Part 2

“I hear them,” she cried. “I hear them plainly. Don’t you, _Liebchen_? The sheep are coming! They’re coming over the hill! Watch, _Liebchen_; watch, precious!”

With all the force that remained in her she clutched his hand and pointed to the painting at the foot of the bed. Then she swayed from side to side, and he caught her in his arms.

“Lizschen!” he cried. “Lizschen!” But her head fell upon his arm and lay motionless.

The doctor came and saw at a glance that the patient was beyond his ministering. “It is over, my friend,” he said to Braun. At the sound of a voice Braun started, looked around him quite bewildered, and then drew a long breath which seemed to lift him out of the stupor into which he had fallen. “Yes, it is over,” he said, and, according to the custom of the orthodox, he tore a rent in his coat at the neck to the extent of a hand’s breadth. Then he took the painting under his arm and left the house.

It was now nearly two o’clock in the morning and the streets were deserted. A light rain had begun to fall, and Braun took off his coat to wrap it around his burden. He walked like one in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing save a dull monotonous roar which seemed to come from all directions and to centre in his brain.

The doors of the gallery were closed and all was dark. Braun looked in vain for a bell, and after several ineffectual taps on the door began to pound lustily with his fist and heel. Several night stragglers stopped in the rain, and presently a small group had gathered. Questions were put to Braun, but he did not hear them. He kicked and pounded on the door, and the noise resounded through the streets as if it would rouse the dead. Presently the group heard the rattling of bolts and the creaking of a rusty key in a rusty lock, and all became quiet. The door swung open, and a frightened watchman appeared.

“What’s the matter? Is there a fire?” he asked.

A policeman made his way through the group, and looked inquiringly from Braun to the watchman. Without uttering a word Braun held out the painting, and at the sight of it the watchman uttered a cry of amazement and delight.

“It’s the stolen Corot!” he exclaimed. Then turning to Braun, “Where did you get it? Who had it? Do you claim the reward?”

Braun’s lips moved, but no sound came from them, and he turned on his heel and began to walk off, when the policeman laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Not so fast, young man. You’ll have to give some kind of an account of how you got this,” he said.

Braun looked at him stupidly, and the policeman became suspicious. “I guess you’d better come to the station-house,” he said, and without more ado walked off with his prisoner. Braun made no resistance, felt no surprise, offered no explanation. At the station-house they asked him many questions, but Braun only looked vacantly at the questioner, and had nothing to say. They locked him in a cell over night, a gloomy cell that opened on a dimly lighted corridor, and there Braun sat until the day dawned, never moving, never speaking. Once, during the night, the watchman on duty in this corridor thought he heard a voice whispering “Lizschen! Lizschen!” but it must have been the rain that now was pouring in torrents.

V

“There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

“There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

“The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master.”

It is written in Israel that the rabbi must give his services at the death-bed of even the lowliest. The coffin rested on two stools in the same room in which she died; beside it stood the rabbi, clad in sombre garments, reading in a listless, mechanical fashion from the Hebrew text of the Book of Job, interpolating here and there some time-worn, commonplace phrase of praise, of exhortation, of consolation. He had not known her; this was merely part of his daily work.

The sweatshop had been closed for an hour; for one hour the machines stood silent and deserted; the toilers were gathered around the coffin, listening to the rabbi. They were pale and gaunt, but not from grief. The machines had done that. They had rent their garments at the neck, to the extent of a hand’s breadth, but not from grief. It was the law. A figure that they had become accustomed to see bending over one of the machines had finished her last garment. Dry-eyed, in a sort of mild wonder, they had come to the funeral services. And some were still breathing heavily from the morning’s work. After all, it was pleasant to sit quiet for one hour.

Someone whispered the name of Braun, and they looked around. Braun was not there.

“He will not come,” whispered one of the men. “It is in the newspaper. He was sent to prison for three years. He stole something. A picture, I think. I am not sure.”

