the homeliness of a people without a home, without a country. They are
exiles who have flung together, as well as may be, the few remnants of
their possessions, adding to them little touches that may re-create the
colour of their land, and have settled down to make the best of things.
Their feasts and festivals are full of this yearning. The Feast of
Maccabeus, which is celebrated near our Christmas-time, is delightfully
domestic. It is preceded, eight days before, by the Feast of the Lights.
In each house a candle is lit--one candle on the first day, two on the
second, three on the third, and so on until the eighth day, which is
that dedicated to Maccabeus. Then there are feastings, and throughout
the rich evenings the boys walk with the girls or salute the latter as
they lounge at the corners with that suggestion in their faces of lazy
strength and smouldering fire. A children's service is held in the
synagogues, and cakes and sweets are distributed. The dark, vivid beauty
of these children shows marvellously against the greys of Whitechapel.
Every Saturday of the year the streets are filled with them, for then
all shops are shut, all work suspended, and the little ones are in those
best frocks and velvet suits in which even the poorest parents are so
proud to clothe their offspring. They love colour; and ribbons of many
hues are lavished on the frocks and tunics. One of my London moments was
when I first saw, in Whitechapel High Street, a little Jewess, with
masses of jet-black hair, dressed in vermilion and white. I wonder, by
the way, why it is that the children of the genteel quarters of London,
such as Kensington Gardens, have no hair, or at any rate, only skimpy
little twigs of it, while the children of the East are loaded with curls
and tresses of an almost tropical luxuriance, and are many times more
beautiful. Does that terrifying process called Good Breeding kill all
beauty? Does careful feeding and tending poison the roots of loveliness?
I wonder.... Anyway, the Jews, beautiful alike in face and richness of
tresses, stand to the front in two of the greatest callings of the
world--art and fighting. Examine the heroes of the prize-ring; at least
two-thirds of them are Jews. Examine the world's greatest musicians and
singers, and the same may be said.
On Sundays, of course, only the rags of everyday are seen, for then the
work of the week begins again. At about the time of our Easter the Feast
of the Passover is celebrated. Then, if you walk down Middlesex Street
any Sunday morning you will notice an activity even more feverish than
that which it mostly presents. Jews of every nationality flock to it;
and for the week preceding this Feast the stall-holders do tremendous
business, not, as is customary, with the Gentiles, but among their own
people. The Feast of the Passover is one of the oldest and quaintest
religious ceremonies of the oldest religion in the world. Fasting and
feasting intermingle with observances. Spring-cleaning is general at
this season, for all things must be _kosher-al-pesach_, or clean and
pure. At the cafes you will find a special kosher bar, whereon are wines
and spirits in brand new decanters, glasses freshly bought and cleansed,
and a virgin cloth surmounting the whole. The domestic and hardware
shops are busy, for the home must be replenished with chaste
vessels--pots and pans and all utensils are bought with reckless
disregard of expense. Milk may not be bought from the milkman's cans.
Each house fetches its own from the shops, in new, clean jugs, which
are, of course, _kosher_; and nothing is eaten but unleavened bread.
When the fast is over, begins the feast, and the cafes and the family
dining-rooms are full. Down a side street stand straggling armies of
ragged, unkempt Jews--men, women, and children. These are the
destitutes. For them the season brings no rejoicing. Therefore their
compatriots come forward, and at the office of the Jewish Board of
Guardians they assemble to distribute supplies of grocery, vegetables,
meat, fish, eggs, and so forth. Country or sex matters not; all Jews
must rejoice, and, when necessary, must be supplied with the means of
rejoicing. So here are gathered all the wandering Jews without
substance. Later, after the fine feed which is provided for them, there
are services in the synagogue. The men and women, in strict isolation,
are a drama in themselves. Men with long beards and sad, shifty faces;
men with grey beards, keen eyes, and intellectual profile; men with
curly hair and Italian features; and women with dark, shining hair and
flashing eyes--men, women, and children of every country and clime, rich
and poor, are gathered there to worship after the forms of the saddest
of all faiths.
