Chapter I: WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few (2)

“You see,” he said, “I was prepared for you. Here is your couch, ready for your reception. It’s rather odd about this. I’m a great hand for presentiments: and experience has taught me to believe in their coming true. When I took these quarters I said to myself, ‘Pythias, the Damon you have been waiting for all these years will arrive while you are bivouacked here. Be therefore in a condition to welcome him properly.’ I don’t know why, but I was thoroughly persuaded, I felt in my bones, that Damon’s advent would occur during my occupancy of these rooms. So I bought two bedsteads and two dressing-stands instead of one. I have got the heroes of the old legend somewhat mixed up; can’t remember which was which: but I trust I’m not egotistic in assigning the part of Damon to you and keeping that of Pythias for myself. At any rate, it’s a mere figure of speech, and as such must be taken. Now, Damon or Pythias, whichever you may be, in begging you to make yourself comfortable here, I am simply inviting you to partake of your own.”

As he rattled on thus, he had produced sheets and blankets from a chest of drawers near at hand, and now was making the bed with the deftness of an expert.

“There,” he exclaimed, bestowing a farewell poke upon the pillow, “now go to bed with a clear conscience and a mind at peace. I shall speedily follow. In the morning—I mean in the afternoon—we will resume our session.”

He had the delicacy to leave me alone. I was too fatigued to reason about what I was doing. I undressed quickly, got into bed, and fell sound asleep.

The sunlight was streaming through the window when I awoke. Merivale was seated upon the foot of the bed.

“Ah,” he cried, as I opened my eyes, “welcome back!”

“Eh, how?” I queried, perplexed for the moment. “Oh yes; I remember. Have I been asleep long?”

“So long that I thought you were never going to wake up. It’s past four in the afternoon, and you have been sleeping steadily since six this morning. I had the utmost hardship in subduing my impatience. Ten solid hours of sleep! You must have been thoroughly exhausted.”

“You ought to have roused me. One can gorge one’s system with sleep as easily as with food. I have slept too much. But—but how shall I ever make amends at the shop?”

“Bother the shop! The shop no longer exists. I have caused its annihilation during the day.”

“Have you Aladdin’s lamp?

“I have a substitute for it, at least. The shop has been transported to Alaska.”

“That was unkind of you. Now I shall have to undergo the expense of a journey thither. Besides, I prefer a more temperate climate.—But seriously, did you send word as you agreed to?”

“I saw Herr Schwartz personally.”

“Ah, that was very thoughtful. Did you succeed in appeasing him?”

“I told him that you wished to resign your position; and when he began to splutter, I added that in consideration of the trouble he would be put to, you were willing to forgive him whatever back pay he owed you; and when he declared that he owed you no back pay at all, I said you would be willing to forgive him any way on general principles, and think no more about it. Then I ordered beer and cigars and pronounced the magic syllable ‘selbst’ and in the end he appeared quite reconciled.”

“Nonsense. Be serious. What did you say?”

“I am serious. That is what I said precisely.”

“What, you—oh come, you can’t be in earnest.”

“But I assure you I am in earnest, never was more in earnest in my life. You don’t really imagine that I am going to let you ‘stand and wait’ any longer, do you?”

“I don’t very clearly see how you are going to prevent it. I have my livelihood to earn. I can’t afford to throw up my employment in the cavalier manner you propose. It’s ridiculous.”

“I can prevent it and I will prevent it. How? By the power of friendship, by appealing to your heart and to your reason. As for your livelihood, I have found you a new occupation, one more befitting your character. Henceforward you are to be a private secretary.”

“Whose private secretary?”

“Never mind whose—or rather, you will learn whose, presently. First, accustom your mind to the abstract idea.”

“Really, Merivale, you are outrageous. I don’t know why I’m not indignant. You meddle with my affairs as if they were your own. You have no right to do so. And yet I am not angry. I must be totally devoid of spunk. But nevertheless I shan’t abide by your proceedings. As soon as I am dressed I shall return to the shop and beg Herr Schwartz to take me back.”

“I forbid it.”

“I am sorry, but I must defy your prohibition. By the way, may I inquire your authority?”

“Certainly. It is every man’s authority to restrain a lunatic. Your notion of returning to that wine-shop is downright lunacy. Besides, have I not provided you with new employment?”

“But it is a sort of employment which I don’t wish to undertake. I prefer work that will leave my mind disengaged. You ought to understand that in my position one has no heart for any but manual labor.”

“I think I understand perfectly, better indeed than you yourself. I understand that while the first shock of your grief lasted it was natural for you to take up the first employment that you chanced upon, no matter what it was. But I understand now that it is high time for you to come back to your proper level. An occupation which leaves your mind disengaged is precisely the very worst you could have. With all appreciation of the magnitude of your bereavement, and with all reverence for your fidelity to your betrothed, I say that it is wrong of you to brood over your troubles. I am not brute enough to advise you to court oblivion; but a grief loses its dignity, becomes a species of egotism, by constantly brooding over it. It is our duty in this world to accept the inevitable with the best grace possible, and to make ourselves as comfortable as under the circumstances we can. But over and above that consideration there is this, that no man has a right to do work that is unworthy of him. It degrades himself and it robs society. Every man is bound to do his best work, to accomplish his highest usefulness. What would you say of a Newton who had abandoned mathematics to drive a plow? You are as much subject to the general moral law as the rest of us. You were sent into this world to contribute your quota to the sum of human happiness; and your art was permitted you only on the condition that you should cultivate it for the benefit of your fellow creatures. And yet, you propose to do the business of a common waiter in a wretched little brasserie. Now, I won’t urge you to return to music forthwith, because I know you suffer too keenly while you are playing. But I will say: Remember that you are a gentleman and that you are actually stealing from society by doing that which your inferiors could do as well. For the present, accept the situation of private secretary that I have procured for you. It will be a stepping-stone toward your proper place. You see, I can be a preacher on occasions.

