Part 5

Some ten years ago the Frankfort Ghetto had been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke, caught up in the wave of Napoleonic toleration. Peloni had shared in the exultation of the Jews at the final dissipation of the long night of mediaevalism. He had written a Hebrew poem on it, brilliantly rhymed, congested with apt quotations from Bible and Talmud, the whole making an acrostic upon the name of the enlightened Karl Theodor von Dalberg. Henceforth Israel would take his place among the peoples, honour on his brow, love in his heart, manhood in his limbs. A gracious letter of acknowledgment from the archduke was displayed in the window of Peloni's little bookselling establishment, amid the door-amulets, phylacteries, praying-shawls, Purim-scrolls, and Hebrew volumes.

But now the prince had been ousted, Napoleon was dead, everywhere the Ghetto-gates were locked again, and the Poem lay stacked on the remainder shelves. In vain had the grateful Jews hastened to fight for the Fatherland, tendered it body and soul. Poor little curly-haired Peloni had been attacked in the streets as an alien that very morning. Roysterers had raised the old cry of "Hep! Hep!"--fatal, immemorial cry, ghastly heritage of the Crusades. Century after century that cry had gone echoing through Europe. Century after century the Jews thought they had lived it down, bought it down, died it down. But no! it rose again, buoyant, menacing, irresponsible. Ah, what a fool he had been to hope! There was no hope.

Rarely, indeed, since the Dark Ages had persecution flaunted itself so openly. Riots and massacres were breaking out all over Germany, and in his own Ghetto Peloni had seen sights that had turned his patriotism to gall, and crushed his trust in the Christian, his beautiful bubble-dreams of the Millennium. Rothschild himself, whose house in the _Judengasse_ with the sign of the red shield had been the centre of the attack, was well-nigh unable to maintain his position in the town. And these local successes inflamed the Jew-haters everywhere. "Let the children of Israel be sold to the English," recommended a popular pamphlet of the period, "who could employ them in their Indian plantations instead of the blacks. The best plan would be to purge the land entirely of this vermin, either by exterminating them, or, as Pharaoh, and the people of Meiningen, Wuerzburg, and Frankfort did, by driving them from the country."

"Oh, God!" thought Peloni, as his mind ran over the long chain from Pharaoh to Frankfort. "Evermore to wander, stoned and derided! Thou hast set a mark on his forehead, but his punishment is greater than he can bear."

The dead lay all around him, one upon another, new red stones shouldering aside the gray stones that told to boot of the death of the centuries. And the pressure of all this struggle for death-room had raised the earth higher than the adjacent paths. He thought of how these dead had always come here; even in their lifetime, when the enemy raged outside. Here they had put the women and children and gone back to the synagogue to pray. Ah, the cowards! always oscillating betwixt cemetery and synagogue, why did they not live, why did they not fight? Yes, but they had fought,--fought for Germany, and this was Germany's reply.

But could they not fight for themselves then, with money, with the sinews of war, if not with the weapons; with gold, if not with steel? could they not join financial forces all through the world? But no! There was no such solidarity as the Christians dreamed. And they were too mixed up with the European world to dream of self-concentration. Even while the Frankfort Rothschild's house was surrounded by rioters, the Paris Rothschild was giving a ball to the _elite_ of diplomatic society.

No! the old Jews were right--there was only the synagogue and the cemetery.

But was there even the synagogue? That, too, was dead. The living faith, the vivid realization of Israel's hope, which had made the Dark Ages endurable and even luminous, were only to be found now among fanatics whose blind ignorance and fierce clinging to the dead letter and the obsolete form counterbalanced the poetry and sublimity of their persistence. In the Middle Ages, Peloni felt, his poems would have been absorbed into the liturgy. For when the liturgy and the religion were alive, they took in and gave out--like all living things. But no--the synagogue of to-day was dead.

Remained only the cemetery.

"_Jude, verrek!_" Jew, die like a beast.

