Got to go right out after naughty man.”
Suddenly an idea came to him.
“Want to come along with papa, little Boots?” he asked. The little
fellow yelled with joy at the prospect of this rare treat. He was six
years old, and had blue eyes and a winsome face. His real name was
Hermann, but an infantile tendency to chew for hours all the shoes and
boots of the household had fastened upon him the name of “Boots,” by
which all the neighbourhood knew him and loved him. An hour later, and
all that day, and all the next day, and the day after for a whole week,
Marowitz and his little son wandered, apparently in aimless fashion, up
and down the streets of the East Side. The companionship of the boy was
as good as a thousand disguises. It would have been difficult to imagine
anything less detective-like or police-like than this amiable-looking
young father taking his son out for a holiday promenade.
Occasionally they would wander into one or another of the Jewish cafés,
where little Boots ascended to the seventh heaven of joy in sweet drinks
while Marowitz gazed about him, carelessly, for a man with a dark beard
and a marked ear. In one of these cafés, happening to pick up a Russian
newspaper, he read an account of the crime with which this man Gratzberg
was charged. It appeared that Gratzberg, while returning from the
synagogue with his wife, had accidently jostled a young soldier. The
soldier had struck him, and abused him for a vile Jew, and Gratzberg,
knowing the futility of resenting the insult, had edged out of the
soldier’s way, and was passing on when he heard a scream from his wife.
The soldier, attracted by the woman’s comeliness, had thrown his arms
around her, saying, “I will take a kiss from those Jewish lips to wipe
out the insult to which I have been subjected.” In sudden fury Gratzberg
rushed upon the soldier, and, with a light cane which he carried, made a
swift thrust into his face. The soldier fell to the ground, dead. The
thin point of the cane had entered his eye and pierced through into the
brain. Gratzberg turned and fled, and from that moment no man had seen
him.
Marowitz laid down the paper and frowned. He sat for a long time,
plunged in thought. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he muttered,
“Duty is duty.” And, taking little Boots by the hand, he resumed his
search for the man with the black beard and the marked ear.
It was a long and tedious search, and almost barren in clues. Two men
whom he approached—men whom he knew—remembered having seen a man who
answered the description, but their recollection was too dim to afford
him the slightest assistance. In the course of the week he had made a
dozen visits to every café, restaurant, and meeting place in the
neighbourhood, had conscientiously patrolled every street, both by day
and by night, had gone into many stores, and followed the delivery of
nearly all the Russian newspapers that came into that quarter. But
without a glimpse of the man with the marked ear.
There came a night when the heat grew so intense, and the atmosphere so
humid and suffocating that nearly every house in the Ghetto poured out
its denizens into the street to seek relief. Numerous parties made their
way to the river, to lounge about the docks and piers, where a light
breeze brought grateful relief from the intense heat.
“Want to go down to the river, Boots?” asked Marowitz.
The lad’s eyes brightened. He was worn out with the heat, and too weary
to speak. He laid his little hand in his father’s, and they went down to
the river. Marowitz walked down a long pier, crowded with people, and
peered into the face of every man he saw. They were all peaceful
workingmen, oppressed by the heat, and seeking rest, and none among them
had marked ears. The cool breeze acted like a tonic upon little Boots.
In a few minutes he had joined a group of children who were running out
and screaming shrilly at play, and presently his merry voice could
plainly be distinguished above all the rest. Marowitz seated himself on
the string-piece at the end of the pier, and leaned his head against a
post in grateful, contented repose. His mind went ruefully over his
week’s work.
“He cannot be in this neighbourhood,” he thought, “else I would have
found some trace of him. I have left nothing undone. I have worked hard
and faithfully on this assignment. But luck is against me. To-morrow I
will have to report—failure.”
It was a depressing thought. He had had his chance and had failed.
Promotion—the rosy dawn of fame—became dimmer and dimmer. Now suddenly
rose a scream of terror, followed instantly by a loud splash. Then a
hubbub of voices and cries. Then, out of the black water, a wild cry,
“Papa! Papa!” Even before the people began to run toward him Marowitz
realised that Boots had fallen into the river. A swift, sharp pang of
dread, of horrible fear, shot through him. He saw the white, upturned
face floating by—sprang swiftly, blindly into the water. And not until
the splash, when the shock of the cold water struck him, at the very
moment when he felt the arms of little Boots envelop him, and felt the
strong current sweeping them along—not until then did Marowitz remember
that he could not swim a stroke.
