Chapter V (4)

Levine, meanwhile, was walking back to his work. He was a compositor in the printing-shop of the _Jewish Workingman_, and it had been his custom, for years, to meet his friend Salvin at the noonday meal in Weiss’s café, where they discussed those problems of life that perplex the minds of thinking men. One problem, Levine felt, had been solved—had been finally and definitely made clear. And the magic had all been worked by Miriam’s eyes—coal-black eyes that now seemed the alpha and omega of all his existence. For Levine, the object of life was Miriam. The sun rose in order that he might look upon her. It set in order that night might bring her sweet repose.

The seasons—what were they but a varying background against which the panorama of love could unfold itself? He toiled—for Miriam. He lived—for Miriam. He thought—always of Miriam. Could there be a simpler explanation of the mysteries of existence? Poor old Salvin! Poor, blind pessimist! After so much pondering to achieve nothing better than that hopeless creed! Toil? Yes, but only as a step toward love—as a means toward the higher end. If man were created for toil, then man were doomed to everlasting animal existence. Whereas love raised him to higher planes, transformed him into a higher, nobler being. Could life desire a sublimer object?

Levine trod on air. In his workshop the walls, the lights, the papers—all that surrounded him—sang to him of love. The presses chanted the melody of Miriam’s eyes all the livelong day. The very stones in the street seemed to him to sing it: “She is fair! She is fair! She is fair!” and “Love is all! Love is all! Love is all!”

* * * * *

One day they were married. Salvin was there, with a hearty clasp of the hand for his friend, and a kiss and a blessing for the bride. And laughingly Levine whispered into his ear, “It is love!” But Salvin was stubborn. He smiled and shook his head playfully. But what he whispered in return was, “It is toil!”

They were married, and the universe joined with them in their pæan of love—love that, like the wind, “bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.”

* * * * *

Do you know that kind of woman whose temperament is like the smiling sunshine? Miriam was one of these. A light, happy heart—a nature that gloried in the joy of existence—ever ready to sing, to smile, to frolic—sympathetic to all woe, yet realising sorrow only as an external affliction, whose sting she could see, but had never felt—the soul of merriment was Miriam. Her lot in life was an humble one; her task had been severe; but through it all that sunshiny nature had served as a shield to ward off the blows of life. Once—there was a man. For a few hours Miriam’s brow had puckered in deep thought. But the man had been foolish enough to ask for a capitulation—for unconditional surrender—ere the battle had been half fought, and Miriam had shaken her head and had passed him by. Then Levine had come. There was a delicate, poetic strain in his nature that had immediately appealed to her, and his soft words fell upon willing ears. He had wooed her gently, tenderly, caressingly—in marked contrast to the tempestuous courtship that had failed—and he had won. It “bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth!”

Love’s eyes are keen, and Levine was quick to see the change that slowly came over his wife. He could not have explained it; there was no name for it; it baffled analysis. The first time he spoke to her about it she laughed and threw her arms around his neck, saying, “Can’t you see that I am growing older? You cannot expect your wife to remain a silly, giggling girl all her life.”

The second time he spoke to her about it she gave the same answer. She did not embrace him, however. And when she had answered him her face became thoughtful. He spoke to her about it a third time. She looked at him a long time before speaking. Then she said, slowly:

“Yes. I feel like a different woman. But I don’t understand it.” He did not offer to kiss her that night, as was his custom, but waited for her to make the first advance. She did not seem to notice the omission.

He never spoke to her about the matter again. He never kissed her again.

The marvels of a woman’s mind, the leaps and bounds of the emotions, the gamut of passion upon which her fancy plays and lingers—all these are the despair of psychology. Yet their manifestation is sufficiently clear. How it came or whence it came, or why it came, even Miriam herself could not tell. But as a flash of lightning on an inky night reveals with vivid clearness what the darkness conceals, so the sudden revelation that she adored the man whom she had rejected lit up, for a brief moment, the gloom that had fallen upon her heart and laid bare the terrible dreary prospect of her life. It came like a thunderbolt. She loved him. She had always loved him. He was the lord and master whom her heart craved. The fire had been smouldering in her heart. Now it leaped into devouring flame. He loved her! He had fallen upon his knees and had tried to drag her toward him. He had sworn that his life would be wretched without her. And now that she was married he had thrown all the energies of his heart and soul into incessant toil in order that he might forget her. Married? She, the wife of Levine? A cry of despair broke from her lips.

Ah, yes. The lightning flash had passed. But she remembered what its brightness had revealed. She knew now!

For a long time—for many weeks—she often felt an almost irresistible impulse to scream aloud, so that her husband—so that all the world might hear: “I love him! Him only! No one but him.” But the heart learns to bear even agony in silence. Miriam settled down into the monotonous groove that fate had marked out for her. The revelation that had come to her so suddenly developed into a wall that rose between her and her husband. An invisible wall, yet each felt its presence, and after many ineffectual attempts to surmount this barrier, to woo and win her heart anew, Levine abandoned the effort and yielded to despair. She never told him, and he never knew—never even suspected. But after that they lived in different worlds—each equally wretched. For there is only one other lingering misery on earth that can compare with the lot of a woman who is married to one man with her heart and soul bound up in another. It is the lot of her husband.

