ONE evening at dinner, about a fortnight later, “What's the matter,
Elias?” the rabbi asked. “You're not feeling sick, are you? Or blue? Or
worried about any thing?”
“Why, no,” Elias answered, “I feel all right. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don't know. I thought you were looking a little out-of-sorts.
Likely enough, it was only an idea.”
“The truth is,” Elias presently volunteered, “that, so far from feeling
blue or low-spirited or anything of that kind, I don't seem to feel much
of any thing at all. I'm sort of sluggish--dull--dead-and-alive. I'd
give a good deal for a sensation, an excitement. I've been feeling
this way pretty much all the time since--for the last two weeks. Heavy,
thick, as though my blood had stopped circulating. I wish you'd stick a
pin into me.”
“Oh, you need a little amusement, a little fun, something to take you
out of yourself. That's all. Why don't you go to the theater?”
“No, thanks. I'm not fond of the theater. Besides, it's too hot.”
“Well, then, why don't you make a call?”
“A call! Pshaw; is that your notion of excitement?”
“Well, it's better than sitting at home, and moping, isn't it?”
“And, any how, whom do I know to call on?”
“Whom do you know? Mercy upon me! I could name fifty people, whom
you not only know, but to whom you actually owe calls. It's really
abominable, the way you neglect, and always have neglected, your social
duties. There's no excuse for it. If--if you were an old recluse like
me, it would be different.”
“I don't see how. What if you were a young recluse, like me?”
“Ah, but nobody has a right to be a young recluse. It is only when we
get along in years, that we are entitled to withdraw from the world.
Besides, it's narrowing, it's hardening. You need contact with other
people, to broaden your mind, and keep your sympathies alive. If you
avoid society while you're young, the milk of human kindness will dry
up in your bosom. You'll get coldblooded, selfish, indifferent.” Which
amiable sentiments, falling from the lips of the rabbi, possessed a
peculiar interest. “Come,” he added, “run up-stairs, and put on your
best suit, and go make a call.”
“Again I ask, whom on?”
“On--on anybody. I'll tell you whom. Call on Mr. and Mrs. Koch.”
The pronunciation of this name has been anglicized into _Coach_.
“Which Koch? A. Hamilton?”
“No, of course not. Washington I.”
“Oh, heavens! I haven't called on them these two years. I'd be afraid to
show my face inside their door. They'd overwhelm me with reproaches.”
“Well, what of that? You could stand it, I guess. They're very nice
people, the Kochs; people whom it is worth while to be on good terms
with--so warm-hearted and unpretentious, and yet with their hundreds of
thousands behind them. There isn't a smarter business man in New York
City than Washington I. Koch, nor a more honest, nor a more open-handed.
Look at that stained glass window he gave the congregation. And then, at
the same time, he's a man of ideas, a well-informed man; and best of
all, he's a pious Jew.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I'll do,” said Elias; “I'll call on them, if
you'll come along.”
“I! Nonsense! I called on them last New-Year's, and shall call again
next. That's the most that can be expected of me.”
“Well, I shouldn't dare to go alone. If you'd come along, to keep me in
countenance, I'd go. But alone--no, never.”
There was an interval of silence. Suddenly the rabbi said, “Well, I
declare, I'll do it. I'll do it, just to encourage you. There; let's go
up-stairs and dress.”
Pretty soon they left the house and sauntered westward arm-in-arm. Elias
wore the Prince Albert coat that he had had made to be married in.
It was a hot night, and it had all the qualities characteristic of a
hot night in New York. The air was redolent of bursting ailanthus buds.
Strains of music, more or less musical, were wafted from every point
of the compass--from behind open windows, where people sang, or played
pianos; from the blazing depths of German concert saloons, where
cracked-voiced orchestrions thundered discord; from the street corners,
where itinerant bands halted, and blew themselves red in the face; and
from the indeterminate distance, where belated hand-organs wailed with
mechanical melancholy. Third Avenue, into which thoroughfare Elias and
the rabbi presently turned, was thronged by many sorts and conditions of
men and women clad in light summer gear, and drifting onward in light,
languid, summer fashion. It was intensely hot and oppressive; and yet,
somehow, it was productive of a certain unmistakable exhilaration.