“And your sermon, I confess, is a wholesome one.”

“Then you will consider the secretaryship?

“I will consider whatever you wish me to. I will be guided by your common sense.”

“Good! Now get up and dress.”

He left the room. As I dressed I thought over the sermon he had preached. I could not gainsay its truth. Yet on the other hand I could not contemplate a changed mode of life without flinching. Two years of moral illness had undermined my moral courage. I wondered who my new employer was to be. I dreaded meeting him not a little. Thinking over the confidences of the night, I experienced no regret. Indeed I was glad to realize that I was no longer altogether alone in the world. Merivale had inspired me with an enthusiasm.

“What a splendid fellow he is!” I exclaimed.

“If he and I could only remain together I believe I should find my life worth living. It is marvelous, the faculty he has for making me forget myself. I suppose it is due to his animal spirits, his healthy temperament. He is as vigorous and bracing as a whiff of the west wind full in one’s face.”

I had never had a friend before. I relished my first taste of friendship.

Meantime I was preparing my toilet. In the midst of it Merivale came into the room.

“I suppose you know who your future master is to be?” he asked.

“No—how should I know?”

“Oh, you obtuse blockhead! You————”

“It isn’t—you don’t mean to say—” I began, a suspicion of the truth dawning upon me.

“Exactly! That is the precise sum and substance of what I mean to say. I mean to say that I’m in need of somebody to help me in certain work that I’m doing. The need is a real one, not an artificial one trumped up for the occasion. I have plenty of cash and am ready to pay what is just for my assistant’s time. You on the other hand are looking about fora means of subsistence. At the same time, luckily, you are just the person to suit my purpose. Hence, as a pure matter of business, I say, Shall we strike a bargain? You are going to be sensible and answer, Yes. Wherefore it only remains for me to explain the nature of the work and thus to convince you that you are not going to draw the salary of a sinecure.”

“If this is really true,” I said, “I can’t help telling you that nothing could make me happier. If I can really be of service to you, and if we can really arrange to keep as closely together as such work would bring us, why, my contentment will be greater than I can say.”

“Then come into the next room and judge for yourself.”

We passed into the sitting-room. Merivale drew up to a table near the window and taking a pen in his hand said, “Look.”

He tried the pen’s nib upon the nail of his thumb, dipped it into an inkstand, and applied it to a blank sheet of paper. Then his fingers began to work laboriously to and fro, with the result of tracing a scarcely legible scrawl. One could, however, by dint of taxing the imagination, make out these words: “Good friend, to end all doubt about the present matter, learn by this that a penman’s palsy shakes my fist, and furthermore, that I inherit a lamentable tendency to gout in the wrist.”

“Scrivener’s palsy and gout combined,” he added verbally, “and yet I am going to publish a volume of poems in the spring. They’re all down on paper, but no one can decipher them except myself; and if I should be carried off some day unexpectedly, think what the world would lose! My idea is to dictate them to you. We will work from nine till one every day, and devote the rest of our time to relaxation.”

“But you take my handwriting for granted,” I interposed.

“I think I am safe in doing so,” he replied. “But give me a sample.”

I wrote off a few words.

“Capital!” was his comment. “Now about the compensation.”

I had to haggle with my generous friend and to beat him down half of his original offer. My stipend settled, “I admit,” said he, “that I am ravenously hungry. Suppose we dine?”

We adjourned to Moretti’s. During the dinner we discussed our future. He said he was constantly writing new matter and therefore our contract would not terminate with the completion of the particular MS. in question. “Ah, what good times we are going to enjoy!” he cried. “We are perfectly companionable! There is nothing so satisfactory, nothing so productive of bien être, as friendship, after all.”

Dinner over, we strolled arm in arm through the streets. For the first time in two years I began to feel that the world was not quite a ruin. At home we talked till late into the night. And when I went to bed it was to lie awake for hours and hours, congratulating myself upon my newly discovered friend.

IX.

ON the morrow morning our régime was inaugurated: and thenceforward we kept it up regularly. From nine till one I wrote at his dictation. The task was by no means irksome.

I enjoyed my friend’s poetry: and besides, we varied the business with frequent interruptions for conversation and cigarettes. Merivale taught me to smoke—a vice, if it be a vice, from which I have since derived no little solace. At one o’clock our luncheon was served up to us by the lady of the house: and the remainder of the day we employed as best suited our fancy. Sometimes we would take turns at reading aloud. In this way we read much of Browning and Rossetti, two poets till then total strangers to me. Sometimes we would saunter about the lower quarters of the city. Merivale never tired of the glimpses these excursions afforded into the life of the common people. He maintained that New York was the most picturesque city in the world, “thanks,” he said, “to the presence of your people, the Jews.” Sometimes we would visit the picture galleries, where my friend initiated me into the enjoyment of a new art. Musician-like, I had theretofore cared little and understood nothing about painting. Merivale was fond of quoting the German dictum, “Das Sehen mussgelernt sein!”—it was all the German he knew—and now he taught me to see.