Yes, what else was there to do? For he was not even a Rothschild, he told himself with whimsical anguish; only a poor poet, unread, unknown, unhealthy; a shadow that only found substance to suffer; a set of heart-strings across which every wind that blew made a poignant, passionate music; a lamentation incarnate, a voice of weeping in the wilderness, a bubble blown of tears, a dream, a mist, a nobody,--in short, Peloni!

The dead generations drew him. He fell, weeping passionately, upon a tomb.

II

There seemed an unwonted stir in the _Judengasse_ when Peloni returned to it. Was there another riot threatening? he thought, as he passed along the narrow street of three-storied frame houses, most of them gabled, and all marked by peculiar signs and figures--the Bear or the Lion or the Garlic or the Red Shield (_Rothschild_)!

Outside the synagogue loitered a crowd, and as he drew near he perceived that there was a long Proclamation in a couple of folio sheets nailed on the door. It was doubtless this which was being discussed by the little groups he had already noted. About the synagogue door the throng was so thick that he could not get near enough to read it himself. But fortunately some one was engaged in reading it aloud for the benefit of those on the outskirts.

"'Wherefore I, Mordecai Manuel Noah, Citizen of the United States of America, late Consul of said States to the City and Kingdom of Tunis, High Sheriff of New York, Counsellor-at-Law, and by the Grace of God Governor and Judge of Israel, have issued this my proclamation.'"

A derisive laugh from a dwarfish figure in the crowd interrupted the reading. "Father Noah come to life again!" It was the _Possemacher_, or wedding-jester, who was not sparing of his wit, even when not professionally engaged.

"A foreigner--an American!" sneered a more serious voice. "Who made him ruler in Israel?"

"That's what the wicked Israelite asked Moses!" cried Peloni, curiously excited.

"_Nun, nun!_ Go on!" cried others.

"'Announcing to the Jews throughout the world, that an asylum is prepared and hereby offered to them, where they can enjoy that Peace, Comfort, and Happiness which have been denied them through the intolerance and misgovernment of former ages. An asylum in a free and powerful country, where ample protection is secured to their persons, their property, and religious rights; an asylum in a country remarkable for its vast resources, the richness of its soil, and the salubrity of its climate; where industry is encouraged, education promoted, and good faith rewarded. "A land of Milk and Honey," where Israel may repose in Peace, under his "Vine and Fig tree," and where our People may so familiarize themselves with the science of government and the lights of learning and civilization, as may qualify them for that great and final Restoration to their ancient heritage, which the times so powerfully indicate.'"

The crowd had grown attentive. Peloni's face was pale as death. What was this great thing, fallen so unexpectedly from the impassive heaven his hopelessness had challenged?

But the _Possemacher_ captured the moment. "Father Noah's drunk again!"

A great laugh shook the crowd. But Peloni dug his nails into his palms. "Read on! Read on!" he cried hoarsely.

"'The Place of Refuge is in the State of New York, the largest in the American Union, and the spot to which I invite my beloved People from the whole world is called Grand Island.'"

Peloni drew a deep breath. His face had now changed to the other extreme and was flushed with excitement.

"Noah's Ark!" shot the _Possemacher_ dryly, and had his audience swaying hysterically.

"For God's sake, brethren!" cried Peloni. "This is no joke. Have you forgotten already that here we are only animals?"

"And they went in two by two," said the _Possemacher_, "the clean beasts, and the unclean beasts!"

"Hush, hush, let us hear!" from some of the crowd.

"'Here I am resolved to lay the foundation of a State, named Ararat.'"

"Ah! what did I say?" the exultant _Possemacher_ shrieked at Peloni.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the crowd. "Noah's Ark resting on Ararat!" The dullest saw that.

Peloni was taken aback for a moment.

"But why should not the place of Israel's Ark of Refuge be named Ararat?" he asked of his neighbours.

"If only his name wasn't Noah!" they answered.

"That makes it even more appropriate," he murmured.

But "Noah's Ark" was the nickname that kills. Though the reader continued, it was only to an audience exhilarated by a sense of Arabian Nights fantasy. But the elaborate description of the grandeurs of this Grand Island, and the eloquent passages about the Century of Right, and the ancient Oracles, restored Peloni's enthusiasm to fever heat.

