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Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People, a novel by Israel Zangwill |
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Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto - Chapter 15. From Soul To Soul |
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_ BOOK II. THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE GHETTO CHAPTER XV. FROM SOUL TO SOUL On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. He was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies of _The Flag of Judah_ in the matter of news, his organization for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little Sampson. Fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of the _Flag_ into mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the opposition paper. The arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison. "Ah, Strelitski!" cried Raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. "What an age it is since I've seen you!" He shook the black-gloved hand of the fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden recollection. "I suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion class?" he said; "but I _have_ been so busy. My conscience has kept up a dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. You're such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the sensation, and even I can't understand why one submits to this undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one to. But I suppose it's human nature." He puffed at his pipe in humorous sadness. "I suppose it is," said Strelitski wearily. "But of course I'll come. You know that, my dear fellow. When my conscience was noisy, the _advocatus diaboli_ used to silence it by saying, 'Oh, Strelitski'll take it for granted.' You can never catch the _advocatus diaboli_ asleep," concluded Raphael, laughing. "No," assented Strelitski. But he did not laugh. "Oh!" said Raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing long. "Perhaps the prize-distribution is over?" Strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really occurred to Raphael that he might have missed the great event. But before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an event that made "copy," and little Sampson would have arranged with him as to the reporting thereof. "No; it's Sunday week. But I didn't come to talk about my religion class at all," he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. "I came to ask if you know anything about Miss Ansell." Raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly; "How should I know anything about Miss Ansell?" "I thought you would," said Strelitski, without much disappointment in his tone. "Why?" "Wasn't she your art-critic?" "Who told you that?" "Mrs. Henry Goldsmith." "Oh!" said Raphael. "I thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as I was passing, I thought I'd drop in and inquire. Hasn't anything been heard of her? Where is she? Perhaps one could help her." "I'm sorry, I really know nothing, nothing at all," said Raphael gravely. "I wish I did. Is there any particular reason why you want to know?" As he spoke, a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into his head. He had been looking the whole time at Strelitski's face with his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. Now, as in a sudden flash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. The eyes were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there was a streak or two of gray easily visible against the intense sable. What change had come over him? Why this new-born interest in Esther? Raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with distress at Strelitski's discomposure. "No; I don't know that there is any _particular_ reason why I want to know," answered his friend slowly. "She was a member of my congregation. I always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge that she was the author of that sensational novel. I think it was cruel of Mrs. Henry Goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the effervescence of genius." "Who told you Mrs. Henry Goldsmith turned her adrift?" asked Raphael hotly. "Mrs. Henry Goldsmith," said Strelitski with a slight accent of wonder. "Then it's a lie!" Raphael exclaimed, thrusting out his arms in intense agitation. "A mean, cowardly lie! I shall never go to see that woman again, unless it is to let her know what I think of her." "Ah, then you do know something about Miss Ansell?" said Strelitski, with growing surprise. Raphael in a rage was a new experience. There were those who asserted that anger was not among his gifts. "Nothing about her life since she left Mrs. Goldsmith; but I saw her before, and she told me it was her intention to cut herself adrift. Nobody knew about her authorship of the book; nobody would have known to this day if she had not chosen to reveal it." The minister was trembling. "She cut herself adrift?" he repeated interrogatively. "But why?" "I will tell you," said Raphael in low tones. "I don't think it will be betraying her confidence to say that she found her position