Children of the Ghetto

by Израэль Зангвилл

  "I am so glad you feel the want of it," whispered Raphael, forgetting Esther in his pleasure at finding a soul yearning for the light.

  "Intensely. I suppose it will be advanced?"

  Raphael looked at her a moment a little bewildered.

  "No, it will be orthodox. It is the orthodox party that supplies the funds."

  A flash of light leaped into Mrs. Goldsmith's eyes.

  "I am so glad it is not as I feared." she said. "The rival party has hitherto monopolized the press, and I was afraid that like most of our young men of talent you would give it that tendency. Now at last we poor orthodox will have a voice. It will be written in English?"

  "As far as I can," he said, smiling.

  "No, you know what I mean. I thought the majority of the orthodox couldn't read English and that they have their jargon papers. Will you be able to get a circulation?"

  "There are thousands of families in the East End now among whom English is read if not written. The evening papers sell as well there as anywhere else in London."

  "Bravo!" murmured Mrs. Goldsmith, clapping her hands.

  Esther had finished her song. Raphael awoke to the remembrance of her. But she did not come to him again, sitting down instead on a lounge near the piano, where Sidney bantered Addie with his most paradoxical persiflage.

  Raphael looked at her. Her expression was abstracted, her eyes had an inward look. He hoped her headache had not got worse. She did not look at all pretty now. She seemed a frail little creature with a sad thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry company. Poor little thing! He felt as if he had known her for years. She seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. He doubted even his own capacity to commune with her inmost soul. He wished he could be of service to her, could do anything for her that might lighten her gloom and turn her morbid thoughts in healthier directions.

  The butler brought in some claret negus. It was the break-up signal. Raphael drank his negus with a pleasant sense of arming himself against the cold air. He wanted to walk home smoking his pipe, which he always carried in his overcoat. He clasped Esther's hand with a cordial smile of farewell.

  "We shall meet again soon, I trust," he said.

  "I hope so," said Esther; "put me down as a subscriber to that paper."

  "Thank you," he said; "I won't forget."

  "What's that?" said Sidney, pricking up his ears; "doubled your circulation already?"

  Sidney put his cousin Addie into a hansom, as she did not care to walk, and got in beside her.

  "My feet are tired," she said; "I danced a lot last night, and was out a lot this afternoon. It's all very well for Raphael, who doesn't know whether he's walking on his head or his heels. Here, put your collar up, Raphael, not like that, it's all crumpled. Haven't you got a handkerchief to put round your throat? Where's that one I gave you? Lend him yours, Sidney."

  "You don't mind if I catch my death of cold; I've got to go on a Christmas dance when I deposit you on your doorstep," grumbled Sidney. "Catch! There, you duffer! It's gone into the mud. Sure you won't jump in? Plenty of room. Addie can sit on my knee. Well, ta, ta! Merry Christmas."

  Raphael lit his pipe and strode off with long ungainly strides. It was a clear frosty night, and the moonlight glistened on the silent spaces of street and square.

  "Go to bed, my dear," said Mrs. Goldsmith, returning to the lounge where Esther still sat brooding. "You look quite worn out."

  Left alone, Mrs. Goldsmith smiled pleasantly at Mr. Goldsmith, who, uncertain of how he had behaved himself, always waited anxiously for the verdict. He was pleased to find it was "not guilty" this time.

  "I think that went off very well," she said. She was looking very lovely to-night, the low bodice emphasizing the voluptuous outlines of the bust.

  "Splendidly," he returned. He stood with his coat-tails to the fire, his coarse-grained face beaming like an extra lamp. "The people and those croquettes were A1. The way Mary's picked up French cookery is wonderful."

  "Yes, especially considering she denies herself butter. But I'm not thinking of that nor of our guests." He looked at her wonderingly. "Henry," she continued impressively, "how would you like to get into Parliament?"

  "Eh, Parliament? Me?" he stammered.

  "Yes, why not? I've always had it in my eye."

  His face grew gloomy. "It is not practicable," he said, shaking the head with the prominent teeth and ears.

  "Not practicable?" she echoed sharply. "Just think of what you've achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. Not practicable, indeed! Why, that's the very word you used years ago in the provinces when I said you ought to be President. You said old Winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I felt certain your superior English would tell in the long run in such a miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that delicious blunder about the 'university' of the Exodus instead of the 'anniversary,' and I went about laughing over it in all the best circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? Didn't you tell me that we should never rise to the surface?"

  "It didn't seem probable, did it?" he murmured in self-defence.

  "Of course not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all filled up by old hands, there was no way of getting on the Council and meeting our magnates."

  "Yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. I had not much difficulty in persuading the United Synagogue that a new synagogue was a crying want in Kensington, but I could hardly persuade the government that a new constituency is a crying want in London." He spoke pettishly; his ambition always required rousing and was easily daunted.