The Ghetto is full of life every evening, for then the workshops and
factories and warehouses are closed, and the handsome youth of
Whitechapel is free to amuse itself. Most of the girls work at the
millinery establishments, and most of the boys at the wholesale drapery
houses. The High Street is one of the most picturesque main streets of
London. The little low butchers' shops, fronted by raucous stalls, the
gabled houses, and the flat-faced hotels, are some of the loveliest bits
of eighteenth-century domestic architecture remaining in London. And the
crowd! It sweeps you from your feet; it catches you up, drags you, drops
you, jostles you; and you don't mind in the least. They are all so gay,
and they look upon you with such haunting glances that it is impossible
to be cross with them. If you leave the London Docks, and crawl up the
dismal serenity of Cable Street, the High Street seems to snatch you.
You catch the mood of the moment; you dance with the hour. There is
noise and the flare of naphtha. There are opulent glooms. The regiment
of lame stalls is packed so closely, shoulder to shoulder, that if one
gave an inch the whole line would fall. Meat, greengrocery, Brummagem
jewellery for the rich beauty of Rhoda, shell-fish, confectionery, old
magazines, pirated music, haberdashery, "throw-out" (or Sudden Death)
cigars--all these glories are waiting to seize your pennies. Slippery
slices of fish sprawl dolefully on the slabs. The complexion of the
meat-shops, under the yellow light, is rich and strange. But there is
very little shouting; the shopkeepers make no attempt to entice you.
There are the goods: have 'em if you like; if not, leave 'em.
If you are hungry, and really want something to eat, I suggest your
going to one of the restaurants or hotels, and trying their table
d'hote. They run usually to six or seven courses, two of which will
satisfy any reasonable hunger. Yet I have seen frail young girls tackle
the complete menu, and come up fresh and smiling at the end. Of course,
women are, as a rule, much heavier eaters than men, but these delicate,
pallid girls of the Ghetto set you marvelling. I have occasionally
joined a party, and delightful table companions they were. For they can
talk; they have, if not humour, at any rate a very mordant wit, as all
melancholy peoples have; and they languish in the most delicately
captivating way.
On my first experience, we started the meal with Solomon Grundy--pickled
herring. Then followed a thick soup, in which were little threads of a
paste made from eggs and flour and little balls of unleavened dough.
Then came a kind of pea-soup, and here a little lady of the party
ordered unfermented Muscat wine. The good Jew may not touch shell-fish
or any fish without scales, so we were next served with fried soles and
fried plaice, of which Rachel took both, following, apparently, the
custom of the country. Although the menu consists of seven courses, each
item contains two, and sometimes three or four, dishes; and the correct
diner tastes every one. Roast veal, served in the form of stew,
followed, and then came roast fowl and tongue. There were also salads,
and sauerkraut, and then a pease-pudding, and then almond-pudding, and
then staffen, and then ... I loosened a button, and gazed upon Rachel in
wonder. She was still eating bread.
It is well to be careful, before visiting any of the Ghetto cafes, to
acquaint yourself with rules and ceremonies. Otherwise you may
unintentionally give offence and make yourself several kinds of idiot. I
have never at any period of my London life been favoured with a guiding
hand. Wherever I went, whatever I did, I was alone. That is really the
only way to see things, and certainly the only way to learn things. If I
wanted to penetrate the inmost mysteries of Hoxton, I went to Hoxton,
and blundered into private places and to any holy of holies that looked
interesting. Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes I got what I asked
for. When at seventeen I wanted to find out if the Empire Promenade was
really anything like the Empire Promenade, I went to the Empire
Promenade. Of course, I made mistakes and muddled through. I made
mistakes in the Ghetto. I was the bright boy who went to a shabby little
cafe in Osborn Street, and asked for smoked beef, roll and butter, and
coffee. The expression on that waiter's face haunts me whenever I feel
bad and small. He did not order me out of the restaurant. He did not
assault me. He looked at me, and I grieved to see his dear grey eyes ...
so sad. He said: "Pardon, but this is a kosher cafe. I am not a Jew
myself, but how can I serve what you order? Tell me--how can I do it?