of dependence extremely irksome; it seemed to cripple her soul. Now I see what Mrs. Goldsmith is. I can understand better what life in her society meant for a girl like that." "And what has become of her?" asked the Russian. His face was agitated, the lips were almost white. "I do not know," said Raphael, almost in a whisper, his voice failing in a sudden upwelling of tumultuous feeling. The ever-whirling wheel of journalism--that modern realization of the labor of Sisyphus--had carried him round without giving him even time to remember that time was flying. Day had slipped into week and week into month, without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken. "She is quite alone in the world, poor thing!" he said after a pause. "She must be earning her own living, somehow. By journalism, perhaps. But she prefers to live her own life. I am afraid it will be a hard one." His voice trembled again. The minister's breast, too, was laboring with emotion that checked his speech, but after a moment utterance came to him--a strange choked utterance, almost blasphemous from those clerical lips. "By God!" he gasped. "That little girl!" He turned his back upon his friend and covered his face with his hands, and Raphael saw his shoulders quivering. Then his own vision grew dim. Conjecture, resentment, wonder, self-reproach, were lost in a new and absorbing sense of the pathos of the poor girl's position. Presently the minister turned round, showing a face that made no pretence of calm. "That was bravely done," he said brokenly. "To cut herself adrift! She will not sink; strength will be given her even as she gives others strength. If I could only see her and tell her! But she never liked me; she always distrusted me. I was a hollow windbag in her eyes--a thing of shams and cant--she shuddered to look at me. Was it not so? You are a friend of hers, you know what she felt." "I don't think it was you she disliked," said Raphael in wondering pity. "Only your office." "Then, by God, she was right!" cried the Russian hoarsely. "It was this--this that made me the target of her scorn." He tore off his white tie madly as he spoke, threw it on the ground, and trampled upon it. "She and I were kindred in suffering; I read it in her eyes, averted as they were at the sight of this accursed thing! You stare at me--you think I have gone mad. Leon, you are not as other men. Can you not guess that this damnable white tie has been choking the life and manhood out of me? But it is over now. Take your pen, Leon, as you are my friend, and write what I shall dictate." Silenced by the stress of a great soul, half dazed by the strange, unexpected revelation, Raphael seated himself, took his pen, and wrote: "We understand that the Rev. Joseph Strelitski has resigned his position in the Kensington Synagogue." Not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm his soul. "But you will not do this?" he said, looking up almost incredulously at the popular minister. "I will; the position has become impossible. Leon, do you not understand? I am not what I was when I took it. I have lived, and life is change. Stagnation is death. Surely you can understand, for you, too, have changed. Cannot I read between the lines of your leaders?" "Cannot you read in them?" said Raphael with a wan smile. "I have modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but I have disguised none." "Not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought." "Perhaps I do not listen to it," said Raphael, half to himself. "But you--whatever your change--you have not lost faith in primaries?" "No; not in what I consider such." "Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good? You are loved, venerated." Strelitski placed his palms over his ears. "Don't! don't!" he cried. "Don't you be the _advocatus diaboli_! Do you think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times? Do you think I have not tried every kind of opiate? No, no, be silent if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am I not weak enough already? Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper. Saturday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday--in six days I shall change a hundred times. Swear to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended. Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel it." "But--" began Raphael. Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned. "My God!" he cried hoarsely. "Leon, listen to me," he said, turning round suddenly. "Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the _Shulcan Aruch_ (a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres." He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. "How can Judaism--and it alone--escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent--which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive--while they kill Judaism." "Oh, I can't quite admit that," said Raphael. "I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism Purified--and your own sermons are doing something to purify it--orthodoxy--" "Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words," interrupted Strelitski