I was in precisely the mood to appreciate this altered mode of existence to the utmost. At Merivale’s touch the pain that for two years had been as a lump in my throat was dissolved and diffused, tinging my life with melancholy instead of consuming it with sullen, unremitting fever.

“The scowl,” declared my friend, “the scowl is merging into a smile of sadness. ‘Tis a hopeful sign. By and by your cure will be established. You have had a cancer, as it were. We have succeeded in scattering the virus through the system. Now we will proceed to its total eradication. I don’t know whether that is the course medical men in general pursue: but it sounds plausible, and I’m sure it’s the proper one for the present instance. Of course I don’t expect you ever to rejoice in that unalloyed buoyancy of spirits which distinguishes your servant: but you will become cheerful and contented; and the Italians say, ‘Whoso is contented is happy.’.rdquo;

It seemed as if his predictions were being verified. Though at no time did I cease to think of Veronika, though at no time did I become insensible of the loss I had sustained, still the fact was that I commenced to take an interest in what went on around me, commenced in a certain sense to extract pleasure from my circumstances.

“You have been a dreadful egotist,” said Merivale, “profoundly self-absorbed. It was inevitable that you should be for a while. But there is no excuse for you to be so any longer. A purely selfish sorrow is as much a self-indulgence as a purely selfish joy, and has as little dignity. It dwarfs, enervates, demoralizes the soul: a platitude which you would do well to memorize.”

At first I had hesitated to try a second experiment with the violin: yet the very motive of my hesitancy—namely, the recollection of how my feelings had got the best of me the last time—acted also as a temptation. One day while Merivale was absent I tuned his Stradivari, and with much the sensation of a fledgling launched upon a perilous and uncertain flight, let my right arm have its way. The result was encouraging. I determined that henceforward I should practice regularly. The music brought me near to Veronika, and now I could endure this nearness without quailing. Though it was by no means destitute of pain, somehow the very pain was a luxury. Henceforth not a day passed without my dedicating several hours to the violin. Merivale, as he had put it, “scraped a little.” He had put it too modestly. He had already learned to read with remarkable facility; and instruction profited him to such a degree that he was soon able to sustain a very accurate second. So when we were at loss for another occupation we would while the hours away with Schubert’s songs.

We spent most of our evenings in-doors, chatting at the fireside. Sometimes Merivale would take himself off to pay a visit in the town. Then I would invariably fall to marveling at the change he had wrought in my life. “It is certain,” I said, “that Destiny holds some happiness still in store for you.” I was mistaken. Destiny was simply granting me a momentary respite—drawing off, preparatory to delivering her final culminating blow.

One night Merivale came home late. I, indeed, had already gone to bed. He roused me by lighting the gas and crying, “Wake up, wake up; I have something of the utmost importance to communicate.”

“Is the house afire?” I demanded, startled. “No; the house is all right. But rub your eyes and open your ears. Do you know Dr. Rodolph?”

“The musical director?”

“The same.”

“Of course I know him by reputation. Do you mean personally? Why do you ask?”

“Because—but that’s the point. First you must hear my story. It’s the greatest stroke of luck that mortal ever had.”

“Well, go ahead.”

“I’m going ahead as rapidly as I can; only I’m so excited I hardly know where to begin. I’ve actually run on foot all the way home. I couldn’t wait for the horse-car, I was in such a hurry to announce your good fortune. I’m rather out of breath.”

“Take your time, then. I possess my soul in patience.”

“Well, here’s the amount of it.—You see, Dr. Rodolph is a friend of mine, and this evening I thought I would call upon him. The thought proved to be a happy one, a veritable inspiration. I arrived just in the nick of time. We hadn’t more than seated ourselves in the drawing-room when the door-bell rang. Martha, the doctor’s daughter, went to answer it; and presently back she came bearing a note for her father. The doctor took it and asked permission to read it and broke it open. You know what a nervous little man he is. Well, the next moment he began to grow red, and his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashed fire, and then he crumpled up the paper and stamped his foot and uttered a tremendous imprecation.”

“Oh, pray, don’t stop,” I said, as he paused for breath. “Your narrative becomes thrilling.”