"It is too long," said the reader, wearying at last.

Peloni rushed forward and took up the task. The first sentence exalted him still further.

"'In God's name I revive, renew, and reestablish the government of the Jewish Nation, under the auspices and protection of the Constitution and the Laws of the United States, confirming and perpetuating all our Rights and Privileges, our Name, our Rank, and our Power among the nations of the Earth, as they existed and were recognized under the government of the Judges of Israel.'" Peloni's voice shook with fervour. As he began the next sentence, "'It is my will,'" he stretched out his hand with an involuntary regal gesture. The spirit of Noah was entering into him, and he felt almost as if it was he who was re-creating the Jewish nation--"'It is my will that a Census of the Jews throughout the world be taken, that those who are well treated and wish to remain in their respective countries shall aid those who wish to go; that those who are in military service shall until further orders remain true and loyal to their rulers.

"'I command'"--Peloni read the words with expansive magnificence, his poet's soul vibrating to that other royal dreamer's across the great Atlantic--"'that a strict Neutrality be maintained in the pending war betwixt Greece and Turkey.

"'I abolish forever'"--Peloni's hand swept the air,--"'Polygamy among the Jews.'"

"But where have we polygamy?" interrupted the _Possemacher_.

"'As it is still practised in Africa and Asia,'" read on Peloni severely.

"I'm off at once for Africa and Asia!" cried the marriage-jester, pretending to run. "Good business for me there."

"You'll find better business in America," said Peloni scathingly. "For do not all our Austrian young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home only the eldest son may found a family? A pretty fatherland indeed to be a citizen of--a step-fatherland. Listen, on the contrary, to the noble tolerance of the Jew. 'Christians are freely invited.'"

"Ah! Do you know who'll go?" broke in a narrow-faced zealot. "The missionaries."

Peloni continued hastily: "'Ararat is open, too, to the Caraites and the Samaritans. The Black Jews of India and Africa shall be welcome; our brethren in Cochin-China and the sect on the coast of Malabar; all are welcome.'"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed a burly Jew. "So we're to live with the blacks. Enough of this joke!"

But Peloni went on solemnly: "'A Capitation-tax on every Jew of Three Silver Shekels per annum--'"

"Ah, now we have got to it!" and a great roar broke from the crowd. "Not a bad _Geschaeft_, eh?" and they winked. "He is no fool, this Noah."

Peloni's blood boiled. "Do you believe everybody is like yourselves?" he cried. "Listen!"

"'I do appoint the first day of next Adar for a Thanksgiving Day to the God of Israel, for His divine protection and the fulfilment of His promises to the House of Israel. I recommend Peace and Union among ourselves, Charity and Good-will to all, Toleration and Liberality toward our Brethren of all Religions--'"

"Didn't I say a missionary in disguise?" murmured the zealot.

Peloni ended, with tremulous emotion: "'I humbly entreat to be remembered in your prayers, and earnestly do I enjoin you to "keep the charge of the Holy God," to walk in His ways, to keep His Statutes and His commandments and His judgments and Testimonies, as written in the Laws of Moses; "that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest and whithersoever thou turnest thyself."

"'Given under our hand and seal in the State of New York, on the 2d of Ab 5586 in the Fiftieth Year of American Independence.'"

* * * * *

Peloni's efforts to organize a company of pilgrims to the New Jerusalem brought him only heart-ache. The very rabbi who had good-naturedly consented to circulate the fantastic foreigner's invitation, tapped his forehead significantly: "A visionary! of good intentions, doubtless, but still--a visionary. Besides, according to our dogmas, God alone knows the epoch of the Israelitish restoration; He alone will make it known to the whole universe, by signs entirely unequivocal; and every attempt on our part to reassemble with any political, national design, is forbidden as an act of high treason against the Divine Majesty. Mr. Noah has doubtless forgotten that the Israelites, faithful to the principles of their belief, are too much attached to the countries where they dwell, and devoted to the governments under which they enjoy liberty and protection, not to treat as a mere jest the chimerical consulate of a pseudo-restorer."

