THE SWEATER.
The catastrophe was not complete. There were some long thin fibres of
pale boiled meat, whose juices had gone to enrich the soup, lying about
the floor or adhering to the fragments of the pitcher. Solomon, who was
a curly-headed chap of infinite resource, discovered them, and it had
just been decided to neutralize the insipidity of the bread by the
far-away flavor of the meat, when a peremptory knocking was heard at the
door, and a dazzling vision of beauty bounded into the room.
"'Ere! What are you doin', leavin' things leak through our ceiling?"
Becky Belcovitch was a buxom, bouncing girl, with cherry cheeks that
looked exotic in a land of pale faces. She wore a mass of black crisp
ringlets aggressively suggestive of singeing and curl-papers. She was
the belle of Royal Street in her spare time, and womanly triumphs dogged
even her working hours. She was sixteen years old, and devoted her youth
and beauty to buttonholes. In the East End, where a spade is a spade, a
buttonhole is a buttonhole, and not a primrose or a pansy. There are two
kinds of buttonhole--the coarse for slop goods and the fine for
gentlemanly wear. Becky concentrated herself on superior buttonholes,
which are worked with fine twist. She stitched them in her father's
workshop, which was more comfortable than a stranger's, and better
fitted for evading the Factory Acts. To-night she was radiant in silk
and jewelry, and her pert snub nose had the insolence of felicity which
Agamemnon deprecated. Seeing her, you would have as soon connected her
with Esoteric Buddhism as with buttonholes.
The _Bube_ explained the situation in voluble Yiddish, and made Esther
wince again under the impassioned invective on her clumsiness. The old
beldame expended enough oriental metaphor on the accident to fit up a
minor poet. If the family died of starvation, their blood would be upon
their granddaughter's head.
"Well, why don't you wipe it up, stupid?" said Becky. "'Ow would you
like to pay for Pesach's new coat? It just dripped past his shoulder."
"I'm so sorry, Becky," said Esther, striving hard to master the tremor
in her voice. And drawing a house-cloth from a mysterious recess, she
went on her knees in a practical prayer for pardon.
Becky snorted and went back to her sister's engagement-party. For this
was the secret of her gorgeous vesture, of her glittering earrings, and
her massive brooch, as it was the secret of the transformation of the
Belcovitch workshop (and living room) into a hall of dazzling light.
Four separate gaunt bare arms of iron gas-pipe lifted hymeneal torches.
The labels from reels of cotton, pasted above the mantelpiece as indexes
of work done, alone betrayed the past and future of the room. At a long
narrow table, covered with a white table-cloth spread with rum, gin,
biscuits and fruit, and decorated with two wax candles in tall, brass
candlesticks, stood or sat a group of swarthy, neatly-dressed Poles,
most of them in high hats. A few women wearing wigs, silk dresses, and
gold chains wound round half-washed necks, stood about outside the inner
circle. A stooping black-bearded blear-eyed man in a long threadbare
coat and a black skull cap, on either side of which hung a corkscrew
curl, sat abstractedly eating the almonds and raisins, in the central
place of honor which befits a _Maggid_. Before him were pens and ink and
a roll of parchment. This was the engagement contract.
The damages of breach of promise were assessed in advance and without
respect of sex. Whichever side repented of the bargain undertook to pay
ten pounds by way of compensation for the broken pledge. As a nation,
Israel is practical and free from cant. Romance and moonshine are
beautiful things, but behind the glittering veil are always the stern
realities of things and the weaknesses of human nature. The high
contracting parties were signing the document as Becky returned. The
bridegroom, who halted a little on one leg, was a tall sallow man named
Pesach Weingott. He was a boot-maker, who could expound the Talmud and
play the fiddle, but was unable to earn a living. He was marrying Fanny
Belcovitch because his parents-in-law would give him free board and
lodging for a year, and because he liked her. Fanny was a plump, pulpy
girl, not in the prime of youth. Her complexion was fair and her manner
lymphatic, and if she was not so well-favored as her sister, she was
more amiable and pleasant. She could sing sweetly in Yiddish and in
English, and had once been a pantomime fairy at ten shillings a week,
and had even flourished a cutlass as a midshipman. But she had long
since given up the stage, to become her father's right hand woman in the
workshop. She made coats from morning till midnight at a big machine
with a massive treadle, and had pains in her chest even before she fell
in love with Pesach Weingott.
There was a hubbub of congratulation (_Mazzoltov, Mazzoltov_, good
luck), and a palsy of handshaking, when the contract was signed.