“Well, sir,” resumed Merivale, “I got quite alarmed. I rushed up to the doctor’s side and ‘For mercy’s sake, what’s the matter—no bad news, I hope,’ said I. ‘Bad news?’ says he, ‘I should think it was bad news,’ giving his mane a toss. ‘To-day is Friday, isn’t it? To-day we had our public rehearsal. To-morrow night we have our concert. Good. Well, now at the eleventh hour what happens? Why, the soloist sends word that “a sudden indisposition will make it impossible for him to keep his engagement.” Ugh! I hope it is an apoplexy, but I’m afraid it s nothing more nor less than rum. The advertisements are all in the papers; the programme is arranged on the assumption that he is to play; and now, late as it is, I shall have to start out in search of a substitute.’ ‘Hold on a minute, doctor,’ said I. ‘What instrument did your soloist intend to play?’ ‘The violin,’ says the doctor. ‘Hurrah!’ I rejoined, ‘then you need seek no further!’ ‘What do you mean?’ asked he. ‘This,’ said I, ‘that I will supply a substitute who can take the wind all out of your delinquent’s sails.’ The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘It isn’t nonsense,’ I replied, and thereupon I told him about you—that is about your wonderful skill as a fiddler. Well, of course the doctor was disinclined to believe in you; said that excellence was not enough; the public would tolerate mere excellence in a singer or in a pianist, but when it came to violin solos, the public demanded something superlative or nothing at all; it wasn’t possible that you could be up to the mark, because he had never heard of you. Of course, if I said so, he had no doubt that you were a good musician, but he had twenty good musicians in his orchestra. A good musician wasn’t enough.—But I didn’t mean to be turned aside by this sort of obstacle. I insisted. I said I had heard Joachim and all the best players on the other side, and that you were able to give them lessons. The doctor pooh-poohed me. ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘don’t damage your friend’s chances by exaggeration. I should be only too much pleased if he should turn out to be a competent man; but you add to my incredulity when you measure him with a giant like Joachim. At any rate, I am willing to give him a trial. Bring him here to-morrow morning.’ So to-morrow morning, bright and early, we will call upon the doctor, and—and your fortune’s made!”

It required no little strength of mind to answer Merivale as I now had to.

“You’re awfully kind, old boy,” I said. “It’s extremely hard to be obliged to say no. But really, you don’t understand the level of violin playing which a soloist must come up to. And you don’t understand either what a mediocre executant I am. My technique is such that I could barely pass muster among the second violinists in Doctor Rodolph’s orchestra. It would be the height of effrontery for me to present myself before him as a would-be soloist.”

“That is a matter for the doctor, and not for you, to decide. No man can correctly estimate his own powers: you not more than the rest. All I say is, come with me to call upon him to-morrow morning and leave the consequences to his judgment.”

“You would not submit me to the humiliation of such a trial. After the extravagances you have uttered concerning me, to show myself in my own humble colors—the drop would be too great. But I may as well be entirely candid. There are other reasons, final ones. I may as well say right out that it will never be possible for me to play my violin anywhere except here, between you and me: you know why.”

The light faded from Merivale’s eyes.

“Oh, don’t say that,” he pleaded. “After the trouble I’ve taken, and after the promise I’ve made, and after the pleasure I’ve had in picturing your delight, don’t say you won’t even go to see the Doctor and give him a specimen. Don’t disappoint a fellow like that.”

I stuck out obdurately. Merivale shifted from the attitude of one who begs a favor to that of one who imposes a duty.

“Come,” he cried, “it is simply the old egotism reasserting itself. You won’t play, forsooth, because it doesn’t suit your humor. That, I say, is egotism of the worst sort. You—positively, you make me ashamed for you. It is the part of a man to perform his task manfully. What right have you, I’d like to know, what right have you to hide your light under a bushel, more than another? Simply because the practice of your art entails pain upon you, are you justified in resting idle? Why, all great work entails pain upon the worker. Raphael never would have painted his pictures, Dante never would have written his Inferno, women would never bring children into the world, if the dread of pain were sufficient to subdue courage and the sense of obligation. It is the pain which makes the endeavor heroic. I have all due respect for your feelings, Lexow; but I respect them only in so far as I believe that you are able to master them. When I see them get the upper hand and sap your manhood, then I counsel you to a serious battle with them. The excuse you offer for not wishing to play to-morrow night is a puny excuse. I will have none of it. To-morrow morning you will go with me to Doctor Rodolph’s: and if after this homily you persist in your refusal—well, you’ll know my opinion of you.”

Merivale would not listen to my protests. He got into bed and said, “Good-night. Go to sleep. No use for you to talk. I’m deaf. I’m implacable also; and to-morrow morning I shall lead you to the slaughter. Prepare to trot along becomingly at my side, lambkin. Goodnight.”

My efforts to beg off next morning were ineffectual.

“If you desire to forfeit my respect entirely,” he warned me, “persist in this sort of thing.”

I permitted myself to be dragged by the arm through the streets to Doctor Rodolph’s house.

The Doctor accorded me a skeptical welcome. Producing a composition quite unfamiliar to me, he bade me read it at sight. I made up my mind to do my best. The doctor sat in an easy chair during the first dozen bars. Then he began to move nervously about the loom. Then, before I had half finished, he cried out, “Stop—enough, enough.”

Disconcerted, I brought my bow to a standstill and exchanged a forlorn glance with Merivale.

The doctor approached and looked me quizzically over from head to foot. “Where did you study?” he inquired.

“In New York,” I answered.

“Have you ever played in public?”

“Not at any large affairs.”

“Do you teach?”

“I used to.”

“What—what did you say your name was?”

“Lexow.”

“Hum, it is odd I haven’t heard of you. Have you been in New York long?”

“All my life.”

“Oh, yes; you said you studied here. Who were your masters?”

I named them.

The doctor’s face had been inscrutable. Merivale and I had sat on pins during the inquisition. Now the doctor’s face lighted up with a genial smile.

“You will do, Mr. Lexow,” he said. “I don’t know whom to thank the more, you or Mr. Merivale. You have relieved me in a very trying emergency. Your playing is fine, though perhaps a trifle too independent, a trifle too individual, and the least tone too florid. It is odd, most odd that I should never have heard of you; but we shall all hear of you in the future.”