"Noah's a madman, and you're an infant," Peloni's friends told him.

"Since the destruction of the Temple," he quoted in retort, "the gift of prophecy has been confined to children and fools."

"You are giving up a decent livelihood," they warned him. "You are throwing it into the Atlantic."

"'Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return to thee after many days.'"

"But in the meantime?"

"'Man doth not live by bread alone.'"

"As you please. But don't ask _us_ to throw up our comfortable home here."

"Comfortable home!" and Peloni grew almost apoplectic as he reminded them of their miseries.

"Persecution?" They shrugged their shoulders. "It comes only now and again, like a snow-storm, and we crawl through it."

"That's just it--the lack of manliness--the poisoned atmosphere!"

"Bah! The _Goyim_ refuse us equal rights because they know we're their superiors. Let us not jump from the frying-pan into the fire."

So Peloni sailed for New York alone.

III

He was rather disappointed to find no other pilgrim even on the ship. True, there was one Jew, but the business Paradise of New York was his goal across this waste of waters, and of Noah's Ark he had never heard. Peloni's panegyric of Grand Island was rendered ineffective by his own nebulous conception of its commercial possibilities. He passed the slow days in the sailing-vessel polishing up his English, the literature of which he had long studied.

In New York Peloni's hopes revived. Major Noah--for it appeared he was an officer of militia likewise--was in everybody's mouth. Editor of the _National Advocate_, the leading organ of the Bucktails, or Tammany party, a journalist whose clever sallies and humorous paragraphs were widely enjoyed, an author of excellent "Travels," a playwright of the first distinction, whose patriotic dramas were always given on the Fourth of July, a critic regarded as Sir Oracle, a politician, lawyer, and man of the world, a wit, the gay centre of every gathering--surely in this lion of New York, who was also the Lion of David, Israel had at last found a deliverer. They called him madman down in Frankfort, did they? Well, let them come here and see.

He wrote home to the scoffers of the _Judengasse_ all the information about the great man that was in the very air of the American city, though the man himself he had only as yet corresponded with. He told the famous story of how when Noah was canvassing for the office of High Sheriff of New York, it was urged that no Jew should be put into an office where he might have to hang a Christian, to which Noah had retorted wittily, "Pretty Christian, to have to be hanged!" "And you all fancied 'Father Noah' would fall to pieces before the _Possemacher's_ wit!" Peloni commented with vengeful satisfaction. "I rejoice to say that Noah will never have anything to do with a _Possemacher_, for he is President of the Old Bachelors' Club, the members of which are pledged never to marry." He told of Noah's adventurous career: of how when he was a mere boy clerk in the auditor's office of his native Philadelphia, Congress had voted him a hundred dollars for his precocious preparation of the actuary tables for the eight-per-cent loan; of the three duels at Charleston, in which he had vindicated at once the courage of the Jew and the policy of American resistance to Great Britain; of his consulate in Tunis, his capture at sea by the British fleet during the war, his release on parole that enabled him to travel about England; of his genius for letters--a very David in Israel; of his generosity to hundreds of strugglers; of his quixotic disdain of money; of his impoverishing himself by paying two hundred thousand dollars of other people's debts as the price of his impulsive shrieval action in throwing open the doors of the Debtor's Jail when the yellow fever broke out within. "Yes," wrote Peloni exultantly, "in New York they talk no more of Shylock. And with all the temptations to Christian fellowship or Pagan free-living, a pillar of the synagogue,--nay, Israel's one hope in all the world!"

It was a wonderful moment when Peloni, at last invited to call on the Judge of Israel, palpitated on the threshold of his study and gazed blinkingly at the great man enthroned before his writing-table amid elegant vistas of books and paintings. What a noble poetic vision it seemed to him: the broad brow, with the tumbled hair; the long, delicate-featured face tapering to a narrow chin environed with whiskers, but clean of beard or even of mustache, so that the mobile, sensitive mouth was laid bare. Peloni's glance also took in a handsome black coat, with a decoration on the lapel, a high-peaked collar, a black puffy bow, a frilled shirt, and a very broad jewelled cuff over a white, long-fingered hand, that held a tall quill with a great breadth of feather.

