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Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People, a novel by Israel Zangwill |
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Book 1. Children Of The Ghetto - Chapter 21. The Jargon Players |
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_ BOOK I. CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO CHAPTER XXI. THE JARGON PLAYERS "No, don't stop me, Pinchas," said Gabriel Hamburg. "I'm packing up, and I shall spend my Passover in Stockholm. The Chief Rabbi there has discovered a manuscript which I am anxious to see, and as I have saved up a little money I shall speed thither." "Ah, he pays well, that boy-fool, Raphael Leon," said Pinchas, emitting a lazy ring of smoke. "What do you mean?" cried Gabriel, flushing angrily. "Do you mean, perhaps, that _you_ have been getting money out of him?" "Precisely. That is what I _do_ mean," said the poet naively. "What else?" "Well, don't let me hear you call him a fool. He _is_ one to send you money, but then it is for others to call him so. That boy will be a great man in Israel. The son of rich English Jews--a Harrow-boy, yet he already writes Hebrew almost grammatically." Pinchas was aware of this fact: had he not written to the lad (in response to a crude Hebrew eulogium and a crisp Bank of England note): "I and thou are the only two people in England who write the Holy Tongue grammatically." He replied now: "It is true; soon he will vie with me and you." The old scholar took snuff impatiently. The humors of Pinchas were beginning to pall upon him. "Good-bye," he said again. "No, wait, yet a little," said Pinchas, buttonholing him resolutely. "I want to show you my acrostic on Simon Wolf; ah! I will shoot him, the miserable labor-leader, the wretch who embezzles the money of the Socialist fools who trust him. Aha! it will sting like Juvenal, that acrostic." "I haven't time," said the gentle savant, beginning to lose his temper. "Well, have I time? I have to compose a three-act comedy by to-morrow at noon. I expect I shall have to sit up all night to get it done in time." Then, anxious to complete the conciliation of the old snuff-and-pepper-box, as he mentally christened him for his next acrostic, he added: "If there is anything in this manuscript that you cannot decipher or understand, a letter to me, care of Reb Shemuel, will always find me. Somehow I have a special genius for filling up _lacunae_ in manuscripts. You remember the famous discovery that I made by rewriting the six lines torn out of the first page of that Midrash I discovered in Cyprus." "Yes, those six lines proved it thoroughly," sneered the savant. "Aha! You see!" said the poet, a gratified smile pervading his dusky features. "But I must tell you of this comedy--it will be a satirical picture (in the style of Moliere, only sharper) of Anglo-Jewish Society. The Rev. Elkan Benjamin, with his four mistresses, they will all be there, and Gideon, the Man-of-the-Earth, M.P.,--ah, it will be terrible. If I could only get them to see it performed, they should have free passes." "No, shoot them first; it would be more merciful. But where is this comedy to be played?" asked Hamburg curiously. "At the Jargon Theatre, the great theatre in Prince's Street, the only real national theatre in England. The English stage--Drury Lane--pooh! It is not in harmony with the people; it does not express them." Hamburg could not help smiling. He knew the wretched little hall, since tragically famous for a massacre of innocents, victims to the fatal cry of fire--more deadly than fiercest flame. "But how will your audience understand it?" he asked. "Aha!" said the poet, laying his finger on his nose and grinning. "They will understand. They know the corruptions of our society. All this conspiracy to crush me, to hound me out of England so that ignoramuses may prosper and hypocrites wax fat--do you think it is not the talk of the Ghetto? What! Shall it be the talk of Berlin, of Constantinople, of Mogadore, of Jerusalem, of Paris, and here it shall not be known? Besides, the leading actress will speak a prologue. Ah! she is beautiful, beautiful as Lilith, as the Queen of Sheba, as Cleopatra! And how she acts! She and Rachel--both Jewesses! Think of it! Ah, we are a great people. If I could tell you the secrets of her eyes as she looks at me--but no, you are dry as dust, a creature of prose! And there will be an orchestra, too, for Pesach Weingott has promised to play the overture on his fiddle. How he stirs the soul! It is like David playing before Saul." "Yes, but it won't be javelins the people will throw," murmured Hamburg, adding aloud: "I suppose you have written the music of this overture." "No, I cannot write music," said Pinchas. "Good heavens! You don't say so?" gasped Gabriel Hamburg. "Let that be my last recollection of you! No! Don't say another word! Don't spoil it! Good-bye." And he tore himself away, leaving the poet bewildered. "Mad! Mad!" said Pinchas, tapping his brow significantly; "mad, the old snuff-and-pepper-box." He smiled at the recollection of his latest phrase. "These scholars stagnate so. They see not enough of the women. Ha! I will go and see my actress." He threw out his chest, puffed out a volume of smoke, and took his way to Petticoat Lane. The compatriot of Rachel was wrapping up a scrag of mutton. She was a butcher's daughter and did not even wield the chopper, as Mrs. Siddons is reputed to have flourished the domestic table-knife. She was a simple, amiable girl, who had stepped into the position of lead in the stock jargon company as a way of eking out her pocket-money, and because there was no one else who wanted the post. She was rather plain except when be-rouged and be-pencilled. The company included several tailors and tailoresses of talent, and the low comedian was a Dutchman who sold herrings. They all had the gift of improvisation more developed than memory, and consequently availed themselves of the faculty that worked easier. The repertory was written by goodness knew whom, and was very extensive. It embraced all the species enumerated by Polonius, including comic opera, which was not known to the Danish saw-monger. There was nothing the company would not have undertaken to play or have come out of with a fair measure of success. Some of the plays were on Biblical subjects, but only a