her mamma's protection + +The room seemed to be in a whirl. I felt the cold perspiration break +out on my forehead. I was conscious of Mrs. Tevkin's and Elsie's +glances. I was sick at heart. Anna's bitter resentment was a black +surprise to me. I had a crushing sense of final defeat + + + + +BOOK XIV + +EPISODES OF A LONELY LIFE + + +CHAPTER I + +IT was a severe blow. It caused me indescribable suffering. It would +not have been unnatural to attribute my fiasco to my age. Had I been +ten years younger, Anna's attitude toward me might have been +different. But this point of view I loathed to accept. Instead, I put +the blame on Anna's environment. + +"I was in the 'enemy's country' there," I would muse. "The +atmosphere around her was against me." I hated the socialists with +a novel venom. Finally I pulled myself together. Then it was that I +discovered the real condition of my affairs. I had gone into those +speculations far deeper than I could afford. There were indications +that made me seriously uneasy. Things were even worse than +Bender imagined. Ruin stared me in the face. I was panic-stricken. +One day I had the head of a large woolen concern lunch with me +in a private dining-room of a well-known hotel. He was dignifiedly +steel-gray and he had the appearance of a college professor or +successful physician rather than of a business man. He liked me. I +had long been one of his most important customers and I had +always sought to build up a good record with him. For example: +other cloak-manufacturers would exact allowances for +merchandise that proved to have some imperfection. I never do so. +It is the rule of my house never to put in a claim for such things. In +the majority of cases the goods can be cut so as to avoid any loss +of material, and if it cannot, I will sustain the small loss rather +than incur the mill's disfavor. In the long run it pays. And so this +cloth merchant was well disposed toward me. He had done me +some favors before. He addressed me as Dave. (There was a note +of condescension as well as of admiration in this "Dave" of his. It +implied that I was a shrewd fellow and an excellent customer, +singularly successful and reliable, but that I was his inferior, all +the same--a Jew, a social pariah. At the bottom of my heart I +considered myself his superior, finding an amusing discrepancy +between his professorial face and the crudity of his intellectual +interests; but he was a Gentile, and an American, and a much +wealthier man than I, so I looked up to him.) To make my appeal +as effective as possible I initiated him into the human side of my +troubles. I told him of my unfortunate courtship as well as of the +real-estate ventures into which it had led me + +He was interested and moved, and, as he had confidence in me, he +granted my request at once. + +"It's all right, Dave," he said, slapping my back, a queer look in his +eye. + +"You can always count on me. Only throw that girl out of your +mind." + +I grasped his hand silently. I wanted to say something, but the +words stuck in my throat. He helped me out of my difficulties and +I devoted myself to the cloak business with fresh energy. The +agonies of my love for Anna were more persistent than those I had +suffered after I moved out of Dora's house. + +But, somehow, instead of interfering with my business activities, +these agonies stimulated them. I was like the victim of a +toothache who seeks relief in hard work. I toiled day and night, +entering into the minutest detail of the business and performing +duties that were ordinarily left to some inferior employee. + +Business was good. Things went humming. Bender, who now had +an interest in my factory, was happy + +Some time later the same woolen man who had come to my +assistance did me another good turn, one that brought me a rich +harvest of profits. A certain weave was in great vogue that season, +the demand far exceeding the output, and it so happened that the +mill of the man with the professorial face was one of the very few +that produced that fabric. So he let me have a much larger supply +of it than any other cloak-manufacturer in the country was able to +obtain. My business then took a great leap, while my overhead +expenses remained the same. My net profits exceeded two hundred +thousand dollars that year + +One afternoon in the summer of the same year, as I walked along +Broadway in the vicinity of Canal Street, my attention was +attracted by a shabby, white-haired, feeble-looking old peddler, +with a wide, sneering mouth, who seemed disquietingly familiar +and in whom I gradually recognized one of my Antomir +teachers--one of those who used to punish me for the sins of their +other pupils. The past suddenly sprang into life with detailed, +colorful vividness. The black pit of poverty in which I had been +raised; my misery at school, where I had been treated as an +outcast and a scapegoat because my mother could not afford even +the few pennies that were charged for my tuition; the joy of my +childish existence in spite of that gloom and martyrdom--all this +rose from the dead before me + +The poor old peddler I now saw trying to cross Broadway was +Shmerl the Pincher, the man with whom my mother had a +pinching and hair-pulling duel after she found the marks of his +cruelty on my young body. He had been one of the most heartless +of my tormentors, yet it was so thrillingly sweet to see him in New +York! In my schooldays I would dream of becoming a rich and +influential man and wreaking vengeance upon my brutal teachers, +more especially upon Shmerl the Pincher and "the Cossack," the +man whose little daughter, Sarah-Leah, had been the heroine of +my first romance. I now rushed after Shmerl, greatly excited, one +of the feelings in my heart being a keen desire to help him + +A tangle of wagons and trolley-cars caused me some delay. I stood +gazing at him restively as he picked his weary way. I had known +him as a young man, although to my childish eye he had looked +old--a strong fellow, probably of twenty-eight, with jet-black +side-whiskers and beard, with bright, black eyes and alert +movements. At the time I saw him on Broadway he must have +been about sixty, but he looked much older + +As I was thus waiting impatiently for the cars to start so that I +could cross the street and greet him, a cold, practical voice +whispered to me: "Why court trouble? Leave him alone." + +My exaltation was gone. The spell was broken. + +The block was presently relieved, but I did not stir. Instead of +crossing the street and accosting the old man, I stood still, +following him with my eyes until he vanished from view. Then I +resumed my walk up Broadway. As I trudged along, a feeling of +compunction took hold of me. By way of defending myself before +my conscience, I tried to think of the unmerited beatings he used +to give me. But it was of no avail. The idea of avenging myself on +this decrepit, tattered old peddler for what he had done more than +thirty years before made me feel small. "Poor devil! I must help +him," I said to myself. + +I was conscious of a desire to go back and to try to overtake him; +but I did not. The desire was a meandering, sluggish