“Help! Help!” he cried, at the top of his voice. But the lights of the
pier had already begun to fade. The cries of the people were rapidly
dying out into a low hum. It was ebb tide, swift and relentless as
death. A twist in the current carried them in toward another
pier—deserted—and dark—save for a faint gleam of light that shone
through an aperture below the string-piece and threw a dancing trail of
dim brightness upon the water.
“Help! Help!” cried Marowitz, in despair. He heard an answering cry. The
faint light had suddenly been cut off; the opening through which it had
shone had suddenly been enlarged; Marowitz saw the figure of a man
emerge.
“Help! For God’s sake!” he cried.
The man climbed quickly to the top of the pier, shouting something which
Marowitz could not distinguish—seized a great log which lay upon the
pier, and, holding it in his arms, sprang into the water. A few quick
strokes brought him to Marowitz’s side. He pushed forward the log so
that the policeman could grasp it. Then, allowing the current to carry
them down the stream, yet, by slow swimming guiding the log nearer and
nearer toward the shore, the man was finally able to grasp the rudder of
a ship at anchor in a dock. A few moments later they stood upon the
deck, surrounded by the crew of the ship; the loungers of the wharf
alongside gazing down upon them in curiosity. Boots was safe and
uninjured. The moment he felt his feet firmly planted on the ship’s deck
he burst into wild wailing, and Marowitz, with his hand upon his heart,
murmured thanks to God. Then he turned to thank his rescuer, who stood,
with the water dripping from him, under a ship’s lantern. The next
moment Marowitz’s outstretched hand fell, as if stricken, to his side,
and he stood stock still, bewildered. The lantern’s rays fell upon the
man’s ear, illuminating a deep red scar. The water was dripping from the
man’s long black beard. And when he saw Marowitz draw back, and saw his
gaze fastened as if fascinated upon that scarred ear, a ghastly pallor
overspread the man’s face. For a moment they stood thus, gazing at each
other. Then Marowitz strode forward impetuously, seized the man’s hand,
and carried it to his lips, and in the Yiddish jargon said to him:
“You have saved my boy’s life. You have saved my life. May the blessing
of the Lord be upon you!”
Marowitz then took his son in his arms and walked briskly homeward.
“What luck?” asked the Chief next day, when he reported at headquarters.
Marowitz shook his head.
“They must be mistaken. He is not in the Jewish quarter.”
The Chief frowned. Then Marowitz, with heightened colour, said:
“I want to resign. I—I don’t think I’m cut out for a good detective.”
“H’m!” said the Chief. “I guess you’re right.”
UNCONVERTED
The Reverend Thomas Gillespie (it may have been William—I am not sure of
his first name) noticed a tall old man with fierce brown eyes standing
in the front of the crowd. Then a stone struck the Reverend Gillespie in
the face. The crowd pressed in upon him, and it would have gone ill with
the preacher if the tall, brown-eyed man had not turned upon the crowd
and, in a voice that drowned every other sound, cried:
“Touch him not! Stand back!”
The crowd hesitated and halted. The tall man had turned his back upon
the Reverend Gillespie, and now stood facing the rough-looking group.
“Touch him not!” he repeated. “He is an honest man. He means us no harm.
He is but acting according to his lights. He is only mistaken. Whoever
throws another stone is an outcast. ‘Before me,’ said the Lord, ‘there
is no difference between Jew and Gentile; he that accomplishes good will
I reward accordingly.’ Friends, go your way!”
In a few minutes the entire crowd had dispersed; the tall man was
helping the clergyman to his feet, and the first “open-air meeting” of
the Reverend Gillespie’s “Mission to the East Side Jews” had come to an
end. The Reverend’s cheek was bleeding, and the tall man helped him
staunch the flow of blood with the aid of a handkerchief that seemed to
have seen patriarchal days.
“Friend,” he then said to the clergyman, “can you spare a few moments to
accompany me to my home? It is close by, and I would like to speak to
you.”
The clergyman’s head was in a whirl. The happenings of the past few
minutes had dazed him. He was a young man and enthusiastic, and this
idea of converting the Jews of the East Side to Christianity was all his
own idea—all his own undertaking, without pay, without hope of reward.