The sense one got of busy, teeming human life, was penetrating and
enlivening.
They walked up to Eighteenth Street, where they took the Elevated
Railway. At Fifty-ninth Street they descended, and thence proceeded to
Lexington Avenue. On Lexington Avenue, just above Sixty-first Street,
the Kochs resided. Out on the stoops of most of the houses that they
passed, the inmates were seated, resting, gossiping, trying to
cool off--the ladies in white dresses, the gentlemen often in
their shirt-sleeves. Here and there, some of them were partaking of
refreshments; beer, sandwiches, or cheese that savored of the Rhine.
Here and there, some of them had fallen asleep. Here and there, a couple
of young folks made surreptitious love, and, consumed by inner fires,
forgot the outer heat. A pervasive odor, compounded of tobacco smoke
and eau-de-cologne, assailed the nostrils. What snatches of conversation
could be overheard, were either in German, or in English pronounced with
a strong German accent.
They rang the Kochs' door-bell, and were ushered by a white-capped,
flaxen-haired _Mädchen_ into the drawing-room.
The drawing-room was gorgeously and elaborately over-furnished. A
bewildering arabesque, in gold, vermilion, and purple, decorated the
ceiling. A dark, pseudo-æsthetic paper, bearing huge pink apricots
embossed upon a ground of olive-green, covered the walls. The gas
fixtures were of brass, wrought into an intricate design, and burnished
to the highest possible brilliancy. The globes were alternately of ruby
and emerald tinted glass. There were a good many pictures; two or three
family portraits in charcoal, and several bits of color. Of the latter,
the one above the mantelpiece was the largest. A blaze of crimson
and orange, deep-set in a massive gilt frame, it proved, on close
inspection, to be a specimen of worsted-work; and represented, as a
device embroidered upon the margin testified, the Queen of Sheba playing
before Solomon. The Queen had beautiful gambooge hair, and ultramarine
eyes. Her harp was of ivory, with strings of silver; her costume,
décolleté, of indigo velvet, trimmed profusely with handsome gold lace.
Solomon--it is to be hoped, for his own sake, that Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like this flamboyant effigy of himself. In a robe
of gold brocade, lined with scarlet satin, and bearing upon his brow
a richly bejeweled crown, that must certainly have weighed in the
neighborhood of twenty pounds, the sagacious monarch looked wretchedly
hot and uncomfortable. The rest of this apartment was in perfect
keeping. The chairs were of ebony, upholstered in stamped red velvet.
Before long Mr. Koch came in. He wore alligator-skin slippers, and a
jacket of pongee silk. Between the fingers of his left hand, he carried
a half-smoked cigar. He was a short, thick-set, pale-complexioned man,
of forty, or thereabouts; inclined to baldness; with clear, light-gray
eyes, and a straw-colored mustache waxed in the style of the Second
Empire. He looked very clean, very alert, very good-tempered, and yet
as though he could become as hard and as sharp as flint, if occasion
demanded. He welcomed the rabbi with warm and deferential courtesy.
Then, turning to Elias, in hearty, jovial, hail-fellow-well-met manner:
“Well, Mr. Bacharach, how goes it? It's a dog's age since we've seen
you, and no mistake. Have a cigar?”
With one hand, he was subjecting Elias's arm to a vigorous pumping. With
the other, he offered him a tortoise-shell cigar-case.
“They're genuine,” he remarked. “I'll warrant them. Imported by my
brother-in-law for his private consumption. Cost you a quarter apiece
straight, if you bought them in New York. _Hoyo de Montereys_.”
Elias selected one. Mr. Koch produced a silver match-box, extracted
a wax match, scratched it, and held it while his guest got his cigar
alight.
“Now,” said he, flirting the match flame into extinction, “I'm going to
ask you gentlemen to step down stairs to the basement. You'll find the
whole family down there, engaged in an impressive ceremony. They're
bidding good-night to the baby, whom my wife is about to put to bed.”
