Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto - Chapter 10. Esther Defies The Universe

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_ BOOK II. THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
CHAPTER X. ESTHER DEFIES THE UNIVERSE

Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. She had walked in cold sunny weather from the British Museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like ear. In her left hand she held a roll of manuscript. It contained her criticisms of the May Exhibitions. Whereby hung a tale.

In the dark days that followed the scene with Levi, Esther's resolution had gradually formed. The position had become untenable. She could no longer remain a _Schnorrer_; abusing the bounty of her benefactors into the bargain. She must leave the Goldsmiths, and at once. That was imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken the first. And yet she postponed taking the first. Once she drifted out of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future, could not be certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to Raphael to sit in judgment upon the Academy and other picture galleries that bloomed in May. At any rate, once she had severed connection with the Goldsmith circle, she would not care to renew it, even in the case of Raphael. No, it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution. Addie amused her by reading extracts from Sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to Norway the morning after the _debut_ of the new Hamlet. Esther felt that it might be as well if she stayed on to see how the drama of these two lives developed. These things she told herself in the reaction from the first impulse of instant flight.

Raphael put down his pipe at the sight of her and a frank smile of welcome shone upon his flushed face.

"This is so kind of you!" he said; "who would have thought of seeing you here? I am so glad. I hope you are well. You look better." He was wringing her little gloved hand violently as he spoke.

"I feel better, too, thank you. The air is so exhilarating. I'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living. Addie has told me of your debauches of work."

"Addie is foolish. I never felt better. Come inside. Don't be afraid of walking on the papers. They're all old."

"I always heard literary people were untidy," said Esther smiling. "_You_ must be a regular genius."

"Well, you see we don't have many ladies coming here," said Raphael deprecatingly, "though we have plenty of old women."

"It's evident you don't. Else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit."

"Never mind that now, Miss Ansell. Sit down, won't you? You must be tired. Take the editorial chair. Allow me a minute." He removed some books from it.

"Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?" She sat down. "Dear me! It's quite comfortable. You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. But where is your fighting-editor? It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? It isn't safe for me to remain in this chair."

"Oh, yes it is! We've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day," he assured her.

She looked curiously round. "Please pick up your pipe. It's going out. I don't mind smoke, indeed I don't. Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den."

Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully.

"I wonder though you don't set the place on fire," Esther rattled on, "with all this mass of inflammable matter about."

"It is very dry, most of it," he admitted, with a smile.

"Why don't you have a real fire? It must be quite cold sitting here all day. What's that great ugly picture over there?"

"That steamer! It's an advertisement."

"Heavens! What a decoration. I should like to have the criticism of that picture. I've brought you those picture-galleries, you know; that's what I've come for."

"Thank you! That's very good of you. I'll send it to the printers at once." He took the roll and placed it in a pigeon-hole, without taking his eyes off her face.

"Why don't you throw that awful staring thing away?" she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination, "and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colors hung up and put a vase of flowers on your desk. I wish I had the control of the office for a week."

"I wish you had," he said gallantly. "I can't find time to think of those things. I am sure you are brightening it up already."

The little blush on her cheek deepened. Compliment was unwonted with him; and indeed, he spoke as he felt. The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum; the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts, such as he had scarce known before. The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal.

"I hope you are speaking the truth," replied Esther with a little laugh. "You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine." She spoke in airy accents, with an undercurrent of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.

"Why, I haven't _looked_ at your manuscript yet," he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. The leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. It was but the dream of a second--the dingy walls closed round him again, the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. But the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. And when she spoke again, it was as if the music that filled the visionary glades was a reality, too.

"It's all very well your treating reproof as a jest," she said, more gravely. "Can't you see that it's false economy to risk a break-down even if you use yourself purely for others? You're looking far from well. You are overtaxing human strength. Come now, admit my sermon is just. Remember I speak not as a Pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself--a fellow-sinner." She turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him.

"I--I--don't sleep very well," he admitted, "but otherwise I assure you I feel all right."

It was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. The blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. The gentle anxious face seemed to grow angelic. Could she really care if his health gave way? Again he felt a rash of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. He was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. He wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before.

"And you used to sleep so well," said Esther, slily, remembering Addie's domestic revelations. "My stupid manuscript should come in useful."

"Oh, forgive my stupid joke!" he said remorsefully.

"Forgive mine!" she answered. "Sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. Again I speak as one who knows."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that!" he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude.