  "No, but somebody's going to start a new something else, Henry," said Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. "Trust in me; think of what we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling costs, thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue-you the representative of the Kensington synagogue, with a 'Sir' for a colleague and a congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to be the most fashionable in London; likewise a member of the Council of the Anglo-Jewish Association and an honorary officer of the Shechitah Board; I, connected with several first-class charities, on the Committee of our leading school, and the acknowledged discoverer of a girl who gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. We have a reputation for wealth, culture and hospitality, and it is quite two years since we shook off the last of the Maida Vale lot, who are so graphically painted in that novel of Mr. Armitage's. Who are our guests now? Take to-night's! A celebrated artist, a brilliant young Oxford man, both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family, an authoress of repute who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very first families of the community; and lastly the Montagu Samuels with the brother, Percy Saville, who both go only to the best houses. Is there any other house, where the company is so exclusively Jewish, that could boast of a better gathering?"

  "I don't say anything against the company," said her husband awkwardly, "it's better than we got in the Provinces. But your company isn't your constituency. What constituency would have me?"

  "Certainly, no ordinary constituency would have you," admitted his wife frankly. "I am thinking of Whitechapel."

  "But Gideon represents Whitechapel."

  "Certainly; as Sidney Graham says, he represents it very well. But he has made himself unpopular, his name has appeared in print as a guest at City banquets, where the food can't be kosher. He has alienated a goodly proportion of the Jewish vote."

  "Well?" said Mr. Goldsmith, still wonderingly.

  "Now is the time to bid for his shoes. Raphael Leon is about to establish a new Jewish paper. I was mistaken about th
at young man. You remember my telling you I had heard he was eccentric and despite his brilliant career a little touched on religious matters. I naturally supposed his case was like that of one or two other Jewish young men we know and that he yearned for spirituality, and his remarks at table rather confirmed the impression. But he is worse than that-and I nearly put my foot in it-his craziness is on the score of orthodoxy! Fancy that! A man who has been to Harrow and Oxford longing for a gaberdine and side curls! Well, well, live and learn. What a sad trial for his parents!" She paused, musing.

  "But, Rosetta, what has Raphael Leon to do with my getting into Parliament?"

  "Don't be stupid, Henry. Haven't I explained to you that Leon is going to start an orthodox paper which will be circulated among your future constituents. It's extremely fortunate that we have always kept our religion. We have a widespread reputation for orthodoxy. We are friends with Leon, and we can get Esther to write for the paper (I could see he was rather struck by her). Through this paper we can keep you and your orthodoxy constantly before the constituency. The poor people are quite fascinated by the idea of rich Jews like us keeping a strictly kosher table; but the image of a Member of Parliament with phylacteries on his forehead will simply intoxicate them." She smiled, herself, at the image; the smile that always intoxicated Percy Saville.

  "You're a wonderful woman, Rosetta," said Henry, smiling in response with admiring affection and making his incisors more prominent. He drew her head down to him and kissed her lips. She returned his kiss lingeringly and they had a flash of that happiness which is born of mutual fidelity and trust.

  "Can I do anything for you, mum, afore I go to bed?" said stout old Mary O'Reilly, appearing at the door. Mary was a privileged person, unappalled even by the butler. Having no relatives, she never took a holiday and never went out except to Chapel.

  "No, Mary, thank you. The dinner was excellent. Good night and merry Christmas."

  "Same to you, mum," and as the unconscious instrument of Henry Goldsmith's candidature turned away, the Christmas bells broke merrily upon the night. The peals fell upon the ears of Raphael Leon, still striding along, casting a gaunt shadow on the hoar-frosted pavement, but he marked them not; upon Addie sitting by her bedroom mirror thinking of Sidney speeding to the Christmas dance; upon Esther turning restlessly on the luxurious eider-down, oppressed by panoramic pictures of the martyrdom of her race. Lying between sleep and waking, especially when her brain had been excited, she had the faculty of seeing wonderful vivid visions, indistinguishable from realities. The martyrs who mounted the scaffold and the stake all had the face of Raphael.

  "The mission of Israel" buzzed through her brain. Oh, the irony of history! Here was another life going to be wasted on an illusory dream. The figures of Raphael and her father suddenly came into grotesque juxtaposition. A bitter smile passed across her face.

  The Christmas bells rang on, proclaiming Peace in the name of Him who came to bring a sword into the world.

  "Surely," she thought, "the people of Christ has been the Christ of peoples."

  And then she sobbed meaninglessly in the darkness

  CHAPTER III. "THE FLAG OF JUDAH."