In the basement, or dining-room (which, in the Koch establishment,
pursuant to a common Jewish habit, was made to serve also as a general
sitting-room), as many as seven or eight ladies and gentlemen, some
seated, some standing, were gathered around the extension-table,
upon which, in the approximate center of it, sprawled a fair, fat,
two-year-old baby. The spectators were all smiling benevolently at him,
addressing complimentary remarks to him, and exchanging complimentary
notes about him among themselves. All the gentlemen were smoking.
“Lester, was you a good boy?”
“Mein Gott! He kroes bigger every day.”
“Laistair, was you sleeby?”
“Tust look at that smile! Ain't it perfectly grand?”
“Laistair, haif you got a kiss for grainpa, before you go to bed?”
And so forth, and so forth: all of which Master Lester acknowledged with
a vague grin, and a gutteral goo-goo-goo.
But at the entrance of Mr. Koch, flanked by Elias and the rabbi, the
whole company deserted Lester, and making a rush forward, surrounded the
visitors. The rabbi, every body greeted with subdued respect, as was due
to his sacerdotal quality. But over Elias, they gushed.
Mrs. Koch, a thin, wiry little woman, with a prominent nose and a
pleasant manner, piped in her shrill treble: “Oh, Meester Bacharach! I
didn't naifer expaict to haif this honor. I ain't seen you in this
house for two--for three--years, already: dot time you called with your
mamma.”
Mrs. Koch's mother, Mrs. Blum, a dumpy, rubicund old lady, with rather
a sly, rollicking air about her, held his hand, and swayed her head like
an inverted pendulum from side to side, and smiled incredulously, and
kept repeating, “Vail, vail, vail!”
Then came sprightly Mr. Blum, short, corpulent, and florid, like his
wife; with a glossy bald pate, a drooping white mustache, and white
mutton-chop whiskers, which left exposed a very red and shiny double
chin. “My kracious? Was dot Elias Bacharach? Du lieber Gott! How
you haif krown, since laist time you was here!” He held Elias off at
arm's-length, and scrutinized him carefully. “Excuse me,” he demanded
all at once; “where you get dot coat mait? Washington, come over here,
and look at Elias Bacharach's coat. Dem must be Chairman goots, hey?”
He plucked at the material of the unfortunate garment with his thumb
and forefinger, and stroked it with the palm of his hand. “Dot's a goot
coat,” he declared at last. “What you pay for it?” He lifted up one of
the skirts, and examined the lining. He was a veritable child of nature,
this Mr. Blum; and besides, he and his son-in-law constituted the
firm of Blum & Koch, manufacturers and jobbers of ready-made clothing,
Franklin Street, near Broadway.
Elias and the rabbi paid their respects to the baby; after which, Mrs.
Koch picked him up and carried him off.
“Mr. Bacharach,” said Mr. Koch, grasping him by the elbow, “don't
you know my brother-in-law, Mr. Sternberg?--Guggenheim & Sternberg,
wholesale tobacco. My sister, Mrs. Sternberg; my other sister, Mrs.
Morgenthau; my niece, Miss Tillie Morgenthau: Mr. Bacharach.”
To each of these persons, in turn, Elias made his obeisance.
Mrs. Morgenthau was in appearance a feminine duplicate of her brother;
short, thick-set, smart-looking, and with an air of having lots of _go_;
what is called a bouncing woman.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” she announced, in a loud, robust
voice, and with emphasis, as though she wanted it understood that she
wasn't fooling, but meant exactly what she said. She shook his hand,
giving it a virile grip.
Miss Tillie Morgenthau was a young lady of eighteen or twenty, taller
than her mother, exceedingly taper in the waist, and of an exceedingly
fresh complexion; decidedly a pretty girl, with plenty of waving black
hair, a pair of bright blue eyes, a shapely red mouth, and a generous
provision of tiny teeth, regular and of pearly whiteness.
“Oh, I suppose Mr. Bacharach don't remember me,” she said, pouting
playfully. She pronounced the personal pronoun _I_, like the
interjection _Ah_.
“Oh, on the contrary,” protested Elias, trying hard to remember whether
he had ever seen her before.