vehemently. "Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern." "But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. Ceremony is the casket of religion." "More often its coffin," said Strelitski drily. "Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a _rigor mortis_. It is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and Pharisees. All cast-iron laws and dogmas do. Not that I share the Christian sneer at Jewish legalism. Add the Statute Book to the New Testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the Christian. No; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy. The Mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it." "That is just the flaw of the modern world, to keep life and religion apart," protested Raphael; "to have one set of principles for week-days and another for Sundays; to grind the inexorable mechanism of supply and demand on pagan principles, and make it up out of the poor-box." Strelitski shook his head. "We must make broad our platform, not our phylacteries. It is because I am with you in admiring the Rabbis that I would undo much of their work. Theirs was a wonderful statesmanship, and they built wiser than they knew; just as the patient labors of the superstitious zealots who counted every letter of the Law preserved the text unimpaired for the benefit of modern scholarship. The Rabbis constructed a casket, if you will, which kept the jewel safe, though at the cost of concealing its lustre. But the hour has come now to wear the jewel on our breasts before all the world. The Rabbis worked for their time--we must work for ours. Judaism was before the Rabbis. Scientific criticism shows its thoughts widening with the process of the suns--even as its God, Yahweh, broadened from a local patriotic Deity to the ineffable Name. For Judaism was worked out from within--Abraham asked, 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'--the thunders of Sinai were but the righteous indignation of the developed moral consciousness. In every age our great men have modified and developed Judaism. Why should it not be trimmed into concordance with the culture of the time? Especially when the alternative is death. Yes, death! We babble about petty minutiae of ritual while Judaism is dying! We are like the crew of a sinking ship, holy-stoning the deck instead of being at the pumps. No, I must speak out; I cannot go on salving my conscience by unsigned letters to the press. Away with all this anonymous apostleship!" He moved about restlessly with animated gestures as he delivered his harangue at tornado speed, speech bursting from him like some dynamic energy which had been accumulating for years, and could no longer be kept in. It was an upheaval of the whole man under the stress of pent forces. Raphael was deeply moved. He scarcely knew how to act in this unique crisis. Dimly he foresaw the stir and pother there would be in the community. Conservative by instinct, apt to see the elements of good in attacked institutions--perhaps, too, a little timid when it came to take action in the tremendous realm of realities--he was loth to help Strelitski to so decisive a step, though his whole heart went out to him in brotherly sympathy. "Do not act so hastily," he pleaded. "Things are not so black as you see them--you are almost as bad as Miss Ansell. Don't think that I see them rosy: I might have done that three months ago. But don't you--don't all idealists--overlook the quieter phenomena? Is orthodoxy either so inefficacious or so moribund as you fancy? Is there not a steady, perhaps semi-conscious, stream of healthy life, thousands of cheerful, well-ordered households, of people neither perfect nor cultured, but more good than bad? You cannot expect saints and heroes to grow like blackberries." "Yes; but look what Jews set up to be--God's witnesses!" interrupted Strelitski. "This mediocrity may pass in the rest of the world." "And does lack of modern lights constitute ignorance?" went on Raphael, disregarding the interruption. He began walking up and down, and thrashing the air with his arms. Hitherto he had remained comparatively quiet, dominated by Strelitski's superior restlessness. "I cannot help thinking there is a profound lesson in the Bible story of the oxen who, unguided, bore safely the Ark of the Covenant. Intellect obscures more than it illumines." "Oh, Leon, Leon, you'll turn Catholic, soon!" said Strelitski reprovingly. "Not with a capital C," said Raphael, laughing a little. "But I am so sick of hearing about culture, I say more than I mean. Judaism is so human--that's why I like it. No abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of living the common life, sanctified by the centuries. Culture is all very well--doesn't the Talmud say the world stands on the breath of the school-children?