I WAS rapidly advancing on the road to financial
triumphs. I was planning to move my business to larger quarters,
in the same modest neighborhood. Mrs.
Chaikin, my partner's wife, failed to realize the situation, however.
She could not forgive me the false representations I had made to
her regarding my assets
"And where is the treasure you were expecting?" she would twit
me. "You never tell a lie, do you? You simply don't know how to
do it. Poor thing!"
When we were in the midst of an avalanche of lucrative orders
promising a brilliant winter season she took it into her head to
withdraw her husband from the firm, in which he was a silent
partner. Her decision was apparently based on the extreme efforts
she had once seen me making to raise five hundred dollars. As a
matter of fact, this was due to the rapidity of our growth. I lacked
capital. But then my credit was growing, too, and altogether things
were in a most encouraging condition
"What is the use worrying along like that?" she said. "You
deceived me from the start. You made me believe you had a lot of
money, while you were really a beggar. Yes, you are a beggar, and
a beggar you are bound to stay. A beggar and a swindler--that's
what you are. You have fooled me long enough.
You can't fool me any longer. So there!"
Her husband was still employed by the German firm, attending to
the needs of our growing little factory surreptitiously every
evening and on Sundays. The day seemed near when it would pay
him to give all his time to our shop. And he was aware of it, too;
to some extent, at least. But Mrs. Chaikin ordained otherwise
I attempted to present the actual state of affairs to her, but broke
off in the middle of a sentence. It suddenly flashed upon my mind
that it might all be to my advantage. "A designer can be hired," I
said to myself. "The business is progressing rapidly. To make him
my life partner is too high a price to pay for his skill. Besides,
having him for a partner actually means having his nuisance of a
wife for a partner. It will be a good thing to get rid of her." I
consulted Max, as I did quite often now. Not that I thought myself
in need of his advice, or anybody else's, for that matter. Success
had made me too self-confident for that. I played the intimate and
ardent friend, and this was simply part of my personation. To
flatter his vanity I would make him think his suggestions had been
acted upon and that they had brought good results. As a
consequence, he was developing the notion that my success was
largely due to his guidance, a notion which jarred on me, but
which I humored, nevertheless
"Do you know what's the matter?" he said, sagely. "Mrs. Chaikin
must have found another partner for her husband. Some fellow
with big money, I suppose."
"You are right, Max," I said, sincerely. "How stupid I am."
"Why, of course they have got another partner. Of course they
have," he repeated, with elation. "So much the better for you. Let
them go to the eighty black years. Don't run after him. Just do as I
tell you and you'll be all right, Levinsky. My advice has never got
you in trouble, has it?"
"Indeed not. Indeed not," I answered
Max's blindness to what was going on between Dora and myself
was a riddle to which I vainly sought a solution. That this cynic
who charged every man and woman with immorality should, in
the circumstances, be so absolutely undisturbed in his confidence
regarding his wife seemed nothing short of a miracle. When I now
think of the riddle I see its solution in a modified version of the
old rule concerning the mote in thy neighbor's eye and the beam in
thine own eve. Your worst pessimist is, after all, an optimist with
regard to himself. We are quick to recognize the gravity of ill
health in somebody else, yet we ourselves may be on the very
brink of death without realizing it. It is a special phase of
selfishness. We are loath to connect the idea of a catastrophe with
our own person. Max, who saw a mote in the eye of everybody
else's wife, failed to perceive the beam in the eye of his own
As for Sadie, who lived in the same house now, and who visited
Dora's apartment at all hours, she was too silly and too deeply
infatuated with her friend to suspect her of anything wrong
I idolized Dora. It seemed to me that I adored her soul even more
than I did her body. I was under her moral influence, and the
firmness with which she maintained the distance between us
added to my respect for her. And yet I never ceased to dream of
and to seek her moral downfall
I had extended my canvassing activities to a number of cities
outside New York, my territory being a semicircle with a radius of
about a hundred and fifty miles. I had long since picked up some
of the business jargon of the country and I was thirstily drinking in
more and more
"What do you think of this number, Mr. So-and-so?" I would say,
self-consciously, to a merchant, as I dangled a garment in front of
him.
"You can make a run on it. It's the kind of suit that gives the
wearer an air of distinction."
If I heard a bit of business rhetoric that I thought effective I would
jot it down and commit it to memory. In like manner I would
write down every new piece of slang, the use of the latest popular
phrase being, as I thought, helpful in making oneself popular with
Americans, especially with those of the young generation. But
somehow a slang phrase would be in general use for a
considerable time before it attracted my attention. The Americans
I met were so quick to discern and adopt these phrases it seemed
as if they were born with a special slang sense which I, poor
foreigner that I was, lacked.
That I was not born in America was something like a physical
defect that asserted itself in many disagreeable ways--a physical
defect which, alas! no surgeon in the world was capable of
removing
Other things that I would enter in my note-book were names of
dishes on the bills of fare of the better restaurants, with
explanations of my own. I would describe the difference between
Roquefort cheese and Liederkranz cheese, between consommé
Celestine and consommé princesse; I would make a note of the
composition of macaroni au gratin, the appearance and taste of
potatoes Lyonnaise, of various salad-dressings. But I gradually
picked up this information in a practical way and really had no
need of my culinary notes. I had many occasions to eat in
high-class restaurants and I was getting to feel quite at home in
them
Max's conjecture regarding Chaikin was borne out. The talented
designer had given up his job at the Manheimer Brothers' and
opened a cloak-and-suit house with a man who had made
considerable money as a cloak salesman, and as a landlord for a
partner. When Max heard of it he was overjoyed
"I tell you what, Levinsky," he said, half in jest and half in earnest.
"Let the two of us make a partnership of it. I could put some
money into the business."
I reflected that when I approached him for a loan of four hundred
dollars, on my first visit at his house, he had pleaded poverty
"I could do a good deal of hustling, too," he added, gravely.
"Between the two of us we should make a great success of it."
I gave him an evasive answer. I must have looked annoyed, for he
exclaimed: "Look at him! Look at him, Dora! Scared to death, isn't
he?" And to me: "Don't be uneasy, old chap! I am not going to
snatch your factory from you.
But you are a big hog, all the same. I can tell you that. How will
you manage all alone? Who will take care of your business when
you go traveling?"
"Oh, I'll manage it somehow," I answered, making an effort to be
pleasant.
"Chaikin was scarcely ever in the shop, anyhow."