THE PURIM BALL.
Sam Levine duly returned for the Purim ball. Malka was away and so it
was safe to arrive on the Sabbath. Sam and Leah called for Hannah in a
cab, for the pavements were unfavorable to dancing shoes, and the three
drove to the "Club," which was not a sixth of a mile off.
"The Club" was the People's Palace of the Ghetto; but that it did not
reach the bed-rock of the inhabitants was sufficiently evident from the
fact that its language was English. The very lowest stratum was of
secondary formation--the children of immigrants--while the highest
touched the lower middle-class, on the mere fringes of the Ghetto. It
was a happy place where young men and maidens met on equal terms and
similar subscriptions, where billiards and flirtations and concerts and
laughter and gay gossip were always on, and lemonade and cakes never
off; a heaven where marriages were made, books borrowed and newspapers
read. Muscular Judaism was well to the fore at "the Club," and
entertainments were frequent. The middle classes of the community,
overflowing with artistic instinct, supplied a phenomenal number of
reciters, vocalists and instrumentalists ready to oblige, and the
greatest favorites of the London footlights were pleased to come down,
partly because they found such keenly appreciative audiences, and partly
because they were so much mixed up with the race, both professionally
and socially. There were serious lectures now and again, but few of the
members took them seriously; they came to the Club not to improve their
minds but to relax them. The Club was a blessing without disguise to the
daughters of Judah, and certainly kept their brothers from harm. The
ball-room, with its decorations of evergreens and winter blossoms, was a
gay sight. Most of the dancers were in evening dress, and it would have
been impossible to tell the ball from a Belgravian gathering, except by
the preponderance of youth and beauty. Where could you match such a
bevy of brunettes, where find such blondes? They were anything but
lymphatic, these oriental blondes, if their eyes did not sparkle so
intoxicatingly as those of the darker majority. The young men had
carefully curled moustaches and ringlets oiled like the Assyrian bull,
and figure-six noses, and studs glittering on their creamy shirt-fronts.
How they did it on their wages was one of the many miracles of Jewish
history. For socially and even in most cases financially they were only
on the level of the Christian artisan. These young men in dress-coats
were epitomes of one aspect of Jewish history. Not in every respect
improvements on the "Sons of the Covenant," though; replacing the
primitive manners and the piety of the foreign Jew by a veneer of cheap
culture and a laxity of ceremonial observance. It was a merry party,
almost like a family gathering, not merely because most of the dancers
knew one another, but because "all Israel are brothers"--and sisters.
They danced very buoyantly, not boisterously; the square dances
symmetrically executed, every performer knowing his part; the waltzing
full of rhythmic grace. When the music was popular they accompanied it
on their voices. After supper their heels grew lighter, and the laughter
and gossip louder, but never beyond the bounds of decorum. A few Dutch
dancers tried to introduce the more gymnastic methods in vogue in their
own clubs, where the kangaroo is dancing master, but the sentiment of
the floor was against them. Hannah danced little, a voluntary
wallflower, for she looked radiant in tussore silk, and there was an air
of refinement about the slight, pretty girl that attracted the beaux of
the Club. But she only gave a duty dance to Sam, and a waltz to Daniel
Hyams, who had been brought by his sister, though he did not boast a
swallow-tail to match her flowing draperies. Hannah caught a rather
unamiable glance from pretty Bessie Sugarman, whom poor Daniel was
trying hard not to see in the crush.
"Is your sister engaged yet?" Hannah asked, for want of something to
say.
"You would know it if she was," said Daniel, looking so troubled that
Hannah reproached herself for the meaningless remark.
"How well she dances!" she made haste to say.
"Not better than you," said Daniel, gallantly.
"I see compliments are among the fancy goods you deal in. Do you
reverse?" she added, as they came to an awkward corner.
"Yes--but not my compliments," he said smiling. "Miriam taught me."
"She makes me think of Miriam dancing by the Red Sea," she said,
laughing at the incongruous idea.
"She played a timbrel, though, didn't she?" he asked. "I confess I don't
quite know what a timbrel is."