--but it has become a cant. Too often it saps the moral fibre." "You have all the old Jewish narrowness," said Strelitski. "I'd rather have that than the new Parisian narrowness--the cant of decadence. Look at my cousin Sidney. He talks as if the Jew only introduced moral-headache into the world--in face of the corruptions of paganism which are still flagrant all over Asia and Africa and Polynesia--the idol worship, the abominations, the disregard of human life, of truth, of justice." "But is the civilized world any better? Think of the dishonesty of business, the self-seeking of public life, the infamies and hypocrisies of society, the prostitutions of soul and body! No, the Jew has yet to play a part in history. Supplement his Hebraism by what Hellenic ideals you will, but the Jew's ideals must ever remain the indispensable ones," said Strelitski, becoming exalted again. "Without righteousness a kingdom cannot stand. The world is longing for a broad simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer. People are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and Mahatmas. Now, for the first time in history, is the hour of Judaism. Only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive. Judaism is but a specialized form of Hebraism; even if Jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only Hebraism--the pure spiritual kernel--that they can offer the world." "But that is quite the orthodox Jewish idea on the subject," said Raphael. "Yes, but orthodox ideas have a way of remaining ideas," retorted Strelitski. "Where I am heterodox is in thinking the time has come to work them out. Also in thinking that the monotheism is not the element that needs the most accentuation. The formula of the religion of the future will be a Jewish formula--Character, not Creed. The provincial period of Judaism is over though even its Dark Ages are still lingering on in England. It must become cosmic, universal. Judaism is too timid, too apologetic, too deferential. Doubtless this is the result of persecution, but it does not tend to diminish persecution. We may as well try the other attitude. It is the world the Jewish preacher should address, not a Kensington congregation. Perhaps, when the Kensington congregation sees the world is listening, it will listen, too," he said, with a touch of bitterness. "But it listens to you now," said Raphael. "A pleasing illusion which has kept me too long in my false position. With all its love and reverence, do you think it forgets I am its hireling? I may perhaps have a little more prestige than the bulk of my fellows--though even that is partly due to my congregants being rich and fashionable--but at bottom everybody knows I am taken like a house--on a three years' agreement. And I dare not speak, I cannot, while I wear the badge of office; it would be disloyal; my own congregation would take alarm. The position of a minister is like that of a judicious editor--which, by the way, you are not; he is led, rather than leads. He has to feel his way, to let in light wherever he sees a chink, a cranny. But let them get another man to preach to them the echo of their own voices; there will be no lack of candidates for the salary. For my part, I am sick of this petty jesuitry; in vain I tell myself it is spiritual statesmanship like that of so many Christian clergymen who are silently bringing Christianity back to Judaism." "But it _is_ spiritual statesmanship," asserted Raphael. "Perhaps. You are wiser, deeper, calmer than I. You are an Englishman, I am a Russian. I am all for action, action, action! In Russia I should have been a Nihilist, not a philosopher. I can only go by my feelings, and I feel choking. When I first came to England, before the horror of Russia wore off, I used to go about breathing in deep breaths of air, exulting in the sense of freedom. Now I am stifling again. Do you not understand? Have you never guessed it? And yet I have often said things to you that should have opened your eyes. I must escape from the house of bondage--must be master of myself, of my word and thought. Oh, the world is so wide, so wide--and we are so narrow! Only gradually did the web mesh itself about me. At first my fetters were flowery bands, for I believed all I taught and could teach all I believed. Insensibly the flowers changed to iron chains, because I was changing as I probed deeper into life and thought, and saw my dreams of influencing English Judaism fading in the harsh daylight of fact. And yet at moments the iron links would soften to flowers again. Do you think there is no sweetness in adulation, in prosperity--no subtle cajolery that soothes the conscience and coaxes the soul to take its pleasure in a world of make-believe? Spiritual statesmanship, forsooth!" He made a gesture of resolution. "No, the Judaism of you English weighs upon my spirits. It is so parochial. Everything turns on finance; the United Synagogue keeps your community orthodox because it has the funds and owns the burying-grounds. Truly a dismal allegory--a creed whose strength lies in its cemeteries. Money is the sole avenue to distinction and to authority; it has its coarse thumb over education, worship, society. In my country--even in your own Ghetto--the Jews do not despise money, but at least piety and learning are the titles to position and honor. Here the scholar is classed with the _Schnorrer_; if an artist or an author is admired, it is for his success. You are right; it is oxen that carry your Ark of the Covenant--fat