Remarks, grave and facetious, flew about in Yiddish, with phrases of
Polish and Russian thrown in for auld lang syne, and cups and jugs were
broken in reminder of the transiency of things mortal. The Belcovitches
had been saving up their already broken crockery for the occasion. The
hope was expressed that Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch would live to see
"rejoicings" on their other daughter, and to see their daughters'
daughters under the _Chuppah_, or wedding-canopy.
Becky's hardened cheek blushed under the oppressive jocularity.
Everybody spoke Yiddish habitually at No. 1 Royal Street, except the
younger generation, and that spoke it to the elder.
"I always said, no girl of mine should marry a Dutchman." It was a
dominant thought of Mr. Belcovitch's, and it rose spontaneously to his
lips at this joyful moment. Next to a Christian, a Dutch Jew stood
lowest in the gradation of potential sons-in-law. Spanish Jews, earliest
arrivals by way of Holland, after the Restoration, are a class apart,
and look down on the later imported _Ashkenazim_, embracing both Poles
and Dutchmen in their impartial contempt. But this does not prevent the
Pole and the Dutchman from despising each other. To a Dutch or Russian
Jew, the "Pullack," or Polish Jew, is a poor creature; and scarce
anything can exceed the complacency with which the "Pullack" looks down
upon the "Litvok" or Lithuanian, the degraded being whose Shibboleth is
literally Sibboleth, and who says "ee" where rightly constituted persons
say "oo." To mimic the mincing pronunciation of the "Litvok" affords the
"Pullack" a sense of superiority almost equalling that possessed by the
English Jew, whose mispronunciation of the Holy Tongue is his title to
rank far above all foreign varieties. Yet a vein of brotherhood runs
beneath all these feelings of mutual superiority; like the cliqueism
which draws together old clo' dealers, though each gives fifty per cent,
more than any other dealer in the trade. The Dutch foregather in a
district called "The Dutch Tenters;" they eat voraciously, and almost
monopolize the ice-cream, hot pea, diamond-cutting, cucumber, herring,
and cigar trades. They are not so cute as the Russians. Their women are
distinguished from other women by the flaccidity of their bodices; some
wear small woollen caps and sabots. When Esther read in her school-books
that the note of the Dutch character was cleanliness, she wondered. She
looked in vain for the scrupulously scoured floors and the shining caps
and faces. Only in the matter of tobacco-smoke did the Dutch people she
knew live up to the geographical "Readers."
German Jews gravitate to Polish and Russian; and French Jews mostly stay
in France. _Ici on ne parle pas Français_, is the only lingual certainty
in the London Ghetto, which is a cosmopolitan quarter.
"I always said no girl of mine should marry a Dutchman." Mr. Belcovitch
spoke as if at the close of a long career devoted to avoiding Dutch
alliances, forgetting that not even one of his daughters was yet secure.
"Nor any girl of mine," said Mrs. Belcovitch, as if starting a separate
proposition. "I would not trust a Dutchman with my medicine-bottle, much
less with my Alte or my Becky. Dutchmen were not behind the door when
the Almighty gave out noses, and their deceitfulness is in proportion to
their noses."
The company murmured assent, and one gentleman, with a rather large
organ, concealed it in a red cotton handkerchief, trumpeting uneasily.
"The Holy One, blessed be He, has given them larger noses than us," said
the _Maggid_, "because they have to talk through them so much."
A guffaw greeted this sally. The _Maggid's_ wit was relished even when
not coming from the pulpit. To the outsider this disparagement of the
Dutch nose might have seemed a case of pot calling kettle black. The
_Maggid_ poured himself out a glass of rum, under cover of the laughter,
and murmuring "Life to you." in Hebrew, gulped it down, and added, "They
oughtn't to call it the Dutch tongue, but the Dutch nose."
"Yes, I always wonder how they can understand one another," said Mrs.
Belcovitch, "with their _chatuchayacatigewesepoopa_." She laughed
heartily over her onomatopoetic addition to the Yiddish vocabulary,
screwing up her nose to give it due effect. She was a small
sickly-looking woman, with black eyes, and shrivelled skin, and the wig
without which no virtuous wife is complete. For a married woman must
sacrifice her tresses on the altar of home, lest she snare other men
with such sensuous baits. As a rule, she enters into the spirit of the
self-denying ordinance so enthusiastically as to become hideous hastily
in every other respect. It is forgotten that a husband is also a man.
Mrs. Belcovitch's head was not completely shaven and shorn, for a lower
stratum of an unmatched shade of brown peeped out in front of the
_shaitel_, not even coinciding as to the route of the central parting.