"Ah, come in," said the Governor of Israel, waving his quill. "You are Peloni of Frankfort."

"Come three thousand miles to kiss the hem of your garment."

Noah permitted the attention. "I am obliged to you for your Hebrew poem in honour of my project," he said urbanely. "I approve of Hebrew--it is a link that binds us to our forefathers. I am myself editing a translation of the Book of Jasher."

"You will have found my verses a very poor expression of your divine ideas."

"You use a difficult Hebrew. But the general drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness of my conception."

"Ah, yes! I have lived in _Judengasse_, oppressed and derided."

"But there is worse than oppression--there is inward stagnation of the spiritual life. My idea came to me in Tunis, where the Jews are little oppressed. You know President Madison appointed me consul of the United States for the city and kingdom of Tunis, one of the most respectable and interesting stations in the regencies of Barbary. I had long desired to visit the country of Dido and Hannibal, to trace the field of Zama, and seek out the ruins of Utica,--whose sites I believe I have now successfully established,--but it was my main design to investigate the condition of the Barbary Jews, of whom, you will remember, we have no account later than Benjamin of Tudela's in the thirteenth century. But do not stand--take a chair. Well, I found our brethren--to the number of seven hundred thousand--controlling everything in Barbary, farming the revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the Dey's jewels and almost his person,--in short, anything but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were miserably poor. They did not know I was a Jew--though Secretary Monroe recalled me because I was, and it was Monroe's doctrine that Judaism would be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions. Absurd! The Catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle the Consulate with holy water: the barefooted Franciscan received an alms, nor did I fail to acknowledge by a donation the decorated branch sent on Palm Sunday by the Greek Bishop. And as for the slaves, I assure you they were not backward in coming to ask favours. The only people who never came to me were precisely the Jews. I went about among them incognito, so to speak, like Haroun Alraschid among his subjects; hence I was able to see all the evils that will never be eliminated till Israel is again a nation."

"Ah! your words are the words of wisdom. You touch the root of the evil. It is what I have always told them."

Noah rose to his feet, displaying a royal stature in harmony with his broad shoulders. "Yes, I resolved it should be mine to elevate my people, to make them hold up their heads worthily in this century of freedom and enlightenment."

"It is the Ark of the Convenant, as well as of the Deluge, which will rest on Ararat!"

"True--and like the first Noah, I may become the progenitor of a new world. I have communications from the four corners of the earth. You are the type of thousands who will flee from the rotting tyrannies of Europe into the great free republic which I shall direct."

He began to pace the room. Peloni had visions of great black lines of pilgrims converging from every quarter of the compass.

"But this Grand Island--is it yours?" he inquired timidly.

"I have bought thousands of acres of it--I and a few others who believe in the great future of our people."

"Jews?"

"No, not Jews--capitalists who know that we shall become the commercial centre of the new world,--that is, of the world of the future."

Peloni groaned. "And Jews will not believe? We must go to the Gentiles. Jews will only put their money into Gentile schemes; will build always for others, never for themselves. It is the same everywhere. Alas for Israel!"

"It is what I preach. Why administer Barbary for a savage Dey when you can administer Grand Island for yourself? Seven hundred thousand Jews in savage Barbary, and throughout these vast free States not seven thousand. Ah, but they will come; they will come. Ararat will gather its millions."

"But will there be room?"

"The State of New York," replied Noah, impressively, "is the largest in the Union, containing forty-three thousand two hundred and fourteen square miles divided into fifty-five counties and having six thousand and eighty-seven post-towns and cities together with six million acres of cultivated land. The constitution is founded on equality of rights. We recognize no religious differences. In our seven thousand free schools and gymnasia, four hundred thousand children of every religion are being educated. Here in this great and progressive State the long wandering of my beloved people shall end."

"But Grand Island itself?" murmured Peloni feebly.