ISADORE'S MEDICINE
Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was
cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since
they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours?
She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly
occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do
with it.
Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also
heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling
her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the
mystery. It was a surprise--and a disappointment--for her to recognize
Isadore's voice.
"Hello, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"
"No. She got in very late last night and--"
"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."
This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.
"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message--put it
under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it
would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning.
We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn
we've got to cover. And there's nobody here to do it. It would help a
lot if Yetta could. Got that straight?--All right--much obliged."
The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape
from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest
in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was
all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way
to make things come straight again.
She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But
all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences
had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had
emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something
had died within her at his kiss--something new and disturbingly
wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the
bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation.
The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation.
"Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the
transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a butterfly
outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel
his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the
feeling of reaching out to him.
The memory of their parting fell on her abruptly. It had all been a
hoax. He did not love her. And that which a moment before had seemed so
wonderfully right, now smarted as a shame. The butterfly wings snapped.
She could find no tears. She looked forward, in dull pain, dry-eyed, to
a life of abject crawling.
There was the inevitable wave of bitterness. What right had he to teach
her flight and then break her wings? But this mood could not last. She
loved him. All her pride, all her ideals of life and work--everything
firm--deserted her. Nothing mattered any more except not to lose him.
There was no humiliation, through which she would not crawl to regain
his companionship. What did this talk of Love matter? She wanted to be
with him, to feel his arms once more about her. Her whole being cried
out that she was "his," utterly "his." Had she not loved him since their
first encounter? She would go to him, asking no terms.
In the rush of this passionate impulse, she jumped out of bed--and saw
the note under her door. The dream came back to her. Walter had called
her. She had wasted these miserably unhappy moments in bed, and all the
while his message had been waiting her!
"Dear Yetta. Isadore called up about 8.30 and asked me to tell--"
The note crumpled up in Yetta's hand. And there, alone in her room, with
no one to see her, she had only one idea. She must not make a scene.
She smoothed out the note and went through the motions of reading it.
Every muscle was tense, her teeth were gritted in the supreme effort to
dominate the storm of wild impulses within her, to keep her head above
the buffeting waves of circumstance. Mechanically she bathed and
brushed her hair and dressed herself. Her mind was rigid--clenched like
her teeth.
But subconsciously--behind this outward calmness--a momentous conflict
was raging. In those few minutes, alone in her strange new quarters,
with no one by to help or encourage her, she faced the fight and won.
She did not win through unscathed,--modern psychology is teaching us
that no one does come through such conflicts without wounds, which heal
slowly, if at all.
In the din of the spiritual fray a new outlook on life had come to her.
It was not so sharp a change as that which Walter's caresses had caused,
but it was more fundamental--in the way that spiritual matters are
always more significant than things physical.
Life as she had seen it was a ceaseless, desperate struggle, a constant
clash of personalities, an unrelenting war of social classes. In an
external, rather mechanical way she had been involved in this struggle.
She looked forward to being "a striker" all her life. But she had always
thought of herself as a part of the conflict. Now--and this was the new
viewpoint--it seemed that the fight was taking place within her. The
strategic position, the key to the whole battlefield, the place where
the fiercest blows were to be exchanged, was her own soul. If she was
defeated there, the fight was over--as far as she was concerned.
It was not to be until years afterwards that she came to a full
understanding of what that half-hour had meant to her. It was to take
many months before she could arrange her life in accord with this new
outlook. But as she poured out the coffee, which Sadie had left on the
back of the stove, she knew that she had won this first fight in the
new campaign. For the moment, at least, she was the Captain of Her Soul.
In the overwhelming sadness of victory, in the poignant wistfulness of
triumph, she had regained her pride. She was not going to humiliate
herself to gain the narcotic pleasure of kisses when she wanted love.
Walter would come to her or he would not. That was for him to decide. In
either case the battle of life was still to be fought. She must not
desert.
It was half past nine, and no word from Walter. She could not sit there
idly, waiting for him to change his mood. To escape from the pain of
uncertainty she reread Isadore's message--understandingly. Here was the
day's work concretely before her. She put on her hat.
Out on Waverly Place she suddenly realized that her feet were carrying
her to Washington Square and Walter. The Enemy made a desperate
assault--surprised her with her visor up, her sword in its sheath, her
shield hanging useless on her back. Why not? He would not have the heart
to send her away. She knew his kindliness. If they were together, he
would grow to love her. How could she expect him to change while they
were apart? Together all would go well--
She had thought that the struggle of a few minutes before had been
final--and here it was all to do over again.
