THE TROUBLES OF AN EDITOR
The new organ did not create a profound impression. By the rival party
it was mildly derided, though many fair-minded persons were impressed
by the rather unusual combination of rigid orthodoxy with a high
spiritual tone, and Raphael's conception of Judaism as outlined in his
first leader, his view of it as a happy human compromise between an
empty, unpractical spiritualism and a choked-up, over-practical
formalism, avoiding the opposite extremes of its offshoots,
Christianity and Mohammedanism, was novel to many of his readers,
unaccustomed to think about their faith. Dissatisfied as Raphael was
with the number, he felt he had fluttered some of the dove-cotes at
least. Several people of taste congratulated him during Saturday and
Sunday; it was with a continuance of Messianic emotions and with
agreeable anticipations that he repaired on Monday morning to the
little den which had been inexpensively fitted up for him above the
offices of Messrs. Schlesinger and De Haan. To his surprise, he found
it crammed with the committee, all gathered round Little Sampson, who,
with flushed face and cloak tragically folded, was expostulating at
the top of his voice. Pinchas stood at the back in silent amusement.
As Raphael entered jauntily, a change came over the company: a low
premonitory roar issued from a dozen lips, the lowering faces turned
quickly towards him. Involuntarily Raphael started back in alarm, then
stood rooted to the threshold. There was a dread ominous silence. Then
the storm burst.
'_Du Shaigatz! Du Pasha Yisroile!_' came from all quarters of the
compass.
To be called a graceless Gentile and a sinner in Israel is not
pleasant to a pious Jew; but all Raphael's minor sensations were
swallowed up in a great wonderment.
'We are ruined!' moaned the furniture-dealer who was always failing.
'You have ruined us!' came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips,
and swarthy fists were shaken threateningly.
Sugarman's hairy paw was almost against his face. Raphael turned cold,
then a rush of red-hot blood flooded his veins. He put out his good
right hand, and smote the nearest fist aside. Sugarman blenched and
skipped back, and the line of fists wavered.
'Don't be fools, gentlemen,' said De Haan, his keen sense of humour
asserting itself. 'Let Mr. Leon sit down.'
Raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair.
'Now what can I do for you?' he said courteously.
The fists drooped at his calm.
'Do for us?' said Schlesinger dryly. 'You've done for the paper. It's
not worth twopence.'
'Well, bring it out at a penny at once, then,' laughed Little Sampson,
reinforced by the arrival of his editor.
Guedalyah the Greengrocer glowered at him.
'I am very sorry, gentlemen, I have not been able to satisfy you,'
said Raphael; 'but in a first number one can't do much.'
'Can't they?' said De Haan. 'You've done so much damage to orthodoxy
that we don't know whether to go on with the paper.'
'You're joking,' murmured Raphael.
'I wish I was,' laughed De Haan bitterly.
'But you astonish me,' persisted Raphael. 'Would you be so good as to
point out where I have gone wrong?'
'With pleasure, or rather with pain,' said De Haan.
Each of the committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and
followed De Haan's demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of
lamentation.
'The paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the
better supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies'
baths, and all the principles of true Judaism,' said De Haan gloomily.
'And there's not one word about these things, but a great deal about
spirituality and the significance of the ritual. But I will begin at
the beginning. Page 1.'
'But that's advertisements,' muttered Raphael.
'The part surest to be read! The very first line of the paper is
simply shocking. It reads:
'"DEATH.
'"On the 29th ult., at 22 Buckley Street, the Rev. Abraham
Barnett, in his fifty-fourth----"'
'But death is always shocking. What's wrong about that?' interposed
Little Sampson.
'Wrong!' repeated De Haan witheringly. 'Where did you get that from?
That was never sent in.'
'No, of course not,' said the sub-editor; 'but we had to have at least
one advertisement of that kind, just to show we should be pleased to
advertise our readers' deaths. I looked in the daily papers to see if
there were any births or marriages with Jewish names, but I couldn't
find any, and that was the only Jewish-sounding death I could see.'