"A sort of tambourine, I suppose," said Hannah merrily, "and she sang
because the children of Israel were saved."
They both laughed heartily, but when the waltz was over they returned to
their individual gloom. Towards supper-time, in the middle of a square
dance, Sam suddenly noticing Hannah's solitude, brought her a tall
bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction
and rushed back to the arms of the exacting Leah.
"Excuse me, I am not dancing to-night," Hannah said coldly in reply to
the stranger's demand for her programme.
"Well, I'm not half sorry," he said, with a frank smile. "I had to ask
you, you know. But I should feel quite out of place bumping such a lot
of swells."
There was something unusual about the words and the manner which
impressed Hannah agreeably, in spite of herself. Her face relaxed a
little as she said:
"Why, haven't you been to one of these affairs before?"
"Oh yes, six or seven years ago, but the place seems quite altered.
They've rebuilt it, haven't they? Very few of us sported dress-coats
here in the days before I went to the Cape. I only came back the other
day and somebody gave me a ticket and so I've looked in for auld lang
syne."
An unsympathetic hearer would have detected a note of condescension in
the last sentence. Hannah detected it, for the announcement that the
young man had returned from the Cape froze all her nascent sympathy. She
was turned to ice again. Hannah knew him well--the young man from the
Cape. He was a higher and more disagreeable development of the young man
in the dress-coat. He had put South African money in his purse--whether
honestly or not, no one inquired--the fact remained he had put it in his
purse. Sometimes the law confiscated it, pretending he had purchased
diamonds illegally, or what not, but then the young man did _not_ return
from the Cape. But, to do him justice, the secret of his success was
less dishonesty than the opportunities for initiative energy in
unexploited districts. Besides, not having to keep up appearances, he
descended to menial occupations and toiled so long and terribly that he
would probably have made just as much money at home, if he had had the
courage. Be this as it may, there the money was, and, armed with it, the
young man set sail literally for England, home and beauty, resuming his
cast-off gentility with several extra layers of superciliousness. Pretty
Jewesses, pranked in their prettiest clothes, hastened, metaphorically
speaking, to the port to welcome the wanderer; for they knew it was from
among them he would make his pick. There were several varieties of
him--marked by financial ciphers--but whether he married in his old
station or higher up the scale, he was always faithful to the sectarian
tradition of the race, and this less from religious motives than from
hereditary instinct. Like the young man in the dress-coat, he held the
Christian girl to be cold of heart, and unsprightly of temperament. He
laid it down that all Yiddishë girls possessed that warmth and _chic_
which, among Christians, were the birthright of a few actresses and
music-hall artistes--themselves, probably, Jewesses! And on things
theatrical this young man spoke as one having authority. Perhaps, though
he was scarce conscious of it, at the bottom of his repulsion was the
certainty that the Christian girl could not fry fish. She might be
delightful for flirtation of all degrees, but had not been formed to
make him permanently happy. Such was the conception which Hannah had
formed for herself of the young man from the Cape. This latest specimen
of the genus was prepossessing into the bargain. There was no denying
he was well built, with a shapely head and a lovely moustache. Good
looks alone were vouchers for insolence and conceit, but, backed by the
aforesaid purse--! She turned her head away and stared at the evolutions
of the "Lancers" with much interest.
"They've got some pretty girls in that set," he observed admiringly.
Evidently the young man did not intend to go away.
Hannah felt very annoyed. "Yes," she said, sharply, "which would you
like?"
"I shouldn't care to make invidious distinctions," he replied with a
little laugh.
"Odious prig!" thought Hannah. "He actually doesn't see I'm sitting on
him!" Aloud she said, "No? But you can't marry them all."
"Why should I marry any?" he asked in the same light tone, though there
was a shade of surprise in it.
"Haven't you come back to England to get a wife? Most young men do, when
they don't have one exported to them in Africa."