oxen. You admire them, Leon; you are an Englishman, and cannot stand outside it all. But I am stifling under this weight of moneyed mediocrity, this _regime_ of dull respectability. I want the atmosphere of ideas and ideals." He tore at his high clerical collar as though suffocating literally. Raphael was too moved to defend English Judaism. Besides, he was used to these jeremiads now--had he not often heard them from Sidney? Had he not read them in Esther's book? Nor was it the first time he had listened to the Russian's tirades, though he had lacked the key to the internal conflict that embittered them. "But how will you live?" he asked, tacitly accepting the situation. "You will not, I suppose, go over to the Reform Synagogue?" "That fossil, so proud of its petty reforms half a century ago that it has stood still ever since to admire them! It is a synagogue for snobs--who never go there." Raphael smiled faintly. It was obvious that Strelitski on the war-path did not pause to weigh his utterances. "I am glad you are not going over, anyhow. Your congregation would--" "Crucify me between two money-lenders?" "Never mind. But how will you live?"' "How does Miss Ansell live? I can always travel with cigars--I know the line thoroughly." He smiled mournfully. "But probably I shall go to America--the idea has been floating in my mind for months. There Judaism is grander, larger, nobler. There is room for all parties. The dead bones are not worshipped as relics. Free thought has its vent-holes--it is not repressed into hypocrisy as among us. There is care for literature, for national ideals. And one deals with millions, not petty thousands. This English community, with its squabbles about rituals, its four Chief Rabbis all in love with one another, its stupid Sephardim, its narrow-minded Reformers, its fatuous self-importance, its invincible ignorance, is but an ant-hill, a negligible quantity in the future of the faith. Westward the course of Judaism as of empire takes its way--from the Euphrates and Tigris it emigrated to Cordova and Toledo, and the year that saw its expulsion from Spain was the year of the Discovery of America. _Ex Oriente lux_. Perhaps it will return to you here by way of the Occident. Russia and America are the two strongholds of the race, and Russia is pouring her streams into America, where they will be made free men and free thinkers. It is in America, then, that the last great battle of Judaism will be fought out; amid the temples of the New World it will make its last struggle to survive. It is there that the men who have faith in its necessity must be, so that the psychical force conserved at such a cost may not radiate uselessly away. Though Israel has sunk low, like a tree once green and living, and has become petrified and blackened, there is stored-up sunlight in him. Our racial isolation is a mere superstition unless turned to great purposes. We have done nothing _as Jews_ for centuries, though our Old Testament has always been an arsenal of texts for the European champions of civil and religious liberty. We have been unconsciously pioneers of modern commerce, diffusers of folk-lore and what not. Cannot we be a conscious force, making for nobler ends? Could we not, for instance, be the link of federation among the nations, acting everywhere in favor of Peace? Could we not be the centre of new sociologic movements in each country, as a few American Jews have been the centre of the Ethical Culture movement?" "You forget," said Raphael, "that, wherever the old Judaism has not been overlaid by the veneer of Philistine civilization, we are already sociological object-lessons in good fellowship, unpretentious charity, domestic poetry, respect for learning, disrespect for respectability. Our social system is a bequest from the ancient world by which the modern may yet benefit. The demerits you censure in English Judaism are all departures from the old way of living. Why should we not revive or strengthen that, rather than waste ourselves on impracticable novelties? And in your prognostications of the future of the Jews have you not forgotten the all-important factor of Palestine?" "No; I simply leave it out of count. You know how I have persuaded the Holy Land League to co-operate with the movements for directing the streams of the persecuted towards America. I have alleged with truth that Palestine is impracticable for the moment. I have not said what I have gradually come to think--that the salvation of Judaism is not in the national idea at all. That is the dream of visionaries--and young men," he added with a melancholy smile. "May we not dream nobler dreams than political independence? For, after all, political independence is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, as it might easily become, and as it appears to other nations. To be merely one among the nations--that is not, despite George Eliot, so satisfactory an ideal. The restoration to Palestine, or the acquisition of a national centre, may be a political solution, but it is not a spiritual idea. We must abandon it--it cannot be held consistently with our professed attachment to the countries in