'But the Rev. Abraham Barnett was a _Meshumad_!' shrieked Sugarman the
Shadchan.
Raphael turned pale. To have inserted an advertisement about an
apostate missionary was indeed terrible; but Little Sampson's audacity
did not desert him.
'I thought the orthodox party would be pleased to hear of the death of
a _Meshumad_,' he said suavely, screwing his eyeglass more tightly
into its orbit, 'on the same principle that anti-Semites take in the
Jewish papers to hear of the death of Jews.'
For a moment De Haan was staggered.
'That would be all very well,' he said. 'Let him be an atonement for
us all; but then you've gone and put, "May his soul be bound up in the
bundle of life!"'
It was true. The stock Hebrew equivalent for 'R.I.P.' glared from the
page.
'Fortunately, that taking advertisement of _kosher_ trousers comes
just underneath,' said De Haan, 'and that may draw off the attention.
On page 2 you actually say in a note that Rabbenu Bachja's great poem
on Repentance should be incorporated in the ritual, and might
advantageously replace the obscure _Piyut_ by Kalir. But this is rank
Reform; it's worse than the papers we came to supersede.'
'But surely you know it is only the printing-press that has
stereotyped our liturgy; that for Maimonides and Ibn Ezra, for David
Kimchi and Joseph Albo, the contents were fluid; that----'
'We don't deny that,' interrupted Schlesinger; 'but we can't have any
more alterations nowadays. Who is there worthy to alter them? You?'
'Certainly not. I merely suggest.'
'You are playing into the hands of our enemies,' said De Haan, shaking
his head. 'We must not let our readers even imagine that the
Prayer-Book can be tampered with. It's the thin end of the wedge. To
trim our liturgy is like trimming living flesh; wherever you cut, the
blood oozes. The four cubits of the _Halachah_, that is what is
wanted, not changes in the liturgy. Once touch anything, and where are
you to stop? Our religion becomes a flux. Our old Judaism is like an
old family mansion, where each generation has left a memorial, and
where every room is hallowed with traditions of merry-making and
mourning. We do not want our fathers' home decorated in the latest
style; the next step will be removal to a new dwelling altogether. On
page 3 you refer to the second Isaiah.'
'But I deny that there were two Isaiahs.'
'So you do; but it is better for our readers not to hear of such
impious theories. The space would be much better occupied in
explaining the Portion for the week. The next leaderette has a
flippant tone, which has excited unfavourable comment among some of
the most important members of the Dalston synagogue. They object to
humour in a religious paper. On page 4 you have deliberately missed an
opportunity of puffing the Kosher Co-operative Society. Indeed, there
is not a word throughout about our Society. But I like Mr. Henry
Goldsmith's letter on this page, though; he is a good orthodox man,
and he writes from a good address. It will show we are not only read
in the East End. Pity he's such a Man-of-the-Earth, though. Yes, and
that's good, the communication from the Rev. Joseph Strelitski. I
think he's a bit of an _Epikouros_; but it looks as if the whole of
the Kensington synagogue was with us. I understand he is a friend of
yours; it will be as well for you to continue friendly. Several of us
here knew him well in _Olov Hasholom_ times, but he is become so
grand, and rarely shows himself at the Holy Land League meetings. He
can help us a lot if he will.'
'Oh, I'm sure he will,' said Raphael.
'That's good,' said De Haan, caressing his white beard. Then, growing
gloomy again, he went on: 'On page 5 you have a little article by
Gabriel Hamburg, a well-known _Epikouros_.'
'Oh, but he is one of the greatest scholars in Europe!' broke in
Raphael. 'I thought you'd be extra pleased to have it. He sent it to
me from Stockholm as a special favour!' He did not mention he had
secretly paid for it. 'I know some of his views are heterodox, and I
don't agree with half he says, but this article is perfectly
harmless.'