He laughed with genuine enjoyment and strove to catch the answering
gleam in her eyes, but she kept them averted. They were standing with
their backs to the wall and he could only see the profile and note the
graceful poise of the head upon the warm-colored neck that stood out
against the white bodice. The frank ring of his laughter mixed with the
merry jingle of the fifth figure--
"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to be an exception," he said.
"You think nobody good enough, perhaps," she could not help saying.
"Oh! Why should you think that?"
"Perhaps you're married already."
"Oh no, I'm not," he said earnestly. "You're not, either, are you?"
"Me?" she asked; then, with a barely perceptible pause, she said, "Of
course I am."
The thought of posing as the married woman she theoretically was,
flashed upon her suddenly and appealed irresistibly to her sense of fun.
The recollection that the nature of the ring on her finger was concealed
by her glove afforded her supplementary amusement.
"Oh!" was all he said. "I didn't catch your name exactly."
"I didn't catch yours," she replied evasively.
"David Brandon," he said readily.
"It's a pretty name," she said, turning smilingly to him. The infinite
possibilities of making fun of him latent in the joke quite warmed her
towards him. "How unfortunate for me I have destroyed my chance of
getting it."
It was the first time she had smiled, and he liked the play of light
round the curves of her mouth, amid the shadows of the soft dark skin,
in the black depths of the eyes.
"How unfortunate for me!" he said, smiling in return.
"Oh yes, of course!" she said with a little toss of her head. "There is
no danger in saying that now."
"I wouldn't care if there was."
"It is easy to smooth down the serpent when the fangs are drawn," she
laughed back.
"What an extraordinary comparison!" he exclaimed. "But where are all the
people going? It isn't all over, I hope."
"Why, what do you want to stay for? You're not dancing."
"That is the reason. Unless I dance with you."
"And then you would want to go?" she flashed with mock resentment.
"I see you're too sharp for me," he said lugubriously. "Roughing it
among the Boers makes a fellow a bit dull in compliments."
"Dull indeed!" said Hannah, drawing herself up with great seriousness.
"I think you're more complimentary than you have a right to be to a
married woman."
His face fell. "Oh, I didn't mean anything," he said apologetically.
"So I thought," retorted Hannah.
The poor fellow grew more red and confused than ever. Hannah felt quite
sympathetic with him now, so pleased was she at the humiliated condition
to which she had brought the young man from the Cape.
"Well, I'll say good-bye," he said awkwardly. "I suppose I mustn't ask
to take you down to supper. I dare say your husband will want that
privilege."
"I dare say," replied Hannah smiling. "Although husbands do not always
appreciate their privileges."
"I shall be glad if yours doesn't," he burst forth.
"Thank you for your good wishes for my domestic happiness," she said
severely.
"Oh, why will you misconstrue everything I say?" he pleaded. "You must
think me an awful _Schlemihl_, putting my foot into it so often. Anyhow
I hope I shall meet you again somewhere."
"The world is very small," she reminded him.
"I wish I knew your husband," he said ruefully.
"Why?" said Hannah, innocently.
"Because I could call on him," he replied, smiling.
"Well, you do know him," she could not help saying.
"Do I? Who is it? I don't think I do," he exclaimed.
"Well, considering he introduced you to me!"
"Sam!" cried David startled.
"Yes."
"But--" said David, half incredulously, half in surprise. He certainly
had never credited Sam with the wisdom to select or the merit to deserve
a wife like this.
"But what?" asked Hannah with charming _naïveté_.
"He said--I--I--at least I think he said--I--I--understood that he
introduced me to Miss Solomon, as his intended wife."
Solomon was the name of Malka's first husband, and so of Leah.
"Quite right," said Hannah simply.
"Then--what--how?" he stammered.
"She _was_ his intended wife," explained Hannah as if she were telling
the most natural thing in the world. "Before he married me, you know."
"I--I beg your pardon if I seemed to doubt you. I really thought you
were joking."
"Why, what made you think so?"
"Well," he blurted out. "He didn't mention he was married, and seeing
him dancing with her the whole time--"
"I suppose he thinks he owes her some attention," said Hannah
indifferently. "By way of compensation probably. I shouldn't be at all
surprised if he takes her down to supper instead of me."