For Miriam there was no consolation. Her secret was buried in her inmost soul; she was doomed to live out her life brooding over it. During the day she often cried. When her husband came home she met him with a calm face—often with a smile—and then they would sit and talk over trivial matters the while that her agony was eating into her heart.

And Levine—the torments that he endured were beyond all description! Of a sensitive temperament, yet endowed with a clear, critical, philosophic intellect, he sought for an explanation and a remedy in a scrutiny of every incident of their married life, in self-analysis, in the keenest introspection, and found nothing but that insurmountable wall. Nothing seemed credible or tangible save that dull gnawing pain in his heart. Once or twice the thought of self-destruction entered his head. Why he thrust it aside he could not say. He was not a coward. The prospect of fighting his way through life with that burden of misery upon his soul possessed infinitely more terrors for him than the thought of suicide. Nor did he pursue the suggestion sufficiently to come to the conclusion that it was unworthy. It was an alien thought, foreign to his nature, and could find no lodgment. That was all. He lived on and suffered.

Have you ever heard of Levine, the poet? He is a compositor in the printing-shop of the _Jewish Workingman_ by day—he writes poetry, and, occasionally, short prose articles at night. He is not a genius. He is not a born singer. But his work is strong in its sincerity, and through it all runs a strain—that world-old strain of pleading—of weakness pleading for strength, of the oppressed pleading for justice. He is not a great poet, but among the readers of the _Jewish Workingman_, and among the loiterers in the East Side cafés, he is looked upon as a “friend of the masses.” And what they all marvel at is his prodigious industry. A day’s work in the composing-room of the _Jewish Workingman_ is a task calculated to sap a man’s vitality to its last drop. Yet, this task completed, Levine throws himself with feverish activity into the composition of verse, and writes, and writes, and writes, until the lamp burns low. Sometimes, when he tires, he pauses to listen to the gentle breathing of his wife, who sleeps in the next room. It acts like a spur upon him; with renewed energy he plunges into his work.

The poem which the readers of the _Jewish Workingman_ like best of all Levine’s writings is “Phantoms.” It ends—roughly translated from the Yiddish—like this:

_And when the deepening gloom of night descends
Upon the perilous path and towering heights,
And wild storm phantoms crowd each rocky pass—
Love sinks exhausted, but grim Toil climbs on!_

A DAUGHTER OF ISRAEL

There was a young man with a Christian heart and blue eyes—eyes that made you look at him again and smile at his earnestness—who went among the lowly Jews of the East Side to convert them to the faith of the Messiah whom they disowned. Those blue eyes fell, one day, upon a head of hair that gleamed like gold, fiery, red hair, silken and carelessly tangled, and shining in the sunlight. Then the head turned and the young man beheld the face of Bertha, daughter of Tamor, the rabbi. And Bertha opened her eyes, which were brown, and gazed curiously at this young man who seemed out of place in the Ghetto, and smiled and turned away.

A year went by and the Jews still disowned the Messiah, but a great change had come over this young man. In the vague future he still hoped to carry out his daring scheme, but now all his heart and all his soul and all his hopes of earthly happiness were centred upon Bertha, daughter of Tamor, the rabbi.

In the beginning she had been amused at him, but his persistence and his earnestness won their reward, as those qualities always will, and when this first year was at an end it came to pass that this Jewish maiden wept, as a loving woman will weep, for sheer joy of being loved; she a rabbi’s daughter, bred in the traditions of a jealous faith, he a Christian lad.

She had kept the secret of her growing love locked in her heart, but now it became a burden too heavy to be borne, and one night—it was shortly before the fast of Yom Kippur—she poured out her confession into her father’s ear. She told it in whispers, hiding her face in her father’s long beard, and with her arms around his neck. When the full meaning of the revelation dawned upon him, the Rabbi Tamor, ashen pale, sprang from his feet and thrust her from him.

“A Christian!” he cried. “My daughter marry a Christian!”

He was an old man—so old and feeble that in a few days the synagogue had planned to retire him and install a younger rabbi in his place. But now fury gave him strength. His whole frame trembled, but his eyes were flashing fire, and he had raised his arm as if he were about to strike his daughter to the floor. But she did not move. Her eyes were raised to his, tearfully but undismayed.

“Do not strike me, father,” she said. “I cannot help it. I love him. I have promised to marry him. Will you not give me your blessing?”

“Blessings?” cried the infuriated old man. “My curses upon you if you take so foul a step! Your mother would rise from her grave if you married a Christian! How dare you tell such a thing to me—to me, who have devoted so many years to bringing you up in the faith to which I have devoted my life? Is there no son of Israel good enough for you? Must you bring this horrible calamity upon me in my old age? Would you have me read you out of the congregation? If it were the last act of my rabbinate—aye, if it were the last act of my life, I would read out aloud, so that all the world would know my shame, the ban of excommunication that the synagogue would impose upon you! Have I brought you up for this?”