sort of +feeling. The spell was broken irretrievably + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE following winter chance brought me together +with Matilda. On this occasion our meeting was of a pleasanter +nature than the one which had taken place at Cooper Institute. It +was in a Jewish theater. She and another woman, accompanied by +four men, one of whom was Matilda's husband, were occupying a +box adjoining one in which were the Chaikins and myself and +from which it was separated by a low partition. The performance +was given for the benefit of a society in which Mrs. Chaikin was +an active member, and it was she who had made me pay for the +box and solemnly promise to attend the performance. Not that I +maintained a snobbish attitude toward the Jewish stage. I went to +see Yiddish plays quite often, in fact, but these were all of the +better class (our stage has made considerable headway), whereas +the one that had been selected by Mrs. Chaikin's society was of +the "historical-opera" variety, a hodge-podge of "tear-wringing" +vaudeville and "laughter-compelling" high tragedy. I should have +bought ten boxes of Mrs. + +Chaikin if she had only let me stay away from the performance, +but her heart was set upon showing me off to the other members +of the organization, and I had to come + +It was on a Monday evening. As I entered the box my eyes met +Matilda's and, contrary to my will, I bowed to her. To my surprise, +she acknowledged my salutation heartily + +The curtain rose. Men in velvet tunics and plumed hats were +saying something, but I was more conscious of Matilda's +proximity and of her cordial recognition of my nod than of what +was going on on the stage. + +Presently a young man and a girl entered our box and occupied +two of our vacant chairs. Mrs. Chaikin thought they had been +invited by me, and when she discovered that they had not there +was a suppressed row, she calling upon them to leave the box and +they nonchalantly refusing to stir from their seats, pleading that +they meant to stay only as long as there was no one else to occupy +them. Our box was beginning to attract attention. There were +angry outcries of "'S-sh!" "Shut up!" Matilda looked at me +sympathetically and we exchanged smiles. Finally an usher came +into our box and the two intruders were ejected + +When the curtain had dropped on the first act Matilda invited me +into her box. When I entered it she introduced me to her husband +and her other companions as "a fellow-townsman" of hers + +Seen at close range, her husband looked much younger than she, +but it did not take me long to discover that he was wrapped up in +her. His beard was smaller and more neatly trimmed than it had +looked at the Cooper Institute meeting, but it still ill became him. +He had an unsophisticated smile, which I thought suggestive of a +man playing on a flute and which emphasized the discrepancy +between his weak face and his reputation for pluck + +An intermission in a Jewish theater is almost as long as an act. +During the first few minutes of our chat Matilda never alluded to +Antomir nor to what had happened between us at Cooper Institute. +She made merry over the advertisements on the curtain and over +the story of the play explaining that the box had been forced on +one of her companions and that they had all come to see what +"historic opera" was like. She commented upon the musicians, +who were playing a Jewish melody, and on some of the scenes +that were being enacted in the big auditorium. The crowd was +buzzing and smiling good-humoredly, with a general air of +family-like sociability, some eating apple or candy. The faces of +some of the men were much in need of a shave. + +Most of the women were in shirt-waists. Altogether the audience +reminded one of a crowd at a picnic. A boy tottering under the +weight of a basket laden with candy and fruit was singing his +wares. A pretty young woman stood in the center aisle near the +second row of seats, her head thrown back, her eyes fixed on the +first balcony, her plump body swaying and swaggering to the +music. One man, seated in a box across the theater from us, was +trying to speak to somebody in the box above ours. We could not +hear what he said, but his mimicry was eloquent enough. Holding +out a box of candy, he was facetiously offering to shoot some of +its contents into the mouth of the person he was addressing. One +woman, in an orchestra seat near our box, was discussing the play +with a woman in front of her. She could be heard all over the +theater. She was in ecstasies over the prima donna + +"I tell you she can kill a person with her singing," she said, +admiringly. + +"She tugs me by the heart and makes it melt. I never felt so +heartbroken in my life. May she live long." + +This was the first opportunity I had had to take a good look at +Matilda since she had come to New York; for our first meeting +had been so brief and so embarrassing to me that I had come away +from it without a clear impression of her appearance + +At first I found it difficult to look her in the face. The passionate +kisses I had given her twenty-three years before seemed to be +staring me out of countenance. She, however, was perfectly +unconstrained and smiled and laughed with contagious +exuberance. As we chatted I now and again grew absent-minded, +indulging in a mental comparison between the woman who was +talking to me and the one who had made me embrace her and so +cruelly trifled with my passion shortly before she raised the +money for my journey to America. The change that the years had +wrought in her appearance was striking, and yet it was the same +Matilda. Her brown eyes were still sparkingly full of life and her +mouth retained the sensuous expression of her youth. This and her +abrupt gestures gave her provocative charm + +Nevertheless, she left me calm. It was an indescribable pleasure to +be with her, but my love for her was as dead as were the days +when I lodged in a synagogue. She never alluded to those days. To +listen to her, one would have thought that we had been seeing a +great deal of each other all along, and that small talk was the most +natural kind of conversation for us to carry on + +All at once, and quite irrelevantly, she said: "I am awfully glad to +see you again. I did not treat you properly that time--at the +meeting, I mean. + +Afterward I was very sorry." + +"Were you?" I asked, flippantly. + +"I wanted to write you, to ask you to come to see me, but--well, +you know how it is. Tell me something about yourself. At this +minute the twenty-three years seem like twenty-three weeks. But +this is no time to talk about it. + +One wants hours, not a minute or two. I know, of course, that you +are a rich man. Are you a happy man? But, no, don't answer now. +The curtain will soon rise. Go back to your box, and come in +again after the next act. Will you?" + +She ordered me about as she had done during my stay at her +mother's house, which offended and pleased me at once. During +the whole of the second act I looked at the stage without seeing or +hearing anything. The time when I fell in love with Matilda +sprang into life again. It really