  The call to edit the new Jewish paper seemed to Raphael the voice of Providence. It came just when he was hesitating about his future, divided between the attractions of the ministry, pure Hebrew scholarship and philanthropy. The idea of a paper destroyed these conflicting claims by comprehending them all. A paper would be at once a pulpit, a medium for organizing effective human service, and an incentive to serious study in the preparation of scholarly articles.

  The paper was to be the property of the Co-operative Kosher Society, an association originally founded to supply unimpeachable Passover cakes. It was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the Rabbinate itself imported its Matzoth from abroad. Successful in its first object, the Co-operative Kosher Society extended its operations to more perennial commodities, and sought to save Judaism from dubious cheese and butter, as well as to provide public baths for women in accordance with the precepts of Leviticus. But these ideals were not so easy to achieve, and so gradually the idea of a paper to preach them to a godless age formed itself. The members of the Society met in Aaron Schlesinger's back office to consider them. Schlesinger was a cigar merchant, and the discussions of the Society were invariably obscured by gratuitous smoke Schlesinger's junior partner, Lewis De Haan, who also had a separate business as a surveyor, was the soul of the Society, and talked a great deal. He was a stalwart old man, with a fine imagination and figure, boundless optimism, a big biceps, a long venerable white beard, a keen sense of humor, and a versatility which enabled him to turn from the price of real estate to the elucidation of a Talmudical difficulty, and from the consignment of cigars to the organization of apostolic movements. Among the leading spirits were our old friends, Karlkammer the red-haired zealot, Sugarman the Shadchan, and Guedalyah the greengrocer, together with Gradkoski the scholar, fancy goods merchant and man of the world. A furniture-dealer, who was always failing, was also an important personage, while Ebenezer Sugarman, a young man who had once translated a romance from the Dutch, acted as secretary. Melchitsedek Pinchas invariably turned up at the meetings and smoked Schlesinger's cigars. He was not a member; he had not qualified himself by taking ten pound shares (far from fully paid up), but nobody liked to eject him, and no hint less strong than a physical would have moved the poet.

  All the members of the Council of the Co-operative Kosher Society spoke English volubly and more or less grammatically, but none had sufficient confidence in the others to propose one of them for editor, though it is possible that none would have shrunk from having a shot. Diffidence is not a mark of the Jew. The claims of Ebenezer Sugarman and of Melchitsedek Pinchas were put forth most vehemently by Ebenezer and Melchitsedek respectively, and their mutual accusations of incompetence enlivened Mr. Schlesinger's back office.

  "He ain't able to spell the commonest English words," said Ebenezer, with a contemptuous guffaw that sounded like the croak of a raven.

  The young litterateur, the sumptuousness of whose Barmitzvah -party was still a memory with his father, had lank black hair, with a long nose that supported blue spectacles.

  "What does he know of the Holy Tongue?" croaked Melchitsedek witheringly, adding in a confidential whisper to the cigar merchant: "I and you, Schlesinger, are the only two men in England who can write the Holy Tongue grammatically."

  The little poet was as insinutive and volcanic (by turns) as ever. His beard was, however, better trimmed and his complexion healthier, and he looked younger than ten years ago. His clothes were quite spruce. For several years he had travelled about the Continent, mainly at Raphael's expense. He said his ideas came better in touring and at a distance from the unappreciative English Jewry. It was a pity, for with his linguistic genius his English would have been immaculate by this time. As it was, there was a considerable improvement in his writing, if not so much in his accent.

  "What do I know of the Holy Tongue!" repeated Ebenezer scornfully. "Hold yours!"

  The Committee laughed, but Schlesinger, who was a serious man, said, "Business, gentlemen, business."

  "Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of Metatoron's Flames," said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea. "You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski vith his vite tie and his princely income."

  De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked him up in the coal-scuttle.

  "Yah!" croaked Ebenezer. "Here's a fine editor. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

  "We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet," said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

  Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

  "I don't see why I should be sacrificed to 'im. There ain't a man in England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so. Look at the success of m
y book, The Old Burgomaster, the best Dutch novel ever written. The St. Pancras Press said it reminded them of Lord Lytton, it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one each if you like. And then it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too. Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father. You give me this paper to manage and I'll make your fortunes for you in a twelvemonth; I will as sure as I stand here."

  Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in resistance of De Haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water expelling its cork.

  "You Man-of-the-Earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "You are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position created by Heaven for me-in this disgraceful country where genius starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper? And vas I not born to be a Redacteur, a Editor, as you call it? Into the paper I vill pour all the fires of my song-"

  "Yes, burn it up," croaked Ebenezer.

  "I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I vill be Elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism." He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistcoat and readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

  "Here, take another cigar, Pinchas," he said, passing Schlesinger's private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he admired as a poet though he could not take him seriously as a man.