'Well, let it pass: very few of our readers have ever heard of him.
But on the same page you have a Latin quotation. I don't say there's
anything wrong in that, but it smacks of Reform. Our readers don't
understand it, and it looks as if our Hebrew were poor. The Mishnah
contains texts suited for all purposes. We are in no need of Roman
writers. On page 6 you speak of the Reform Shool as if it were to be
reasoned with. Sir, if we mention these freethinkers at all, it must
be in the strongest language. By worshipping bareheaded, and by
seating the sexes together, they have defiled Judaism.'
'Stop a minute,' interrupted Raphael warmly. 'Who told you the
Reformers do this?'
'Who told me, indeed? Why, it's common knowledge. That's how they've
been going on for the last fifty years.'
'Everybody knows it,' said the committee in chorus.
'Has one of you ever been there?' said Raphael, rising in excitement.
'God forbid!' cried the chorus.
'Well, I have, and it's a lie,' said Raphael. His arm whirled round to
the discomfort of the committee.
'You ought not to have gone there,' said Schlesinger severely.
'Besides, will you deny they have the organ in their Sabbath
services?'
'No, I won't!'
'Well, then,' said De Haan triumphantly, 'if they are capable of that,
they are capable of any wickedness. Orthodox people can have nothing
to do with them.'
'But orthodox immigrants take their money,' said Raphael.
'Their money is _kosher_; they are _tripha_,' said De Haan
sententiously. 'Page 7--now we get to the most dreadful thing of all!'
A solemn silence fell on the room. Pinchas sniggered unobtrusively.
'You have a little article headed "Talmudic Tales." Why in Heaven's
name you couldn't have finished the column with bits of news I don't
know. Satan himself must have put the thought into your head. Just at
the end of the paper, too! For I can't reckon page 8, which is simply
our own advertisement.'
'I thought it would be amusing,' said Raphael.
'Amusing! If you had simply told the tales, it might have been. But
look how you introduce them! "These amusing tales occur in the fifth
chapter of Baba Bathra, and are related by Rabbi Bar Bar Channah. Our
readers will see that they are parables or allegories rather than
actual facts."'
'But do you mean to say you look upon them as facts?' cried Raphael,
sawing the air wildly, and pacing about on the toes of the committee.
'Surely!' said De Haan, while a low growl at his blasphemous doubts
ran along the lips of the committee.
'Was it treacherously to undermine Judaism that you so eagerly offered
to edit for nothing?' said the furniture-dealer who was always
failing.
'But listen here!' cried Raphael, exasperated.
'"Harmez, the son of Lilith, a demon, saddled two mules and made them
stand on opposite sides of the river Doneg. He then jumped from the
back of one to that of the other. He had, at the time, a cup of wine
in each hand, and as he jumped he threw the wine from each cup into
the other without spilling a drop, although a hurricane was blowing at
the time. When the king of demons heard that Harmez had been thus
showing off to mortals, he slew him." Do any of you believe that?'
'Vould our sages--their memories for a blessing!--put anything into
the Talmud that vasn't true?' queried Sugarman. 'Ve know there are
demons because it stands that Solomon knew their language.'
'But, then, what about this?' pursued Raphael. '"I saw a frog which
was as big as the district of Akra Hagronia. A sea-monster came and
swallowed the frog, and a raven came and ate the sea-monster. The
raven then went and perched on a tree. Consider how strong that tree
must have been. R. Papa Ben Samuel remarks: Had I not been present, I
should not have believed it." Doesn't this appendix about Ben Samuel
show that it was never meant to be taken seriously?'
'It has some high meaning we do not understand in these degenerate
times,' said Guedalyah the Greengrocer. 'It is not for our paper to
weaken faith in the Talmud.'
'Hear, hear!' said De Haan, while '_Epikouros!_' rumbled through the
air like distant thunder.
'Didn't I say an Englishman could never master the Talmud?' Sugarman
asked in triumph.