We agreed upon the selections for the evening. I ran them through in the doctor’s presence and listened to his suggestions. Then we bade him good-by.

That day was a trying one. It would be bootless to catalogue the conflicting thoughts and emotions that preyed upon me. I practiced my pieces thoroughly. Merivale busied himself procuring what he styled a “rig.” The rig consisted of an evening suit and its accessories. He rented one at a costumer’s on Union square. As the day drew to a close, I worried more and more. “Brace up,” cried Merivale. “Where’s your stamina? And here, swallow a glass of brandy.”

We waited in the ante-room till it was my turn to go upon the platform.

I was conscious of a glow of light and a sea of faces and a mortal stage-fright, and of little else, when finally I had taken my position. The orchestra played the preliminary bars. I had to begin. I got through the first phrase and the second. The voice of my instrument reassured me. “After all you will not make a dead failure,” I thought, and ventured to lift my eyes. Not two yards distant from me, to my right, among the first violins, sat Mr. Tikulski. His gaze was riveted upon my face.

I had anticipated about every catastrophe that could possibly befall, but strangely enough I had not anticipated this. And it was so sudden, and the emotions it occasioned were so powerful, and I was so nervous and unstrung—well, the floor gave a lurch, like the deck of a vessel in a storm; the lights dashed backward and forward before my sight; a deathly sickness overspread my senses; the accompaniment of the orchestra became harsh and incoherent; my violin dropped with a crash upon the boards; and the next thing I was aware of, I lay at full length on a sofa in the retiring-room, and Merivale was holding a smelling-bottle to my nostrils. I could hear the orchestra beyond the partition industriously winding off the Tannhauser march.

“How do you feel?” asked Merivale, as I opened my eyes.

“I feel as though I should like to annihilate myself,” I answered, as memory cleared up. “I have permanently disgraced us both.”

“But what was the trouble? You were doing nobly, splendidly, when all of a sudden you collapsed like that,” clapping his hands. “The doctor is furious, says it was all my fault.” “No, it wasn’t your fault,” I hastened to put in. “I should have pulled through after a fashion, only unluckily I caught sight of Tikulski—her uncle, you know—in the orchestra; and, well, I—I suppose—well, you see it was so unexpected that it rather undid me.”

“Oh, yes; I understand,” said he.

We kept silence all the way home in the carriage.

Next morning, as I entered the sitting-room, Merivale tried to hide a newspaper under his coat.

“Oh, don’t bother to do that,” I said. “Of course it is all in print?”

Possessing myself of the newspaper, I had the satisfaction of reading a sensational account of my fiasco. But what I had most dreaded from the quarter of the newspapers had not come to pass. None of them identified me as the Ernest Neuman who, rather more than two years since, had been tried for murder.

X.

MY encounter with Tikulski was bound to have consequences, practical as well as moral. All day Sunday a legion of blue devils were my comrades. Late Monday afternoon I received by the post a letter and a package, each addressed to “E. Lexow, in care of D. Merivale, Esq.” The penmanship was the same on both—a stiff European hand which I could not recognize. I began with the letter. It read thus:—

“Mr. E. Lexow,

“Dear Sir:

“I should have forwarded this to you before, but not apprised of the alteration of your name, I was unable to discover your address. I dispatch this to the address indicated by Dr. Rodolph, who informs me that you are to be reached through D. Merivale, Esquire, as he is not advised of your private residence. I found it in a pawnbroking establishment (No.—————-street, kept by one M. Arkush) now more than a year, and purchased it with the intention of restoring it to you, because I suppose that it must be of some value to you as a family memento, and that you would not have disposed of it except needing money. Hoping that this letter may find you in the enjoyment of good health, I am

“Respectfully yours,

“B. Tikulski.”

What could Tikulski’s letter mean? What could “it” be? I puzzled over these questions for a long while before it occurred to me to unseal the package.

There was an outer wrapper of stout brown paper. Beneath this, an inner wrapper of tissue paper. Both removed, I beheld an oval case of red leather, considerably the worse for wear. What did it contain? I pressed the clasp and raised the lid. It contained a miniature painted on ivory, the likeness of a man. The faded colors and the old-fashioned collar and cravat showed that it dated from some years back. But of whom was it a picture?

Why had Tikulski posted it to me? And what did he mean by supposing that I should value it as a family memento and that I would not have parted with it—I, who had never owned it,—“except needing money?” I was thoroughly mystified.

“Merivale,” I said, “can you make any thing out of this?”

I tossed him the letter and the portrait.

Presently he muttered, “Pretty good, by Jove.”

“Well?” I questioned.

“Well, what?” he returned.

“Well, what do you make of it? What does it mean?”

“Why, that the likeness is striking, what else? Your father, eh?”

“My father? I confess I am in the dark.”

“And you have the faculty of dragging me in after you. What are you trying to get at?”

“I am trying to get at Mr. Tikulski’s idea. Why should he send me that miniature? Whom does it represent?”

“You don’t mean to say that you haven’t recognized it?”

“Most certainly I do.”

“Man alive, look in the glass.—Here.” Merivale held up the miniature in one hand and a pocket-mirror in the other. As closely as it is possible for one human countenance to resemble another, the face of the picture resembled my reflection in the glass.

“Are you satisfied?” demanded Merivale.—“Why, what ails you?” he continued presently, as I did not answer. “You look as if you had seen a ghost. Are you ill?”

