The Seven-Branched Candlestick: The Schooldays of Young American Jew

Chapter I: Stand--But Not Aside

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Thus it happened that only five Jews enrolled in the entering freshman class. One of them, of course, was Frank Cohen.

Mr. Levi's accusations had stung deeply. My anger at them was all the more intense because my heart admitted half their truth. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that there could be no possible aggravation this year: surely, with only five Jewish freshmen, the percentage would be small and unnoticed. It was all very well, that venom of Mr. Levi's--but it was unreasonable. I would be glad if the Jewish question would never again be mentioned during my college course.

The opening of the senior year found Frank Cohen and me on the Palisades, talking eagerly of what his college course would mean to him. He made me smile, his dreams were so like my own had been when I, too, was a freshman. Made me wonder, too, how much I had fulfilled those dreams. Something accomplished, yes--and as much unfulfilled, disregarded, left undone. Well, perhaps, in this last year, I would have the chance again--and would not flinch.

The chance came just two days after the opening of college. It came when Frank Cohen burst into my room about nine o'clock at night, in company with another Jewish freshman. The other one was dogged, frightened, and, when he was behind my closed door, began to cry noiselessly. As for Frank, who was made of stronger stuff, he sat silent in his chair, grasping its arms and trying to control the intensity of some revulsion which had come over him.

They told me quickly what had happened. They were just from a meeting of freshman candidates for the college newspaper. The meeting had been called in order to instruct these candidates in the rules and qualifications of the competition. All men who cared to enter the competition had been invited. Two men had made speeches: the editor-in-chief and the managing editor of the paper, Sayer and Braley by name.

These had been cordial speeches, urging all men present at the meeting to work hard in this competition. There had been speeches of encouragement, in glowing colors--and then, at the end of it all, in front of the fifty-odd youths who were assembled there, Braley had closed his speech with this:

"We wish to say that any Jew who may have it in mind to enter this competition might as well save himself the pains. We shall not even consider the election of a Jew to the board."

Immediately a gasp, then a snicker had run through the roomful; then necks had craned and heads turned to catch looks at Frank and the other freshman who stood, flushed and humiliated, in their midst.

Then the meeting had broken up, and the other candidates, taking their cue from Braley's speech, stood aside to let Frank and his companion pass down through whispering, giggling aisles. They had tried to go calmly, unconcernedly, as if the shock of the insult meant nothing to them. But the other Jewish freshman had broken down, and Frank had to put his arm around him to keep him up and straight upon his path through the crowd's midst, out upon the campus and over to my dormitory.

I sat a little while silent after I heard them tell of it. I was as much stunned as they--and sickened too. I had thought all that sort of thing was done with. I had hoped it was all past, even forgotten--and here it was, leaping up again to confront, to threaten, to jeer at us. I had only dimly imagined the possibility of it. I had no plan, no hint of how I should go about it.

Two years ago, if this had happened, I should not have cared one way or the other. I should have crawled away into a corner and buried my face to hide my fear's approach. I should have waited to see how others acted, how others fought--and then, at best I should have fought along in a half-hearted, half-dreading fashion. Even now, I had nothing to fight for. I knew what Judaism was--and that it was for the God and the people of Judaism that I should be making my little fight--but--

I turned about and saw the eyes of the two freshmen glued upon me. Frank's especially--and they were beginning to fill with a troubled distrust which I had never allowed to be there before. I could not fail Frank. I would do what I could.

"All right," I said, drawing on my coat. "Go ahead home and get to bed. I will see what I can do."

I went with them across the campus to the other freshman's room. Frank would sleep there for the night, though he usually went back to his parents. I think he did not have the heart tonight to face them, and when they asked their usual breathless questions of the day's work and play, lie to them and hide from them the galling incident. He did not seem to feel the insult for his own sake; he was thinking, rather, of his mother and of how she would feel, should she ever know.

"Good night," said the other freshman soberly.

"Good night," said Frank--and I felt in his voice all of the cheery obligation of friendship. He was expecting wonders of me.