"Never mind me; I am a woman and can take care of myself. Why don't you go over to Norway and join Mr. Graham?"

"That's quite out of the question," he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. "I can't leave the paper."

"Oh, men always say that. Haven't you let your pipe go out? I don't see any smoke."

He started and laughed. "Yes, there's no more tobacco in it." He laid it down.

"No, I insist on your going on or else I shall feel uncomfortable. Where's your pouch?"

He felt all over his pockets. "It must be on the table."

She rummaged among the mass of papers. "Ha! There are your scissors'" she said scornfully, turning them up. She found the pouch in time and handed it to him. "I ought to have the management of this office for a day," she remarked again.

"Well, fill my pipe for me," he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill.

"Now you must crown your work," he said. "The matches are somewhere about."

She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire.

"They're safety matches, I think," he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe.

"But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to see _Hamlet_ in lieu of the night you disappointed us."

"Disappointed myself, you mean," he said with a retrospective consciousness of folly. "No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short."

"Then, why waste it?"

"Oh come, I can't admit I waste it," he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. "You mustn't take such material views of life." Almost in a whisper he quoted: "To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added," and went on: "Socialism is at least as important as Shakspeare."

"Socialism," she repeated. "Are you a Socialist, then?"

"Of a kind," he answered. "Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings; land nationalization and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses."

"What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?"

"It requires no seeking."

"Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found every thing in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or at least I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it."

"I hope so," he said gravely. "But have you Socialistic sympathies?"

She hesitated. As a girl she had felt the crude Socialism which is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. When the higher sphere has welcomed the Socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. Esther had gone through the second phase and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain.

"I used to be a red-hot Socialist once," she said. "To-day I doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. High thinking is compatible with the plainest living. 'The soul is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it, but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them."

The conversation had drifted into seriousness. Raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast, but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions.

"Ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory," he said. "But what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't even get the plainest living? You should just see the sights I have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. Of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations."

Esther smiled almost Imperceptibly. The idea of Raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, telling _her_ to examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed among the same scenes as his. It seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that Raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others, while she who had known both had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. Perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. Well, that would test her theories at any rate.

"Who is taking material views of life now?" she asked.

"It is by perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law that the kingdom of God is to be brought about on earth," he answered. "And in spirit, orthodox Judaism is undoubtedly akin to Socialism." His enthusiasm set him pacing the room as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill.

Esther shook her head. "Well, give me Shakspeare," she said. "I had rather see _Hamlet_ than a world of perfect prigs." She laughed at the oddity of her own comparison and added, still smiling: "Once upon a time I used to think Shakspeare a fraud. But that was merely because he was an institution. It is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis."

"Perhaps you will find the Bible turn out like that," he said hopefully.

"I _have_ found it. Within the last few months I have read it right through again--Old and New. It is full of sublime truths, noble apophthegms, endless touches of nature, and great poetry. Our tiny race may well be proud of having given humanity its greatest as well as its most widely circulated books. Why can't Judaism take a natural view of things and an honest pride in its genuine history, instead of building its synagogues on shifting sand?"

"In Germany, later in America, the reconstruction of Judaism has been attempted in every possible way; inspiration has been sought not only in literature, but in archaeology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. You see your scepticism is not even original." He smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. His complacency grated upon her. She jumped up. "We always seem to get into religion, you and I," she said. "I wonder why. It is certain we shall never agree. Mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but I cannot help feeling Mr. Graham is right when he points out its limitations. Where would the art of the world be if the second Commandment had been obeyed? Is there any such thing as an absolute system of morality? How is it the Chinese have got on all these years without religion? Why should the Jews claim the patent in those moral ideas which you find just as well in all the great writers of antiquity? Why--?" she stopped suddenly, seeing his smile had broadened.

"Which of all these objections am I to answer?" he asked merrily. "Some I'm sure you don't mean."

"I mean all those you can't answer. So please don't try. After all, you're not a professional explainer of the universe, that I should heckle you thus."

"Oh, but I set up to be," he protested.

"No, you don't. You haven't called me a blasphemer once. I'd better go before you become really professional. I shall be late for dinner."

"What nonsense! It is only four o'clock," he pleaded, consulting an old-fashioned silver watch.

"As late as that!" said Esther in horrified tones. "Good-bye! Take care to go through my 'copy' in case any heresies have filtered into it."

