Chapter 5

Dan cast an angry glance at his mother and hated her; and then his heart misgave him, for he knew that he lacked courage to take Joseph out of his present schooling, and dared not divide his house against himself, or do anything that might lose him his son's love and little by little cause himself to be looked upon as a tyrant. He knew himself to be a weak man, except in the counting-house; he knew it, and must stifle his jealousy of Azariah, who had forgiven Joseph his truancy and was the only one that knew of the excursion into Tiberias. But Azariah's indulgence did not altogether please him. He began to suspect it and to doubt if he had acted wisely in not ordering Joseph away from Azariah: for Azariah was robbing him, robbing him of all that he valued in this world, his son! And it seemed to him a little later in the day, as he closed his ledger, that he had come to be disregarded in his own house; and he thought he would have liked much better to stay away, to dine in the counting-house, urging a press of business. The first thing he would hear would be "Azariah." The hated name was never off the boy's lips: he talked of nothing else but Azariah and Hebrew and Greek and the learned Jews whom he met at Azariah's house.

Dan sat looking into the dusk asking himself if his bargain were not that his son should learn the Greek language but not Greek literature, which is full of heresy, he said to himself; and he returned home determined to raise the point; but Joseph told him, and he thought rather abruptly, that it was only through Greek literature that one could learn Greek in Tiberias--the spoken language was a dialect.

It may have been that Joseph perceived that praise of Azariah caused his father to writhe a little, and--curious to observe the effect--he spoke more of Azariah than he would have done otherwise, and laid an accent on his master's learning, and related incidents in which his master appeared to great advantage, causing his father much perplexity and pain of mind, till at last, unable to bear the torture any longer, he said--the words slipped from him incontinently--you're no better than a little Azariah! and, unable to contain himself, he rushed from the room, leaving Joseph and Rachel to discuss his vehemence and discover motives which he hoped would not include the right one. But afraid that he had betrayed his jealousy of Azariah he returned, and to mislead his mother and son he began to speak of the duty of the pupil to the master, telling Joseph he must submit himself to Azariah in everything: by representing Azariah as one in full authority he hoped to overcome his influence and before many months had passed over a different accent was notable in Joseph's voice when he spoke of Azariah; but he continued with him for two more years. And it was then that Dan set himself to devise plans to end his son's studies in Hebrew and Greek.

Joseph knows now all that Azariah can teach him, and it is high time that I took him in hand and taught him his trade. But though determined to rid himself of Azariah he felt he must proceed gently (if possible, in conjunction with his mother); he must wait for an occasion; and while he was watching for one it fell out that Joseph wearied of Azariah and went to his father saying that he had learnt Hebrew and could speak Greek, so there was no use in his returning to Azariah any more. At first his parents could only think that he had; quarrelled with Azariah, but it was not so, they soon discovered that he had merely become tired of him--a change that betokened a capricious mind. A growing boy is full of fancies, Rachel said: an explanation that Dan deemed sufficient, and he was careful not to speak against Azariah lest he should turn his son's thoughts back on Greek literature, or Greek philosophy, which is more pernicious even than the literature. He did not dare to ask Joseph to come down to the counting-house, afraid lest by trying to influence him in one direction he might influence him in the opposite direction. He deemed it better to leave everything to fate, and while putting his trust in God Dan applied himself to meditate on the young man's character and his tastes, which seemed to have taken a sudden turn; for, to his father's surprise, Joseph had begun to put questions to him about the sale of fish, and to speak of visiting Tyre and Sidon with a view to establishing branch houses--extensions of their business. His father, while approving of this plan, pointed out that Tyre and Sidon being themselves on the coast of the sea could never be as good customers as inland cities, sea fish being considered, he thought mistakenly, preferable to lake. He had been doing, it is true, a fair trade with Damascus, but whereas it was impossible to reckon on Damascus it seemed to him that their industry might be extended in many other directions. And delighted with the change that had come over his son he said that he would have tried long ago to extend his business, if he had had knowledge of the Greek language.

He spoke of Heliopolis, and proposed to Joseph that he should go there and establish a mart for salt fish as soon as he had mastered all the details of the trade, which would be soon: a very little application in the counting-house would be enough for a clever fellow like Joseph.