which our lot is cast--and we have abandoned it. We have fought and slain one another in the Franco-German war, and in the war of the North and the South. Your whole difficulty with your pauper immigrants arises from your effort to keep two contradictory ideals going at once. As Englishmen, you may have a right to shelter the exile; but not as Jews. Certainly, if the nations cast us out, we could, draw together and form a nation as of yore. But persecution, expulsion, is never simultaneous; our dispersal has saved Judaism, and it may yet save the world. For I prefer the dream that we are divinely dispersed to bless it, wind-sown seeds to fertilize its waste places. To be a nation without a fatherland, yet with a mother-tongue, Hebrew--there is the spiritual originality, the miracle of history. Such has been the real kingdom of Israel in the past--we have been 'sons of the Law' as other men have been sons of France, of Italy, of Germany. Such may our fatherland continue, with 'the higher life' substituted for 'the law'--a kingdom not of space, not measured by the vulgar meteyard of an Alexander, but a great spiritual Republic, as devoid of material form as Israel's God, and congruous with his conception of the Divine. And the conquest of this kingdom needs no violent movement--if Jews only practised what they preach, it would be achieved to-morrow; for all expressions of Judaism, even to the lowest, have common sublimities. And this kingdom--as it has no space, so it has no limits; it must grow till all mankind, are its subjects. The brotherhood of Israel will be the nucleus of the brotherhood of man." "It is magnificent," said Raphael; "but it is not Judaism. If the Jews have the future you dream of, the future will have no Jews. America is already decimating them with Sunday-Sabbaths and English Prayer-Books. Your Judaism is as eviscerated as the Christianity I found in vogue when I was at Oxford, which might be summed up: There is no God, but Jesus Christ is His Son. George Eliot was right. Men are men, not pure spirit. A fatherland focusses a people. Without it we are but the gypsies of religion. All over the world, at every prayer, every Jew turns towards Jerusalem. We must not give up the dream. The countries we live in can never be more than 'step-fatherlands' to us. Why, if your visions were realized, the prophecy of Genesis, already practically fulfilled, 'Thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,' would be so remarkably consummated that we might reasonably hope to come to our own again according to the promises." "Well, well," said Strelitski, good-humoredly, "so long as you admit it is not within the range of practical politics now." "It is your own dream that is premature," retorted Raphael; "at any rate, the cosmic part of it. You are thinking of throwing open the citizenship of your Republic to the world. But to-day's task is to make its citizens by blood worthier of their privilege." "You will never do it with the old generation," said Strelitski. "My hope is in the new. Moses led the Jews forty years through the wilderness merely to eliminate the old. Give me young men, and I will move the world." "You will do nothing by attempting too much," said Raphael; "you will only dissipate your strength. For my part, I shall be content to raise Judaea an inch." "Go on, then," said Strelitski. "That will give me a barley-corn. But I've wasted too much' of your time, I fear. Good-bye. Remember your promise." He held out his hand. He had grown quite calm, now his decision was taken. "Good-bye," said Raphael, shaking it warmly. "I think I shall cable to America, 'Behold, Joseph the dreamer cometh.'" "Dreams are our life," replied Strelitski. "Lessing was right--aspiration is everything." "And yet you would rob the orthodox Jew of his dream of Jerusalem! Well, if you must go, don't go without your tie," said Raphael, picking it up, and feeling a stolid, practical Englishman in presence of this enthusiast. "It is dreadfully dirty, but you must wear it a little longer." "Only till the New Year, which is bearing down upon us," said Strelitski, thrusting it into his pocket. "Cost what it may, I shall no longer countenance the ritual and ceremonial of the season of Repentance. Good-bye again. If you should be writing to Miss Ansell, I should like her to know how much I owe her." "But I tell you I don't know her address," said Raphael, his uneasiness reawakening. "Surely you can write to her publishers?" And the door closed upon the Russian dreamer, leaving the practical Englishman dumbfounded at his never having thought of this simple expedient. But before he could adopt it the door was thrown open again by Pinchas, who had got out of the habit of knocking through Raphael being too polite to reprimand him. The poet, tottered in, dropped wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands, letting an extinct cigar-stump slip through his fingers on to the literature that carpeted the floor. "What is the matter?" inquired Raphael in alarm. "I am miserable--vairy miserable." "Has anything happened?" "Nothing. But I have been thinking vat have I come to after all these years, all