Walking on alone, across the open gloominess of deserted paths and night winds in the shrubbery, a thousand foolish fears tramped by my side and sang into my ears. I had hidden my empty spirit from those two boys--but I could not hide it from myself. I wondered what sort of a fight was ahead of me, and how long it would last, and what would be the final result. Those two men, Sayer and Braley, were among the most influential of the class. They were members of my senior society. They could hold me down by sentimental ties of brotherhood, much as Trevelyan had been held down by his fraternity mates; failing that, they could use their popularity, their clinch upon college opinion to force me literally into silence. They could run me out of college, if they pleased. I knew this, did not deny it to myself as I went forward to the first skirmish.

Once I turned around and almost retreated to my rooms. But the remembrance of the sting that was in Frank's reproachful look would not let me do that.

So I came to the steps of the big Y. M. C. A. building. They were many, these white stone steps, and they shone in the moonlight with a mottling of hazardous shadows. I mounted them and went into the huge assembly hall on the first floor. I heard the awkward, self-conscious benediction and adjournment of the meeting--for they were all young fellows, and had not yet learned to be entirely glib towards their meetings--and stood aside to let them pass out. As the first of them went through the door and out upon the campus, they burst into the giddy laughs which moonlight conjures--and I heard them singing foolish glees--snatches of song that were utterly pagan and gleeful, and far from the heated stuffiness of their prayer meeting. They seemed to have found their Kindly Light more easily in the open.

The man for whom I now waited had always been the leader of my class; this year, he was the idol of the entire university. Captain of football, a 'varsity baseball man, he had the finest, sincerest character that I had ever known. He was not merely popular, in our undergraduate sense. Underclassmen worshipped him from afar, and upperclassmen, who knew him and the life that he led, loved him and respected him with a love and respect which few men can ever win.

He and I had become friendly, lately. It was due, perhaps, to the fact that we now belonged to the same senior society. Before, I had worshipped from afar; now I knew him well and warmly--and, as I look back upon my college life, I am amazed to realize how much of his influence went into the making of it.

As he came out, I noticed how his broad shoulders filled the doorway and blocked out its light completely. But his face was above the shadows, and I had a sudden sense of comfort from the resolute kindliness that shone upon it.

"Fred," I said, "I want your help on something."

As president of the Y. M. C. A. he had a room allotted him in the building where he might sleep. I knew that he had a suite in his fraternity house, too--but he preferred to stay here, for some reason, in this smaller, simpler place, where he would be nearer his duties.

When he had me in the plain little den, sitting before the miniature wood fire which he heaped with broken twigs, he sat me down and gave me a few minutes of tactful silence. I was thinking it all out. I wanted to tell it to him fairly, concisely, with no imprecations, and yet with no weakening of attitude. Then I did tell it, simply, just as the two boys had told it to me.

I saw Fred's face grow troubled. Before I was through he had begun to walk up and down the little room with a nervousness that made his pace almost such a jog as football players use when they come out upon the field.

"You're right," he said when I was done. "You're so right that everything else connected with the incident is wrong--and that's the hardest part for me to admit. You deserve to fight this out alone--it belongs to you. I wish I had a fight like yours to make. But if you'll let me help you--?"

"Let you? Why, I _need_ your help!"

"Then you'll have it. I'll be glad--mighty glad to chime in with you--"

He stopped short, his tremendous frame red-lined in the fire's glow, his cheeks above his square jaw as bright as the flames themselves.

I could not answer him sentimentally. My comfort and gratitude were too deep, my suddenly gained encouragement too surging for the narrow outlet of words. But after a while we began to plan. We would fight it together--and immediately.

When I got up to go, his Bible was lying open at the beginning of the New Testament, with a ribbon and tiny silver cross to mark the place. When Fred saw me looking at it, he must have felt some part of the strange, shivery misgiving which had come over me. For he took the ribbon in his fingers, so that the cross lay gleaming in his palm.

"It is Christ's symbol," he said. "It is the sign of one who suffered--and who was a Jew."

Then, as if he must leave me no doubt of his meaning in my mind:

"Don't worry. The cross won't stand between us. Though--" His eyes travelled slowly to the shelf above the fireplace. "Look! There's a symbol of _your_ religion, too."

So I looked. Gleaming brass, its seven uplifting arms gracefully curved, stood a--Menorah!

XIX

"BATTLE ROYAL!"