What?"
I said: "I beg your pardon, too. I don't understand. Tell me more."
He said: "Would you marry your aunt? No. Neither may a Jewish restaurant
serve milk, or its derivatives, such as, so to speak, butter, cheese,
and so forth, on the same table with flesh. You ask for meat and bread
and butter. You must have bread with your meat. If you have coffee, sir,
you will have it BLACK."
I said: "It is my fault. No offence intended. I didn't know. Once again,
I have made an ass of myself. Had I better not go?"
He said, swiftly: "No, don't go, sir. Oh, don't go. Listen: have the
smoked beef, with a roll. Follow with prunes or kugel. And if you want a
drink _with_ your meal, instead of afterwards, have tea-and-lemon in
place of black coffee."
And so, out of that brutal mistake, I made yet another London friend, of
whom I have, roughly, about two thousand five hundred scattered over the
four-mile radius.
A HAPPY NIGHT
SURBITON AND BATTERSEA
_A SUBURBAN NIGHT_
_Oh, sweetly sad and sadly sweet,
That rain-pearled night at Highbury!
The picture-theatre, off the street,
That housed us from the lisping sleet,
Is a white grave of dreams for me._
_Though smile and talk were all our part,
Sorrow lay prone upon your heart
That never again our lips might meet,
And never so softly fall the sleet
In gay-lamped, lyric Highbury.
Love made your lily face to shine,
But oh, your cheek was salt to mine,
As we walked home from Highbury._
_O starry street of shop and show,
And was it thus long years ago?
Was the full tale but waste and woe,
And Love but doom in Highbury,
My dusty, dreaming Highbury?_
A HAPPY NIGHT
SURBITON AND BATTERSEA
When I received the invitation to the whist-drive at Surbiton my first
thought was, "Not likely!" I had visions of a boring evening: I knew
Surbiton. I knew its elegances and petty refinements. I knew its
pathetic apings of Curzon Street and Grosvenor Square. I knew its
extremely dull smartness of speech and behaviour. I foresaw that I
should enjoy myself as much as I did at the Y.M.C.A. concert where
everybody sang refined songs and stopped the star from going on because
he was about to sing the "Hymn to Venus," which was regarded as "a
little amorous." The self-conscious waywardness, the deliberate
Bohemianism of Surbiton, I said to myself, is not for me. I shall either
overplay it or underplay it. Certainly I shall give offence if I am my
normal self. For the Bohemianism of Surbiton, I continued, has very
strict rules which nobody in Bohemia ever heard of, and you cannot be a
Surbiton Bohemian until you have mastered those rules and learned how
gracefully to transgress them. If I throw bread pellets at the girls,
they will call me unmannerly. If I don't they will call me stiff. You
may have noticed that those pseudo-intellectuals who like to think
themselves Bohemian are always terrified when they are brought up
against anything that really is unconventional. On the other hand, your
true Bohemian is disgusted if anybody describes him by that word; if
there is one word that he detests more than Belgravia, it is Bohemia.
No, I shall certainly not go.
Surbiton ... Surbiton. I repeated the name aloud, tasting its flavour.