He knew German well, and a little Russian, and it had not taken him long
to acquire sufficient proficiency in the jargon to make himself clearly
understood. Then began this “open-air meeting,” the sudden outburst of
derisive cries and hooting before he had uttered a dozen words of the
solemn exhortation that he had so carefully planned, then the rush and
the stone that had cut his cheek, and—he was only dimly conscious of
this—the sudden interference of the tall man. He was glad to accompany
his rescuer—glad to do anything that would afford a moment’s quiet rest.
The Reverend Gillespie wanted to think the situation over.
The tall man led him into a tenement close by, through the hall, and
across a filthy court-yard into a rear tenement, and then up four foul,
weary flights of stairs. He opened a door, and the clergyman found
himself in a small dark room that seemed, from its furnishings, as well
as from its odours, to serve the purpose of sitting-, sleeping-,
dining-room, and kitchen. In one corner stood a couch, upon which lay an
old man, apparently asleep. His long, grey beard rose and fell upon the
coverlet with his regular breathing; but his cheeks were sunken, and his
hands, that clutched the edge of the coverlet, were thin and wasted.
“Rest yourself,” said the tall man to the clergyman. “You are worn out.”
The clergyman seated himself and drew a long breath of relief. He was
really tired, and sitting down acted like a tonic. He began to thank his
rescuer. It was the first word he had spoken, and his voice seemed to
arouse a sudden fire in the eyes of his rescuer.
“Listen!” he cried, leaning forward, and pointing a long, gaunt finger
at the clergyman. “Listen to me. I have brought you here because I think
you are an honest man. You are like a man who walks in the midst of
light with his eyes shut and declares there is no light. You have come
here to preach to Jews, to beseech them to forsake the teachings of the
Prophets and to believe that the Messiah has come. But to preach to Jews
you must first find your Jews. You were not speaking to Jews. It was not
a Jew who threw that stone at you. It is true the Talmud says, ‘An
Israelite, even when he sins and abandons the faith, is still an
Israelite.’ But you have not come to convert the sinners against Israel.
You have come to convert Jews. And I have brought you here to show you a
Jew.
“That old man whom you see there—no, he is not sleeping. He is dying.
You are shocked? No, he has no disease. Medical skill can do nothing for
him. He is an old man, tired of the struggle of life, worn out, wasting
away. Oh, he will open his eyes again, and he will eat food, too, but
there is no hope. In a few days he will be no more.
“He is a Jew. We came from Russia together, he and I, and we struggled
together, side by side, for nearly a quarter of a century. It did not
take me long to forget many of the things the rabbis had taught me, and
to become impatient of the restraints of religion. But he remained
steadfast, oh, so steadfast! His religion was the breath of life to him;
he could no more depart from it than he could accustom himself to live
without breathing. It was a bitter struggle, year after year, slaving
from break of day until dark, with nothing to save, no headway, no
future, no hope. I often became despondent, but he was always cheerful.
He had the true faith to sustain him; a smile, a cheerful word, and
always some apt quotation from the Talmud to dispel my despondent mood.
“He argued with me, he pleaded with me, he read to me the words of the
law, and the interpretations of the learned rabbis, day after day, month
after month, year after year—always so kind, so gentle, so patient, so
loving. And all the while we struggled for our daily living together and
suffered and hungered, and many times were subjected to insult and even
injury. And he would always repeat from the Talmud, ‘Man should accustom
himself to say of everything that God does that it is for the best.’
“Then Fortune smiled upon him. An unexpected piece of luck, a bold
enterprise, a few quick, profitable ventures, and he became independent.
He made me share his good fortune. We started one of those little
banking houses on the East Side, and so great was the confidence that
all who knew him possessed in him, that in less than a year we were a
well-known, reliable establishment, with prospects that no outsider
would ever have dreamed of. Through all the days of prosperity he
remained a devout Jew. Not a feast passed unobserved. Not a ceremony
went unperformed. Not an act of devotion, of kindness, or of charity
prescribed by the Talmud was omitted by my friend.
“Then came the black day—the great, panic of six years ago—do you
remember it? It came suddenly, on a Friday afternoon, like a huge
storm-cloud, threatening to burst the next morning.
“They came to him—all his customers—in swarms, to ask him if he would
keep his banking place open the next day. ‘No!’ he said. ‘To-morrow is
the Sabbath!’ ‘You will be ruined!’ they cried. ‘We will be ruined!’