Meantime Pesach Weingott and Alte (Fanny) Belcovitch held each other's
hand, guiltily conscious of Batavian corpuscles in the young man's
blood. Pesach had a Dutch uncle, but as he had never talked like him
Alte alone knew. Alte wasn't her real name, by the way, and Alte was the
last person in the world to know what it was. She was the Belcovitches'
first successful child; the others all died before she was born. Driven
frantic by a fate crueller than barrenness, the Belcovitches consulted
an old Polish Rabbi, who told them they displayed too much fond
solicitude for their children, provoking Heaven thereby; in future, they
were to let no one but themselves know their next child's name, and
never to whisper it till the child was safely married. In such wise,
Heaven would not be incessantly reminded of the existence of their dear
one, and would not go out of its way to castigate them. The ruse
succeeded, and Alte was anxiously waiting to change both her names under
the _Chuppah_, and to gratify her life-long curiosity on the subject.
Meantime, her mother had been calling her "Alte," or "old 'un," which
sounded endearing to the child, but grated on the woman arriving ever
nearer to the years of discretion. Occasionally, Mrs. Belcovitch
succumbed to the prevailing tendency, and called her "Fanny," just as
she sometimes thought of herself as Mrs. Belcovitch, though her name
was Kosminski. When Alte first went to school in London, the Head
Mistress said, "What's your name?" The little "old 'un" had not
sufficient English to understand the question, but she remembered that
the Head Mistress had made the same sounds to the preceding applicant,
and, where some little girls would have put their pinafores to their
eyes and cried, Fanny showed herself full of resource. As the last
little girl, though patently awe-struck, had come off with flying
colors, merely by whimpering "Fanny Belcovitch," Alte imitated these
sounds as well as she was able.
"Fanny Belcovitch, did you say?" said the Head Mistress, pausing with
arrested pen.
Alte nodded her flaxen poll vigorously.
"Fanny Belcovitch," she repeated, getting the syllables better on a
second hearing.
The Head Mistress turned to an assistant.
"Isn't it astonishing how names repeat themselves? Two girls, one after
the other, both with exactly the same name."
They were used to coincidences in the school, where, by reason of the
tribal relationship of the pupils, there was a great run on some
half-a-dozen names. Mr. Kosminski took several years to understand that
Alte had disowned him. When it dawned upon him he was not angry, and
acquiesced in his fate. It was the only domestic detail in which he had
allowed himself to be led by his children. Like his wife, Chayah, he was
gradually persuaded into the belief that he was a born Belcovitch, or at
least that Belcovitch was Kosminski translated into English.
Blissfully unconscious of the Dutch taint in Pesach Weingott, Bear
Belcovitch bustled about in reckless hospitality. He felt that
engagements were not every-day events, and that even if his whole
half-sovereign's worth of festive provision was swallowed up, he would
not mind much. He wore a high hat, a well-preserved black coat, with a
cutaway waistcoat, showing a quantity of glazed shirtfront and a massive
watch chain. They were his Sabbath clothes, and, like the Sabbath they
honored, were of immemorial antiquity. The shirt served him for seven
Sabbaths, or a week of Sabbaths, being carefully folded after each. His
boots had the Sabbath polish. The hat was the one he bought when he
first set up as a _Baal Habaas_ or respectable pillar of the synagogue;
for even in the smallest _Chevra_ the high hat comes next in sanctity to
the Scroll of the Law, and he who does not wear it may never hope to
attain to congregational dignities. The gloss on that hat was wonderful,
considering it had been out unprotected in all winds and weathers. Not
that Mr. Belcovitch did not possess an umbrella. He had two,--one of
fine new silk, the other a medley of broken ribs and cotton rags. Becky
had given him the first to prevent the family disgrace of the spectacle
of his promenades with the second. But he would not carry the new one on
week-days because it was too good. And on Sabbaths it is a sin to carry
any umbrella. So Becky's self-sacrifice was vain, and her umbrella stood
in the corner, a standing gratification to the proud possessor.