It has always had to me something brackish, something that fills my
mind with grey pain and makes me yearn for my old toys. It is curious
how the places and streets of London assume a character from one's own
moods. All the big roads have a very sharp character of their own. If
all other indications were lacking, one might know at once whether the
place were Edgware Road or Old Ford Road, simply by the sounds and by
the sweep of it. Pull down every house and shop, and still Oxford Street
could never pass itself off as Barking Road. But they have, too, a
message for you. I still believe that a black dog is waiting to maul me
in Stepney Causeway. I still dance with delight down Holborn. Peckham
Road still speaks to me of love. And Maida Vale always means music for
me, music all the way. I had my first fright in Stepney Causeway. I
first walked down Holborn when I had had a streak of luck. I first knew
Peckham Road when first I loved. And I first made acquaintance with
Maida Vale and its daintily naughty flats at the idiotic age of
seventeen, when I was writing verses for composers at five shillings a
time. They all lived in Maida Vale, and I spent many evenings in the
music-rooms of those worn-out or budding composers and singers who, with
the Jews, have made this district their own; so that Maida Vale smells
always to me of violets and apple-blossom: it speaks April and May. The
deep blue of its night skies is spangled with dancing stars. The very
sweep and sway of the road to Kilburn and Cricklewood is an ecstasy, and
the windows of the many mansions seem to shine from heaven, so aloof are
they.
Surbiton, I repeated. I shall certainly not go. I know it too well.
Surbiton is one of those comfortable, solid places, and I loathe
comfortable places. I always go to Hastings and avoid St. Leonards. I
always go to Margate and fly from Eastbourne. I always go to Southend
and give Knocke-sur-Mer a miss. I like Clacton. I detest Cromer. I love
Camden Town. I hate Surbiton. Surbiton is very much like Hampstead,
except that, while Hampstead is horrible for 362 days of the year,
there are three days in the year when it is inhabitable. On Bank
Holidays the simple-minded minor poet like myself can live in it. I was
there one August Bank Holiday, and, flushed and fatigued with the
full-blooded frolic, I had turned aside to "cool dahn" in Heath Street,
when I ran against some highly respectable and intelligent friends.
"What!" they said. "You here to-day? Ah! observing, I suppose? Getting
copy? Or perhaps as a literary man you come here for Keats ... Coleridge
... and all that?"
"No," I answered. "I come here for boatswings. I come here to throw
sticks at coconuts. I come here to buy ticklers to tickle the girls
with. I come here for halfpenny skips. I come here for donkey rides. I
do not come for Keats. I do not care a damn for Coleridge. I do not come
to gloat about Turner or Constable or anybody else who lived at
Hampstead a hundred years ago. I come here to enjoy myself--for
roundabouts, cockles and whelks, steam-organs--which, after all, are the
same thing as Keats or Coleridge. They're Life."
Wherefore I felt determined that I could not and would not go to a
whist-drive at Surbiton, when I could get the real thing in Upper
Street, Islington.
Then Georgie called for me at the office, and we went out to lunch.
Georgie had sold a picture. He had five pounds in his pocket. We went to
Maxim's and had lunch. Georgie insisted on sparkling Moselle, and we had
two bottles, and three rounds of Cointreau triple sec. By that time it
was too late to think of going back to work, so I took Georgie to tea at
a literary club, and we talked. I then discovered in a panic that it was
half-past six. The whist-drive was at eight, and I had yet to dine and
get down to Surbiton. Georgie, by that subtle magnetism which he
possesses, had drawn a bunch of the boys about him, and had induced them
to make a night of it with him; so we went to Simpson's to eat, and I
left them at the table, very merry, and departed to Waterloo. Somewhere,
between lunch and dinner, I had unconsciously decided, you see, that I
would go to Surbiton. I can't remember just when the change in my
attitude took place; but there it was. I went to Surbiton, feeling quite
good and almost in love with Surbiton.
The whist-drive was to be held in the local hall, and when I arrived
cabs and motors were forming a queue. Each cab vomited some dainty
arrangement in lace or black cloth. Everybody was "dressed." (I think I
said that it was Surbiton.) Everybody was on best behaviour. Remembering
the gang at Simpson's, I felt rather a scab, but a glance in the mirror
of the dressing-room reassured me. I recollected some beautiful words of
Mr. Mark Sheridan's, "If I'm not clever, thank God, I'm clean." The
other fellows in the dressing-room were things of beauty. Their
public-school accent, with its vile mispronunciation of the English
tongue, would have carried them into the inner circles of any European
chancellery. I never heard anything so supernally affecting. I have
heard many of our greatest actors and singers, but I have never heard so
much music put into simple words, as, "I say, you fellers!"