seemed as though the twenty-three +years were twenty-three weeks. My mother's death, her funeral; +Abner's Court; the uniformed old furrier with the side-whiskers, +his wife with her crutches; Naphtali with his curly hair and +near-sighted eyes; Reb Sender, his wife, the bully of the old +synagogue; Matilda's mother, and her old servant--all the human +figures and things that filled the eventful last two years of my life +at home loomed up with striking vividness before me + +Matilda's affable greeting and her intimate brief talk were a +surprise to me. Did I appeal to her as the fellow who had once +kissed her? Had she always remembered me with a gleam of +romantic interest? Did I stir her merely as she stirred me--as a +living fragment of her past? Or was she trying to cultivate me in +the professional interests of her husband, who was practising +medicine in Harlem? When the curtain had fallen again Matilda +made her husband change seats with me. I was to stay by her side +through the rest of the performance. The partition between the +two boxes being only waist-high, the two parties were practically +joined into one and everybody was satisfied--everybody except +Mrs. Chaikin + +"I suppose our company isn't good enough for Mr. Levinsky," she +said, aloud + +When the performance was over we all went to Lorber's--the most +pretentious restaurant on the East Side. Matilda and I were mostly +left to ourselves. We talked of our native town and of her pious +mother, who had died a few years before, but we carefully +avoided the few weeks which I had spent in her mother's house, +when Matilda had encouraged my embraces. In answer to my +questions she told me something of her own and her husband's +revolutionary exploits. She spoke boastfully and yet reluctantly of +these things, as if it were a sacrilege to discuss them with a man +who was, after all, a "money-bag." + +My impression was that they lived very modestly and that they +were more interested in their socialist affairs than in their income. +My theory that she wanted her husband to profit by her +acquaintance with me seemed to be exploded. She reminded me +of Elsie and her whole-hearted devotion to socialism. We mostly +spoke in Yiddish, and our Antomir enunciation was like a bond of +kinship between us, and yet I felt that she spoke to me in the +patronizing, didactical way which one adopts with a foreigner, as +though the world to which she belonged was one whose interests +were beyond my comprehension + +She inquired about my early struggles and subsequent successes. I +told her of the studies I had pursued before I went into business, +of the English classics I had read, and of my acquaintance with +Spencer + +"Do you remember what you told me about becoming an educated +man?" I said, eagerly. "Your words were always ringing in my +ears. It was owing to them that I studied for admission to college. +I was crazy to be a college man, but fate ordained otherwise. To +this day I regret it." + +In dwelling on my successes I felt that I was too effusive and +emphatic; but I went on bragging in spite of myself. I tried to +correct the impression I was making on her by boasting of the +sums I had given to charity, but this made me feel smaller than +ever. However, my talk did not seem to arouse any criticism in her +mind. She listened to me as she might to the tale of a child + +Referring to my unmarried state, she said, with unfeigned +sympathy: "This is really no life. You ought to get married." And +she added, gaily, "If you ever marry, you mustn't neglect to invite +me to the wedding." + +"I certainly won't; you may be sure of that," I said + +"You must come to see me. I'll call you up on the telephone some +day and we'll arrange it." + +"I shall be very glad, indeed." + +I departed in a queer state of mind. Her present identity failed to +touch a romantic chord in my heart. She was simply a memory, +like Dora. But as a memory she had rekindled some of the old +yearning in me. I was still in love with Anna, but at this moment I +was in love both with her and with the Matilda of twenty-three +years before. But this intense feeling for Matilda as a monument +of my past self did not last two days + +The invitation she had promised to telephone never came + +I came across a man whom I used to see at the Tevkins', and one +of the things he told me was that Anna had recently married a +high-school teacher + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE real estate boom collapsed. The cause of the +catastrophe lay in the nature, or rather in the unnaturalness, of the +"get-rich-quick" epidemic. + +Its immediate cause, however, was a series of rent strikes inspired +and engineered by the Jewish socialists through their Yiddish +daily. One of the many artificialities of the situation had been a +progressive inflation of rent values. Houses had been continually +changing hands, being bought, not as a permanent investment, but +for speculation, whereupon each successive purchaser would raise +rents as a means of increasing the market price of his temporary +property. And so the socialists had organized a crusade that filled +the municipal courts with dispossess cases and turned the boom +into a panic + +Hundreds of people who had become rich overnight now became +worse than penniless overnight. The Ghetto was full of dethroned +"kings for a day only." It seemed as if it all really had been a +dream + +One of the men whose quickly made little fortune burst like a +bubble was poor Tevkin. I wondered how his children took the +socialist rent strikes + +Nor did I escape uninjured when the crisis broke loose. I still had a +considerable sum in real estate, all my efforts to extricate it having +proved futile. My holdings were rapidly depreciating. In hundreds +of cases similar to mine equities were wiped out through the +speculators' inability to pay interest on mortgages or even taxes. +To be sure, things did not come to such a pass in my case, but +then some of the city lots or improved property in which I was +interested had been hit so hard as to be no longer worth the +mortgages on them + +Volodsky lost almost everything except his courage and +speculative spirit + +"Oh, it will come back," he once said to me, speaking of the boom + +When I urged that it had been an unnatural growth he retorted that +it was the collapse of the boom which was unnatural. He was +scheming some sort of syndicate again + +"It requires no money to make a lot of money," he said. "All it does +require is brains and some good luck." + +Nevertheless, he coveted some of my money for his new scheme. +He did not succeed with me, but he found other "angels." He was +now quite in his element in the American atmosphere of +breathless enterprise and breakneck speed. When the violence of +the crisis had quieted down building operations were resumed on +a more natural basis. Men like Volodsky, with hosts of carpenters, +bricklayers, plumbers--all Russian or Galician Jews--continued to +build up the Bronx, Washington Heights, and several sections of +Brooklyn. + +Vast areas of meadowland and rock were turned by them, as by a +magic wand, into densely populated avenues and streets of brick +and mortar. Under the spell of their activity cities larger than +Odessa sprang up within the confines of Greater New York in the +course of three or four years + +Mrs. Chaikin came out of her speculations more than safe. She and +her husband, who is still in my employ, own half a dozen +tenement-houses. One day, on the first of the month, I met her in +the street with a large hand-bag and a dignified mien. She was out +collecting rent. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IT was the spring of 1910. The twenty-fifth +anniversary of my coming to America was drawing near. The day +of an immigrant's arrival in his new home is like a birthday to +him. Indeed, it is more apt to claim his attention and to warm his +heart than his real birthday. Some of our immigrants do not even +know their birthday. But they all know the day when they came to +America. It is Landing Day with red capital letters. This, at any +rate, is the case with me. The day upon which I was born often +passes without my being aware of it. + +The day when I landed in Hoboken, on the other hand, never +arrives without my being fully conscious of the place it occupies +in the calendar of my life. Is it because I do not remember myself +coming into the world, while I do remember my arrival in +America? However that may be, the advent of that day invariably +puts me in a sentimental mood which I never experience on the +day of my birth + +It was 1910, then, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of my coming +was near at hand. Thoughts of the past filled me with mixed joy +and sadness. I was overcome with a desire to celebrate the day. +But with whom? Usually this is done by "ship brothers," as +East-Siders call fellow-immigrants who arrive here on the same +boat. It came back to me that I had such a ship brother, and that it +was Gitelson. Poor Gitelson! He was still working at his trade. + +I had not seen him for years, but I had heard of him from time to +time, and I knew that he was employed by a ladies' tailor at +custom work somewhere in Brooklyn. (The custom-tailoring shop +he had once started for himself had proved a failure.) Also, I knew +how to reach a brother-in-law of his. The upshot was that I made +an appointment with Gitelson for him to be at my office on the +great day at 12 o'clock. I did so without specifying the object of +the meeting, but I expected that he would know + +Finally the day arrived. It was a few minutes to 12. I was alone in +my private office, all in a fidget, as if the meeting I was expecting +were a love-tryst. Reminiscences and reflections were flitting +incoherently through my mind. Some of the events of the day +which I was about to celebrate loomed up like a ship seen in the +distance. My eye swept the expensive furniture of my office. I +thought of the way my career had begun. I thought of the Friday +evening when I met Gitelson on Grand Street, he an American +dandy and I in tatters. The fact that it was upon his advice and +with his ten dollars that I had become a cloak-maker stood out as +large as life before me. A great feeling of gratitude welled up in +me, of gratitude and of pity for my tattered self of those days. +Dear, kind Gitelson! Poor fellow! He was still working with his +needle. I was seized with a desire to do something for him. + +I had never paid him those ten dollars. So I was going to do so +with "substantial interest" now. "I shall spend a few hundred +dollars on him--nay, a few thousand!" I said to myself. "I shall buy +him a small business. Let him end his days in comfort. Let him +know that his ship brother is like a real brother to him." + +It was twenty minutes after 12 and I was still waiting for the +telephone to announce him. My suspense became insupportable. +"Is he going to disappoint me, the idiot?" I wondered. Presently +the telephone trilled. I seized the receiver + +"Mr. Gitelson wishes to see Mr. Levinsky," came the familiar pipe +of my switchboard girl. "He says he has an appointment--" + +"Let him come in at once," I flashed. + +Two minutes later he was in my room. His forelock was still the +only bunch of gray hair on his head, but his face was pitifully +wizened. He was quite neatly dressed, as trained tailors will be, +even when they are poor, and at some distance I might have failed +to perceive any change in him. At close range, however, his +appearance broke my heart + +"Do you know what sort of a day this is?" I asked, after shaking his +hand warmly. + +"I should think I did," he answered, sheepishly. "Twenty-five years +ago at this time--" + +He was at a loss for words + +"Yes, it's twenty-five years, Gitelson," I rejoined. I was going to +indulge in reminiscences, to compare memories with him, but +changed my mind. I would rather not speak of our Landing Day +until we were seated at a dining-table and after we had drunk its +toast in champagne + +"Come, let us have lunch together," I said, simply + +I took him to the Waldorf-Astoria, where a table had been reserved +for us in a snug corner. + +Gitelson was extremely bashful and his embarrassment infected +me. He was apparently at a loss to know what to do with the +various glasses, knives, forks. It was evident that he had never sat +at such a table before. The French waiter, who was silently +officious, seemed to be inwardly laughing at both of us. At the +bottom of my heart I cow before waiters to this day. + +Their white shirt-fronts, reticence, and pompous bows make me +feel as if they saw through me and ridiculed my ways. They make +me feel as if my expensive clothes and ways ill became me + +"Here is good health, Gitelson," I said in plain old Yiddish, as we +touched glasses. "Let us drink to the day when we arrived in +Castle Garden." + +There was something forced, studied, in the way I uttered these +words. I was disgusted with my own voice. Gitelson only +simpered. He drained his glass, and the champagne, to which he +was not accustomed, made him tipsy at once. I tried to talk of our +ship, of the cap he had lost, of his timidity when we had found +ourselves in Castle Garden, of the policeman whom I asked to +direct us. But Gitelson only nodded and grinned and tittered. I +realized that I had made a mistake--that I should have taken him +to a more modest restaurant. But then the chasm between him and +me seemed to be too wide for us to celebrate as ship brothers in +any place + +"By the way, Gitelson, I owe you something," I said, producing a +ten-dollar bill. "It was with your ten dollars that I learned to be a +cloak-operator and entered the cloak trade. Do you remember?" I +was going to add something about my desire to help him in some +substantial way, but he interrupted me + +"Sure, I do," he said, with inebriate shamefacedness, as he received +the money and shoved it into the inside pocket of his vest. "It has +brought you good luck, hasn't it? And how about the interest? He, +he, he! You've kept it over twenty-three years. The interest must +be quite a little. He, he, he!" + +"Of course I'll pay you the interest, and more, too. You shall get a +check." + +"Oh, I was only joking." + +"But I am not joking. You're going to get a check, all