"Your copy? Did you give it me?" he inquired.

"Of course I did. You took it from me. Where did you put it? Oh, I hope you haven't mixed it up with those papers. It'll be a terrible task to find it," cried Esther excitedly.

"I wonder if I could have put it in the pigeon-hole for 'copy,'" he said. "Yes! what luck!"

Esther laughed heartily. "You seem tremendously surprised to find anything in its right place."

The moment of solemn parting had come, yet she found herself laughing on. Perhaps she was glad to find the farewell easier than she had foreseen, it had certainly been made easier by the theological passage of arms, which brought out all her latent antagonism to the prejudiced young pietist. Her hostility gave rather a scornful ring to the laugh, which ended with a suspicion of hysteria.

"What a lot of stuff you've written," he said. "I shall never be able to get this into one number."

"I didn't intend you should. It's to be used in instalments, if it's good enough. I did it all in advance, because I'm going away."

"Going away!" he cried, arresting himself in the midst of an inhalation of smoke. "Where?"

"I don't know," she said wearily.

He looked alarm and interrogation.

"I am going to leave the Goldsmiths," she said. "I haven't decided exactly what to do next."

"I hope you haven't quarrelled with them."

"No, no, not at all. In fact they don't even know I am going. I only tell you in confidence. Please don't say anything to anybody. Good-bye. I may not come across you again. So this may be a last good-bye." She extended her hand; he took it mechanically.

"I have no right to pry into your confidence," he said anxiously, "but you make me very uneasy." He did not let go her hand, the warm touch quickened his sympathy. He felt he could not part with her and let her drift into Heaven knew what. "Won't you tell me your trouble?" he went on. "I am sure it is some trouble. Perhaps I can help you. I should be so glad if you would give me the opportunity."

The tears struggled to her eyes, but she did not speak. They stood in silence, with their hands still clasped, feeling very near to each other, and yet still so far apart.

"Cannot you trust me?" he asked. "I know you are unhappy, but I had hoped you had grown cheerfuller of late. You told me so much at our first meeting, surely you might trust me yet a little farther."

"I have told you enough," she said at last "I cannot any longer eat the bread of charity; I must go away and try to earn my own living."

"But what will you do?"

"What do other girls do? Teaching, needlework, anything. Remember, I'm an experienced teacher and a graduate to boot." Her pathetic smile lit up the face with tremulous tenderness.

"But you would be quite alone in the world," he said, solicitude vibrating in every syllable.

"I am used to being quite alone in the world."

The phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning.

"But suppose you fail?"

"If I fail--" she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug. It was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of Moses Ansell; only his was the shrug of faith in Providence, hers of despair. It filled Raphael's heart with deadly cold and his soul with sinister forebodings. The pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable.

"No, no, this must not be!" he cried, and his hand gripped hers fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force. He was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing profound and novel emotions. Their eyes met; in one and the same instant the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose to play the woman he was hers, and life a Paradisian dream. The sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire. But the next instant she was chilled as by a gray cold fog. The realities of things came back, a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. Who was she to aspire to such a match? Had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than that? The _Schnorrer's_ daughter setting her cap at the wealthy Oxford man, forsooth! What would people say? And what would they say if they knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion to pitch a tale of woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook momentarily for love? The image of Levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude view be right? Suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? Knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing. Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.

"What right, have you to say it must not be?" she inquired haughtily. "Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to protect me or to help me?"

"No--I--I--only mean--" he stammered in infinite distress, feeling himself somehow a blundering brute.

"Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the worst that life can offer. I can stand alone, yes, and face the whole world. Perhaps you don't know that I wrote _Mordecai Josephs_, the book you burlesqued so mercilessly!"

"_You_ wrote it!"

"Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I wrote it and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out 'The picture is false,' I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going to cut myself free. From them and from you and all your petty prejudices and interests. Good-bye, for ever."

She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true colors at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.

The editor of _The Flag of Judah_ stood for some minutes as if petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started reading _Mordecai Josephs_, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passage suffused his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences; he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How blind he had been! How could he have missed seeing? Esther stared at him from every page. She was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero, too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the masculine. The whole book was Esther, the whole Esther and nothing but Esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of Esther's soul against mean and evil things. He turned to the great love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting further than the chapter. _

Read next: Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto: Chapter 11. Going Home

Read previous: Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto: Chapter 9. The Flag Flutters

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