Everybody was decent. Everybody, you felt sure, could be trusted to do
the decent thing, to do whatever was "done," and to leave undone those
things that were not "done," and, generally, to be a very decent sort.
Their features were clean and firm; they were well-tended. Their minds
were clean. They talked clean; and, if they did not display any marked
signs of intelligence or imagination, if they had not the largeness of
personality for the noble and big things of life, you felt that at least
they had not the bent for doing anything dirty. Altogether, a nice set,
as insipid people mostly are: what are known in certain circles as
Gentlemen.
The girls.... Well, they, too, were a decent sort. Not so decent as the
boys, of course, because they were girls. They scanned one another a
little too closely. They were too obviously anxious to please. They were
too obviously out for the evening. Those who were of the at-home type
simpered. They talked in italics. The outdoor type walked like horses.
They looked unpleasant, too. I wonder why "Madge" or "Felice" or
"Ermyntrude," or some other writer of toilet columns in the ladies'
papers, doesn't tell her outdoor girl readers how hideous they look in
evening frocks. Why don't they urge them not to uncover themselves? For
the outdoor girl has large hands and large arms, both of a beefy red.
She has a face and neck tanned by sun and wind, and her ensemble, in a
frock cut to the very edge of decency, shows you red hands and forearms,
with a sharp dividing line where the white upper arm begins, and a raw
face and neck, with the same definite line marking the beginning of
white bosom and shoulders. The effect is ridiculous. It is also
repulsive. I think they ought to know about it.
The hall was tastefully decorated with white flowers and palms. There
was a supper-room, which looked good. The prizes, arranged on a table by
the platform, were elegant, well chosen, and of some value. I started at
a table with an elderly matron, a very self-conscious Fabian girl, and a
rather bored-looking man of middle age, who seemed to be bursting to
talk--which is the deadliest of sins at a Surbiton whist-drive. The
whist that I play is the very worst whist that has ever been seen. I
told my partner so, and she said, "Oh, really!" and asked me if I had
had any tennis yet. Then some one begged us to be seated, and, with much
arrangements of silks and laces and wraps, we sat down and began to play
whist. As I moved from table to table I made no fresh partners. They
were differently dressed, but otherwise there was no distinction. They
were a very decent sort....
After many hours we stopped playing whist, and broke up for chewing and
chatting. The bored-looking man of middle age picked me up, and we took
two stray girls in tow for wine and sandwiches. The manners at the
supper-crush were elegance itself. The girls smoked cigarettes just a
little too defiantly, but they were quite well-bred about it. A lot of
well-bred witticisms floated around, with cool laughter and pretty
smiles. A knot of girls with two boys talked somewhat decryingly of Shaw
and Strindberg; and one caught stray straws of talk about Masefield,
Beecham opera, Scriabine, Marinetti, Augustus John. Two girls were
giving a concert at the Steinway next week. Others were aiming at the
Academy. Another had had a story accepted by the _English Review_. They
were a very decent sort.
The bored man plucked at my arm and suggested that we get rid of the
girls, and go across to "The Railway" and have one. We did. In the
lounge of "The Railway" he told me the one about the lady and taxi. It
was very good, but extremely ill-bred. He was a prominent local doctor,
so I told him the one about the medical man on the panel, and about the
Bishop who put gin in his whisky. Then he told me another ... and
another. He remembered the old days at the London.... He said he had had
to go to this show because his boy and girl were there. Cards bored him
to death, but he liked to be matey with the youngsters. Suppose we had
just one more?