I awoke the next morning to an insistent knocking at my door. I sprang out of bed and opened it. In the hall, their dress showing signs of much haste, stood Sayer and Braley. They did not wait my invitation, but strode at once into the room and, throwing the rumpled covers from the bed, plumped down upon it.

"See here," said Braley, without prelude, "what's this talk about Fred's calling a special meeting of the senior class for tonight? Do you know anything about it?"

I smiled my way out of a pajama top. "Really?" I exclaimed. "Well, I did hear Fred say something about it last night."

"Oh, so you talked it over with him? Did you ask for the meeting?"

I had thrown on a bathrobe. "Yes, I did. Why?"

"That's what we want to know. Why, why?"

I looked up from tying the cord about my waist. "That's just what I'm not going to tell. Not until the meeting."

"Well, perhaps we know."

"You probably do. You deserve to."

"What do you mean by that?" Sayer jumped up and towards me. He was doing his best to fight, I could see--but I would not give him the chance--not prematurely!

Braley waved a conciliatory hand. He was a large, stoop-shouldered fellow with long, light hair and an enormous forehead. He had the most important and sumptuous manners I have ever met.

"See here, now," he said, "you really must tell us all you know about this thing. You really must." He was very earnest about it. They were both uneasy, it was easy to see.

"I'll tell you nothing," I said. "You will have to wait until tonight, and then----"

"Threatening us, are you?"

"No. I'm kind enough to warn you, that's all. I don't want you to go to the meeting unprepared."

"Oh, so it has to do with my remarks to the freshmen candidates, has it?"

"And mine?"

"I've given you all the warning that fair play demands," I said. "Look to your consciences for means of defense." And, flinging a towel over my shoulder, I darted away for my morning shower, leaving them in possession of the room. When I came back, a few minutes later, it was apparently empty, and I thought them gone.

I was almost dressed when I went into the clothes closet to select a tie from the rack I had there. There was a sudden rustle and movement of the clothes at the back of the dark little place. Two men closed in on me, dragged me into the depths of the closet. I reached out blindly, furiously. My fists hit only against the rows of my own clothes hanging there. A couple of coat-hangers clattered down. I stumbled and fell over my satchel. Then the door slammed shut. As I lay there, stunned, in the darkness, I heard the key turning in the lock, from the outside. They had sealed me in.

I had no doubts but they had been Sayer and Braley. Though I had never imagined they would go as far as this--and the fools! what did they think they could accomplish by locking me up for the day?

It was easy enough to breathe in the tiny, black square. I was in no danger. I groped my way to the suitcase and sat down on it for a few minutes. My head pained me terrifically. My forehead was hot. I put my hand up to it and felt a fast-swelling bruise. My fingers grew wet with something warm. It wasn't just perspiration.... I knew that--and that, in the struggle, I must have hit my head against one of the hooks. Or had one of them hit me in the dark with some sharp thing that he held in his hands?

I stood up again unsteadily, found the door handle--yes, it was locked. I was in my stocking feet; I could not kick through a panel. I reached along the wall, found a hook. I flung the clothes from it, gave it both my hands and all my strength in a sudden pull. It gave way with a spurting of loosened plaster.

It was a large, heavy hook. It made a good ram. I crashed upon the two upper panels with it. One of them split at length--and when I rammed the ugly iron thing against it again, it broke into splinters and my arm went through it. Light came through dimly--and, three minutes later, I had knocked out the whole panel, climbed through and staggered out into the room.

The mirror showed me a bad cut over my right eye. I staunched the flow of blood as best I could. It was so humorous an incident--like one of the famous adventures of Frank Merriwell!

I played it out, though. I did not go out of my room the whole day. In the afternoon I telephoned Fred, the class president, about it. He came over to see me--and he didn't treat it as lightly as I did. He wanted me to have a doctor, for one thing. I promised I would see one, as soon as the meeting was over, that night.

"You'd better," he said. "That cut is mighty close to some of the most important nerves of the eye."

It was evening when I ventured out. Over in the big assembly hall the meeting of the senior class had already begun. I stole across the campus with my coat collar turned up and my hat far down to hide my face. I did not want to be recognized until I was ready. I hung about outside the ruddy windows of the hall, watching the crowded groups that sat within. They were listening intently to someone on the platform that I could not see--but I knew that it was Fred, presiding. Fred--and he was explaining it all to them, perhaps, in that deep-voiced way of his.