As he said these words his eyes met Rachel's, and as soon as Joseph left the room she asked him if he believed that Joseph would settle down to the selling of salt fish: a question which was not agreeable to Dan, who was at that moment settling himself into the conviction that Joseph had begun to evince an aptitude for trade that he himself did not acquire till many years older, causing him to flame up as might be expected against his mother, telling her that her remarks were most mischievous, whether she meant them or not. He hoped Joseph was not the young man that she saw in him. Before he could say any more Joseph returned, and linked his arm into his father's, and the twain went away together to the counting-house, Dan enamoured of his son but just a little afraid all the same that Joseph might weary of trade in the end, just as he had wearied of learning. He was moved to speak his fear to Joseph, but on consideration he resolved that no good could come of such confidences, and on the evening of the first day in the counting-house he whispered to Rachel that Joseph had taken to trade as a duck to the water, as the saying is.

Day after day he watched his son's progress in administration, saying nothing, waiting for the head clerk to endorse his opinion that there were the makings of a first-rate man in Joseph. He was careful not to ask any leading questions, but he could not refrain from letting the conversation drop, so that the clerk might have an opportunity of expressing his opinion of Master Joseph's business capacities. But the clerk made no remark: it might as well have been that Joseph was not in the counting-house; Dan had begun to hate his clerk, who had been with him for thirty years. He had brought him from Arimathea and couldn't dismiss him; he could only look into his eyes appealingly. At last the clerk spoke, and his words were like manna in the desert; and, overjoyed, Dan wondered how it was that he could have refrained so long. It was concerning a certain falling off in an order: if Master Joseph were to go on a circuit through the Greek cities--Dan could have thrown his arms about his clerk for these words, but it were better to dissimulate. You think then that Joseph understands the business sufficiently? The clerk acquiesced, and it was a great day, of course, the day Joseph went forth; and in a few weeks Dan had proof that his confidence in his son's business aptitudes was not misplaced. Joseph showed himself to be suited to the enterprise by his engaging manner as well as by his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, the two languages procuring him an admission into the confidences of Jew and Gentile alike.

The length of these excursions was from three to four weeks, and when Joseph returned home for an interval his parents disputed as to whether he should spend his holiday in the counting-house or the dwelling-house. So to avoid giving offence to either, and for his own pleasure Joseph often spent these days on the boats with the fishers, learning their craft from them, losing himself often in meditations how the draught of fishes might be increased by a superior kind of net: interested in his trade far too much, Rachel said. His mind seemed bent on it always; whereas she would have liked to have heard him tell of all the countries he had been to and of all the people he had seen, but it was always about salt fish that he was talking: how many barrels had gone to this town, and how many barrels to another, and the new opening he had discovered for salt fish in a village the name of which he had never heard before.

Rachel's patience with Joseph was long but at last she lost patience and said she would be glad when the last barrel of salt fish came out of the lake, for it would not be till then that they would have time to live their lives in peace and comfort. She gathered up her knitting and was going to bed, but Joseph would not suffer her to go. He said he had stories to tell her, and he fell to telling of the several preachers he had heard in the synagogues, and his voice beguiled the evening away so pleasantly that Rachel let her knitting drop into her lap and sat looking at her grandson, stupefied and transported with love.

Dan's love for his son was more tender in these days than it had ever been before, but Rachel looked back, thinking the old days were better, when Joseph used to come from Azariah's talking about his studies. It may be that Dan, forgetful of his jealousy, looked back to those days gone over with a certain wistfulness. A boy is, if not more interesting, at least more unexpected, than a young man. In the old days Dan did not know what sort of son God had given him, but now he knew that God had given him the son he always desired, and that Azariah's tending of the boy's character had been kind, wise and salutary, as the flower and fruit showed. But in the deepest peace there is disquiet, and in the relation of his adventures Joseph had begun to display interest in various interpretations of Scripture which he had heard in the synagogues--true that he laughed at these, but he had met learned heretics from Alexandria in Azariah's house. Dan often wondered if these had not tried to impregnate his mind with their religious theories and doctrines, for being without religious interests, Dan was strictly orthodox.

He did not suspect Azariah, whom he knew to be withal orthodox, as much as Azariah's friend, Apollonius, the Alexandrian Jew. But though he kept his ears open for the slightest word he could not discover any trace of his influence. If his discourse had had any effect, it was to make Joseph more than ever a Pharisee. He was sometimes even inclined to think that Joseph was a little too particular, laying too much stress upon the practice of minute observances, and he began to apprehend that there was something of the Scribe in Joseph after all. The significance of his mother's words becoming suddenly clear to Dan, he asked himself if it were not yet within the width of a finger that Joseph would tire of trade and retire to Jerusalem and expound the law and the traditions in the Temple. His vocation, Dan was of opinion, could not yet be predicted with any certainty: he might go either way--to trade or to religious learning--and in the midst of these meditations on his son's character Dan remembered that some friends had come to see Joseph at the counting-house yesterday. Joseph had taken them out into the yard and they had talked together, but it was not of the export of salt fish they had spoken, but of the observances of the Sabbath. Dan had listened, pen in hand, his thoughts suspended, and had heard them devote many minutes to the question whether a man should dip himself in the nearest brook if he had accidentally touched a pig. He had heard them discuss at length the grace that should be used before eating fruit from a tree, and whether it were necessary to say three graces after eating three kinds of fruit at one meal. He had heard one ask if a sheep that had been killed with a Greek knife could be eaten, and he had heard Joseph ask him if he knew the sheep had been killed with a Greek knife and the man confess that he had not made inquiry. If he had known--