But Bertha had swooned, and his rage fell upon ears that did not hear.

* * * * *

The cup of bitterness was full. Rabbi Tamor knew his daughter, knew the full strength of her nature, the steadfastness of her purpose. He had pleaded, expostulated, argued, and threatened, but all in vain. And to add to his misery he saw in all his daughter’s passionate devotion to her lover something that reminded him more and more vividly of the wife whom he had courted and loved and cherished until death took her from him. Many years had gone by, but whenever his memory grew dim, and her features began to grow indistinct, he had only to look at his daughter to see them before him again, in all their youthful beauty. His daughter, the image of his dead wife, to marry a Christian! It was the bitterness of gall!

The Rabbi Tamor’s father and grandfather had been rabbis before him, and in his veins surged the blood of devotion to Israel’s cause. He had been in this country many years, but the roots of his life had been planted in Russia, in a Ghetto where the traditions of thousands of years still survived in daily life, and in spirit he still dwelt there. To him Christianity meant oppression, persecution, torture. His nature was stern and unbending; there could be no compromise, no palliation; the sinner against Israel was like a venomous serpent that must be crushed without argument. And now his duty was clear.

When the officials of the synagogue met, a few days before Yom Kippur, the Rabbi Tamor, pale and trembling, but firm in his determination, laid before them the case of a young woman who had resolved to marry outside her faith. The officials listened, horror-stricken, but turned to him for the verdict. He was a wise man, they knew, learned in Mishna and Thora, and they had become accustomed to abide by his decisions.

“The warning!” he said, in a low voice. “Let us read aloud the warning of the ban!”

The new rabbi, who by courtesy had been invited to the meeting, and who had listened with interest to Rabbi Tamor’s narrative, raised his hand and leaned forward as if he were about to speak. But when he heard the clerk ask for the girl’s name, and heard Rabbi Tamor, in a hoarse, stifling voice, answer, “Bertha Tamor, my—my daughter!” his hand fell and the words died upon his lips. But he frowned and sat for a long time plunged in deep thought.

* * * * *

Upon the Day of Atonement Bertha fasted. She, too, had gone through a bitter struggle. For a nature like hers to abandon the faith of her race meant a racking of every fibre of soul and body. She had not slept for three nights. Her face was pale, and her eyes were encircled with black shadows. But through all her misery, through all the distress that she felt over her father’s grief, she could not subdue the throbbing of exulting joy that pulsed through her veins, nor blot out from her mind the blue eyes of her lover or the ardour of his kisses. But grief and joy only combined to wear out her vitality; she felt despondent, depressed.

The sun began to sink below the housetops. The day’s fasting and prayer were slowly coming to an end. Bertha went to the synagogue, where, all that day, since sunrise, her father had been praying. The news of the proposed reading of the warning had spread, and when Bertha entered the gallery set aside for women in the synagogue, she felt every eye upon her.

The Yom Kippur service is long, and to him who knows the story of Israel, intensely impressive. When it drew near its close the Rabbi Tamor slowly rose, and with trembling hands unfolded a paper. Several times he cleared his throat as if to speak, but each time his voice seemed to fail him. The silence of death had fallen upon the congregation.

“Warning!” he began. He was clutching the arm of the man who stood nearest him to steady himself.

“Warning of the ban of excommunication upon the daughter of——”

“Stop!”

The new rabbi, seated among the congregation, had risen, and was walking rapidly toward the platform. A wave of excitement swept through the hall. Rabbi Tamor’s hand fell to his side. For a moment a look of relief came into his face. His duty was a terrible one, and any interruption was welcome. When the new rabbi reached the platform he began to speak. His voice was low and musical, and after the harsh, strident tones of their old rabbi, fell gratefully upon every ear. He was a young man, of irregular, rather unprepossessing features, and looked more like an energetic sweatshop worker than a learned rabbi. But when he began to speak, and the congregation beheld the light that came into his eyes, every man in that hall felt, instinctively, “Here is a teacher of Israel!”

“It is irregular,” he began, in his soft voice. “I am violating every law and every rule. But this is the Day of Atonement, and I would be untrue to my faith, to my God and to you, my new children, were I to keep silent.”

When Bertha, in her place in the gallery, realised what her father was about to do she had become as pale as a ghost, and had clutched the railing in front of her, and had bitten her lip until the blood came to keep from crying aloud in her anguish. And she had sat there motionless as a statue, seeing nothing but her father’s pale face and the misery in his eyes. When the new rabbi arose and began to speak, she became dazed. The platform, the ark, and all the people below and around her began to swim before her eyes. She felt faint, felt that she was about to become unconscious, when a sudden passionate note that had come into the speaker’s voice acted like a tonic upon her, and then, all at once, she became aware that the vigorous, magnetic personality of the new rabbi had taken possession of the whole synagogue, and after that her eyes never left his face while he was speaking.

“‘The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt Him!’

“So sang Moses unto the Lord, and so year after year, century after century, through the long, weary dragging-out of the ages, have we, the children of Israel, sung it after him. Our temples have been shattered, our strength has been crushed, all the force, all the skill, all the cunning of man have been used to scatter us, to persecute us, to torture us, to wipe us off the face of the earth. But through it all arose our steadfast song. He was our fathers’ God! We will exalt Him!”