“It has caused me quite a turn,” I replied. “It must indeed be a portrait of my father. But do you know—wait—let me tell you something.”

What I told Merivale I shall have also to tell the reader.

I could remember neither of my parents. As a child, I had lived in a dark old house with a good old rabbi and his wife—Dr. and Mrs. Hirsch. I had never stopped to ask whether or not they were my father and mother until I was eleven or twelve years of age. Then, the question having been suggested by a schoolmate, I had said, “Dr. Lesser”—Lesser being the rabbi’s given name—“are you my father?” To which the doctor, beaming at me over the rim of his spectacles, had responded, “No, my child: you are an orphan.”—“An orphan? That means?” I pursued. “That your papa and mamma are dead,” said he.—“Have they been dead long?” I asked indifferently. “Ever since you were the tiniest little tot,” he replied. And thereupon, as the subject did not prove especially interesting, I had let it drop.

Time went on. I was perfectly contented. The doctor and his wife were kindness personified. The present occupied me so pleasantly that I forgot to be curious about the past. But at length, when I was fifteen, the question of my parentage was again brought to my mind—this time by a lad with whom I had had a quarrel and who as a parting thrust had inquired significantly whether I knew the definition of the Hebrew noun Mamzer. Highly incensed, I ran home and burst into the doctor’s study. “Doctor,” I demanded, without ceremony, “am I a Mamzer?”—“What a notion! Of course you are not,” replied the rabbi.—“Then,” I continued, “what am I? Tell me all about my father and mother.”

The doctor said there was nothing to tell except that my mother had died when I was less than two years old, and my father not a great while after her. They had been members of his (the doctor’s) congregation; and rather than see me sent to an orphan asylum, he and his wife had taken me to live with them.—“But what sort of people were they, my parents?” I insisted. “Give me some particulars about them.”—“They were very respectable, and by their neighbors generally esteemed well off. Your father had been a merchant; but for the last year his health was such as to confine him to his bedroom. It was quite a surprise to every body to find on his death that very little property was left. That little was gobbled up by his creditors. So that you have no legacy to expect except——”

“Except?” I queried as the doctor hesitated. “There is no exception. You have no legacy to expect at all.”—“But,” I resumed, “had my parents no relations? Have I no uncles or aunts? Am I altogether without kindred?”—“So far as I know, you are.”

Your father came originally from Breslau. It is possible that he had relatives there; but he had none in this country—at least I never heard him speak of any. He was a good man, a pious man. It was sad that he should die so young, but it was the will of Adonai—“And my mother, had she no brother or sister?”—“About your mother I can tell you very little. She came from Savannah. Whether she has connections there still, I can not say.”—“Doctor,” I asked, after a moment’s silence, “what did you mean by that ‘except’ you used a while ago, speaking of legacies?”

“I meant nothing. I was thinking of a few family relics, papers and what-not, which you are to receive when you become of age.”—“Why not till then?”—“No reason, save that such was your father’s wish, expressed on his death-bed. He said, ‘Don’t let my son have these until he is grown to be a man.’.—“Can you tell me definitely what they are?”—“I can not. I have never seen them. They are locked up in a box; and the box I am not at liberty to open.”—“Doctor, what was my mother’s maiden-name?”

“Bertha, Bertha Lexow.”—“Did you marry her and my father?”

“Oh, no; they were married in the South at Savannah. I think they had been married about five years when your father died.”—I went on quizzing the doctor until he declined to answer another question. “Go away, gad-fly,” he cried. “You are worse than the inquisition.”

In my eighteenth year the doctor died suddenly, having survived his wife by a six-month only. He was stricken down by paralysis while intoning the Kadesh song in the synagogue. In him I lost my only friend. I had loved him precisely as though he had been my father. His death was an immense affliction. It took me a long while to gather my wits together and realize my position.

A week or two after the funeral a man came to me and said, “I represent the Public Administrator, charged with settling up Dr. Hirsch’s concerns. He leaves nothing except household furniture and a few dollars in bank—all of which goes to his next-of-kin in Germany. You will have to find other quarters. These are to be vacated and the goods sold at auction in a few days.”—“Ah,” I said, “if you are his administrator, that reminds me. I beg that you will deliver over the things the doctor had belonging to me—a box containing papers.”

“Identify your property and prove your title,” he replied.

Strangers came and went in and out of the house for several days. But in the inventory which they prepared no such box as the doctor had described was mentioned. Furthermore, a thorough search failed to bring it to light. The auction was held. The last fork was knocked down to the highest bidder. And I had to go about my business with the unpleasant conviction that owing to some slip-up somewhere my inheritance had either been lost or stolen. Gradually I reconciled myself to this idea, concluding that what I already knew about my parents was the most I ever should know; and thus matters had remained ever since.

“But now,” I added, my recital wound up, “now perhaps in this miniature I have a clew. It must be a portrait of my father: and very likely it was part of the contents of that box. I suppose, if I were clever, I should see a way of following it up.”

“I am consoled,” said Merivale, drawing a deep breath.

“Consoled?” I queried.

“Yes, consoled for my obstinacy in making you play at the concert. You see, it was an inspiration after all. If you had not chanced upon Tikulski—what a blood-curdling name! fit for a tragedy villain—if you hadn’t chanced upon him as you did, why you never would have received the picture, and so the mystery which envelops my hero s antecedents would never have been dispelled. Now we must go to work in a systematic way.