This reminder of Raphael's congenital incompetence softened their
minds towards him, so that when he straightway resigned his
editorship, their self-constituted spokesman besought him to remain.
Perhaps they remembered, too, that he was cheap.
'But we must all edit the paper,' said De Haan enthusiastically, when
peace was re-established. 'We must have meetings every day, and every
article must be read aloud before it is printed.'
Little Sampson winked cynically, passing his hand pensively through
his thick tangled locks, but Raphael saw no objection to the
arrangement. As before, he felt his own impracticability borne in
upon him, and he decided to sacrifice himself for the Cause as far as
conscience permitted. Excessive as was the zeal of these men, it was
after all in the true groove. His annoyance returned for a while,
however, when Sugarman the Shadchan seized the auspicious moment of
restored amity to inquire insinuatingly if his sister was engaged.
Pinchas and Little Sampson went down the stairs quivering with
noiseless laughter, which became boisterous when they reached the
street. Pinchas was in high feather.
'The fool-men!' he said, as he led the sub-editor into a public-house
and regaled him on stout and sandwiches.
'They believe any _Narrischkeit_. I and you are the only two sensible
Jews in England. You vill see that my poesie goes in next
veek--promise me that! To your life!' Here they touched glasses. 'Ah,
it is beautiful poesie. Such high tragic ideas! You vill kiss me when
you read them.' He laughed in childish light-heartedness. 'Perhaps I
write you a comic opera for your company--_hein?_ Already I love you
like a brother. Another glass stout? Bring us two more, thou Hebe of
the hops-nectar. You have seen my comedy, "The Hornet of Judah"? No?
Ah, she vas a great comedy, Sampson. All London talked of her. She has
been translated into every tongue. Perhaps I play in your company. I
am a great actor--_hein?_ You know not my forte is voman's parts--I
make myself so lovely complexion vith red paint, I fall in love vith
me.' He sniggered over his stout. 'The Redacteur will not redact long,
_hein?_' he said presently. 'He is a fool-man. If he work for nothing
they think that is what he is worth. They are orthodox--he-he!'
'But he is orthodox too,' said Little Sampson.
'Yes,' replied Pinchas musingly. 'It is strange. It is vairy strange.
I cannot understand him. Never in all my experience have I met another
such man. There vas an Italian exile I talked vith once in the island
of Chios--his eyes were like Leon's, soft vith a shining splendour
like the stars vich are the eyes of the angels of love. Ah, he is a
good man, and he writes sharp--he has ideas, not like an English Jew
at all. I could throw my arms round him sometimes. I love him like a
brother.' His voice softened. 'Another glass stout--ve vill drink to
him.'
Raphael did not find the editing by committee feasible. The friction
was incessant, the waste of time monstrous. The second number cost him
even more headaches than the first, and this although the gallant
Gluck, abandoning his single-handed emprise, fortified himself with a
real live compositor and had arranged for the paper to be printed by
machinery. The position was intolerable. It put a touch of acid into
his dulciferous mildness. Just before going to press he was positively
rude to Pinchas. It would seem that Little Sampson, sheltering himself
behind his capitalists, had refused to give the poet a commission for
a comic opera, and Pinchas raved at Gideon, M.P., who he was sure was
Sampson's financial backer, and threatened to shoot him, and danced
maniacally about the office.
'I have written an attack on the Member for Vitechapel,' he said,
growing calmer, 'to hand him down to the execration of posterity, and
I have brought it to the _Flag_. It must go in this veek.'
'We have already your poem,' said Raphael.
'I know, but I do not grudge my work; I am not like your money-making
English Jews.'
'There is no room. The paper is full.'
'Leave out Ebenezer's tale--with the blue spectacles.'
'There is none. It was complete in one number.'
'Well, must you put in your leader?'
'Absolutely; please go away. I have this page to read.'
'But you can leave out some advertisements.'
'I must not. We have too few as it is.'
The poet put his finger alongside his nose, but Raphael was adamant.