And then the speaker launched upon the story of Israel’s martyrdom. In a voice that vibrated with intense emotion he recited that world-tragedy of Israel’s downfall, her shame, her sufferings throughout the slow centuries. The sorrow of it filled Bertha’s heart. She was following every word, every gesture, as if the recital fascinated her. It is a sad story—there is none other like it in the world. Bertha felt the pain of it all in her own heart. And then he told how, through it all, Israel remained steadfast. How, under the lash, at the point of the knife, in the flames of the stake, Israel remained steadfast. How, in the face of temptation, with the vista of happiness, of wealth, of empire opening before her, if only she would renounce her faith—Israel remained steadfast. And he told of the great ones, the stars of Israel, who had chosen death rather than renounce their faith, who had preferred ignominy, privation, torture before they would prove untrue to their God.

“He is our fathers’ God!” he cried. “Is there a daughter of Israel who will not exalt Him?”

There was a moment of breathless silence. Then arose a piercing cry from the gallery. Bertha had sprung to her feet.

“I will be true!” she cried. “I will be steadfast! He is my fathers’ God and I will exalt Him!”

A commotion arose, and men and women ran forward to seize her by the hand. But she brushed them all aside and walked determinedly toward the new rabbi. She seized his hand and carried it to her lips.

“He is my fathers’ God,” she said. “I will exalt Him!”

And repeating this, again and again, she hurried out of the synagogue. The elders crowded around her father and congratulated him.

* * * * *

It is but a short distance from the heart of the Ghetto to the river, and in times of poverty and suffering there are many who traverse the intervening space. The river flows silently. Occasionally you hear the splash of a wave breaking against the wharf, but the deep, swift current as it sweeps resistlessly out to sea makes no sound.

They brought to Rabbi Tamor, many hours afterward, the shawl which she had left behind her on the wharf. They took him to the spot, and stood near him, lest in his grief he might attempt to throw himself into the water. But he only stood gazing with undimmed eyes at the dark river, babbling incoherently. Once he raised his hand to his ear.

“Hark!” he whispered. “Do you hear?”

They listened, but could hear nothing.

“It is her voice. She is crying, ‘I will exalt Him!’ Do you hear it?”

But they turned their heads from him to hide the tears.

THE MESSAGE OF ARCTURUS

David Adler sat at the open window gazing contemplatively at the sea of stars whose soft radiance filled the heavens. He was lonely. The stars were his friends. Particularly one bright star whose steadfastness, throughout his many night vigils, had arrested his attention. It seemed to twinkle less than the others, seemed more remote and purer. It was Arcturus.

To a lonely person, fretting under the peevish worries of life, the contemplation of the stars brings a feeling of contentment that is often akin to happiness. Beside this glorious panorama, with its background of infinity and eternity, its colossal force, its sublime grandeur, the ills of life seem trivial. And David, who had been lonely all his life, would sit for hours upon each bright night, building castles along the Milky Way and pouring out his soul to the stellar universe—particularly to Arcturus, who had never failed him. Upon this night there was a faint smile of amusement upon his face. He was thinking of the queer mission that Mandelkern, his employer, had asked him to undertake that day.

Mandelkern was old and crabbed and ugly, but very rich, and when that morning he had said to David, “I am thinking of marrying,” David felt an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Then, in his wheezy voice, Mandelkern had outlined his plan.

“The Shadchen has arranged it all. She is younger than I—oh, a great many years younger, David—and she does not know me. We have only seen each other once. Of course she is marrying me for my money, but I know that when once we are married she will love me. But the trouble is, David, that I cannot find out for myself, positively, whether she is the kind of girl I want to marry. You see, if I were to go and see her myself, she would be on her good behaviour all the time. They always are. And I would not know, until after we were married, whether she is amiable, dutiful, studious, modest—in short, whether she is just what a girl should be. And then it would be too late. So I want you, like the good David that you are, to see her—don’t you know?—and get acquainted with her—don’t you know?—and er—question her—er—study her—don’t you know?” David had promised to do what he could and they had shaken hands, and the firm, hearty pressure of his employer’s grasp had told him, more than words could convey, how terribly earnest he was in his curiosity.

By the light of the stars David now sat pondering over this droll situation and smiling. And as he gazed at his friend Arcturus it seemed to him, after all, a matter of the smallest moment whether Mandelkern married the right girl or not—or married at all—or whether anybody married—or lived—or died.

* * * * *

On the pretext of a trivial errand David set out to study the personality and character of his employer’s chosen bride. The moment his eyes fell upon her the pretext that he had selected fled from his mind. In sheer bewilderment he stood looking at her. And when her face lit up and she began to laugh merrily, David was ready to turn and run in his embarrassment. He beheld a mere girl. She could not have been more than eighteen or nineteen at the most, and, although her figure was mature, her face and bearing were girlish. And she was exquisitely pretty. At the very first impression it seemed to David that he perceived a cold gleam in her eye that betokened sordidness or meanness, but in a twinkling he perceived that he had been mistaken. A winsome sweetness rested upon her lovely features. It was probably the unconscious memory of Mandelkern that had given that momentary colour to his thoughts. And now, even before he had completed his admiring inventory of her physical charms, she stood laughing at him.