minority. There were also plays in rhyme, though Yiddish knows not blank verse. Melchitsedek accosted his interpretess and made sheep's-eyes at her. But an actress who serves in a butcher's shop is doubly accustomed to such, and being busy the girl paid no attention to the poet, though the poet was paying marked attention to her. "Kiss me, thou beauteous one, the gems of whose crown are foot-lights," said the poet, when the custom ebbed for a moment. "If thou comest near me," said the actress whirling the chopper, "I'll chop thy ugly little head off." "Unless thou lendest me thy lips thou shalt not play in my comedy," said Pinchas angrily. "_My_ trouble!" said the leading lady, shrugging her shoulders. Pinchas made several reappearances outside the open shop, with his insinuative finger on his nose and his insinuative smile on his face, but in the end went away with a flea in his ear and hunted up the actor-manager, the only person who made any money, to speak of, out of the performances. That gentleman had not yet consented to produce the play that Pinchas had ready in manuscript and which had been coveted by all the great theatres in the world, but which he, Pinchas, had reserved for the use of the only actor in Europe. The result of this interview was that the actor-manager yielded to Pinchas's solicitations, backed by frequent applications of poetic finger to poetic nose. "But," said the actor-manager, with a sudden recollection, "how about the besom?" "The besom!" repeated Pinchas, nonplussed for once. "Yes, thou sayest thou hast seen all the plays I have produced. Hast thou not noticed that I have a besom in all my plays?" "Aha! Yes, I remember," said Pinchas. "An old garden-besom it is," said the actor-manager. "And it is the cause of all my luck." He took up a house-broom that stood in the corner. "In comedy I sweep the floor with it--so--and the people grin; in comic-opera I beat time with it as I sing--so--and the people laugh; in farce I beat my mother-in-law with it--so--and the people roar; in tragedy I lean upon it--so--and the people thrill; in melodrama I sweep away the snow with it--so--and the people burst into tears. Usually I have my plays written beforehand and the authors are aware of the besom. Dost thou think," he concluded doubtfully, "that thou hast sufficient ingenuity to work in the besom now that the play is written?" Pinchas put his finger to his nose and smiled reassuringly. "It shall be all besom," he said. "And when wilt thou read it to me?" "Will to-morrow this time suit thee?" "As honey a bear." "Good, then!" said Pinchas; "I shall not fail." The door closed upon him. In another moment it reopened a bit and he thrust his grinning face through the aperture. "Ten per cent. of the receipts!" he said with his cajoling digito-nasal gesture. "Certainly," rejoined the actor-manager briskly. "After paying the expenses--ten per cent. of the receipts." "Thou wilt not forget?" "I shall not forget." Pinchas strode forth into the street and lit a new cigar in his exultation. How lucky the play was not yet written! Now he would be able to make it all turn round the axis of the besom. "It shall be all besom!" His own phrase rang in his ears like voluptuous marriage bells. Yes, it should, indeed, be all besom. With that besom he would sweep all his enemies--all the foul conspirators--in one clean sweep, down, down to Sheol. He would sweep them along the floor with it--so--and grin; he would beat time to their yells of agony--so--and laugh; he would beat them over the heads--so--and roar; he would lean upon it in statuesque greatness--so--and thrill; he would sweep away their remains with it--so--and weep for joy of countermining and quelling the long persecution. All night he wrote the play at railway speed, like a night express--puffing out volumes of smoke as he panted along. "I dip my pen in their blood," he said from time to time, and threw back his head and laughed aloud in the silence of the small hours. Pinchas had a good deal to do to explain the next day to the actor-manager where the fun came in. "Thou dost not grasp all the allusions, the back-handed slaps, the hidden poniards; perhaps not," the author acknowledged. "But the great heart of the people--it will understand." The actor-manager was unconvinced, but he admitted there was a good deal of besom, and in consideration of the poet bating his terms to five per cent. of the receipts he agreed to give it a chance. The piece was billed widely in several streets under the title of "The Hornet of Judah," and the name of Melchitsedek Pinchas appeared in letters of the size stipulated by the finger on the nose. But the leading actress threw up her part at the last moment, disgusted by the poet's amorous advances; Pinchas volunteered to play the part himself and, although his offer was rejected, he attired himself in skirts and streaked his complexion with red and white to replace the promoted second actress, and shaved off his beard. But in spite of this heroic sacrifice, the gods were unpropitious. They chaffed the poet in polished Yiddish throughout the first two acts. There was only a sprinkling of audience (most of it paper) in the dimly-lit hall, for the fame of the great writer had not spread from Berlin, Mogadore, Constantinople and the rest of the universe. No one could make head or tail of the piece with its incessant play of occult satire against clergymen with four mistresses, Rabbis who sold their daughters, stockbrokers ignorant of Hebrew and destitute of English, greengrocers blowing Messianic and their own trumpets, labor-leaders embezzling funds, and the like. In vain the actor-manager swept the floor with the besom, beat time with the besom, beat his mother-in-law with the besom, leaned on the besom, swept bits of white paper with the besom. The hall, empty of its usual crowd, was fuller of derisive laughter. At last the spectators tired of laughter and the rafters re-echoed with hoots. At the end of the second act, Melchitsedek Pinchas addressed the audience from the stage, in his ample petticoats, his brow streaming with paint and perspiration. He spoke of the great English conspiracy and expressed his grief and astonishment at finding it had infected the entire Ghetto. There was no third act. It was the poet's first--and last--appearance on any stage. _ |
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