“Now, Ah'm perfectly sure you don't,” she insisted. “But All'll tell
you. It was at the Advance Club, winter before last. Mr. Greenleaf
introduced you to me--Charley Greenleaf. Do you belong to the Advance?”
No, Elias said; he was not a member of any club.
“Well, now,” called out Mr. Koch, to the company generally, “now that
the baby's gone to bed, I propose that we adjourn to the summer-house,
and try to get cooled off.”
An exodus at once began; and presently they were all established, a
picturesque, free-and-easy group, upon the stoop. Elias found himself at
Miss Tillie's side.
“Fearfully hot, isn't it?” she observed.
“Very, indeed,” agreed Elias.
“It always is hot over here on Lexington Avenue--Jerusalem Avenue, I
call it, on account of the number of Jews that live over here. Pretty
good name for it, don't you think so?”
“Quite good, yes,” he assented.
“But over where we live, it's much cooler. Have a breeze there most all
the time.”
“Ah, where is that?”
“Beekman Place--clear down on the edge of the river. Number 57. Be happy
to have you call on us there. We--mamma and I--we live with my uncle and
aunt, the Sternbergs. It's fearfully out of the way, but it's grand when
you get there.”
“Yes, I've heard so,” Elias said.
“Musical, Mr. Bacharach?” she inquired.
“Well, I don't know. I'm very fond of music.”
“Sing?”
“No.”
“Play?”
“No, not any more. I used to, a little. But I gave it up.”
“Oh, my! What a pity! I think it's perfectly elegant for a gentleman to
play, don't you? But so few of them do. I think it's simply awful.”
“I suppose you play, of course?”
“Oh, I should say so. Yes, indeed. Music's my forte. I teach, too. Give
lessons in Dr. Meyer's conservatory, and take private pupils.”
“Won't you play for us a little to-night, then?”
“Oh, gracious, no. It's too hot. Ah'm about melted, as it is. Ain't
you?”
“Well, it _is_ pretty warm,” Elias confessed, in & reflective tone.
At this juncture, the white-capped maid-servant began to circulate among
the people, bearing a large tray, upon which reposed a pitcher, a couple
of slim bottles, and half a score of cut-glass tumblers.
“Beer or wine, Mr. Bacharach?” cried Mr. Koch, from above. “Take your
choice, and help yourself. They're both gratis.”
Elias poured out a glass of wine for Miss Tillie, and for himself a
glass of beer.
“Have a fresh cigar?” cried Mr. Koch.
“No, thank you. I haven't finished this one,” returned Elias, who had
allowed the fire of his cigar to go out.
“Well, if you ain't comfortable, speak up, that's all,” his host
concluded, and became silent.
“Oh, by the way, Meester Bacharach,” piped Mrs. Koch, who, having
disposed of Lester, had rejoined the company, “I hear dot we haif to
con-kratulate you.”
“Indeed? What about?” inquired Elias, unsuspiciously.
“We hear dot you was encaged. Was it true?”
“Oh!” he cried, taken aback. He colored up; but the darkness hid his
blushes.
“Vail?” pursued his good-natured tormentress.
“No--not at all--an entire mistake,” he stammered.
“Oh, dot's too baid. Ain't you naifer going to get married?”
“I don't know. I guess not,” he said.
At this, there was a universal murmur of disapproval.
“Dot's just the way with all the young fellers, now-a-days,” Mr. Blum
exclaimed. “They don't none of them want to get married. It's simply
fearful; hey, Dr. Gedaza? When me and you was young men, we'd be ashamed
to be single at his age, hey? Why, a man ain't a goot Jew, if he don't
get married. Might just as well be an American right out. If I was you,
Elias Bacharach, I'd be afraid. The Lord will punish you. You better get
married, or look out.”
“Yes, that's so.”
“There ain't any doubt about that.”
“A young fellow ought to get married, and no mistake.”
Remarks such as these went up from all directions; and poor Elias felt
like the most miserable of sinners.