“You look so funny,” she said. “I cannot help laughing.”

Then David began to laugh, and in a moment they were friends. To his delight he found that she was clever, a shrewd observer, an entertaining companion. Many things that she said awakened no response in him. It was not until later that he discovered the reason; she had lived all her young years in the active world, in touch with the struggle, the stir of life; he had lived in dreamland with the stars.

When Mandelkern asked David what impression the girl had made upon him, he found, to his amazement, that he was unable to give a satisfactory reply.

“She is charming, Mr. Mandelkern,” he said. His employer nodded assent, but added:

“I know that, but is she amiable?”

David pondered for a long time. Then he said:

“Of course, Mr. Mandelkern, I have had no more opportunity of judging what her qualities are than you have. I will have to see more of her. But I will go to see her several times, and probably in a week or two weeks I shall be able to give you a clear idea of her character.”

Mandelkern nodded approvingly.

“You are a good David,” he said. “I have confidence in your judgment.”

And the stars that night seemed brighter, particularly his friend Arcturus, who shone with wonderful splendour and filled David’s heart with deep content—and the pulsing joy of living.

* * * * *

When the revelation came to him David felt no shock, experienced no surprise. She had been so constantly in his thoughts, had drifted so quietly into his life, that, when suddenly he realised that she had become a part of his being, it seemed but the natural order of events. It could have been nothing else. He had been born into the world for this. Through all their many talks the name of Mandelkern had never been mentioned. In the beginning the thought of this sweet, girlish nature being doomed to mate itself with grey, blear-eyed Mandelkern had haunted him like a nightmare. But in the sunshine of her presence David quickly forgot both his employer and the scheming Shadchen, and when it dawned upon him that he loved her, that she was necessary to him, that it was in the harmonious plan of the universe that they should be united forever, the thought of Mandelkern came only as a reminder of the unpleasant duty of revealing the truth to him.

Not a word of love had he spoken. Upon a basis of close friendship there had sprung up between them a spirit of camaraderie in which sentiment played no part. Now, suddenly, David felt toward her a tenderness that he had never known before—a desire to protect her, to cherish her—he loved her.

It dawned upon Mandelkern that David’s answers to his questions were becoming more and more vague and unsatisfactory. And one night the Shadchen, becoming alarmed at David’s frequent visits to the girl, urged Mandelkern to make haste.

“It makes me uneasy,” he said, “to see you sitting idle while a young man has so many opportunities of courting your promised bride.”

Mandelkern’s watery eyes narrowed to a slit and his teeth closed tightly together. Then he answered firmly:

“Have no fear. She will be mine. The lad is, young.” And after a moment he repeated, “The lad is young!”

Aye, David was young! His pulses throbbed with the vigour of youth, with the joy of hope, with the deep torrent of a heart’s first love. Glorious youth! Thou art the richest heritage of the children of men! Canst thou not tarry? Down the bright beam of Arcturus there came to David a light that illumined his soul. Sitting at his window with gaze upturned to the starry heavens, there came to him the soft, sweet realisation that the secret of the universe was love, that life’s cup of happiness was at his lips, that Arcturus had been but waiting all these millions upon millions of years to see the veil lifted from his eyes, and the bliss of love revealed. Golden youth! Canst thou not tarry?

* * * * *

They were walking along the street as night was falling. They were laughing and chatting gaily, discussing a droll legend of the Talmud that David had recited to her.

“It reminds me,” said David, “of a story about the Rabbi ben Zaccai, who——”

A sudden moan and faint cry made him pause and quickly turn. A woman whom they had just passed was staggering with her hands pressed to her breast. David sprang toward her, but before he could reach her side she had fallen to the sidewalk, and lay there motionless. In an instant he had raised her to her knees, and was chafing her wrists to restore her to consciousness. She recovered quickly, but as soon as David had helped her to her feet she began to cry weakly, and would have fallen again had he not supported her.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

The woman’s sobs increased, and David repeated his question. Then, with the tears streaming down her face, she answered:

“I have eaten nothing for three days. I am starving. I cannot beg. I cannot die. Oh, I am so miserable!”

David assisted her to the steps of the tenement in which she lived, and summoned her neighbours. He gave them what little money he had in his pocket, urged them to make haste and bring the poor woman food and stimulants, and, promising to return the next day, rejoined his companion.

“My God!” he said, “wasn’t that terrible!”

“Yes. It was terrible!” she said. There was an expression in her voice that caused him to look at her, quickly, wonderingly. Her face had paled. Her lips were tightly pressed together. She was breathing rapidly. Her whole frame seemed agitated by some suppressed emotion. It was not pity. Her eyes were dry and gleaming. It was not shock or faintness. There was an expression of determination, of emphatic resolve in her features. David felt amazed.