A white-haired old man was walking towards her, but she did not notice
him until he stopped and spoke.
"Are you sick, Miss?"
"No"--she shivered as she realized the import of what he had said, how
much worse it was than he suspected--"Oh, no! I'm not sick."
But the old man stood still watching her as she turned down McDougal
Street. He was half inclined to call a doctor. Soon Yetta realized that
she had reached Bleecker Street. She turned across town to the Subway
and so down to Newspaper Row and _The Clarion_ office.
It bore no resemblance to that of _The Star_. The loft of a warehouse
had been cut in two by a flimsy partition. In the back was a battery of
second-hand, old-style linotypes, a couple of type-frames for the
advertisement and job work, the make-up slab, the proof tables, and the
stereotyping outfit. The stairway opened into this noisy, crowded room.
Yetta had to walk carefully between the machines to reach the editorial
room beyond the partition.
A low railing divided the front room between the "editorial" and
"business" departments. To the right was a long reporters' table,
smaller ones for the "City" and "Exchange" editors, and a roll-top desk
beyond for Isadore.
Levine, a youngster with very curly black hair, a wilted collar, and
soaked shirt, jumped up to greet Yetta.
"Hello," he shouted above the din of the typewriters and machines.
"Here's a note from Isadore. He's out trying to raise money. I hope to
God you can help us. Locke's sick. I'm running his desk and mine and
Isadore's this morning. Harry's covering the Party News and Woman's Page
besides his Telegraph and Exchanges, so that Sam can cover the State
Convention. How in hell they expect us to get out a paper so
short-handed is--"
"Oh, stop your croaking," Harry Moore yelled from his table, hardly
looking up from a pile of Labor Papers he was clipping. "Things are no
worse than usual. We'll get her out somehow. We always do. God's good
to drunks and fools and Socialists."
One of the bookkeepers, from the "business" side of the railing,
overhearing this "editorial" controversy, began to count at the top of
his voice.
"One! Two! Three!"
At "Three" every one in the room, except Yetta and Levine, chanted in
unison:--
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"
"You make me tired," Levine growled back at them, and sat down at his
table with a despairing gesture.
Isadore's note told Yetta that a small but desperate strike had broken
out among some paper-box factories in an out-of-the-way corner of
Brooklyn. The workers were recently arrived immigrants who spoke no
English. The regular papers had not mentioned the strike, and under
cover of this secrecy, the bosses, who were allied with prominent Kings
County politicians, were having everything their own way. He thought
there was a big story in it. The publicity would certainly help the
strikers. There was no one in the office to cover it.
Not a word of their last night's encounter.
"Comrade," Yetta asked Levine, "what time do you go to press?"
"One o'clock. Copy must be in by twelve-thirty. It's idiotic! Our Final
Edition is on the streets before the regular papers lock up for their
Home Edition. We can't get out a decent sheet in such--"
"One! Two! Three!"
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"
"They're fools!"
"Well," Yetta said, smiling for the first time that day, "I'll call you
up about noon. Put a stenographer on the wire. That'll give you an
opener for to-day. I'll have the whole story for a follow-up to-morrow.
So long."
About the time that Yetta was starting off on this assignment, Isadore
came into the office of the Woman's Trade Union League.
"Hello," Mabel greeted him. Then, as a second thought, and somewhat less
cordially, she added, "Stranger."
She was not in a happy mood. Of late she had felt her grip on life
weakening. People upon whom she depended were deserting her. It had
begun when Isadore had given up his work for the League to start _The
Clarion_. When a new lawyer had been broken in, Mrs. Karner had left. It
had been impossible to replace her. The Advisory Council was doubly hard
to manage without her. There had been other desertions. Isadore seemed
to have started a stampede. And Mabel did not feel these days the same
buoyancy in meeting such emergencies. Her few gray hairs she was still
able to hide, but there was no getting away from the tired look about
her eyes. Her sudden irritabilities frightened her. She was haunted by
the idea that she was getting "crabbed."
Isadore pulled up a chair and broke at once into his business. He wanted
Mabel to persuade Yetta to take up some regular work on _The Clarion_.
Yetta had a talent for writing which ought not to be wasted. He would
give them a column or so daily for their work of organizing women. "It
would be helpful all round," he said. "Publicity for you. If it looks
good to you, put it up to Yetta."
"It doesn't look good to me," Mabel said decisively. "You forget I'm
not interested in your crazy little paper. What good is publicity to us
among the couple of thousand hidebound Socialists who buy _The
Clarion_?"