Dan did not hear the end of the sentence, but imagined that it ended in a gesture of abhorrence. In his day religion was limited to the law of Moses, a skein well combed out, but the Scribes in Jerusalem had knotted and twisted the skein. He had heard Joseph maintain, and stiffly too, that an egg laid on the day after the Sabbath could not be eaten, because it had been prepared by the hen on the Sabbath. But one can't always be watching hens, he said to himself, and the discussion of such points seeming to him unmanly, he drew back the window-curtain and fell into admiration of his son's slim loins and great shoulders. Joseph was laughing with his companions at that moment and his teeth glistened, every one white and shapely. Why do such discussions interest him? Dan asked, for his eyes are soft as flowers; and he envied the woman that Joseph would resort unto in the night. But very often men like Joseph did not marry, and a new disquietude arose in his mind: he wanted children, grandchildren. In a few years Joseph should begin to look round.... Meanwhile it might be well to tell him that men like Hillel had always held that it is after the spirit rather than the letter we should strive, and that in running after the latter we are apt to lose the former, and he accepted the first opportunity to admonish Joseph, who listened in amazement, wondering what had befallen his father, whom he had never heard speak like this before. All the same he hearkened to these warnings and laid them in his memory, and fell to considering his father as one who had just jogged along the road that he and his ancestors had come by, without much question. But if his father had set himself to consider religions, and with that seriousness they deserved, he would not keep back any longer the matter on which he had long desired to speak to him.

The young men to whom he had just bidden good-bye were all going to Jerusalem, whither Dan was accustomed to go every year for the Feast of the Passover, but last year the journey thither had fatigued him unduly, and it seemed to Joseph that this year he should go to Jerusalem in his father's place; and when he broached the subject, Dan, who had been thinking for some time that he was not feeling strong enough for this journey, welcomed Joseph's proposal--a most proper presence Joseph's would be at the Feast. Joseph had come to the age when he should visit Jerusalem, but he did not readily understand this sudden enthusiasm. If he wanted to go to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover, why had he not said so before? And Dan, whose thoughts reached back to the discussion overheard in the yard, was compelled to ask Joseph if it were for the purpose of discussing the value of certain minute points of law that he wished to go to Jerusalem. At which Joseph was astonished that his father should have asked him such a thing.... Yet why not? For awhile back he was discussing such very points with some young gossips. His tongue wagged as was its wont on all occasions, though his mind was away and he suddenly stopped speaking; and when the stirring of his father's feet on the floor awakened him, he saw his father sitting pen in hand watching him and no doubt asking himself of what great and wonderful thing his son was thinking.

Once again actuality disappeared. He stood engulfed in memories of things heard in Azariah's house: or things only half heard, for he had never thought of them since. The words of the Jews he met there had fallen dead at the time, but now he remembered things that had passed over his mind. The heresies of the Jews in Alexandria awoke in him, and a marvellous longing awoke to see the world. First of all he must begin with Jerusalem, and he bade his father good-bye with an eagerness not too pleasant to the old man.

CHAP. V.