Tillie came to his rescue. “Oh, let Mr. Bacharach alone,” she cried. “He
ain't dead yet. Give him time.” Then, turning to the victim, “Don't
you mind them. They've got marriage on the brain.--How are you going to
spend this summer? In the country?”
“Well I haven't made any plans yet,” he answered; “have you?”
“Oh, yes--we're going to the Catskills--Tannerstown--all of us. Ever
been there? It's perfectly ideal--the grandest place I ever did see. And
such a lot of nice people! I must know a hundred at the very least, who
are going there this season--Advance Club people--friends of my uncle
Wash. You said you didn't belong to the Advance. Why don't you join? If
I were a man, wouldn't I, though! They give the most elegant balls that
you can possibly imagine. Mamma and I go to all of them. Mamma took the
prize at the last.”
“Prize for what?” asked Elias.
“Why, don't you know? They give a prize for the most original costume;
generally a book, or a work of art. Mamma's was a magnificent picture
album, with hinges and clasps of hammered silver--solid, not plated. The
ladies all go in costume, and each one tries to wear the most curious
and surprising. Well, for instance, one lady represented a match. She
had a dress just perfectly covered with burned matches, and matches in
her hair, and for ear-rings, and every thing. Then, another lady, she
went as a pack of cards; and her dress was just one mass of patch-work,
and each patch was a card. And then mamma--Well, guess. What do you
suppose mamma represented?”
“I give it up.”
“Well, it was simply the grandest idea you can possibly imagine. It took
the whole room by storm. Gracious me, how they did laugh and applaud!
She went as a fireman.”
“A--what? M gasped Elias.
“Yes, a fireman. She had a red shirt with brass buttons, and a helmet,
and a badge, and a hatchet, and a big black mustache, like a regular
member of the department. Well, she did look just too funny for any
thing. You ought to have been there. You'd have laughed to die. I had a
side-ache for a week afterward. She and the match were rivals; and there
was quite a lot of betting as to who would come in first. But, as the
judge who made the awards said, she did her duty, and _extinguished_ the
match. That was pretty good, wasn't it? She got the prize, and the match
got an honorable mention.”
“And your own costume?” Elias questioned. “What was that like?”
“Oh, I went in an ordinary white dress. Mamma thought I was too young
to take a character. But next fall--Promise you won't tell. You mustn't
breathe a word of it, will you? Next fall, I'm going as an ear of corn.”
“Why,” exclaimed Elias, “how can that be managed?”
“Oh, we've got it all designed; and my Uncle Wash, he's having some
stuff woven on purpose, to represent the kernels. It's right in his
line, you know. You wait till you see it. It will be simply the most
ideal thing you can possibly imagine. But _please_ don't mention it.
Some one else might do it first, and get in ahead of me, if you did.”
“You may rely upon me,” Elias vowed. “I'll be as secret as the grave.”
The rabbi now rose, and began to make his adieux. Elias followed his
example.
“You two gentlemen come up here to dinner next Sunday afternoon, will
you?” demanded Mr. Koch.
Before Elias had had a chance to decline, if he had been disposed to do
so, the rabbi replied, “We will, with pleasure. Thank you.”
On the way home, “Well,” the rabbi asked, “did you have a good time?”
“Oh, fair,” returned Elias. “Queer set, aren't they?”
“Well, they have certain mannerisms, yes. But you mustn't mind a
superficial thing like that. They talk too loud, and their grammar isn't
of the choicest; but they're thoroughly kind-hearted and well-meaning;
and they're not wanting in brains, either, though they may be a trifle
unpolished. Mr. Koch himself is a remarkably intelligent man, a man of
ideas. You get to talking to him sometime, and you'll find out. How did
you like that little Miss Morgenthau?”
“Oh, she's quite amusing. Not a bad little thing. Very raw and untamed,
but good-natured enough, I dare say.”
“Her father, Reuben Morgenthau, was a professional, musician--one of
the best pianists I ever heard; and she is said to have inherited his
talent. He was lost at sea when she was a baby. Good-looking girl, isn't
she? I suppose Washington I. Koch will make her a handsome settlement,
when she gets married. Yes, I suppose he'll do something very handsome,
indeed.”