'Do me this one favour,' he pleaded. 'I love you like a brother--just
this one little thing! I vill never ask another favour of you all my
life.'
'I would not put it in even if there was room. Go away,' said Raphael,
almost roughly.
The unaccustomed accents gave Pinchas a salutary shock. He borrowed
two shillings and left, and Raphael was afraid to look up lest he
should see his head wedged in the doorway. Soon after, Gluck and his
one compositor carried out the formes to be machined. Little Sampson,
arriving with a gay air on his lips, met them at the door.
On the Friday Raphael sat in the editorial chair utterly dispirited--a
battered wreck. The committee had just left him. A heresy had crept
into a bit of late news not inspected by them, and they declared that
the paper was not worth twopence and had better be stopped. The demand
for this second number was, moreover, rather poor, and each man felt
his ten pound share melting away, and resolved not to pay up the half
yet unpaid. It was Raphael's first real experience of men--after the
enchanted towers of Oxford, where he had foregathered with dreamers.
His pipe hung listless in his mouth--an extinct volcano. His first fit
of distrust in human nature--nay, even in the purifying powers of
orthodoxy--was racking him. Strangely enough, this wave of scepticism
tossed up the thought of Esther Ansell, and stranger still, on the top
of this thought, in walked Mr. Henry Goldsmith. Raphael jumped up and
welcomed his late host, whose leathery countenance shone with the
polish of a sweet smile. It appeared that the communal pillar had been
passing casually, and thought he'd look Raphael up.
'So you don't pull well together,' he said, when he had elicited an
outline of the situation from the editor.
'No, not altogether,' admitted Raphael.
'Do you think the paper'll live?'
'I can't say,' said Raphael, dropping limply into his chair. 'Even if
it does, I don't know whether it will do much good if run on their
lines; for, although it is of great importance that we get _kosher_
food and baths, I hardly think they go about it in the right spirit. I
may be wrong. They are older men than I, and have seen more of actual
life, and know the class we appeal to better.'
'No, no, you are not wrong,' said Mr. Goldsmith vehemently. 'I am
myself dissatisfied with some of the committee's contributions to this
second number. It is a great opportunity to save English Judaism, but
it is being frittered away.'
'I am afraid it is,' said Raphael, removing his empty pipe from his
mouth, and staring at it blankly.
Mr. Goldsmith brought his fist down sharp on the soft litter that
covered the editorial table.
'It shall not be frittered away!' he cried. 'No, not if I have to buy
the paper!'
Raphael looked up eagerly.
'What do you say?' said Goldsmith. 'Shall I buy it up and let you work
it on your lines?'
'I shall be very glad,' said Raphael, the Messianic look returning to
his face.
'How much will they want for it?'
'Oh, I think they'll be glad to let you take it over. They say it's
not worth twopence, and I'm sure they haven't got the funds to carry
it on,' replied Raphael, rising. 'I'll go down about it at once. The
committee have just been here, and I dare say they are still in
Schlesinger's office.'
'No, no,' said Goldsmith, pushing him down into his seat. 'It will
never do if people know I'm the proprietor.'
'Why not?'
'Oh, lots of reasons. I'm not a man to brag. If I want to do a good
thing for Judaism, there's no reason for all the world to know it.
Then, again, from my position on all sorts of committees, I shall be
able to influence the communal advertisements in a way I couldn't if
people knew I had any connection with the paper. So, too, I shall be
able to recommend it to my wealthy friends (as no doubt it will
deserve to be recommended) without my praise being discounted.'
'Well, but, then, what am I to say to the committee?'
'Can't you say you want to buy it for yourself? They know you can
afford it.'
'But why _shouldn't_ I buy it for myself?'
'Pooh! Haven't you got better use for your money?'