Those who heard slowly shook their heads. There was no feeling of surprise, no shock. And what was there to say? He had been one of them. He had drunk out of the same cup with them. They knew the taste. What mattered the one particular dreg that he found? They had no curiosity. In the case of Nitza, it was her baby who was dying because she could not buy it the proper food. Nitza had told them. And so when Nitza cut her throat they all knew what she had found in the cup. Braun hadn’t told—but what mattered it? Probably something more bitter than gall. And three years in prison? Yes. To be sure. He had stolen something.

“_Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery_,” droned the rabbi, “_and life unto the bitter in soul_:

“_Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures_;

“_Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?_”

And the rabbi, faithful in the performance of his duty, went on to expound and explain. But his hearers could not tarry much longer. The hour was nearing its end, and the machines would soon have to start again.

* * * * *

It is an old story in the Ghetto, one that lovers tell to their sweethearts, who always cry when they hear it. The machines still roar and whirr, as if a legion of wild spirits were shrieking within them, and many a tear is stitched into the garments, but you never see them, madame—no, gaze as intently upon your jacket as you will, the tear has left no stain. There is an old man at the corner machine, grey-haired and worn, but he works briskly. He is the first to arrive each morning, and the last to leave each night, and all his soul is in his work. His machine is an old one, and roars louder than the rest, but he does not hear it. Day and night, sleeping and waking, there are a hundred thousand machines roaring away in his brain. What cares he for one more or one less?

THE SADER GUEST

Rosnofsky was explaining to me his theory of the lost blue with which the ancient Hebrew priests dyed the talith, when the door opened and lanky Lazarus entered, hat in hand. He entered cautiously, keeping one hand on the doorknob, and one foot firmly planted for a backward spring. He seemed rather embarrassed to find a third person present, but the matter that he had on his mind was weighty—so weighty, in fact, that, after a moment’s hesitation, he plunged right into the heart of it.

“Mr. Rosnofsky,” he said, “I love your daughter.”

Rosnofsky’s eyes opened wide, and his mouth shut tight.

“And she loves me,” Lazarus went on.

Rosnofsky’s eyes contracted, until they gleamed through the tiniest kind of a slit between the lids. His hand fumbled behind his back among a number of tailor’s tools that lay on the table.

“And I have come to ask your consent to our marriage.”

Crash! Rosnofsky’s aim was bad. The shears, instead of reaching Lazarus, shattered the window pane. Lazarus was flying rapidly down the street. Then Rosnofsky turned to me.

“And this mixture, as I was saying, will produce exactly the same blue that the Talmud describes.”

It was worth while to become acquainted with Rosnofsky. When aroused, or crossed, or seriously annoyed, he had a frightful temper, and the man whose misfortune it had been to stir him up was the object of a malediction as bitter as it was fierce, extending through all his family for, usually, a dozen generations. Then, in startling contrast to this, he was a devout son of Abraham, and, in moments of serious reflection, would be almost overcome by a feeling of piety, and at such times all that was good and noble in his nature asserted itself. It was a strange blending of the prosaic with the patriarchal.

“How came the original colour to be lost?” I asked. Rosnofsky looked at me for a moment. Then he shook his head.

“That scamp has upset me completely,” he said. “Some other time I will tell you. Just now I can think of nothing but the effrontery of that scoundrel.”

“What makes you so bitter toward him?” I ventured to ask.

“Bitter! Bitter! He wants to marry Miriam. The audacity of the wretch! My only child. And here he practically tells me to my face that he has been making love to her, and that he has ascertained that she is in love with him. And I never knew it. Never even suspected it. A curse on the scamp! Sneaking into my home to steal my daughter from me. The dishonourable villain! I trusted him. The viper. May he suffer a million torments! May the fiends possess him!”

I ventured to suggest that it was the way of the world. I departed. Somewhat hastily. I did not like the way he glared at me.

The next time I saw Rosnofsky he was walking excitedly up and down his shop, tearing his hair _en route_. When he saw me he sprang forward and clutched me by the shoulder.