“Look at me!” he said. “Look me full in the face!”

She gave a short, harsh laugh. In her eyes David saw that same gleam of sordid selfishness that he had observed when first he met her. But now it was clear, glittering, unmistakable.

“Of what are you thinking?” he asked, slowly. Her glance never wavered. David felt the beating of his heart grow slower.

“I don’t mind telling you,” she said. She hesitated for a moment, gave another short laugh, and then went on:

“I was thinking that that poor woman would not have starved if she had married Mandelkern. I was also thinking that I am going to marry Mandelkern. I was also thinking how terrible it would be if I did not marry Mandelkern, and would, some day, have starvation to fear—like that woman.”

Having unburdened her mind, she seemed relieved, and, in a moment became her old self. With a playful gesture she seized David’s arm and shook him.

“Come, sleepyhead, wake up!” she cried gaily. “Don’t stand there staring at me as though I were a ghost. What were you saying about the Rabbi ben Zaccai?”

* * * * *

David Adler sat at the open window gazing at the swarming stars, whose radiance had begun to pale. The dawn of day was at hand. Even now a faint glow of light suffused the eastern sky. But David saw it not. His eyes were fastened upon Arcturus, whose brightness was yet undimmed, whose lustre transcended the brightness of the myriads of stars that crowded around. Travelling through the immeasurable realms of space, straight to his heart, streamed that bright ray, the messenger of Arcturus, cold, relentless—without hope.

QUEER SCHARENSTEIN

“Scharenstein?” they would say. “Oh, Scharenstein is queer! He is good-hearted, poor fellow, but——”

Then they would tap their foreheads significantly and shake their heads. He had come from a hamlet in Bessarabia—a hamlet so small that you would not find it on any map, even if you could pronounce the name. The whole population of the hamlet did not exceed three hundred souls, of whom all but three or four families were Christians. And these Christians had risen, one day, and had fallen upon the Jews. Scharenstein’s wife was stabbed through the heart, and his son, his brown-eyed little boy, was burned with the house. Upon Scharenstein’s breast, as a reminder of an old historical episode, they hacked a crude sign of a cross; then they let him go, and Scharenstein in some way—no one ever knew how—found his way to this country. When the ship came into the harbour he asked a sailor what that majestic figure was that held aloft the shining light whose rays lit up the wide stretch of the bay. They told him it was the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World.

“It is good,” he said.

He found work in a sweatshop. An immigrant from a neighbouring hamlet came over later and told the story, but when they came to Scharenstein with sympathy he only laughed.

“He is queer,” they said.

In all that shop none other worked as diligently as Scharenstein. He was the first to arrive, and the last to leave, and through all the day he worked cheerfully, almost merrily, often humming old airs that his fellow-workers had not heard for many years. And a man who worked harder than his fellows in a sweatshop must surely have been queer, for in those days the sweatshop was a place where the bodies and souls of men and women writhed through hour after hour of torment and misery, until, in sheer exhaustion, they became numb. Scharenstein went through all this with a smile on his lips, and even on the hottest day, when there came a few moments’ respite, he would keep treading away at his machine and sing while the others were gasping for breath. And at night, when the work was done, and the weary toilers dragged themselves home and flung themselves upon their dreary beds, Scharenstein would trudge all the way down to the Battery and stand for hours gazing at the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. And as he gazed, the tense lines of his face would relax, and a bright light would come into his eyes, perhaps a tear would trickle down his cheek. Then, after holding out both arms in a yearning farewell, he would turn and walk slowly homeward.

There was one day—it was in summer, when the thermometer stood at ninety-five in the shade—that the burden of life seemed too heavy to be borne. The air of the sweatshop was damp from the wet cloth, and hot from the big stove upon which the irons were heating. The machines were roaring and clicking in a deafening din, above which, every now and then, rose a loud hissing sound as a red-hot goose was plunged into a tub of water. The dampness and heat seemed to permeate everything; the machines were hot to the touch. Men sat stripped to their undershirts, the perspiration pouring from them. The sweater sat as far from the stove as he could get, figuring his accounts and frowning. The cost of labour was too high. Suddenly Marna, the pale, fat old woman who sat at a machine close by the ironers, spat upon the floor and cried:

“A curse on a world like this!”

Some looked up in surprise, for Marna rarely spoke, but the most of them went on without heeding her until they heard the voice of Scharenstein with an intonation that was new to them.

“Right, Marna,” he said. “A terrible world. A terrible world it is. Ho! ho! ho!”

They all looked at him. He was smiling, and turning around to look from face to face. Then, still smiling and speaking slowly and hesitatingly, as if he found it hard to select the right word, he went on:

“An awful world. They come and take the woman—hold her down under their knees—hold her throat tight in their fingers—like I hold this cloth—tight—and stick a dagger into her heart. And they set fire to the house—to the big house—all the smoke comes out of the windows—and flames—bigger and hotter than in the stove there—oh, terrible flames!—and the little boy’s face comes to the window—and they all laugh. Ho! ho! ho! Then the whole house falls in—and the little boy’s face disappears—and oh, how high the flames go up!”