Kosminski had had a hard fight for his substance, and was not given to
waste. He was a tall, harsh-looking man of fifty, with grizzled hair, to
whom life meant work, and work meant money, and money meant savings. In
Parliamentary Blue-Books, English newspapers, and the Berner Street
Socialistic Club, he was called a "sweater," and the comic papers
pictured him with a protuberant paunch and a greasy smile, but he had
not the remotest idea that he was other than a God-fearing, industrious,
and even philanthropic citizen. The measure that had been dealt to him
he did but deal to others. He saw no reason why immigrant paupers should
not live on a crown a week while he taught them how to handle a
press-iron or work a sewing machine. They were much better off than in
Poland. He would have been glad of such an income himself in those
terrible first days of English life when he saw his wife and his two
babes starving before his eyes, and was only precluded from investing a
casual twopence in poison by ignorance of the English name for anything
deadly. And what did he live on now? The fowl, the pint of haricot
beans, and the haddocks which Chayah purchased for the Sabbath
overlapped into the middle of next week, a quarter of a pound of coffee
lasted the whole week, the grounds being decocted till every grain of
virtue was extracted. Black bread and potatoes and pickled herrings
made up the bulk of the every-day diet No, no one could accuse Bear
Belcovitch of fattening on the entrails of his employees. The furniture
was of the simplest and shabbiest,--no aesthetic instinct urged the
Kosminskis to overpass the bare necessities of existence, except in
dress. The only concessions to art were a crudely-colored _Mizrach_ on
the east wall, to indicate the direction towards which the Jew should
pray, and the mantelpiece mirror which was bordered with yellow
scalloped paper (to save the gilt) and ornamented at each corner with
paper roses that bloomed afresh every Passover. And yet Bear Belcovitch
had lived in much better style in Poland, possessing a brass wash-hand
basin, a copper saucepan, silver spoons, a silver consecration beaker,
and a cupboard with glass doors, and he frequently adverted to their
fond memories. But he brought nothing away except his bedding, and that
was pawned in Germany on the route. When he arrived in London he had
with him three groschen and a family.
"What do you think, Pesach," said Becky, as soon as she could get at her
prospective brother-in-law through the barriers of congratulatory
countrymen. "The stuff that came through there"--she pointed to the
discolored fragment of ceiling--"was soup. That silly little Esther
spilt all she got from the kitchen."
"_Achi-nebbich_, poor little thing," cried Mrs. Kosminski, who was in a
tender mood, "very likely it hungers them sore upstairs. The father is
out of work."
"Knowest thou what, mother," put in Fanny. "Suppose we give them our
soup. Aunt Leah has just fetched it for us. Have we not a special supper
to-night?"
"But father?" murmured the little woman dubiously.
"Oh, he won't notice it. I don't think he knows the soup kitchen opens
to-night. Let me, mother."
And Fanny, letting Pesach's hand go, slipped out to the room that served
as a kitchen, and bore the still-steaming pot upstairs. Pesach, who had
pursued her, followed with some hunks of bread and a piece of lighted
candle, which, while intended only to illumine the journey, came in
handy at the terminus. And the festive company grinned and winked when
the pair disappeared, and made jocular quotations from the Old Testament
and the Rabbis. But the lovers did not kiss when they came out of the
garret of the Ansells; their eyes were wet, and they went softly
downstairs hand in hand, feeling linked by a deeper love than before.
Thus did Providence hand over the soup the Belcovitches took from old
habit to a more necessitous quarter, and demonstrate in double sense
that Charity never faileth. Nor was this the only mulct which Providence
exacted from the happy father, for later on a townsman of his appeared
on the scene in a long capote, and with a grimy woe-begone expression.
He was a "greener" of the greenest order, having landed at the docks
only a few hours ago, bringing over with him a great deal of luggage in
the shape of faith in God, and in the auriferous character of London
pavements. On arriving in England, he gave a casual glance at the
metropolis and demanded to be directed to a synagogue wherein to shake
himself after the journey. His devotions over, he tracked out Mr.
Kosminski, whose address on a much-creased bit of paper had been his
talisman of hope during the voyage. In his native town, where the Jews
groaned beneath divers and sore oppressions, the fame of Kosminski, the
pioneer, the Croesus, was a legend. Mr. Kosminski was prepared for these
contingencies. He went to his bedroom, dragged out a heavy wooden chest
from under the bed, unlocked it and plunged his hand into a large dirty
linen bag, full of coins. The instinct of generosity which was upon him
made him count out forty-eight of them. He bore them to the "greener" in
over-brimming palms and the foreigner, unconscious how much he owed to
the felicitous coincidence of his visit with Fanny's betrothal, saw
fortune visibly within his grasp. He went out, his heart bursting with
gratitude, his pocket with four dozen farthings. They took him in and
gave him hot soup at a Poor Jews' Shelter, whither his townsman had
directed him. Kosminski returned to the banqueting room, thrilling from
head to foot with the approval of his conscience. He patted Becky's
curly head and said:
"Well, Becky, when shall we be dancing at your wedding?"