‘Friends,’ he said, in his quiet way, ‘I have enough money laid aside to
guard you against ruin, even if all my establishment be wiped from the
face of the earth. But to-morrow is the Sabbath. I have observed the
Sabbath for nearly sixty years. I must not fail to-morrow.’
“And when the morrow came the bank failed, and they brought the news to
him in the synagogue. But he gave no heed to them; he was listening to
the reading of the law. They came to tell him that banks were crashing
everywhere, that the bottom had fallen out of the world of business and
finance. But he was listening to the words that were spoken by Moses on
Sinai.
“And,” the narrator’s eyes filled, and the tears began to roll down his
cheeks, “on the Monday that followed he gave, to every man and to every
woman and to every child that had trusted him, every penny that he had
saved, and he made me give every penny that I had saved. And when all
was gone, and the last creditor had gone away, paid in full, he turned
to me and said, ‘Man should accustom himself to say of everything that
God does that it is for the best!’
“And the next day—yes, the very next day—we applied for work in a
sweater’s shop, and we have been working there ever since.
“We were too old to begin daring ventures over again. I would have clung
to the money we had saved, but he—he was so good, so honest, that the
very thought of it filled me with shame. And now he is worn out.
“In a few days he will die, and I will be left to fight on alone.
“But, oh, my friend, there, lying on that couch, you see a Jew!
“Would you convert him? What would you have him believe? To what would
you change his faith? Ah, you will say there are not many like him. No!
Would to God there were! It would be a happier world.
“But it was faith in Judaism that made him what he was. If I—if all Jews
could only believe in the religion of their fathers as he believed—what
an example to mankind Israel would be!
“My friend, I thank you. You have come with me—you have listened to my
story. I must attend to my friend. May the peace of God be with you!”
The Reverend Thomas Gillespie (although, as I said, it may have been
William) bowed, and, without a word, walked slowly out of the room. His
lips trembled slightly.
The “second outdoor meeting of the Reverend Gillespie’s Mission to the
East Side Jews” has never taken place.
WITHOUT FEAR OF GOD
The thread on which the good qualities of human beings are strung
like pearls, is the fear of God. When the fastenings of this fear
are unloosed the pearls roll in all directions and are lost, one
by one.
—_The Book of Morals._
Be pleased to remember that this tale points no moral, that there is
absolutely nothing to be deduced from it, and that in narrating it I am
but repeating a curious incident that belongs to the East Side. It is a
strange place, this East Side, with its heterogeneous elements, its
babble of jargons. Its noise and its silence, its impenetrable mystery,
its virtues, its romance, and its poverty—above all, its poverty! Some
day I shall tell you something about the poverty of the East Side that
will tax your credulity.
* * * * *
There lived on the East Side once a man who had no fear of God. His name
was Shatzkin, and there had been a time when he was a learned man,
skilled in the interpretation of Talmudic lore, fair to look upon and
strong.
Like many another outcast he had come with his story and his mystery out
of the “poisonous East,” and there was no tie between him and his
neighbours save the tie of Judaism. It is a wonderful bond between men,
this tie of Judaism, a bond of steel that it has taken four thousand
years of suffering and death to forge, and its ends are fastened to
men’s hearts by rivets that are stronger than adamant, and the rabbis
call these rivets “The fear of God.”
The heat of summer came on. You who swelter in your parlour these sultry
days—do you know what the heat of summer means to two families chained
by poverty within a solitary room in a Ghetto tenement, where there is
neither light nor air, where the pores of the walls perspire, where the
stench of decay is ever present, where there is nothing but heat, heat,
heat? You who have read with horror the tale of the Black Hole of
Calcutta—have you seen a child lie upon a bare floor, gasping, and
gasping and gasping for breath amid the roomful of silent people who are
stitching for bread? I would give a year of my life to wipe out a
certain memory that is awakened each time I hear a child cry—it was
terrible.
But I was telling you the story of Shatzkin.
The heat of summer came on, and his youngest-born died in his arms for
lack of nourishment. And while his wife sat wringing her hands and the
other children were crying, Shatzkin laid the lifeless body upon the
bare floor, and, donning his praying cap, raised his voice and chanted:
“Great is my affliction, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
And it grew hotter, and the other children succumbed.