Gone to the study of the law! Dan said, as he walked up and down the room, glancing often into Joseph's letter, for it figured to him the Temple with the Scribes meditating on the law, or discussing it with each other while their wives remained at home doing the work. So do their lives pass over, he said, in the study of the law. Nothing else is to them of any worth.... My poor boy hopes that I shall forgive him for not returning home after the Feast of the Passover! Does he suspect that I would prefer him indifferent to the law in Magdala, rather than immersed in it at Jerusalem? A little surprised and shocked at the licentiousness of his thoughts, he drew them into order with the admission that it is better in every way that a young man should go to Jerusalem early in his life and acquire reverence for the ritual and traditions of his race, else he will drift later on into heresy, or maybe go to live in cities like Tiberias, amongst statues. But why do I trouble myself like this? For there was a time before I had a son, and the time is getting very close now when I shall lose him. And Dan stood swallowed up in the thought of the great gulf into which precarious health would soon pitch him out of sight of Joseph for ever. It was Rachel coming into the room that awoke him. She too! he muttered. He began to fuss about, seeking for writing materials, for he was now intent to send Joseph a letter of recommendation to the High Priest, having already forgotten the gulf that awaited him, in the pleasurable recollection of the courtesy and consideration he received from the most distinguished men the last time he was in Jerusalem--from Hanan the son of Seth and father-in-law of Kaiaphas: Kaiaphas was now High Priest, the High Priest of that year; but in truth, Hanan, who had been High Priest before him, retained all the power and importance of the office and was even called the High Priest. Dan remembered that he had been received with all the homage due to a man of wealth. He liked his wealth to be acknowledged, for it was part of himself: he had created it; and it was with pride that he continued his letter to Hanan recommending his son to him, saying that anything that was done to further Joseph's interests would be a greater favour than any that could be conferred on himself.

The letter was sent off by special messenger and Joseph was enjoined to carry it himself at once to Hanan, which he did, since it was his father's pleasure that he should do so. He would have preferred to be allowed to pick his friends from among the people he met casually, but since this was not to be he assumed the necessary reverence and came forward in the proper spirit to meet Hanan, who expressed himself as entirely gratified by Joseph's presence in Jerusalem and promised to support his election for the Sanhedrin. But if the councillors reject me? For you see I am still a young man. The innocency of Joseph's remark pleased Hanan, who smiled over it, expressing a muttered hope that the Sanhedrin would not take upon itself the task of discussing the merits and qualifications of those whom he should deem worthy to present for election. The great man purred out these sentences, Joseph's remark having reminded him of his exalted position. But thinking his remark had nettled Hanan, Joseph said: you see I have only just come to Jerusalem; and this remark continued the flattery, and with an impulsive movement Hanan took Joseph's hands and spoke to him about his father in terms that made Joseph feel very proud of Dan, and also of being in Jerusalem, which had already begun to seem to him more wonderful than he had imagined it to be: and he had imagined it very wonderful indeed. But there was a certain native shrewdness in Joseph; and after leaving the High Priest's place he had not taken many steps before he began to see through Hanan's plans: which no doubt are laid with the view to impress me with the magnificence of Jerusalem and its priesthood. He walked a few yards farther, and remembered that there are always dissensions among the Jews, and that the son of a rich man (one of first-rate importance in Galilee) would be a valuable acquisition to the priestly caste.

But though he saw through Hanan's designs, he was still the dupe of Hanan, who was a clever man and a learned man; his importance loomed up very large, and Joseph could not be without a hero, true or false; so it could not be otherwise than that Hanan and Kaiaphas and the Sadducees, whom Joseph met in the Sanhedrin and whose houses he frequented, commanded his admiration for several months and would have held it for many months more, had it not been that he happened to be a genuinely religious man, concerned much more with an intimate sense of God than with the slaying of bullocks and rams.

He had accepted the sacrifices as part of a ritual which should not be questioned and which he had never questioned: yet, without discussion, without argument, they fell in his estimation without pain, as naturally as a leaf falls. A friend quoted to him a certain well-known passage in Isaiah, and not the whole of it: only a few words; and from that moment the Temple, the priests and the sacrifices became every day more distasteful to him than they were the day before, setting him pondering on the mind of the man who lives upon religion while laughing in his beard at his dupe; he contrasted him with the fellow that drives in his beast for slaughter and pays his yearly dole; he remembered how he loved the prophets instinctively though the priests always seemed a little alien, even before he knew them. Yet he never imagined them to be as far from true religion (which is the love of God) as he found them; for they did not try to conceal their scepticism from him: knowing him to be a friend of the High Priest, it had seemed to them that they might indulge their wit as they pleased, and once he had even to reprove some priests, so blasphemous did their jests appear to him. An unusually fat bullock caused them to speak of the fine regalement he would be to Jahveh's nostrils. One sacristan, mentioning the sacred name, figured Jahveh as pressing forward with dilated nostrils. There is no belly in heaven, he said: its joys are entirely olfactory, and when this beast is smoking, Jahveh will call down the angels Michael and Gabriel. As if not satisfied with this blasphemy, as if it were not enough, he turned to the sacristans by him, to ask them if they could not hear the angels sniffing as they leaned forward out of their clouds. My priests are doing splendidly: the fat of this beast is delicious in our nostrils; were the words he attributed to Jahveh. Michael and Gabriel, he said, would reply: it is indeed as thou sayest, Sire!