“Here!” he cried. “I will leave it to you. You were here when he had the audacity to confess his guilt to my face. Read this.” He thrust a crumpled piece of paper into my hand. “Read it, and tell me if there is another such villain upon this earth. Oh, I shall go mad!”

I read it. It was from Lazarus.

“I told you that I loved your daughter,” he wrote. “I told you that she loved me. And, like an honest man, I asked you to consent to our marriage. You refused. I now appeal to you again. You will make us both very happy by giving your consent, as we would like you to be present at the wedding. If you do not give your consent, we will not invite you. But we will get married, anyway. We will elope at the first opportunity. The only way to stop it is to keep Miriam locked in the house. Then I shall call in the police.”

It was signed, “Lovingly, your son-in-law-to-be.”

“How can I punish him?” asked Rosnofsky. I promised to think it over. I had called merely to tell Rosnofsky that I would accept his invitation to supper on Sader night, and to thank him.

“You know the law,” he said. “When you come bring with you a plan to punish this scoundrel.”

* * * * *

It was the eve of the Passover, and I stood in the gloomy hallway tapping at Rosnofsky’s door. Dimly through the darkness I saw a quivering shadow, but in the labyrinths of tenement corridors it is unwise to investigate shadows. The door opened, and Rosnofsky, with “praying cap” upon his head, welcomed me to the feast of the Sader.

Miriam was as sweet as a rose. I have not told you how pretty she was, nor shall I begin now, for it is a very tempting subject, such as would be likely to beguile a man into forgetting the thread of his story, and it was too dangerous for me to enter upon. Suffice it that her eyes were as glorious as—but there!

The table was arranged for four, Rosnofsky, Miriam, and myself, and opposite Miriam’s seat was the chair for the Stranger.

Now the custom of celebrating this feast, according to the ritual, is like this:

Holding aloft the unleavened bread, the head of the house must say:

“This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all those who are hungry enter and eat thereof; and all who are in distress come and celebrate the Passover.”

And the youngest-born must arise and open the door so that the Stranger may enter and take his place at the table, and, even though he slew one of their kin, that night he is a sacred guest.

And—as you have no doubt already opined—hardly had Miriam opened the door when, with pale face, but with lips that were pressed in grim determination, in walked Lazarus. Now, to this day I do not know whether Miriam expected him, or what her feelings were when he entered. She has refused to tell me. It needed but one glance to assure me that if there was any secret Rosnofsky had not been in it.

With a cry of rage he sprang to his feet, and I feared that he would hurl a knife at the intruder. But an instant later he recovered himself, and with a gurgling, choking sound sank into his chair.

“The grace of God be with you all,” saluted Lazarus, still very pale. Then,

“Am I a welcome guest?”

Rosnofsky seemed to be on the point of exploding with rage, but at this question he started as if he had been struck. After a moment’s silence he arose with great dignity—and holding out his hand—the strength of his piety never more forcibly illustrated—said:

“Forgive my anger, my son. You are welcome to the Feast of the Passover.”

And resuming his seat he chanted:

“Blessed art Thou, O Eternal, our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of wine!”

It was the beginning of the service. Lazarus, with his eyes upon the table, chanted the responses, and I, who knew nothing of the ritual, looked at Miriam, who, I assure you, was delightful to behold, particularly when her eyes twinkled as they did now.

By the time he had finished the Sader, Rosnofsky’s troubled spirit had become soothed, and the final grace was delivered in a voice so calm and with a manner so soothing, that when he looked up Lazarus was emboldened to speak.

“You are angry with me, Father Rosnofsky,” he ventured.

“Let us not speak of unpleasant things this night,” replied the tailor, gently. “This is a holy night.”

Lazarus, in no way abashed, deftly led the old man to expound some of the intricate sayings of the rabbis upon the Passover, which Rosnofsky, who was something of a theologian, did with great eagerness. Now, how it came about I cannot tell, but Lazarus was so greatly interested in this discussion, and Rosnofsky was so determined to prove that the old rabbis were all in the wrong on this one point, that when the meal was over he declared that if Lazarus would call the next night he would have a book that would convince him. Lazarus had the discretion to take his departure. When he had gone Rosnofsky puffed his pipe in silence for some moments. Then, with a quaint smile, he turned to me and said:

“The young rogue!”

