IT was August. In normal times this would have
been the beginning of the great "winter season" in our trade. As it
was, the deadlock continued. The stubbornness of the men, far
from showing signs of wilting under the strain of so many weeks
of enforced idleness and suffering, seemed to be gathering
strength, while our own people, the manufacturers, were frankly
weakening.
The danger of having the great season pass without one being able
to fill a single order overcame the fighting blood of the most
pugnacious among them.
One was confronted with the risk of losing one's best customers.
The trade threatened to pass from New York to Philadelphia and
Chicago. If you called the attention of a manufacturer to the
unyielding courage of the workmen, the reply invariably was,
first, that it was all mere bravado; and, second, that, anyhow, the
poor devils had nothing to lose, while the manufacturers had their
investments to lose
The press supported the strikers. It did so, not because they were
working-people, but because they were East-Siders. Their district
was the great field of activity for the American University
Settlement worker and fashionable slummer. The East Side was a
place upon which one descended in quest of esoteric types and
"local color," as well as for purposes of philanthropy and "uplift"
work. To spend an evening in some East Side café was regarded
as something like spending a few hours at the Louvre so much so
that one such café, in the depth of East Houston Street, was
making a fortune by purveying expensive wine dinners to people
from up-town who came there ostensibly to see "how the other
half lived," but who only saw one another eat and drink in
freedom from the restraint of manners. Accordingly, to show
sympathy for East Side strikers was within the bounds of the
highest propriety. It was as "correct" as belonging to the Episcopal
Church. And so public opinion was wholly on the side of the
Cloak-makers' Union. This hastened the end. We succumbed. A
settlement was patched up. We were beaten.
But even this did not appease the men. They repudiated the
agreement between their organization and ours, branding it as a
trap, and the strike was continued. Then the manufacturers
yielded completely, acceding to every demand of the union
I became busy. I continued to curse the union, but at the bottom of
my heart I wished it well, for the vigor with which it enforced its
increased wage scale in all larger factories gave me greater
advantages than ever. I was still able to get men who were willing
to trick the organization. Every Friday afternoon these men
received pay-envelopes which bore figures in strict conformity
with the union's schedule, but the contents of which were
considerably below the sum marked outside. Subsequently this
proved to be a risky practice to pursue, for the walking delegates
were wide awake and apt to examine the envelopes as the
operatives were emerging from the shop.
Accordingly, I adopted another system: the men would receive the
union pay in full, but on the following Monday each of them
would pay me back the difference between the official and the
actual wage. The usual practice was for the employee to put the
few dollars into his little wage-book, which he would then place
on my desk for the ostensible purpose of having his account
verified
By thus cheating the union I could now undersell the bigger
manufacturers more easily than I had been able to do previous to
the lockout and strike. I had more orders than I could fill. Money
was coming in in floods
The lockout and the absolute triumph of the union was practically
the making of me
I saw much less of Dora than I had done during the five months of
the lockout, and our happiness when we managed to be left alone
was all the keener for it. Our best time for a tê-à-tˆte were the
hours between 10 and 12 on the evenings, when Max was sure to
be away at his dancing-schools, but then it often happened that
those were among my busiest hours at the shop.
Sometimes I would snatch half an hour from my work in the
middle of a busy day to surprise her with my caresses. If a week
passed without my doing so she would punish me with mute
scenes of jealousy, of which none but she and I were aware. She
would avoid looking at me, and I would press my hand to my
heart and raise a pleading gaze at her, which said: "I couldn't get
away, dearest. Honest, I couldn't."