Then, as I watched, I saw how the heads of all who sat within the scope of my spying craned suddenly towards the side of the room. I knew what that meant, too. It meant that either Sayer or Braley had risen from his seat to make reply to the president's accusation.

Then, amazed, I heard applause and laughter. The muffled clapping of hands went on for minutes. So they approved these things that the two editors had done, did they? So they could laugh and clap to hear how Sayer and Braley had crushed the spirit out of two young Jews in front of fifty other freshmen?

I grew too angry to wait. I was not going to dawdle idly in the background, waiting for a foolish, theatrical entrance cue--I wasn't going to "stand aside" a moment longer!

I hurried into the building, up stairs and around corners until I was at the very threshold of the hall. The big mass of men there, the lights, the noise of their clapping, ten times louder from within--all of it gave a tightening to my throat. My knees began to tremble violently.

It was Braley who was speaking. He was waving his hand with his usual sense of the grandiloquence of his remarks. I heard, I suppose, only the last of them--but that was enough:

"I regret, of course, that I should have had to give pain to these two poor little kike freshmen. I regret that I have thereby offended no less a person than the president of the class. But there is the broader way of looking at this thing: that of the interest of the whole community. And I believe, as every man in this room believes, that it would be ten times better that all Jews be debarred from our college. If not that, then certainly from all our college activities, in order that real Anglo-Saxon fair play may prevail! If any man, including the Jew who has instigated this protest against Sayer and myself, wishes to refute this, let him step forward now or be forever silent."

He sat down grandly, amid huzzas.

I do not know whether he or Sayer actually meant me to be incarcerated during all that day and night, while the meeting went forward so famously. Probably they had had it in mind when they played the vindictive little prank, and had been ashamed, when in better senses, to come back and release me. Certainly Sayer, who sat close to the door, turned pale when he saw me now.

I went slowly to the front of the room. My eyes pained me and I was nauseated. But I had ceased to tremble and was calm with a fury that checked all nervousness.

"The Jew who instigated this protest is here to back it up," I said slowly. "He is here to appeal to the 'real Anglo-Saxon fair play.'"

I could feel in the air the antagonism which I must down. I knew, as never before, how bitter and insensate was the prejudice which I must conquer by fifteen minutes of quiet words.

What I said doesn't count: I hardly remember most of it, anyhow. Before me, as I talked, the faces swam away into a dim and meaningless strip. I was not talking to these raw, swankering college boys. I was talking to something beyond--to something that was infinitely brighter and more glorious than I had ever known before. I was talking to something beyond all earth--to Someone....

And I was appealing, was summoning, calling Him down to my aid. I was speaking His words, in the spirit of His ancient fighting prophets. I was fighting His fight. The calm frenzy in my heart was of His instillation. For years I had sought Him. For years I had shunned Him, knowing my need of Him. For all the days of my life I had borne the fierce justice of His words as a lonely burden--and now, now....

"And I shall fight and fight," I cried, "in the name of God--the God that is over all of us, of whatever race, creed or color--for the things that are fair and right and just. I shall have justice for a little East Side Jewish freshman as you shall have it, too."

Then suddenly, as if blinded by the refulgence of what I saw, my eyes began to water and grow dim. I stood there, tense, and did not mind the pain that was in them. But I could speak no more.

And slowly the men rose and went out, quietly, strangely--looking back sometimes to where I stood--not comprehending everything, I suppose, but moved beyond all common approbation. They had been conquered.

Braley remained alone with me in the deserted hall. I looked at him across a row of seats and began to laugh.

"You didn't even say a word to them about that rotten trick we played on you," he said, shamefacedly, his glib manners gone.

"I didn't have to," I replied. "Besides, I forgot."

"Well--er--thanks! You could have had us expelled!"

But the pain and dizziness were beyond standing now. I tore off my hat, so that he had a glimpse of the long, sullen cut over my eye.

"Look out!" he cried, leaping up on the platform, to hold me--for I was falling to the floor.

I remember laughing again, long but weakly. "I didn't have to! I didn't have to!"

And after so much light, there came the darkness.