He looked around him, smiling. A chill struck the heart of every one of his hearers. He shook his head slowly and said to Marna:

“Right, Marna! It is a terrible world.”

The sweater was busy with his accounts and had not heard. But the sudden cessation of work made him look up, and hearing Scharenstein address the woman, and seeing others looking at her, he turned upon Marna.

“Confound it! Is this a time to be idling? Stop your chattering and back to work. We must finish everything before——”

There was something harsh and grating in his voice that seemed to electrify Scharenstein. Dropping his work, he sprang between the sweater and Marna and held out his arms beseechingly.

“Oh, spare her! For God’s sake spare her! She is an innocent woman! She has done you no harm!”

And as he stood with outstretched arms, his shirt fell open, and every eye saw plainly upon his breast the red sign of a crude cross. The sweater fell back in amazement. Then a sudden light dawned upon him, and, in an altered tone, he said: “Very well. I will do her no harm. Sit down, my friend. You need not work to-day if you are not feeling well. I will get someone to take your place, and—and—” (it required a heroic effort) “you will not lose the day’s pay. You had better go home.”

Scharenstein smiled and thanked the sweater. Then he started down the stairs. Marna followed him, and with her arm around him helped him down the steps.

“My little boy is playing in the street,” she said. “Why don’t you take him for a walk to the park where you took him before? It will do you good, and he will be company for you.”

Scharenstein’s face lit up with pleasure. Marna’s little boy had frequently accompanied him on his walks to the Battery, and to see the little fellow romping about and hear him screaming with delight at the harbour sights had filled Scharenstein’s heart with exquisite pleasure. He now sought the boy. He found him playing with his companions, all of them running like mad through all that fierce heat.

“Boy!” cried Scharenstein. “Look!” The boy turned and saw Scharenstein standing erect with one arm held straight over his head, the other clasped against his breast as though he were hugging something—the attitude of the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. With a shout of delight he ran toward his friend, crying, “Take me with you!” And hand in hand they walked down to the sea-wall.

The boy watched the ships. Scharenstein, seated in the shade of a tree, feasted his eyes upon that graceful bronze figure that stood so lonely, so pensive, yet held aloft so joyfully its hopeful emblem.

He sat like one entranced, and now and then his lips would move as though he were struggling to utter some of the vague thoughts that were floating in his brain. His face, however, was serene, and his whole frame was relaxed in a delightful, restful abandon.

The boy played and ran about, and asked Scharenstein for pennies to buy fruit, and slowly the hours slipped by. As the sun sank, and the coolness of night succeeded the painful heat of the afternoon, Scharenstein moved from his seat and stood as close to the water’s edge as he could. Then it grew dark, and the boy came and leaned wearily against him.

“I am tired,” he said. “Let us go home now.”

Scharenstein took the little fellow in his arms and perched him upon one of the stone posts.

“Soon, boy,” he said. “Soon we will go. But let us wait to see the statue light her torch.”

They gazed out into the gathering darkness. Scharenstein’s hand caressed the boy’s curly hair; the little head rested peacefully against his breast,—against the livid cross that throbbed under his shirt,—and the pressure stirred tumultuous memories within him.

“You are a fine boy,” he said. “But you are not my boy.”

“I’m mamma’s boy,” murmured the lad, drowsily.

“Yes. Very true. Very true. You are mamma’s boy. But I have a little boy, and—dear me!—I forgot all about him.”

“Where is he?” asked the boy.

“Out there,” answered Scharenstein, pointing to the dim outlines of the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. “She is keeping him for me! But listen!” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “When I see him again I will ask him to come and play with you. He often used to play with me. He can run and sing, and he plays just like a sweet little angel. Oh, look!”

The bright electric light flashed from the statue’s torch, lighting up the vast harbour with all its shipping, lighting up the little head that rested against Scharenstein’s breast, and lighting up Scharenstein’s face, now drawn and twitching convulsively.

“Do you see him?” he whispered hoarsely. “Boy! Do you see my little boy out there? He has big brown eyes. Do you see him? He is my only boy. He wants me. He is calling me. Wait here, boy. I will go out and bring him to you. He will play with you. He loves to play.”

Gently he lowered his little companion from the post and carried him to a bench.

“Wait here, boy,” he said. “I will soon be back.”

In sleepy wonderment the little fellow watched Scharenstein take off his hat and coat and climb over the chain. The moment he disappeared from view the little fellow became thoroughly awake and ran forward to the sea-wall. Scharenstein was swimming clumsily, fiercely out into the bay.

“Come back!” cried the boy. “Come back!”

He heard Scharenstein’s voice faintly, “I am coming.” Then again, more faintly still, “I am coming.” Then all became silent except the lapping of the waves against the sea-wall, and the boy began to cry.

It was fully an hour before the alarm was given and a boat lowered, but of Scharenstein they found no trace. The harbour waters are swift, and the currents sweep twistingly in many directions. The harbour clings tenaciously to its dead—gives them up only with reluctance and after many days. And the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World looks down upon the search and holds out hope. But it gives no help.