right." + +He revolted me + +I made out a check for two hundred dollars; tore it and made out +one for five hundred + +He flushed, scanned the figure, giggled, hesitated, and finally +folded the check and pushed it into his inner vest pocket, thanking +me with drunken ardor + +Some time later I was returning to my office, my heart heavy with +self-disgust and sadness. In the evening I went home, to the +loneliness of my beautiful hotel lodgings. My heart was still heavy +with distaste and sadness. + + + +CHAPTER V + +GUSSIE, the finisher-girl to whom I had once made +love with a view to marrying her for her money, worked in the +vicinity of my factory and I met her from time to time on the +Avenue. We kept up our familiar tone of former days. We would +pause, exchange some banter, and go our several ways. She was +over fifty now. She looked haggard and dried up and her hair was +copiously shot with gray + +One afternoon she told me she had changed her shop, naming her +new employer + +"Is it a good place to work in?" I inquired + +"Oh, it's as good or as bad as any other place," she replied, with a +gay smile + +"Mine is good," I jested + +"That's what they all say + +"Come to work for me and see for yourself." + +"Will I get good wages?" + +"Yes." + +"How much?" + +"Any price you name." + +"Look at him," she said, as though addressing a third person. "Look +at the new millionaire." + +"It might have been all yours. But you did not think I was good +enough for you." "You can keep it all to yourself and welcome." + +"Well, will you come to work?" + +"You can't do without me, can you? He can't get finisher-girls, the +poor fellow. Well, how much will you pay me?" + +We agreed upon the price, but on taking leave she said, "I was +joking." + +"What do you mean? Don't you want to work for me, Gussie?" + +She shook her head + +"Why?" + +"I don't want you to think I begrudge you your millions. We'll be +better friends at a distance. Good-by." + +"You're a funny girl, Gussie. Good-by." + +A short time after this conversation I had trouble with the +Cloak-makers' Union, of which Gussie was one of the oldest and +most loyal members + +The cause of the conflict was an operator named Blitt, a native of +Antomir, who had been working in my shop for some months. He +was a spare little fellow with a nose so compressed at the nostrils +that it looked as though it was inhaling some sharp, pleasant odor. +It gave his face a droll appearance, but his eyes, dark and large, +were very attractive. I had known him as a small boy in my +birthplace, where he belonged to a much better family than I + +When Blitt was invited to join the Levinsky Antomir Society of my +employees he refused. It turned out that he was one of the active +spirits of the union and also an ardent member of the Socialist +party. His foreman had not the courage to discharge him, because +of my well-known predilection for natives of Antomir, so he +reported him to me as a dangerous fellow + +"He isn't going to blow up the building, is he?" I said, lightly + +"But he may do other mischief. He's one of the leaders of the +union." + +"Let him lead." + +The next time I looked at Blitt I felt uncomfortable. His refusal to +join my Antomir organization hurt me, and his activities in the +union and at socialist gatherings kindled my rancor. His +compressed nose revolted me now. + +I wanted to get rid of him + +Not that I had remained inflexible in my views regarding the +distribution of wealth in the world. Some of the best-known +people in the country were openly taking the ground that the poor +man was not getting a "square deal." To sympathize with +organized labor was no longer "bad form," some society women +even doing picket duty for Jewish factory-girls out on strike. + +Socialism, which used to be declared utterly un-American, had +come to be almost a vogue. American colleges were leavened +with it, while American magazines were building up stupendous +circulations by exposing the corruption of the mighty. Public +opinion had, during the past two decades, undergone a striking +change in this respect. I had watched that change and I could not +but be influenced by it. For all my theorizing about the "survival +of the fittest" and the "dying off of the weaklings," I could not help +feeling that, in an abstract way, the socialists were not altogether +wrong. + +The case was different, however, when I considered it in +connection with the concrete struggle of trade-unionism (which +among the Jewish immigrants was practically but another name +for socialism) against low wages or high rent. + +I must confess, too, that the defeat with which I had met at +Tevkin's house had greatly intensified my hostility to socialists. +As I have remarked in a previous chapter, I ascribed my fiasco to +the socialist atmosphere that surrounded Anna. I was embittered + +The socialists were constantly harping on "class struggle," "class +antagonism," "class psychology." I would dismiss it all as absurd, +but I did hate the trade-unions, particularly those of the East Side. +Altogether there was too much socialism among the masses of the +Ghetto, I thought + +Blitt now seemed to be the embodiment of this "class antagonism." + +"Ah, he won't join my Antomir Society!" I would storm and fume +and writhe inwardly. "That's a tacit protest against the whole +society as an organization of 'slaves.' It means that the society +makes meek, obedient servants of my employees and helps me +fleece them. As if they did not earn in my shop more than they +would anywhere else! As if they could all get steady work outside +my place! And what about the loans and all sorts of other favors +they get from me? If they worked for their own fathers they could +not be treated better than they are treated here." I felt outraged + +I rebuked myself for making much ado about nothing. Indeed, this +was a growing weakness with me. Some trifle unworthy of +consideration would get on my nerves and bother me like a grain +of sand in the eye. Was I getting old? But, no, I felt in the prime of +life, full of vigor, and more active and more alive to the passions +than a youth + +Whenever I chanced to be on the floor where Blitt worked I would +avoid looking in his direction. His presence irritated me. "How +ridiculous," I often thought. "One would imagine he's my +conscience and that's why I want to get rid of him." As a +consequence, I dared not send him away, and, as a consequence of +this, he irritated me more than ever + +Finally, one afternoon, acting on the spur of the moment, I called +his foreman to me and told him to discharge him + +A committee of the union called on me. I refused to deal with +them. The upshot was a strike--not merely for the return of Blitt to +my employment, but also for higher wages and the recognition of +the union. The organization was not strong, and only a small +number of my men were members of it, but when these went out +all the others followed their contagious example, the members of +my Antomir Society not excepted + +The police gave me ample protection, and there were thousands of +cloak-makers who remained outside the union, so that I soon had +all the "hands" I wanted; but