Becky shook her curls. Her young men could not have a poorer opinion of
one another than Becky had of them all. Their homage pleased her, though
it did not raise them in her esteem. Lovers grew like blackberries--only
more so; for they were an evergreen stock. Or, as her mother put it in
her coarse, peasant manner. _Chasanim_ were as plentiful as the
street-dogs. Becky's beaux sat on the stairs before she was up and
became early risers in their love for her, each anxious to be the first
to bid their Penelope of the buttonholes good morrow. It was said that
Kosminski's success as a "sweater" was due to his beauteous Becky, the
flower of sartorial youth gravitating to the work-room of this East
London Laban. What they admired in Becky was that there was so much of
her. Still it was not enough to go round, and though Becky might keep
nine lovers in hand without fear of being set down as a flirt, a larger
number of tailors would have been less consistent with prospective
monogamy.
"I'm not going to throw myself away like Fanny," said she confidentially
to Pesach Weingott in the course of the evening. He smiled
apologetically. "Fanny always had low views," continued Becky. "But I
always said I would marry a gentleman."
"And I dare say," answered Pesach, stung into the retort, "Fanny could
marry a gentlemen, too, if she wanted."
Becky's idea of a gentleman was a clerk or a school-master, who had no
manual labor except scribbling or flogging. In her matrimonial views
Becky was typical. She despised the status of her parents and looked to
marry out of it. They for their part could not understand the desire to
be other than themselves.
"I don't say Fanny couldn't," she admitted. "All I say is, nobody could
call this a luck-match."
"Ah, thou hast me too many flies in thy nose," reprovingly interposed
Mrs. Belcovitch, who had just crawled up. "Thou art too high-class."
Becky tossed her head. "I've got a new dolman," she said, turning to one
of her young men who was present by special grace. "You should see me in
it. I look noble."
"Yes," said Mrs. Belcovitch proudly. "It shines in the sun."
"Is it like the one Bessie Sugarman's got?" inquired the young man.
"Bessie Sugarman!" echoed Becky scornfully. "She gets all her things
from the tallyman. She pretends to be so grand, but all her jewelry is
paid for at so much a week."
"So long as it is paid for," said Fanny, catching the words and turning
a happy face on her sister.
"Not so jealous, Alte," said her mother. "When I shall win on the
lottery, I will buy thee also a dolman."
Almost all the company speculated on the Hamburg lottery, which, whether
they were speaking Yiddish or English, they invariably accentuated on
the last syllable. When an inhabitant of the Ghetto won even his money
back, the news circulated like wild-fire, and there was a rush to the
agents for tickets. The chances of sudden wealth floated like dazzling
Will o' the Wisps on the horizon, illumining the gray perspectives of
the future. The lottery took the poor ticket-holders out of themselves,
and gave them an interest in life apart from machine-cotton, lasts or
tobacco-leaf. The English laborer, who has been forbidden State
Lotteries, relieves the monotony of existence by an extremely indirect
interest in the achievements of a special breed of horses.
"_Nu_, Pesach, another glass of rum," said Mr. Belcovitch genially to
his future son-in-law and boarder.
"Yes, I will," said Pesach. "After all, this is the first time I've got
engaged."
The rum was of Mr. Belcovitch's own manufacture; its ingredients were
unknown, but the fame of it travelled on currents of air to the remotest
parts of the house. Even the inhabitants of the garrets sniffed and
thought of turpentine. Pesach swallowed the concoction, murmuring "To
life" afresh. His throat felt like the funnel of a steamer, and there
were tears in his eyes when he put down the glass.
"Ah, that was good," he murmured.
"Not like thy English drinks, eh?" said Mr. Belcovitch.
"England!" snorted Pesach in royal disdain. "What a country! Daddle-doo
is a language and ginger-beer a liquor."
"Daddle doo" was Pesach's way of saying "That'll do." It was one of the
first English idioms he picked up, and its puerility made him facetious.
It seemed to smack of the nursery; when a nation expressed its soul
thus, the existence of a beverage like ginger-beer could occasion no
further surprise.
"You shan't have anything stronger than ginger-beer when we're married,"
said Fanny laughingly. "I am not going to have any drinking.'"
"But I'll get drunk on ginger-beer," Pesach laughed back.
"You can't," Fanny said, shaking her large fond smile to and fro. "By my
health, not."
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Can't even get _shikkur_ on it. What a liquor!"
In the first Anglo-Jewish circles with which Pesach had scraped
acquaintance, ginger-beer was the prevalent drink; and, generalizing
almost as hastily as if he were going to write a book on the country, he
concluded that it was the national beverage. He had long since
discovered his mistake, but the drift of the discussion reminded Becky
of a chance for an arrow.
"On the day when you sit for joy, Pesach," she said slily. "I shall send
you a valentine."