THE COMPACT

The paper lies before me as I write. The bitterness has all passed. As a matter of fact it was Sorkin who told it to me as a good story. The paper read thus:

“_Agreement between Ignatz Sorkin and Nathan Bykowsky, made in
Wilna, Russia, December 10, 1861: Sorkin goes to Germany and
Bykowsky goes to America, in New York. In twenty years all the
money they have is put together and each takes half because the
lucky one loves his old friend. We swear it on the Torah._

“_Ignatz Sorkin._
“_Nathan Bykowsky._”

It is Sorkin’s story:

“The twenty years went by and I came to New York. My heart was heavy. I had not heard from Bykowsky for five years. Why had he not written? If he was poor, surely he must have heard that I was rich, and that half of all I had belonged to him. And if he was rich, did he mean to break the agreement? In either case it was bad for me. If it had not been for that last clause—‘we swear it on the Torah’! I cannot say. Perhaps I would not have come. For things had gone well with me in Germany. I owned twelve thousand dollars. And I might have forgotten the agreement. But I had sworn it on the Torah! I could not forget it.

“Still, what was the use of taking too many chances? I brought only three thousand dollars with me. The rest I left in government bonds on the other side. If Bykowsky was a poor man he should have half of three thousand dollars. Surely that was enough for a poor man. I had not sworn on the Torah to remember the nine thousand dollars.

“So I came here. I looked for Bykowsky, but could not find him. He had worked as a tailor, and I went from one shop to another asking everybody, ‘Do you know my old friend Bykowsky?’ At last I found a man who kept a tailor shop. He was a fine man. He had a big diamond in his shirt. Bykowsky? Yes, he remembered Bykowsky. Bykowsky used to work for him. And where was he now? He did not know. But when Bykowsky left his shop he went to open one for himself and became a boss. A boss? What was a boss? ‘I am a boss,’ the man said. Then I took a good look at his diamond. ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘if Bykowsky is a boss, he too has a diamond like that.’ So I went out to look for Bykowsky the boss.

“Then I thought to myself, ‘Why shall I be stingy? I will tell Bykowsky that I have five thousand dollars and I will give him half. He was a good friend of mine. I will be liberal.’ So I looked and looked everywhere, but nobody seemed to remember Bykowsky the boss. At last I met a policeman. He knew Bykowsky. He did not know where he lived, but he knew him when he was a tailor boss. ‘Is he not a tailor boss any more?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘He sold his tailor shop and opened a saloon.’ ‘Is that a better business than a tailor shop?’ I asked him. The policeman laughed at me and said, ‘Sure. A good saloon is better than a dozen tailor shops.’

“H’m! I was very sorry that he did not know where Bykowsky kept his saloon. I made up my mind that I would go to every saloon in the city until I found him. And when I found him I would say, ‘Bykowsky, I have come to keep the agreement. I have saved seven thousand dollars. Half is yours.’ Because I liked Bykowsky. We were the very best of friends.

“I went from saloon to saloon. I am not a drinking man. But as I did not like to ask so many questions for nothing I bought a cigar in every place. Soon I had all my pockets full of cigars. I do not smoke. I kept the cigars for Bykowsky. He is a great smoker. Then I met a man who had once been in Bykowsky’s saloon. He told me what a place it was. Such looking-glasses! Such fancy things! And he was making so much money that he had to hire a man to do nothing but sit at a desk all day and put the money in a drawer. So I says to myself, ‘Ah, ha! Dear friend Bykowsky, you are playing a joke on your dear old friend Sorkin. You want to wait until he comes and then fill him with joy by giving him half of that fine saloon business!’ So I asked the man where that saloon was. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that was several years ago. Bykowsky made so much money that he gave up the saloon and went into the real-estate business.’

“H’m! I began to understand it. Bykowsky had been making money so fast that he never had time to write to me. But never mind. I would go to him. I would grasp him by the hand and I would say, ‘Dearest friend of my boyhood, I have come to you with ten thousand dollars that I have saved. Half is yours. My only hope is that you are poor, so that I can have the pleasure of sharing with you all my wealth.’ Then he will be overcome and he will get red in the face, and he will tell me that he has got many hundreds of thousands of dollars to share with me. Ah, yes!

“There are not so many people in the real-estate business as in the saloon business. And soon I found a man who knew all about my friend Bykowsky. ‘The last I heard of him,’ he said, ‘he went out of the real-estate business. He took all his money and bought a fine row of houses. And he said he was not going to work any more.’

“That was just like dear old Bykowsky. He was a regular aristocrat. As long as he had enough money to live on he did not care to work. But he would be glad to see his dear old friend. I would pretend that I did not know how rich he was. I would be open and honest with him. I would keep the letter and the spirit of the agreement. I would not keep back a single cent. ‘Bykowsky,’ I would say, ‘dear, good, old Bykowsky. Here I am. I have three thousand dollars in my pocket. I have nine thousand dollars in good government bonds in Germany. I also have a fine gold watch, and a gold chain and a ring, but the ring is not solid gold. Half of what I have is yours.’ And we will fall on each other’s shoulders and be, oh, so glad!