We had just one more. From across the way came, very sweet and faint,
the sound of laughter and young voices. Some one had started a piano,
and the Ballade in A Minor was wandering over Surbiton. I looked into my
brandy-glass, and, as I am very young, I rather wanted to cry. I don't
know why. It was just the mood ... the soft night, Surbiton, young boys
and girls, Chopin, Martell.... I said I had to catch an immediate train
to Waterloo, and I drank up and bolted.
* * * * *
The other Saturday morning I met a friend at the Bedford Street Bodega.
He said, "Laddie, doing anything to-night?" I said, "No; what's on?"
He said: "Like to help your old uncle?"
I said: "Stand on me."
"Well, it's a little charity show. A Social at Battersea Town Hall. Some
local club or tennis-party or some jolly old thing of that sort. All
receipts to the local hospital. All the gang are going to do
something--kind of informal, you know. I'm the Star. Yes, laddie, I have
at last a shop, for one night only. My fee--seven-and-sixpence and
tram-fares. All other services gratuitous. No platform. No auditorium.
Just a little old sit-round, drinking limp coffee and eating anaemic
pastry, and listening. Come?"
I said I would, and we adventured along the dreary Wandsworth Road, down
the evil-smelling Lavender Hill, into the strenuous endeavour of Clapham
Junction. It was gay with lights and shoppers and parading monkeys.
Above us hung a pallid, frosty sky. No stars; no moon; but down in the
streets, warmth and cheer and companionship. We called at the blazing,
bustling "Falcon," which is much more like a railway-junction than the
station itself, and did ourselves a little bit of good, as my
professional friend put it. Then we mounted to the gas-lit room where
the fun was to take place. We wandered down long, stark passages,
seeking our door. We heard voices, but we saw no door.
"Harold," said some one, "sometimes wish you wasn't quite such a fool."
"What's the matter now, Freddie?" asked A Voice.
"Why, you know very well it's ten to eight, and you ain't even pulled
the piano out."
"Gaw! Lucky you reminded me. Come on, old chew-the-fat, give us a hand
with the musical-box."
There were noises "off," from which it seemed that some one had put
something on top of something else. There were noises of some one
hitting a piece of wood with another piece of wood.
Then "Damn!" cried A Voice. "Steady on my feet, can't yeh? Bit more to
the right. Whoa! Up your end a bit. 'At's it. When was she tuned last?
Give us a scale."
Some one flourished, and then a bright door opened, and two young men in
shirt-sleeves with tousled brows, appeared.
"Laddie," cried my friend, dramatically, "is this the apartment for the
Young People's Society In Connection With The Falcon Road Miss----?"
"That's us!" cried, I imagine, Freddie.
"Then I am Victor Maulever."
"Oh, step inside, won't you. Bit early, I'm 'fraid. Mr. Diplock ain't
here yet. But come in. We got a fire going, and it's sort of turning
chilly out, eh?"
We stepped in, and Freddie introduced us. "Harold--this is Mr. Maulever,
the actor. Mr. Maulever, may I introduce our sec't'ry, Mr. Worple--Mr.
Harold Worple, I should say."
Mr. Worple came forward and shook hands. "'Scuse my shirt-sleeves, won't
you, sir?"
"Certainly, laddie, cer-tain-ly," said Victor, with that _empressement_
which has earned him so many drinks in Maiden Lane. "Cer-tain-ly. And
how are you?"
"Nicely, thanks," said Harold. "How's 'self?"
"So-so, just so-so. Now just tell me about your little affair, so I can
get 'em fixed good and plenty before I start. What d'you think'll go
best; you know 'em better than I do? Shakespeare--what? Bransby
Williams? 'Dream of Eugene Aram'? 'Kissing Cup's Race'? Imitations of
Robey, Formby, Chirgwin--what?"
Harold pondered a moment. Then he had an inspiration. "Sort 'em up if I
was you, sir. Sort 'em up. Then ev'body'll get something they like,
see?"