THE CANDLES ARE LIGHTED

When I rose from a hospital bed of fever and darkness, ten days later, it was with a feeling of rebirth--as if, in the dripping delirium of threatened blindness, the last doubts had sloughed away.

And when the bandage was taken from my eyes, and I had, for the first time in so long a while, a short and tempered bit of sunshine that came through the shaded windows and across the clean, white floors, it was as if I saw things, now, as I had never seen them--face to face.

I must not return immediately to college, the doctors said. There must be another fortnight of convalescence, with absolute rest for my eyes. They gave me my choice as to where I wanted to go--and I chose the settlement. I should be among friends, down there; I should have the sunny roof-garden to loiter in--and Jewish faces everywhere about me.

It was good old Trevelyan, squinting and stuttering and strangely moved, who called for me in his car and took me away from the hospital. He had wanted me to go to his Adirondack lodge, instead, and resigned me into Mr. Richards' care at the settlement as if he were consigning me reluctantly to one of the Inferno's inner limbos.

It was then the second day of the Jewish New Year. The whole teeming neighborhood was in holiday garb and mood. From the roof that night Mr. Richards and I stood watching the streets and their carnival crowds, swarming indistinctly under the lamps and about the corners.

"The little people," quoted Mr. Richards, "God and the little people...."

"They are not little when they have God," I answered.

He nodded. "I was wrong in what I said in that argument of ours. Do you remember? I said they didn't need their religion--that it was working more harm than good among the younger generation. I've learned, now.... There isn't a person on earth that doesn't need it--all that he can get of it--and these little people of the East Side most of all."

From below there rose to us the clang and clatter of traffic, the indescribable rustle of the crowd, the shriek of a demon fire engine, many streets away. But, above it all, we heard singing, on the floor below us, of a solemn chant in rehearsal. It was the settlement Choral Society, singing the plaintive "Kol Nidre"--and when the parts swelled into unison, all other sounds seemed suddenly engulfed in the rich, melancholy texture of the harmony.

Mr. Richards smiled. "There it is, you see: the grim, sad faith of the Jewish people. It is all they have had in all their wanderings--but it is everything."

* * * * *

The cut across my forehead healed quickly. Resting from all tasks, my eyes regained their strength without relapse.

I had visitors. Several of the men from college came down each day. I had not known there were so many persons who cared. Braley was among them, once--and he sat and twisted his hat and said nothing. Whether or not his friendship is worth anything to me, I have made a friend of him. Once or twice, since then, he has tried to speak of the trick which he and Sayer attempted, but I have stopped him. There is no need of going over _that_.

Only, a few days after I went to the hospital, there was a long and flowery retraction published in the college newspaper, inviting all freshmen "of whatever race or creed to enter the editorial competition, with the assurance that the most democratic principles would prevail."

At any rate, when Frank Cohen ran in to see me, on his way home, a few days later, I advised him to re-enter the contest. Frank, with a freshman's capacity for hero worship, leaped to act on my advice.

"And hurry up back to college," he said, with a little catch in his voice. "There are twenty other Jewish underclassmen who want the same sort of counsel from you. You see--they didn't know they had a leader--and they do need one!"

It is not part of the tale, perhaps, but I cannot help intruding the fact that Frank was the first freshman to be elected to the editorial board of the college paper--and that, in his senior year, he became its managing editor.

* * * * *

My aunt came, too. I had been secretly expecting her--hoping, perhaps, for no especial reason, that she would come.

She wept a little at the sight of my healing scar. It was a long while since I had seen her, and it shocked me--she looked so worn. She clung to my hand for several minutes before she would speak.

"I read about it," she sobbed. "It was in the papers--and they said the nicest things of you.... But I didn't come sooner because--because I didn't know whether you wanted--you wanted--"

"Yes, Aunt Selina, I am very glad to see you."

She drew a deep sigh. "It has been so long--and I am growing old. I'm just a lonely old woman, boy. And there's no comfort in old age."

I looked at her. She had changed much, I thought. "But you had so many friends," I remonstrated. "All those intellectual society folk!"

"I don't know--they don't seem to interest me any more. I'm growing old. That's all--old and lonely. And they are such fools, every one of them--almost as foolish as I am--and hypocrites, all."