these vanderings. Nothing! Vat vill be my end? Oh. I am so unhappy." "But you are better off than you ever were in your life. You no longer live amid the squalor of the Ghetto; you are clean and well dressed: you yourself admit that you can afford to give charity now. That looks as if you'd come to something--not nothing." "Yes," said the poet, looking up eagerly, "and I am famous through the vorld. _Metatoron's Flames_ vill shine eternally." His head drooped again. "I have all I vant, and you are the best man in the vorld. But I am the most miserable." "Nonsense! cheer up," said Raphael. "I can never cheer up any more. I vill shoot myself. I have realized the emptiness of life. Fame, money, love--all is Dead Sea fruit." His shoulders heaved convulsively; he was sobbing. Raphael stood by helpless, his respect for Pinchas as a poet and for himself as a practical Englishman returning. He pondered over the strange fate that had thrown him among three geniuses--a male idealist, a female pessimist, and a poet who seemed to belong to both sexes and categories. And yet there was not one of the three to whom he seemed able to be of real service. A letter brought in by the office-boy rudely snapped the thread of reflection. It contained three enclosures. The first was an epistle; the hand was the hand of Mr. Goldsmith, but the voice was the voice of his beautiful spouse. "DEAR MR. LEON: "I have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency from the ideas with which _The Flag of Judah_ was started. It is obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasize the olden features of our faith--the questions of _kosher_ meat, etc.--as forcibly as our readers desire. You no doubt cherish ideals which are neither practical nor within the grasp of the masses to whom we appeal. I fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you reluctant--in the dearth of genius and Hebrew learning--to saddle me with the task of finding a substitute, but I feel it is time for me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. I have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it might be possible for Mr. Pinchas, of whom you have always spoken so highly, to undertake the duties of editorship, Mr. Sampson remaining sub-editor as before. Of course I count on you to continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to remain in the background. "Yours sincerely, "HENRY GOLDSMITH. "P.S.--On second thoughts I beg to enclose a cheque for four guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise enclosed herewith. Your sister seconds Mrs. Goldsmith in the hope that you will do so. Our tenancy of the Manse only lasts a few weeks longer, for of course we return for the New Year holidays." This was the last straw. It was not so much the dismissal that staggered him, but to be called a genius and an idealist himself--to have his own orthodoxy impugned--just at this moment, was a rough shock. "Pinchas!" he said, recovering himself. Pinchas would not look up. His face was still hidden in his hands. "Pinchas, listen! You are appointed editor of the paper, instead of me. You are to edit the next number." Pinchas's head shot up like a catapult. He bounded to his feet, then bent down again to Raphael's coat-tail and kissed it passionately. "Ah, my benefactor, my benefactor!" he cried, in a joyous frenzy. "Now vill I give it to English Judaism. She is in my power. Oh, my benefactor!" "No, no," said Raphael, disengaging himself. "I have nothing to do with it." "But de paper--she is yours!" said the poet, forgetting his English in his excitement. "No, I am only the editor. I have been dismissed, and you are appointed instead of me." Pinchas dropped back into his chair like a lump of lead. He hung his head again and folded his arms. "Then they get not me for editor," he said moodily. "Nonsense, why not?" said Raphael, flushing. "Vat you think me?" Pinchas asked indignantly. "Do you think I have a stone for a heart like Gideon M.P. or your English stockbrokers and Rabbis? No, you shall go on being editor. They think you are not able enough, not orthodox enough--they vant me--but do not fear. I shall not accept." "But then what will become of the next number?" remonstrated Raphael, touched. "I must not edit it." "Vat you care? Let her die!" cried Pinchas, in gloomy complacency. "You have made her; vy should she survive you? It is not right another should valk in your shoes--least of all, _I_." "But I don't mind--I don't mind a bit," Raphael assured him. Pinchas shook his head obstinately. "If the paper dies, Sampson will have nothing to live upon," Raphael reminded him. "True, vairy true," said the poet, patently beginning to yield. "That alters things. Ve cannot let Sampson starve." "No, you see!" said Raphael. "So you must keep it alive." "Yes, but," said Pinchas, getting up thoughtfully, "Sampson is going off soon on tour vith his comic opera. He vill not need the _Flag_." "Oh, well, edit it till then." "Be it so," said the poet resignedly. "Till Sampson's comic-opera tour." "Till Sampson's comic-opera tour," repeated Raphael contentedly. _ |
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