Pesach colored up and those in the secret laughed; the reference was to
another of Pesach's early ideas. Some mischievous gossip had heard him
arguing with another Greener outside a stationer's shop blazing with
comic valentines. The two foreigners were extremely puzzled to
understand what these monstrosities portended; Pesach, however, laid it
down that the microcephalous gentlemen with tremendous legs, and the
ladies five-sixths head and one-sixth skirt, were representations of the
English peasants who lived in the little villages up country.
"When I sit for joy," retorted Pesach, "it will not be the season for
valentines."
"Won't it though!" cried Becky, shaking her frizzly black curls. "You'll
be a pair of comic 'uns."
"All right, Becky," said Alte good-humoredly. "Your turn'll come, and
then we shall have the laugh of you."
"Never," said Becky. "What do I want with a man?"
The arm of the specially invited young man was round her as she spoke.
"Don't make _schnecks_," said Fanny.
"It's not affectation. I mean it. What's the good of the men who visit
father? There isn't a gentleman among them."
"Ah, wait till I win on the lottery," said the special young man.
"Then, vy not take another eighth of a ticket?" inquired Sugarman the
_Shadchan_, who seemed to spring from the other end of the room. He was
one of the greatest Talmudists in London--a lean, hungry-looking man,
sharp of feature and acute of intellect. "Look at Mrs. Robinson--I've
just won her over twenty pounds, and she only gave me two pounds for
myself. I call it a _cherpah_--a shame."
"Yes, but you stole another two pounds," said Becky.
"How do you know?" said Sugarman startled.
Becky winked and shook her head sapiently. "Never _you_ mind."
The published list of the winning numbers was so complex in construction
that Sugarman had ample opportunities of bewildering his clients.
"I von't sell you no more tickets," said Sugarman with righteous
indignation.
"A fat lot I care," said Becky, tossing her curls.
"Thou carest for nothing," said Mrs. Belcovitch, seizing the opportunity
for maternal admonition. "Thou hast not even brought me my medicine
to-night. Thou wilt find, it on the chest of drawers in the bedroom."
Becky shook herself impatiently.
"I will go," said the special young man.
"No, it is not beautiful that a young man shall go into my bedroom in my
absence," said Mrs. Belcovitch blushing.
Becky left the room.
"Thou knowest," said Mrs. Belcovitch, addressing herself to the special
young man, "I suffer greatly from my legs. One is a thick one, and one a
thin one."
The young man sighed sympathetically.
"Whence comes it?" he asked.
"Do I know? I was born so. My poor lambkin (this was the way Mrs.
Belcovitch always referred to her dead mother) had well-matched legs. If
I had Aristotle's head I might be able to find out why my legs are
inferior. And so one goes about."
The reverence for Aristotle enshrined in Yiddish idiom is probably due
to his being taken by the vulgar for a Jew. At any rate the theory that
Aristotle's philosophy was Jewish was advanced by the mediaeval poet,
Jehuda Halevi, and sustained by Maimonides. The legend runs that when
Alexander went to Palestine, Aristotle was in his train. At Jerusalem
the philosopher had sight of King Solomon's manuscripts, and he
forthwith edited them and put his name to them. But it is noteworthy
that the story was only accepted by those Jewish scholars who adopted
the Aristotelian philosophy, those who rejected it declaring that
Aristotle in his last testament had admitted the inferiority of his
writings to the Mosaic, and had asked that his works should be
destroyed.
When Becky returned with the medicine, Mrs. Belcovitch mentioned that it
was extremely nasty, and offered the young man a taste, whereat he
rejoiced inwardly, knowing he had found favor in the sight of the
parent. Mrs. Belcovitch paid a penny a week to her doctor, in sickness
or health, so that there was a loss on being well. Becky used to fill up
the bottles with water to save herself the trouble of going to fetch the
medicine, but as Mrs. Belcovitch did not know this it made no
difference.
"Thou livest too much indoors," said Mr. Sugarman, in Yiddish.
"Shall I march about in this weather? Black and slippery, and the Angel
going a-hunting?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Sugarman, relapsing proudly into the vernacular, "Ve
English valk about in all vedders."