One evening I bought her some roses. As I carried them home I
was thrilled as much by the fact that I, David of Abner's Court,
was taking flowers to a lady as I was by visioning the moment
when I should hand them to Dora. When I came home and put my
offering into her hand she was in a flurry of delight over it, but she
was scared to death lest it should betray our secret. After giving
way to bursts of admiration for the flowers and myself, and
smelling her fill, and covering me with kisses, she burned the
bouquet in the stove and forbade me to use this method of
showing her attention again
"Your dear eyes are the best flowers you can bring me," she said
Her love burned with a steady flame, bright and even. It
manifested itself in a thousand little things which she did for the
double purpose of ministering to my comfort and keeping me in
mind of herself. I felt it in the taste of the coffee I drank, in the
quality of my cup and saucer, in the painstaking darning on my
socks, in the frequency with which my room was swept, my towel
changed, my books dusted
"Did you notice the new soap-dish on your wash-stand?" she asked
me, one morning. "Do you deserve it? Do you know how often I
am in your room every day? Just guess."
"A million times a day."
"To you it's a joke. But if you loved as I do you would not be up to
joking."
"Very well, I'll cry." And I personated a boy crying. "Don't. It
breaks my heart," she said, earnestly. "I can't see you crying even
for fun." She kissed my eyes. "No, really, I go to your room twenty
times a day, perhaps.
When I am there it seems to me that I am nearer to you. I kiss the
pillow on which you sleep. I pat the blanket, the pitcher, every
book of yours--everything your dear little hands touch. I want you
to know it. I want you to know how I love you. I knew that love
was sweet, but I never knew that it was so sweet. Oh, my loved
one!"
She would pour out all sorts of endearments on me, some of them
rather of a fantastic nature, but "my loved one" became her
favorite appellation, while I found special relish in calling her "my
bride" or "bridie mine."
I can almost feel her white fingers as they played with my
abundant dark hair or rested on my shoulders while she looked
into my eyes and murmured, yearningly: "My loved one! My loved
one! My loved one!"
The set of my shoulders was a special object of her admiration.
She would shake them tenderly, call me monkey, and ask me if I
realized how much she loved me and if I deserved it all, bad boy
that I was
She held me in check with an iron hand. Whenever my caresses
threatened to overstep the bounds of what she termed "respectable
love" she would stop them. With clouded eyes she would slap my
hand and then kiss it, saying: "Be a gentleman, Levinsky. Be a
gentleman. Can't you be a gentleman?"
"Oh, you don't love me," I would grunt
"I don't? I don't? I wish you would love me half as much," with a
sigh. "If you did you would not behave the way you do. That's all
your love amounts to--behaving like that. All men are hogs, after
all." With which she would take to lecturing me and pouring out
her infatuated heart in that solemn singsong of hers, which
somewhat bored me
If she thought my kisses unduly passionate and the amorous look
of my eye dangerous she would move away from me
"Don't be angry at me, sweetheart," she would say, cooingly
"I am not angry, but you don't love me."
"Why should you hurt my feelings like that? Why should you shed
my blood? Am I not yours, heart and soul? Am I not ready to cut
myself to pieces to please you? Why should you torture me?"
"What are you afraid of? He won't know any more than he does
now," I once urged.
She blushed, looking at the floor. After a minute's silence she said,
dolefully: "It isn't so much on account of that as on account of the
children. How could I look Lucy in the face?"
Her eyes grew humid. My heart went out to her.
"I understand. You are right," I yielded
The scene repeated itself not many days after. It occurred again
and again at almost regular intervals. She fought bravely
Many months passed, and still she was able "to look Lucy in the
face."
At first, for a period of six or seven weeks, my moral conduct
outside the house was immaculate. Then I renewed my excursions
to certain streets. I made rather frequent calls at the apartment of a
handsome Hungarian woman who called herself Cleo. Once, in a
frenzy, I tried to imagine that she was Dora, and then I
experienced qualms of abject compunction and self-loathing
Sometimes Lucy would arouse my jealous rancor, as a living
barrier between her mother and myself. But she was really dear to
me. I revered Dora for her fortitude, and Lucy appealed to me as
the embodiment of her mother's saintliness
I would watch Lucy. She was an interesting study. Her manner of
speaking, her giggle, her childish little affectations seemed to
grow more American every day. She was like a little foreigner in
the house
Dora was watching and studying her with a feeling akin to despair,
I thought. It was as though she was pursuing the little girl, with
outstretched arms, vainly trying to overtake her