"Our circulation is over ten thousand."
"Pooh! Nobody but party members read it. Most of your circulation is
given away--and thrown into the gutter. You think working-men ought to
read a Socialist paper. But they don't. They prefer a real paper with
news in it and pictures and a funny page. Yetta was a fool to give up
her work on _The Star_. That was real publicity.
"You want to get Yetta on _The Clarion_. You surely do need somebody who
knows how to write! You want her to drift away from the real work of
organization--just as you did. I see through your mutual benefit talk.
Instead of helping our work, you want to get her away from us. Well, the
less she gets mixed up with _The Clarion_ and your little closed circle
of dogmatists, the better I'll be pleased."
"Come to think of it," Isadore said, changing his tactics, "I would like
to see Yetta give all her time to _The Clarion_. As you say, we surely
do need good writers. But that wasn't in my mind when I came in.
"I'm worried about Yetta. She needs to be kept busy--busier than she is.
Of course I wouldn't want her to know I was butting in like this. But
she's worrying about something--"
Mabel, her mind made up to be disagreeable, interrupted him.
"I knew it wasn't interest in the League that brought you here. I owe
this visit to your solicitude about Yetta."
"That's not just, either, Mabel--although it's nearer right than your
first guess. Yetta's principal work is with the League. It's natural I
should come to you. I am really worried about her. Something's troubling
her."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know." Isadore was surprised at the ease with which he lied.
"You don't have to know what's wrong to see that things aren't right.
You'd have noticed it, too, if you had not been seeing her every day.
But I haven't seen her for a long time"--he expanded his lie. "She came
into my office this morning and it scared me. This 'what's-the-use'
look. She's moody, sad. Going through some sort of a crisis. We all have
them. Times when we wonder what God had against us when He made us, and
all that. The only thing that helps is work.
"Yetta isn't doing much more for you than when she was studying or
working on _The Star_. I guess it's the empty mornings that cause the
trouble. Really, the way she looked startled me. I was coming uptown,
anyway, and I decided to drop in and put it up to you. I really think
the work I suggested--which would fill up her mornings--would help you
fully as much as us."
Mabel bit the end of her pencil and looked out at the street. She was
sure that Isadore had not told her all he knew. Probably Yetta had found
Walter indifferent and was cut up over that. She would find out in the
evening when Walter called on her. Perhaps more work would be good for
Yetta. Not the job Isadore suggested. She had a decided hostility to him
and this wild newspaper fad which had taken him away from "really useful
work."
"You may be right about Yetta," she said, trying to soften her
ill-humor. "I haven't seen any signs of a soul tragedy. But if she needs
more work, I can give her more than she can handle right here--without
urging her to waste time on your hobby."
"Your hobby or mine," Isadore said, getting up. "I don't care much
which. My idea in coming was to see that Yetta was kept busy. And I
think you'll see I was right about it. So long."
He was really glad that things had taken this turn. The impersonal,
Socialist side of him would have rejoiced in winning Yetta's support for
_The Clarion_. But he knew that in a personal way it would have been
harder to have her always about. The sharpest pain in Cupid's quiver is
to watch the one you love break heart for some one else.
From the League Isadore went in search of Wilhelm Stringer, the
"organizer" of the "branch" of the Socialist local to which Yetta
belonged. For near forty years, Stringer had earned what money he needed
as a brass polisher. But his real job was Socialism. He had long been a
widower, his own children had died in infancy and his cheated paternal
instinct had found an outlet in quiet, intense love for the "young
Comrades." He was a kindly "Father Superior" to the whole city
organization.
Isadore found him eating his lunch on the sidewalk, in the shade of the
factory. They were old friends and could talk without evasions.
"Bill," Isadore said, "this is a personal matter. It's just by chance I
know about it. Comrade Yetta Rayefsky is up against it. You can guess
the trouble as well as I could tell you. What she needs is to be kept so
busy that she'll forget it. She's in your branch. There must be some
work which isn't being done that you could unload on her. Work's the
best medicine for her."
Very slowly Stringer chewed up his mouthful of cheese sandwich.
"Vell. Ve must send a delegate to der komität von education. Nowadays
they meet three times a veek. That vill be a start. Und alzo ve commence
soon mit the hauz to hauz mit tracts--for the campaign. That is much
vork. Poor leetle girl. I guess ve can most kill her. Vork is gut
medicine."
And Isadore, having stolen half a morning from his regular work, rushed
downtown to the office.