“Exactly; but how begin?”

“Let me see Tikulski’s letter again.”—After he had read the letter, “Begin, he said, by paying a visit to the pawn-shop where he got it. Luckily he had the presence of mind to mention its whereabouts.”

“Good,” I assented. “But will you go with me?”

“Do you imagine I would allow you to go alone, you unfledged gosling? I shall not only go with you, but by your permission I shall manage the whole transaction. I fancy I surpass you in respect of savoir faire.”

“It is now past four. Shall we start at once?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Don’t be too hopeful,” he warned me, as we approached the pawnbroker’s door. “Most likely we shall run against a dead wall.”

The shop was empty. A bell tinkled as we opened the door. In response, a young fellow in his shirt-sleeves emerged from a dark back room.

“Is Mr. Arkush in?” demanded Merivale, with an air of friendliness.

“Do you want to see him personally?” returned the young man, not over politely.

“You have fathomed my purpose,” said Merivale with mock gravity.

“What about?”

Merivale drew near to the young man and shielding his mouth with his hand whispered, “Business,” accompanying his utterance with a knowing glance.

“Well, you can see me about business,” rejoined his interlocutor, surlily.

“Impossible. Here, take my card to Mr. Arkush and say I am pressed.”

“Mr. Arkush can’t see nobody. He’s sick.

“Sick? Ah, indeed?” cried Merivale. “Has he been sick long? I hope it is nothing serious. Pray tell me what the trouble is?”

The young man looked surprised. “Oh, it’s only rheumatism,” he said. “You ain’t a friend of his, are you?”

“Why, my dear fellow, of course I am. By the very nature of his profession Mr. Arkush is the friend of every body; and I am the friend of every friend of mine. Consequently but the deduction is too obvious. Here, take him my card and say that if he is not too ill I shall hope to be admitted.’

“Well, perhaps I’d better,” said the young man, reflectively.—“Becky,” he called, raising his voice.

Becky appeared.

“Good-afternoon, Miss Rebecca,” said Merivale, lifting his hat.

“Mind the shop,” said the young man to Becky, and thereat vanished.

“Come this way,” he said to us, presently returning.

He conducted us into the cavernous back room. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of stale cookery. The walls were lined with shelves, bearing mysterious parcels done up in paper winding-sheets. Under a grimy window at the further end an old man sat in an easy chair, a patch-work quilt infolding his legs. Bald, beardless, with sharply accentuated features and a yellow skin, he looked like a Midas whose magic was beginning to operate upon himself.

“Dear me!” cried Merivale, advancing toward him. “I’m shocked to find you suffering like this, Mr. Arkush. Do the legs give you much pain? You must try petroleum liniment. I’ll send you a bottle. They say it’s the best remedy in the world.—But tell me, how are you getting on? Do you notice any improvement?”

The old man’s face wore a puzzled expression. “What was the business you wanted to see me about?” he inquired.

“Oh, never mind about business till you have quieted my anxiety regarding your health. Besides, are you sure you will be able to attend?”

The mask of Midas betrayed a tendency to smile. “Come, time is money; hurry up,” said its owner. He had a strong Jewish accent, thus: “Dime iss money.”

“Oh, well,” said Merivale, “if you don’t think it will disturb you, I’ll come to the point. But let me disarm beforehand any suspicion which the nature of my errand may be calculated to inspire. I am not a detective. I am not on the track of stolen goods. I am simply a private individual desirous of gaining certain information for certain strictly legitimate ends. So you need have no fear of compromising yourself by speaking with entire unreserve. Shall I proceed?”

“My Gott, what are you talking about? Don’t make foolishness any longer,” exclaimed Mr. Arkush with some degree of vivacity.

“Mr. Arkush,” said Merivale in his most solemn tones, “do you remember this?” extracting the miniature from his pocket and handing it to the pawnbroker.

The latter donned a pair of spectacles and holding the picture off at arm’s length, scrutinized it in silence.

“Yes, I remember it,” he replied finally, “I sold it to a gentleman some time ago. What of it?”

“You did. You sold it about a year ago to a gentleman with a white beard. Recollect?”

“Ah, yes, yes: you are right. He had a white beard. He was also a Jew. We spoke in Judisch. I remember.”

“By Jove, hasn’t Mr. Arkusha wonderful memory?” cried Merivale, turning to me.

“I happen to remember,” volunteered Mr. Arkush, unperturbed by the compliment, “because when I put that article into the window I said to myself, ‘You won’t get no customer for that. What good is it to anyone? You made a mistake to lend your money on it. That was a loss.’ But the very same day the old gentleman came in and bought it, which was a surprise.”

“Ah, I see. Could you tell me, Mr. Arkush, of whom you got it originally—who pledged it with you?”

“Du lieber Gott! how should I remember that? It was two years ago already.”

“True, but—but your books would show.”

“Yes, my books would show the name the person gave.”

“Well, will you kindly refer to your books?”

“Ach, you make me much trouble!—Yakub,” he called.

The young man came.

Arkush told Yakub to get him the ledger for 18—. It was a ponderous and dingy volume. Yakub held it open while his employer turned the pages, running his finger from the top to the bottom of each. At length the finger reached a stand-still. Mr. Arkush said, “Yes, I have found it. It was pawned with me by a man calling himself Joseph White.”

“The date?”