Meanwhile Moses Ansell had returned from evening service and sat down,
unquestioningly, by the light of an unexpected candle to his expected
supper of bread and soup, blessing God for both gifts. The rest of the
family had supped. Esther had put the two youngest children to bed
(Rachel had arrived at years of independent undressing), and she and
Solomon were doing home-lessons in copy-books, the candle saving them
from a caning on the morrow. She held her pen clumsily, for several of
her fingers were swathed in bloody rags tied with cobweb. The
grandmother dozed in her chair. Everything was quiet and peaceful,
though the atmosphere was chilly. Moses ate his supper with a great
smacking of the lips and an equivalent enjoyment. When it was over he
sighed deeply, and thanked God in a prayer lasting ten minutes, and
delivered in a rapid, sing-song manner. He then inquired of Solomon
whether he had said his evening prayer. Solomon looked out of the corner
of his eyes at his _Bube_, and, seeing she was asleep on the bed, said
he had, and kicked Esther significantly but hurtfully under the table.
"Then you had better say your night-prayer."
There was no getting out of that; so Solomon finished his sum, writing
the figures of the answer rather faint, in case he should discover from
another boy next morning that they were wrong; then producing a Hebrew
prayer-book from his inky cotton satchel, he made a mumbling sound, with
occasional enthusiastic bursts of audible coherence, for a length of
time proportioned to the number of pages. Then he went to bed. After
that, Esther put her grandmother to bed and curled herself up at her
side. She lay awake a long time, listening to the quaint sounds emitted
by her father in his study of Rashi's commentary on the Book of Job, the
measured drone blending not disagreeably with the far-away sounds of
Pesach Weingott's fiddle.
Pesach's fiddle played the accompaniment to many other people's
thoughts. The respectable master-tailor sat behind his glazed
shirt-front beating time with his foot. His little sickly-looking wife
stood by his side, nodding her bewigged head joyously. To both the music
brought the same recollection--a Polish market-place.
Belcovitch, or rather Kosminski, was the only surviving son of a widow.
It was curious, and suggestive of some grim law of heredity, that his
parents' elder children had died off as rapidly as his own, and that his
life had been preserved by some such expedient as Alte's. Only, in his
case the Rabbi consulted had advised his father to go into the woods and
call his new-born son by the name of the first animal that he saw. This
was why the future sweater was named Bear. To the death of his brothers
and sisters, Bear owed his exemption from military service. He grew up
to be a stalwart, well-set-up young baker, a loss to the Russian army.
Bear went out in the market-place one fine day and saw Chayah in maiden
ringlets. She was a slim, graceful little thing, with nothing obviously
odd about the legs, and was buying onions. Her back was towards him, but
in another moment she turned her head and Bear's. As he caught the
sparkle of her eye, he felt that without her life were worse than the
conscription. Without delay, he made inquiries about the fair young
vision, and finding its respectability unimpeachable, he sent a
_Shadchan_ to propose to her, and they were affianced: Chayah's father
undertaking to give a dowry of two hundred gulden. Unfortunately, he
died suddenly in the attempt to amass them, and Chayah was left an
orphan. The two hundred gulden were nowhere to be found. Tears rained
down both Chayah's cheeks, on the one side for the loss of her father,
on the other for the prospective loss of a husband. The Rabbi was full
of tender sympathy. He bade Bear come to the dead man's chamber. The
venerable white-bearded corpse lay on the bed, swathed in shroud, and
_Talith_ or praying-shawl.
"Bear," he said, "thou knowest that I saved thy life."
"Nay," said Bear, "indeed, I know not that."
"Yea, of a surety," said the Rabbi. "Thy mother hath not told thee, but
all thy brothers and sisters perished, and, lo! thou alone art
preserved! It was I that called thee a beast."
Bear bowed his head in grateful silence.
"Bear," said the Rabbi, "thou didst contract to wed this dead man's
daughter, and he did contract to pay over to thee two hundred gulden.''
"Truth." replied Bear.
"Bear," said the Rabbi, "there are no two hundred gulden."
A shadow flitted across Bear's face, but he said nothing.
"Bear," said the Rabbi again, "there are not two gulden."
Bear did not move.
"Bear," said the Rabbi, "leave thou my side, and go over to the other
side of the bed, facing me."
So Bear left his side and went over to the other side of the bed facing
him.
"Bear," said the Rabbi, "give me thy right hand."
The Rabbi stretched his own right hand across the bed, but Bear kept his
obstinately behind his back.
"Bear," repeated the Rabbi, in tones of more penetrating solemnity,
"give me thy right hand."
"Nay," replied Bear, sullenly. "Wherefore should I give thee my right
hand?"
"Because," said the Rabbi, and his tones trembled, and it seemed to him
that the dead man's face grew sterner. "Because I wish thee to swear
across the body of Chayah's father that thou wilt marry her."
"Nay, that I will not," said Bear.
"Will not?" repeated the Rabbi, his lips growing white with pity.