And then he gazed at Miriam until she grew red.

A RIFT IN THE CLOUD

Though the sky be grey and dreary, yet will the faintest rift reveal a vision of the dazzling brightness that lies beyond.

So does a word, a look, a single act of a human being often reveal the glorious beauty of a soul.

So is it written in the Talmud, and it needs no rabbi to expound it. What I am about to tell you is not a rounded tale; it hardly rises to the dignity of a sketch. There is a man who lives in the very heart of a big city, and I once had a peep into his heart. His name is Polatschek. He makes cigars during the day and gets drunk every night.

In that Hungarian colony which clusters around East Houston Street, the lines that separate Gentile, Jew, and Gipsy are not more strictly drawn than are the lines between the lines. And as the pedigree of every member is the common property of the colony, the social status of each group is pretty clearly defined.

Being an outcast, Polatschek has no social status whatever, and all that the colony has ever known or has ever cared to know about him is this:

By a curious atavistic freak Polatschek was born honest. In the little town in southern Hungary from which he came his great-grandfather had been a highwayman, his grandfather had been executed for murder, his father was serving a long sentence for burglary, and his two younger brothers were on the black list of the police. And so, when it was announced that one of the Polatscheks was coming to New York, Houston Street society drew in its latch-string, and one of the storekeepers even went so far as to tell the story to a police detective. This, however, was frowned upon, for Goulash Avenue—as the Hungarians laughingly call Houston Street—loves to keep its secrets to itself.

There is no need to describe the appearance of Polatschek; it is extremely uninteresting. He has a weak chin, and when he is sober he is very timid. A Hungarian does not easily make friends outside his own people, and so it came to pass that Polatschek had no friends at all.

How Polatschek lived none but himself knew. Somewhere in Rivington Street he had a room where, it was once said, he kept books, though no one knew what kind of books they were. For a few hours every day he worked at cigar-making, earning just enough money to keep body and soul together. He was, in short, as uninteresting a man as you could find, and all who knew him shunned him. Night after night he would sit in Natzi’s café, where the gipsies play on Thursdays, drinking slivovitz—which is the last stage. He would drink, drink, drink, and never a word to a soul. On music nights he would drink more than usual and his eyes would fill with tears. We all used to think they were maudlin tears, but we had grown accustomed to Polatschek and his strange habits, and nobody paid attention to him.

* * * * *

It was music night at Natzi’s, and Polatschek was sitting close to the gipsies with his eyes fixed upon the leader. He had been drinking a little more than usual, and I marvelled that a man in his maudlin condition should take such a deep interest in music.

They were playing the “Rakoczy March,” which only the Hungarians know how to play, and Polatschek was swaying his head in time to the melody.

It seemed so strange, this friendless, hopeless man’s love for music, so thoroughly foreign to his dreary, barren nature as I had pictured it in my mind, that when the gipsies had finished I spoke to him.

“That was beautiful, was it not?”

He looked at me in surprise, his eyes wide open, and after gazing at me for a moment he shook his head.

“No, that was not beautiful. The ‘Rakoczy March’ is the greatest march in the world, but these gipsies do not know how to play it. They cannot play. They have no life, no soul. They play it as if they were machines.”

Startled by his vehemence, I could only murmur, “Oh!”

“Look!” he exclaimed, rising in agitation. He took up the leader’s violin and bow. “Listen! This is the ‘Rakoczy’!”