“The 16th January.”

“Have you any means of recalling what sort of looking individual Joseph White was? And, by the way, is his residence given?”

“‘Residence, Harlem,’ it says. That’s all. How should I remember his looks?”

“Of course—you see so many people in the course of a year, it is not wonderful that you should forget.—But tell me, did White put any thing else in pawn that day?”

“No, sir; nothing else.”

“He simply pawned this one article and went away; that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Hum!”

Merivale reflected. At length he resumed. “But at any other time—that is, does White’s name appear on your ledger under any other date?”

“Do you expect me to read through the book?” inquired Arkush, with the tone of protestation. “That is too much.”

“I’m awfully sorry to annoy you, but this information I am seeking is of such great importance—you understand—it’s worth a consideration.”

“Oh, well, that’s different,” said Arkush. “What will you give?”

“I’ll give twenty-five cents for each month that you go over—is it enough?”

“Here, Yakub,” cried Arkush. “Run back from January 16th, and see if you find the name of Joseph White again.”

Yakub carried the ledger to a desk hard by, and began his task.

“Do you smoke?” Merivale asked the old man, offering him a cigar. Presently the air became blue with aromatic vapor.

“Here you are!” called Yakub from his stool. He proceeded to read aloud, “‘December 7th—one onyx seal ring—amount, one dollar and a quarter—to Joseph White—residence, Leonard street—ticket-number, 15,672. Same date—one ornamented wooden box—amount, fifteen cents—to Joseph White—residence, as above—ticket-number, 15,67.’.rdquo;

“Keep still,” said Merivale in an aside, as he saw my lips open. “I’ll do the talking.—I’m infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Arkush. Now, if I may trespass just a little further upon your indulgence, can you tell me whether you still have either of those articles in stock? If so, I should be glad to see them—with a view to purchasing, of course.”

“Look, Yakub,” said Arkush. “Was those goods redeemed?”

Yakub returned the ledger to the shelf whence he had taken it, and produced another book of similar proportions in its stead. Presently he said, “Number 15,672, sold August 20, 18—; Number 15,673—see profit and loss.”

“Number 15,672 was the ring, was it not?” asked Merivale. “Number 15,673 is referred to the account of profit and loss—will you kindly turn to it under that head, Mr. Yakub?”

Yakub possessed himself of a third volume, and in due time read, “‘Number 15,673—July, 18—, given to R.—Amount of loss, fifteen cents.’.rdquo;

“Let me see that entry,” said Arkush.

After he had scrutinized it, “Oh yes,” he continued, “I recollect. White was a colored man. I recollect all about it. That ring and that box were the first things he brought here; that picture was the last. I happen to recollect because I gave that box to my daughter, Rebecca, instead of offering it for sale.”

“Ah,” said Merivale, “then I suppose Miss Rebecca has it still. Could she be persuaded to show it to us?”

“I don’t know. I will ask her.”

He sent Yakub into the front room with instructions for Rebecca to present herself.

On her arrival, they held a brief conference together in Judisch. Then Rebecca went away, and Arkush said to us, “Yes, she has got it yet. She has gone to fetch it.”

During her absence Merivale resumed, “You are quite sure that it is useless to go further back in your books—that the name of White doesn’t occur in any other place?”

“Oh, yes; I am sure. I recollect perfectly. He was a colored man. He only came twice.”

“I notice that on one occasion his address is given as Harlem, on another as Leonard street. How is that?”

“How do I know? Maybe he moved. Maybe neither address was his true one. These people very often give false names and addresses.”

“I suppose they do,” Merivale assented, and thereafter held his peace, chewing his nether lip as his habit was when engrossed in thought.

For my part I could not see that we had made much progress. I was beginning to get impatient.

Becky reappeared, bearing the box.

The box was about ten inches square by four or five in depth. It was empty. Merivale did not allow me to examine it. “Wait,” he said, as I reached out my hand to take it.

“Would you mind very much parting with this box, Miss Arkush?” he asked, fixing a pair of languishing eyes upon Rebecca’s face.

“What will you give me for it?” the business-like young lady inquired.

“What will you accept?”

“What’s it worth, father?”

“That box is worth two dollars any how,” replied the shameless old usurer, regardless of the fact that we knew to a mill what he had paid for it.

“Then certainly this will be enough,” said Merivale, and he slipped a five-dollar gold piece into Rebecca’s palm. Then he settled with Arkush, bestowed a gratuity upon Yakub, and bidding an affable good-by to every body, led me out through the shop into the street.

“Well,” I said, “we have run against the dead wall that you foresaw.”

“So it appears,” said he.

“The picture was pawned by a colored man only two years ago—that is, four-and-twenty years after my father’s death. We don’t know of any means by which to reach that colored man; but even if we did—”

“It would be a forlorn hope.”

“Exactly. So that we stand just as we did before we left home, do we not? Except that you are by five dollars a poorer man. It was sheer extravagance, your purchasing that box. I suppose your imagination connected it with the box—the box that Dr. Hirsch told me of. But the probabilities are overwhelmingly against that contingency. Then, why did you waste your money, buying it? Intrinsically, it isn’t worth carrying away.”

“Hush, hush,” interposed my friend. “Don’t talk to me. I have an idea—an idea for a story—Ã propos of Arkush and his daughter. Bless me with silence until I have meditated it to my soul’s satisfaction.”