"Nay, I will not take any oaths," said Bear, hotly. "I love the maiden,
and I will keep what I have promised. But, by my father's soul, I will
take no oaths!"
"Bear," said the Rabbi in a choking voice, "give me thy hand. Nay, not
to swear by, but to grip. Long shalt thou live, and the Most High shall
prepare thy seat in Gan Iden."
So the old man and the young clasped hands across the corpse, and the
simple old Rabbi perceived a smile flickering over the face of Chayah's
father. Perhaps it was only a sudden glint of sunshine.
The wedding-day drew nigh, but lo! Chayah was again dissolved in tears.
"What ails thee?" said her brother Naphtali.
"I cannot follow the custom of the maidens," wept Chayah. "Thou knowest
we are blood-poor, and I have not the wherewithal to buy my Bear a
_Talith_ for his wedding-day; nay, not even to make him a _Talith_-bag.
And when our father (the memory of the righteous for a blessing) was
alive, I had dreamed of making my _chosan_ a beautiful velvet satchel
lined with silk, and I would have embroidered his initials thereon in
gold, and sewn him beautiful white corpse-clothes. Perchance he will
rely upon me for his wedding _Talith_, and we shall be shamed in the
sight of the congregation."
"Nay, dry thine eyes, my sister," said Naphtali. "Thou knowest that my
Leah presented me with a costly _Talith_ when I led her under the
canopy. Wherefore, do thou take my praying-shawl and lend it to Bear for
the wedding-day, so that decency may be preserved in the sight of the
congregation. The young man has a great heart, and he will understand."
So Chayah, blushing prettily, lent Bear Naphtali's delicate _Talith_,
and Beauty and the Beast made a rare couple under the wedding canopy.
Chayah wore the gold medallion and the three rows of pearls which her
lover had sent her the day before. And when the Rabbi had finished
blessing husband and wife, Naphtali spake the bridegroom privily, and
said:
"Pass me my _Talith_ back."
But Bear answered: "Nay, nay; the _Talith_ is in my keeping, and there
it shall remain."
"But it is my _Talith_," protested Naphtali in an angry whisper. "I only
lent it to Chayah to lend it thee."
"It concerns me not." Bear returned in a decisive whisper. "The _Talith_
is my due and I shall keep it. What! Have I not lost enough by marrying
thy sister? Did not thy father, peace be upon him, promise me two
hundred gulden with her?"
Naphtali retired discomfited. But he made up his mind not to go without
some compensation. He resolved that during the progress of the wedding
procession conducting the bridegroom to the chamber of the bride, he
would be the man to snatch off Bear's new hat. Let the rest of the
riotous escort essay to snatch whatever other article of the
bridegroom's attire they would, the hat was the easiest to dislodge, and
he, Naphtali, would straightway reimburse himself partially with that.
But the instant the procession formed itself, behold the shifty
bridegroom forthwith removed his hat, and held it tightly under his arm.
A storm of protestations burst forth at his daring departure from
hymeneal tradition.
"Nay, nay, put it on," arose from every mouth.
But Bear closed his and marched mutely on.
"Heathen," cried the Rabbi. "Put on your hat."
The attempt to enforce the religious sanction failed too. Bear had spent
several gulden upon his head-gear, and could not see the joke. He
plodded towards his blushing Chayah through a tempest of disapprobation.
Throughout life Bear Belcovitch retained the contrariety of character
that marked his matrimonial beginnings. He hated to part with money; he
put off paying bills to the last moment, and he would even beseech his
"hands" to wait a day or two longer for their wages. He liked to feel
that he had all that money in his possession. Yet "at home," in Poland,
he had always lent money to the officers and gentry, when they ran
temporarily short at cards. They would knock him up in the middle of the
night to obtain the means of going on with the game. And in England he
never refused to become surety for a loan when any of his poor friends
begged the favor of him. These loans ran from three to five pounds, but
whatever the amount, they were very rarely paid. The loan offices came
down upon him for the money. He paid it without a murmur, shaking his
head compassionately over the poor ne'er do wells, and perhaps not
without a compensating consciousness of superior practicality.
Only, if the borrower had neglected to treat him to a glass of rum to
clench his signing as surety, the shake of Bear's head would become more
reproachful than sympathetic, and he would mutter bitterly: "Five pounds
and not even a drink for the money." The jewelry he generously lavished
on his womankind was in essence a mere channel of investment for his
savings, avoiding the risks of a banking-account and aggregating his
wealth in a portable shape, in obedience to an instinct generated by
centuries of insecurity. The interest on the sums thus invested was the
gratification of the other oriental instinct for gaudiness.