It was true. Raphael had designs more tangibly philanthropic for the
five thousand pounds left him by his aunt. And he was business-like
enough to see that Mr. Goldsmith's money might as well be utilised for
the good of Judaism. He was not quite easy about the little fiction
that would be necessary for the transaction, but the combined
assurances of Mr. Goldsmith and his own common-sense that there was no
real deception or harm involved in it ultimately prevailed. Mr.
Goldsmith left, promising to call again in an hour, and Raphael, full
of new hopes, burst upon the committee. But his first experience of
bargaining was no happier than the rest of his worldly experiences.
When he professed his willingness to relieve them of the burden of
carrying on the paper, they first stared, then laughed, then shook
their fists. As if they would leave him to corrupt the faith! When
they understood he was willing to pay something, the value of the
_Flag of Judah_ went up from less than twopence to more than two
hundred pounds. Everybody was talking about it; its reputation was
made; they were going to print double next week.
'But it has not cost you forty pounds yet!' said the astonished
Raphael.
'What are you saying? Look at the posters alone!' said Sugarman.
'But you don't look at it fairly,' argued De Haan, whose Talmudical
studies had sharpened wits already super-subtle. 'Whatever it has cost
us, it would have cost us much more if we had had to pay our editor,
and it is very unfair of you to leave that out of account.'
Raphael was overwhelmed.
'It's taking away with the left hand what you gave us with the right,'
added De Haan, with infinite sadness. 'I had thought better of you,
Mr. Leon.'
'But you got a good many twopences back,' murmured Raphael.
'It's the future profits that we're losing,' explained Schlesinger.
In the end Raphael agreed to give a hundred pounds, which made the
members inwardly determine to pay up the residue on their shares at
once. De Haan also extorted a condition that the _Flag_ should
continue to be the organ of the Kosher Co-operative Society for at
least six months, doubtless perceiving that, should the paper live and
thrive over that period, it would not then pay the proprietor to
alter its principles; by which bargain the Society secured for itself
a sum of money, together with an organ, gratis, for six months and, to
all seeming, in perpetuity, for at bottom they knew well that
Raphael's heart was sound. They were all on the free list, too, and
they knew he would not trouble to remove them.
Mr. Henry Goldsmith, returning, was rather annoyed at the price, but
did not care to repudiate his agent.
'Be economical,' he said. 'I will get you a better office and find a
proper publisher and canvasser. But cut it as close as you can.'
Raphael's face beamed with joy.
'Oh, depend upon me,' he said.
'What is your own salary?' asked Goldsmith.
'Nothing,' said Raphael.
A flash passed across Goldsmith's face, then he considered a moment.
'I wish you would let it be a guinea,' he said. 'Quite nominal, you
know. Only I like to have things in proper form. And if ever you want
to go, you know, you'll give me a month's notice and,' here he laughed
genially, 'I'll do ditto when I want to get rid of you. Ha! ha! ha! Is
that a bargain?'
Raphael smiled in reply, and the two men's hands met in a hearty
clasp.
'Miss Ansell will help you, I know,' said Goldsmith cheerily; 'that
girl's got it in her, I can tell you. She'll take the shine out of
some of our West-Enders. Do you know, I picked her out of the gutter,
so to speak?'
'Yes, I know,' said Raphael. 'It was very good and discriminating of
you. How is she?'
'She's all right; come up and see her about doing something for you.
She goes to the Museum sometimes in the afternoons, but you'll always
find her in on Sundays--or most Sundays. Come up and dine with us
again soon, will you? Mrs. Goldsmith will be so pleased.'
'I will,' said Raphael fervently; and when the door closed upon the
communal pillar, he fell to striding feverishly about his little den.
His trust in human nature was restored, and the receding wave of
scepticism bore off again the image of Esther Ansell. Now to work for
Judaism!
The sub-editor made his first appearance that day, carolling joyously.
'Sampson,' said Raphael abruptly, 'your salary is raised by a guinea a
week.'
The joyous song died away on Little Sampson's lips; his eye-glass
dropped; he let himself fall backwards, impinging noiselessly upon a
heap of 'returns' of number one.