Her hand went tighter about mine, and her rheumy eyes sought mine and searched them. "You seem so happy, boy--so changed. What's the secret of it--can't you tell me?"

I shook my head. It would be of no use, I thought.

"I want it," she begged. "The comfort of it--I did not know I should need it when I was old--and when all else fell away."

So I reached for a book which was on a table nearby, and gave it to her. It was an old Union Prayer Book.

She took it with the barest flicker of lashes. "It's--it's Hebrew," she protested. "I don't know how to read it."

"There is always an English translation on the opposite page," I showed her. "You will be able to read that. Perhaps it will help you."

"Perhaps," she said after me, her thin voice quavering.

"Read it all. You will come at any rate to a better understanding of your fellow Jews."

Her head went down, as if in shame of some unpleasant reminiscence. "Perhaps--I will try, anyhow--and perhaps--"

"Aunt Selina," I told her hastily, "I am coming home to live with you at the end of this college year. We shall begin all over again."

Then her tears began afresh. "I did not dare ask it--but oh, if you could only know how I have wanted it--and for how long! I would have prayed for it--yes, really, prayed for it--if I had only had someone to pray to!"

And then, as if suddenly remembering, she hugged the shabby leather book to her breast, and smiled.

But, before she left, I opened it up to show her why I prized this particular copy. For, on the yellowed flyleaf in old ink, was the name, "Isidore Levi." And below it, newly written, these words:

"_To a Jew who could not stand aside._"

He had sent it to me immediately after he had learned of that last incident at college. And he did not need to explain where I had seen this prayer book last.

* * * * *

Yom Kippur was my last day at the settlement before returning to college. I went with Frank Cohen and his father to the service of their orthodox congregation. The little synagogue, just off the Bowery, had had to be abandoned, for once, in favor of a huge bare hall that usually served political meetings. But, large as it was, it was packed tightly; and from the gallery, where I stole once to look on, it seemed a vast black sea--wave upon wave of derbies and shiny top hats, with the flicker of white prayer shawls for froth. The prayers and the chantings came up to me almost like mystic exhalations. The great, drab, smeared walls had the splendor of the afternoon sun upon them; the cheap chairs, the improvised altar, the temporary gilt ark behind it--the long gray beards of the patriarchs, the wan faces of the fasting children--everything, children--everything, every one had been gradually drenched in the glory that poured through the windows.

It was the setting sun upon Israel--and Israel prayed and sang in the gold of it.

* * * * *

I went back to college the next day. Mr. Richards and I had breakfast together, so that we might say slowly and easily the last things that were to be said.

"I'm glad you're going to finish it out," he began. "You've proved what I once told you; that college isn't all child's play. Some things about it are, of course." He paused a moment, a little embarrassed. "Trevelyan phoned me last night, after you'd gone to bed."

"Yes? About me?"

"Well, in a way. He'd just come from one of our fraternity meetings. He wanted to tell me that, when you are back, they will probably offer you an election."

"What? To your fraternity?"

"Yes." He paused and watched me amusedly. "It doesn't seem to thrill you."

I smiled back at him. "No, not the way I would have in freshman year."

"Yes--that's how I thought you'd feel. You needn't be afraid of hurting my feelings--or Trevelyan's, either--by declining. They're a little too late, aren't they?"

"Oh, it isn't that. I don't want them to think me ungrateful, you see--but I've passed that stage. There are so many other things for me to care about, now." I was thinking of Frank Cohen's remark about the number of Jewish underclassmen who wanted counsel, leadership--and, now more than ever, I was sure of myself.

"I understand," said Mr. Richards, shaking my hand at parting. "Good luck to you--or better still, good faith to you! A man's work and a man's God--you've found them at last."

* * * * *

That night, in my room at college, I found on the mantle shelf the big, brass, seven-branched candlestick which I had seen in the room of the class president. It was Fred's gift to me.

And, thinking of those years, I lit the seven candles, one by one, and watched them struggle feebly, desperately, until all of them were calm and bright, their flicker ended--until the Menorah, with its uplifted arms, and all the little space about it, shone with a radiance that was firm and beautiful.

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The Seven-Branched Candlestick: The Schooldays of Young American JewChapter I: Stand--But Not Aside

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