the conflict caused me all sorts of +other mortifications. For one thing, it gave me no end of hostile +publicity. The socialist Yiddish daily, which had an +overwhelmingly wide circulation now, printed reports of meetings +at which I had been hissed and hooted. I was accused of bribing +corrupt politicians who were supposed to help me suppress the +strike by means of police clubs. I was charged with bringing +disgrace upon the Jewish people + +The thought of Tevkin reading these reports and of Anna hearing +of them hurt me cruelly. I could see Moissey reveling in the hisses +with which my name was greeted. And Elsie? Did she take part in +some of the demonstrations against me? Were she and Anna +collecting funds for my striking employees? The reports in the +American papers also were inclined to favor the strikers. + +Public opinion was against me. What galled me worse than all, +perhaps, was the sympathy shown for the strikers by some +German-Jewish financiers and philanthropists, men whose +acquaintance it was the height of my ambition to cultivate. All of +which only served to pour oil into the flames of my hatred for the +union + +Bender implored me to settle the strike + +"The union doesn't amount to a row of pins," he urged. "A week or +two after we settle, things will get back to their old state." + +"Where's your backbone, Bender?" I exploded. "If you had your +way, those fellows would run the whole business. You have no +sense of dignity. And yet you were born in America." + +I was always accompanied by a detective + +One of the strikers was in my pay. Every morning at a fixed hour +he would call at a certain hotel, where he reported the doings of +the organization to Bender and myself. One of the things I thus +learned was that the union was hard up and constantly exacting +loans from Gussie and several other members who had +savings-bank accounts. One day, however, when the secretary +appealed to her for a further loan with which to pay fines for +arrested pickets and assist some of the neediest strikers, she flew +into a passion. "What do you want of me, murderers that you are?" +she cried, bursting into tears. + +"Haven't I done enough? Have you no hearts?" + +A minute or two later she yielded + +"Bleed me, bleed me, cruel people that you are!" she said, pointing +at her heart, as she started toward her savings bank + +I was moved. When my spy had departed I paced the floor for +some minutes. + +Then, pausing, I smilingly declared to Bender my determination to +ask the union for a committee. He was overjoyed and shook my +hand solemnly + +One of my bookkeepers was to communicate with the strike +committee in the afternoon. Two hours before the time set for +their meeting I saw in one of the afternoon papers an interview +with the president of the union. His statements were so unjust to +me, I thought, and so bitter, that the fighting blood was again up +in my veins + +But the image of Gussie giving her hard-earned money to help the +strikers haunted me. The next morning I went to Atlantic City for +a few days, letting Bender "do as he pleased." The strike was +compromised, the men obtaining a partial concession of their +demands and Blitt waiving his claim to his former job + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MY business continued to grow. My consumption +of raw material reached gigantic dimensions, so much so that at +times, when I liked a pattern, I would buy up the entire output and +sell some of it to smaller manufacturers at a profit. + +Gradually I abandoned the higher grades of goods, developing my +whole business along the lines of popular prices. There are two +cloak-and-suit houses that make a specialty of costly garments. +These enjoy high reputations for taste and are the real arbiters of +fashion in this country, one of the two being known in the trade as +Little Pans; but the combined volume of business of both these +firms is much smaller than mine. + +My deals with one mill alone--the largest in the country and the +one whose head had come to my rescue when my affairs were on +the brink of a precipice--now exceeded a million dollars at a +single purchase to be delivered in seven months. The mills often +sell me at a figure considerably lower than the general market +price. They do so, first, because of the enormous quantities I buy, +and, second, because of the "boost" a fabric receives from the very +fact of being handled by my house. One day, for instance, I said to +the president of a certain mill: "I like this cloth of yours. I feel like +making a big thing of it, provided you can let me have an inside +figure." We came to terms, and I gave him an advance order for +nine thousand pieces. When smaller manufacturers and +department-store buyers heard that I had bought an immense +quantity of that pattern its success was practically established. As +a consequence, the mill was in a position to raise the price of the +cloth to others, so that it amply made up for the low figure at +which it had sold the goods to me. + +Judged by the market price of the raw material, my profit on a +garment did not exceed fifty cents. But I paid for the raw material +seventy-five cents less than the market price, so that my total +profit was one dollar and twenty-five cents. Still, there have been +instances when I lost seventy-five thousand dollars in one month +because goods fell in price or because a certain style failed to +move and I had to sell it below cost to get it out of the way. To be +sure, cheaper goods are less likely to be affected by the caprices +of style than higher grades, which is one of several reasons why I +prefer to produce garments of popular prices. + +I do not employ my entire capital in my cloak business, half of it, +or more, being invested in "quick assets." Should I need more +ready cash than I have, I could procure it at a lower rate than what +those assets bring me. I can get half a million dollars, from two +banks, without rising from my desk--by merely calling those +banks up on the telephone. For this I pay, say, three and a half or +four per cent., for I am a desirable customer at the banks; and, as +my quick assets bring me an average of five per cent., I make at +least one per cent. on the money + +Another way of making my money breed money is by early +payments to the mills. Not only can I do without their credit, but I +can afford to pay them six months in advance. This gives me an +"anticipation" allowance at the rate of six per cent. per annum, +while money costs me at the banks three or four per cent. per +annum. + +All this is good sport. + +I own considerable stock in the very mills with which I do +business, which has a certain moral effect on their relations with +my house. For a similar purpose I am a shareholder in the large +mail-order houses that buy cloaks and suits of me. I hold shares of +some department stores also, but of late I have grown somewhat +shy of this kind of investment, the future of a department store +being as uncertain as the future of the neighborhood in which it is +located. Mail-order houses, on the other hand, have the whole +country before them, and their overwhelming growth during past +years was one of the conspicuous phenomena in the business life +of the nation. I love to watch their operations spread over the map, +and I love to watch the growth of American cities, the shifting of +their shopping centers, the consequent vicissitudes, the decline of +some houses, the rise of others. American Jews of German origin +are playing a foremost part in the retail business of the country, +large or small, and our people, Russian and Galician Jews, also are +making themselves felt in it, being, in many cases, in partnership +with Gentiles or with their own coreligionists of German descent. +The king of the great mail-order business, a man with an annual +income of many millions, is the son of a Polish Jew. He is one of +the two richest Jews in America, having built up his vast fortune +in ten or fifteen years. As I have said before, I know hundreds, if +not thousands, of merchants, Jews and Gentiles, throughout this +country and Canada, so I like to keep track of their careers + +This, too, is good sport + +Of course, it is essential to study the business map in the interests +of my own establishment, but I find intellectual excitement in it as +well, and, after all, I am essentially an intellectual man, I think + +There are retailers in various sections of the country whom I have +helped financially--former buyers, for example, who went into +business on their own hook with my assistance. This is good +business, for while these merchants must be left free to buy in the +open market, they naturally give my house precedence. But here +again I must say in fairness to myself that business interest is not +the only motive that induces me to do them these favors. + +Indeed, in some cases I do it without even expecting to get my +money back. + +It gives me moral satisfaction, for which money is no measure of +value. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AM I happy? There are moments when I am overwhelmed by a +sense of my success and ease. I become aware that thousands of +things which had formerly been forbidden fruit to me are at my +command now. I distinctly recall that crushing sense of being +debarred from everything, and then I feel as though the whole +world were mine. One day I paused in front of an old East Side +restaurant that I had often passed in my days of need and despair. +The feeling of desolation and envy with which I used to peek in its +windows came back to me. It gave me pangs of self-pity for my +past and a thrilling sense of my present power. The prices that had +once been prohibitive seemed so wretchedly low now. On another +occasion I came across a Canal Street merchant of whom I used to +buy goods for my push-cart. I said to myself: "There was a time +when I used to implore this man for ten dollars' worth of goods, +when I regarded him as all-powerful and feared him. Now he +would be happy to shake hands with me." + +I recalled other people whom I used to fear and before whom I +used to humiliate myself because of my poverty. I thought of the +time when I had already entered the cloak business, but was +struggling and squirming and constantly racking my brains for +some way of raising a hundred dollars; when I would cringe with +a certain East Side banker and vainly beg him to extend a small +note of mine, and come away in a sickening state of despair + +At this moment, as these memories were filing by me, I felt as +though now there were nobody in the world who could inspire me +with awe or render me a service + +And yet in all such instances I feel a peculiar yearning for the very +days when the doors of that restaurant were closed to me and +when the Canal Street merchant was a magnate of commerce in +my estimation. Somehow, encounters of this kind leave me +dejected. The gloomiest past is dearer than the brightest present. +In my case there seems to be a special reason for feeling this way. +My sense of triumph is coupled with a brooding sense of +emptiness and insignificance, of my lack of anything like a great, +deep interest + +I am lonely. Amid the pandemonium of my six hundred +sewing-machines and the jingle of gold which they pour into my +lap I feel the deadly silence of solitude + +I spend at least one evening a week at the Benders. I am fond of +their children and I feel pleasantly at home at their house. I am a +frequent caller at the Nodelmans', and enjoy their hospitality even +more than that of the Benders. I go to the opera, to the theaters, +and to concerts, and never alone. There are merry suppers, and +some orgies in which I take part, but when I go home I suffer a +gnawing aftermath of loneliness and desolation + +I have a fine summer home, with servants, automobiles, and +horses. I share it with the Bender family and we often have +visitors from the city, but, no matter how large and gay the crowd +may be, the country makes me sad + +I know bachelors who are thoroughly reconciled to their solitude +and even enjoy it. I am not. + +No, I am not happy + +In the city I occupy a luxurious suite of rooms in a high-class hotel +and keep an excellent chauffeur and valet. I give myself every +comfort that money can buy. But there is one thing which I crave +and which money cannot buy--happiness. + +Many a pretty girl is setting her cap at me, but I know that it is +only my dollars they want to marry. Nor do I care for any of them, +while the woman to whom my heart is calling--Anna--is married +to another man + +I dream of marrying some day. I dread to think of dying a lonely +man + +Sometimes I have a spell of morbid amativeness and seem to be +falling in love with woman after woman. There are periods when I +can scarcely pass a woman in the street without scanning her face +and figure. When I see the crowds returning from work in the +cloak-and-waist district I often pause to watch the groups of girls +as they walk apart from the men. Their keeping together, as if they +formed a separate world full of its own interests and secrets, +makes a peculiar appeal to me + +Once, in Florida, I thought I was falling in love with a rich Jewish +girl whose face had a bashful expression of a peculiar type. There +are different sorts of bashfulness. This girl had the bashfulness of +sin, as I put it to myself. She looked as if her mind harbored illicit +thoughts which she was trying to conceal. Her blushes seemed to +be full of sex and her eyes full of secrets. She was not a pretty girl +at all, but her "guilty look" disturbed me as long as we were +stopping in the same place + +But through all these ephemeral infatuations and interests I am in +love with Anna + +From time to time I decide to make a "sensible" marriage, and +study this woman or that as a possible candidate, but so far +nothing has come of it + +There was one woman whom I might have married if she had not +been a Gentile--one of the very few who lived in the family hotel +in which I had my apartments. At first I set her down for an +adventuress seeking the acquaintance of rich Jews for some +sinister purpose. But I was mistaken. She was a woman of high +character. Moreover, she and her aged mother, with whom she +lived, had settled in that hotel long before it came to be patronized +by our people. She was a widow of over forty, with a good, +intellectual face, well read in the better sense of the term, and no +fool. Many of our people in the hotel danced attendance upon her +because she was a Gentile woman, but all of them were really +fond of her. The great point was that she seemed to have a sincere +liking for our people. This and the peculiar way her shoulders +would shake when she laughed was, in fact, what first drew me to +her. We grew chummy and I spent many an hour in her company + +In my soliloquies I often speculated and theorized on the question +of proposing to her. I saw clearly that it would be a mistake. It +was not the faith of my fathers that was in the way. It was that +medieval prejudice against our people which makes so many +marriages between Jew and Gentile a failure. It frightened me + +One evening we sat chatting in the bright lobby of the hotel, +discussing human nature, and she telling me something of the +good novels she had read. + +After a brief pause I said: "I enjoy these talks immensely. I don't +think there is another person with whom I so love to talk of +human beings." + +She bowed with a smile that shone of something more than mere +appreciation of the compliment. And then I uttered in the simplest +possible accents: "It's really a pity that there is the chasm of race +between us. Otherwise I don't see why we couldn't be happy +together." + +I was in an adventurous mood and ready, even eager, to marry her. +But her answer was a laugh, as if she took it for a joke; and, +though I seemed to sense intimacy and encouragement in that +laugh, it gave me pause. I felt on the brink of a fatal blunder, and I +escaped before it was too late. + +"But then," I hastened to add, "real happiness in a case like this is +perhaps not the rule, but the exception. That chasm continues to +yawn throughout the couple's married life, I suppose." + +"That's an interesting point of view," she said, a non-committal +smile on her lips + +She tactfully forbore to take up the discussion, and I soon dropped +the subject. We remained friends + +It was this woman who got me interested in good, modern fiction. +The books she selected for me interested me greatly. Then it was +that the remarks I had heard from Moissey Tevkin came to my +mind. They were illuminating + +Most of the people at my hotel are German-American Jews. I +know other Jews of this class. I contribute to their charity +institutions. Though an atheist, I belong to one of their +synagogues. Nor can I plead the special feeling which had partly +accounted for my visits at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir +while I was engaged to Kaplan's daughter. I am a member of that +synagogue chiefly because it is a fashionable synagogue. I often +convict myself of currying favor with the German Jews. But then +German-American Jews curry favor with Portuguese-American +Jews, just as we all curry favor with Gentiles and as American +Gentiles curry favor with the aristocracy of Europe + +I often long for a heart-to-heart talk with some of the people of my +birthplace. I have tried to revive my old friendships with some of +them, but they are mostly poor and my prosperity stands between +us in many ways + +Sometimes when I am alone in my beautiful apartments, brooding +over these things and nursing my loneliness, I say to myself: +"There are cases when success is a tragedy." + +There are moments when I regret my whole career, when my very +success seems to be a mistake. + +I think that I was born for a life of intellectual interest. I was +certainly brought up for one. The day when that accident turned +my mind from college to business seems to be the most +unfortunate day in my life. I think that I should be much happier +as a scientist or writer, perhaps. I should then be in my natural +element, and if I were doomed to loneliness I should have +comforts to which I am now a stranger. That's the way I feel every +time I pass the abandoned old building of the City College. + +The business world contains plenty of successful men who have no +brains. + +Why, then, should I ascribe my triumph to special ability? I should +probably have made a much better college professor than a +cloak-manufacturer, and should probably be a happier man, too. I +know people who have made much more money than I and whom +I consider my inferiors in every respect. + +Many of our immigrants have distinguished themselves in science, +music, or art, and these I envy far more than I do a billionaire. As +an example of the successes achieved by Russian Jews in America +in the last quarter of a century it is often pointed out that the man +who has built the greatest sky-scrapers in the country, including +the Woolworth Building, is a Russian Jew who came here a +penniless boy. I cannot boast such distinction, but then I have +helped build up one of the great industries of the United States, +and this also is something to be proud of. But I should readily +change places with the Russian Jew, a former Talmud student like +myself, who is the greatest physiologist in the New World, or with +the Russian Jew who holds the foremost place among American +song-writers and whose soulful compositions are sung in almost +every English-speaking house in the world. I love music to +madness. I yearn for the world of great singers, violinists, pianists. +Several of the greatest of them are of my race and country, and I +have met them, but all my acquaintance with them has brought me +is a sense of being looked down upon as a money-bag striving to +play the Maæcenas. I had a similar experience with a sculptor, +also one of our immigrants, an East Side boy who had met with +sensational success in Paris and London. I had him make my bust. +His demeanor toward me was all that could have been desired. +We even cracked Yiddish jokes together and he hummed bits of +synagogue music over his work, but I never left his studio without +feeling cheap and wretched. + +When I think of these things, when I am in this sort of mood, I pity +myself for a victim of circumstances. + +At the height of my business success I feel that if I had my life to +live over again I should never think of a business career. + +I don't seem to be able to get accustomed to my luxurious life. I am +always more or less conscious of my good clothes, of the high +quality of my office furniture, of the power I wield over the men +in my pay. As I have said in another connection, I still have a +lurking fear of restaurant waiters. + +I can never forget the days of my misery. I cannot escape from my +old self. + +My past and my present do not comport well. David, the poor lad +swinging over a Talmud volume at the Preacher's Synagogue, +seems to have more in common with my inner identity than David +Levinsky, the well-known cloak-manufacturer. + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Rise of David Levinsky, by Abraham Cahan + diff --git a/2803.zip b/2803.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..be0b8f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/2803.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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