The gipsy leader had sprung to his feet, but at the first tone of the violin he stood as if petrified. A silence had fallen upon the room. With his eyes fixed upon mine, his lips pressed firmly together, Polatschek played the “Rakoczy March.” The guests were staring at him in blank amazement. The gipsies, with sparkling eyes, were listening to those magic strains, but Polatschek was unmindful of it all, and—I felt proud because he was playing that march for me. I have heard Sarasate play the “Rakoczy March.” I have heard Mme. Urso try it, and I have heard Remenyi, who, being a Hungarian, played it best of them all. But I had never heard it played as Polatschek played it.

As I saw the lines in that face grow sharper, saw the body quiver with patriotic ardour, those ringing, rhythmic tones sang of the tramp, tramp, tramp of armies, of cavalcades of horses, of the clash and clangour of battle. Then it all grew fainter and fainter as if the armies were vanishing in the distance, and the sad strains of the undersong rose to the surface of the melody and I heard that sobbing appeal which lies hidden somewhere in every Hungarian song. It died away, there was a moment’s silence—Polatschek remained standing, looking at me—then a mighty shout went up.

“Ujra! Ujra!” they cried. It was an encore they wanted.

But Polatschek had resumed his seat and his slivovitz, and in a few moments he was very drunk.

OUT OF HIS ORBIT

In order to emphasise the moral of a tale, it is safer to state it at the very beginning. The moral of the story of Rosenstein is this: Woe be to the man who attempts to teach his wife a lesson! Woe be to him if he fail! Woe be to him if he succeed! Whatever happens, woe be to him! In witness whereof this tale is offered.

Mrs. Rosenstein wanted one room papered in red, and Mr. Rosenstein held that the yellow paper that adorned the walls was good enough for another year.

“But,” argued his wife, “we have laid by a little money in the past years, and we can easily afford it. And I love red paper on the walls.” Rosenstein, by the way, owned a dozen tenement houses, had no children, and led a life of strict economy on perhaps one-fiftieth of his income. Besides, Rosenstein owned a lucrative little dry-goods store that brought in more money. And he had never smoked and had never drunk. But the more his wife insisted upon the red paper the more stubborn he became in his opposition, until, one morning after a heated discussion in which he had failed disastrously to bring forth any reasonable argument to support his side of the case, he suddenly and viciously yielded.

“Very well,” he said, putting on his hat and starting for the door; “get your red paper. Have your own way. But from this moment forth I become a drinker.”

Mrs. Rosenstein turned pale. “Husband! Husband!” she cried entreatingly, turning toward him with clasped hands. But Rosenstein, without another word, strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Mrs. Rosenstein sank into a chair, appalled. The pride of her life had been that her husband had never touched liquor, and the one disquieting thought that from time to time came to worry her was that some day he might fall. And she felt that the first fall would mark the beginning of ruin. She had known men whose habits of drink had undermined their business capacity. Her husband, she knew, was close, and had a mania for accumulating money. But once the demon of drink entered into his life she felt that all this would change. He would become a spendthrift. He would squander all that he had saved. They would be homeless—perhaps they would starve. And he was about to take the first step. Her heart was almost broken. To follow him she knew would be worse than useless. He was stubborn—she had learned that—and there was nothing for her to do but to accept the inevitable.

Rosenstein meanwhile walked to the nearest saloon. He had passed the place a thousand times, but had never entered before. The bartender’s eyes opened in mild surprise to see so patriarchal a figure standing in front of the bar glaring at him so determinedly.

“Give me a drink!” demanded Rosenstein.

“What kind of a drink do you want?” asked the bartender.

Rosenstein looked bewildered. He did not know one drink from another. He looked at the row of bottles behind the counter, and then his face lit up.

“That bottle over there—the big black one.”

It was Benedictine. The bartender poured some of it into a tiny liqueur glass, but Rosenstein frowned.

“I want a drink, I said, not a drop. Fill me a big glass.”

The wise bartender does not dispute with his patrons as long as they have the means of paying for what they order. Without a word he filled a small goblet with the thick cordial, and Rosenstein, without a word, gulped it down. The bartender watched him in open-mouthed amazement, charged him for four drinks, and then, as Rosenstein walked haughtily out of the place, murmured to himself: “Well, I’ll be hanged!”