“You had better send them to the country,” said the doctor, and, seeing
Shatzkin staring at him dumbly, “Don’t you understand what I mean?” he
asked. Shatzkin nodded. He understood full well and—and that night
another died, and Shatzkin bowed his head and cried:
“Great is my affliction, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
Within a week the Shatzkins were childless—it was a terrible summer—and
when the congregation B’nai Sholom assembled upon the following Sabbath
and the rabbi spoke words of comfort, Shatzkin, with his face buried in
his hands, murmured:
“My sorrow is nigh unbearable, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
And now the heat grew greater, and the sweatshops, with all their
people, were as silent as the grave. The men cut the cloth and ironed
it, and the women stitched, stitched, stitched, with never a sound, and
there was no weeping, for their misery was beyond the healing power of
tears.
Shatzkin’s wife fell to the floor exhausted, and they carried her to her
room above, and sent for a doctor.
“The sea air would do her good,” said the doctor.
“The sea air,” repeated Shatzkin, stupidly. “The sea air.”
“Keep her as cool as you can. I will call again in the morning.”
“The sea air,” was all that Shatzkin said. “The sea air.”
In the middle of the night the woman cried, “Shatzkin! Shatzkin!”
He looked down, for her head lay upon his lap.
“Shatzkin!” She was smiling feebly. “The baby—Aaron—Esther—dear
Shatzkin——”
* * * * *
The congregation of B’nai Sholom had assembled for Sabbath eve worship.
The rabbi was in the midst of the service.
“Blessed be God on high!” he read from the book. “Blessed be the Lord of
Israel, who holds the world in the palm of His hand. For He is a
righteous God——”
“Ho! ho!” shouted a derisive voice. The startled worshippers hastily
turned their heads. They beheld a gaunt figure that had risen in the
rear of the room, and seemed to be shaking with laughter. It was
Shatzkin, but so pale and worn that few recognised him.
“Who are you that disturb this holy service?” cried the rabbi. “Have you
no fear of God in your heart?”
The man ceased laughing and stared the rabbi in the eyes. “No,” he said,
slowly. “I have no fear of God.”
A terrible hush had fallen upon the assemblage, and the man, looking
vacantly from one to another of the faces that were turned to him, said,
in a hollow voice:
“I am Shatzkin. Does no one remember Shatzkin? I sat here only last
week,” and, slowly, “my—wife—went—to—the—seashore!”
The rabbi’s face softened.
“Good, brother Shatzkin,” his voice was trembling. “God has tried——”
“You lie!” cried Shatzkin, fiercely. “Do not speak to me of God! I have
no fear of Him! He killed my youngest-born, and I prayed to Him—on my
knees I prayed and cried, ‘Thou knowest best!’ And He killed the
others—all the others, and I blessed Him and on my knees I prayed, ‘Thou
knowest best!’ And He killed my wife—my darling wife—in my arms He
killed her. And I am alone—alone—alone, and I fear no God!
Curse—curse—curse! Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! Why should I fear God?”
And throwing a prayer-book to the floor he trampled it under foot, and
rushed out into the street.
* * * * *
For many years there worked in one of the sweatshops on the East Side a
shrivelled little man, with keen blue eyes, who was always laughing.
From sunrise until midnight he toiled, sometimes humming an old melody,
but always with a smile upon his lips. The other workers laughed and
chatted merrily in the winter time, and became grave and silent in the
summer, but rarely did they pay attention to the old man who seemed
always happy. Strangers that visited the place were invariably attracted
by the cheerful aspect of the man, but when they spoke to him he would
smile and answer:
“I must earn money to send my wife to the sea air!”
And if they asked, “Who is this man?” they would be told in a whisper of
awe:
“He has no fear of God!”
And then a significant shake of the head.
* * * * *
The heat of summer is here again. Shatzkin has been dead a long time,
and the story is almost forgotten. But in the Ghetto each day his cry is
repeated, and through the heat and the foul air there arises from a
thousand hearts the tearless murmur:
“Great is my affliction, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
THE SUN OF WISDOM
“And therefore,” concluded Salvin, stroking his long, grey beard, “we
are forced to accept the belief that the object of life is toil. We are
the advance guard cutting out the road down which the next generation
will travel, who, in turn, will carry the road further along. Our work
done—our usefulness ends. We have accomplished our mission, and nothing
remains but to make way for our successors.”
Young Levine smiled, and rose to go.