"There he is, struggling towards the buffet. Yes, he has her on his
arm."
"You speak as if she were his phylacteries," said Hannah, smiling. "It
would be a pity to disturb them. So, if you like, you can have me on
your arm, as you put it."
The young man's face lit up with pleasure, the keener that it was
unexpected.
"I am very glad to have such phylacteries on my arm, as you put it," he
responded. "I fancy I should be a good deal _froomer_ if my phylacteries
were like that."
"What, aren't you _frooms_?" she said, as they joined the hungry
procession in which she noted Bessie Sugarman on the arm of Daniel
Hyams.
"No, I'm a regular wrong'un," he replied. "As for phylacteries, I almost
forget how to lay them."
"That _is_ bad," she admitted, though he could not ascertain her own
point of view from the tone.
"Well, everybody else is just as bad," he said cheerfully. "All the old
piety seems to be breaking down. It's Purim, but how many of us have
been to hear the--the what do you call it?--the _Megillah_ read? There
is actually a minister here to-night bare-headed. And how many of us are
going to wash our hands before supper or _bensh_ afterwards, I should
like to know. Why, it's as much as can be expected if the food's
_kosher_, and there's no ham sandwiches on the dishes. Lord! how my old
dad, God rest his soul, would have been horrified by such a party as
this!"
"Yes, it's wonderful how ashamed Jews are of their religion outside a
synagogue!" said Hannah musingly. "_My_ father, if he were here, would
put on his hat after supper and _bensh_, though there wasn't another man
in the room to follow his example."
"And I should admire him for it," said David, earnestly, "though I admit
I shouldn't follow his example myself. I suppose he's one of the old
school."
"He is Reb Shemuel," said Hannah, with dignity.
"Oh, indeed!" he exclaimed, not without surprise, "I know him well. He
used to bless me when I was a boy, and it used to cost him a halfpenny a
time. Such a jolly fellow!"
"I'm so glad you think so," said Hannah flushing with pleasure.
"Of course I do. Does he still have all those _Greeners_ coming to ask
him questions?"
"Oh, yes. Their piety is just the same as ever."
"They're poor," observed David. "It's always those poorest in worldly
goods who are richest in religion."
"Well, isn't that a compensation?" returned Hannah, with a little sigh.
"But from my father's point of view, the truth is rather that those who
have most pecuniary difficulties have most religious difficulties."
"Ah, I suppose they come to your father as much to solve the first as
the second."
"Father is very good," she said simply.
They had by this time obtained something to eat, and for a minute or so
the dialogue became merely dietary.
"Do you know," he said in the course of the meal, "I feel I ought not to
have told you what a wicked person I am? I put my foot into it there,
too."
"No, why?"
"Because you are Reb Shemuel's daughter."
"Oh, what nonsense! I like to hear people speak their minds. Besides,
you mustn't fancy I'm as _froom_ as my father."
"I don't fancy that. Not quite," he laughed. "I know there's some
blessed old law or other by which women haven't got the same chance of
distinguishing themselves that way as men. I have a vague recollection
of saying a prayer thanking God for not having made me a woman."
"Ah, that must have been a long time ago," she said slyly.
"Yes, when I was a boy," he admitted. Then the oddity of the premature
thanksgiving struck them both and they laughed.
"You've got a different form provided for you, haven't you?" he said.
"Yes, I have to thank God for having made me according to His will."
"You don't seem satisfied for all that," he said, struck by something in
the way she said it.
"How can a woman be satisfied?" she asked, looking up frankly. "She has
no voice in her destinies. She must shut her eyes and open her mouth and
swallow what it pleases God to send her."
"All right, shut your eyes," he said, and putting his hand over them he
gave her a titbit and restored the conversation to a more flippant
level.
"You mustn't do that," she said. "Suppose my husband were to see you."
"Oh, bother!" he said. "I don't know why it is, but I don't seem to
realize you're a married woman."
"Am I playing the part so badly as all that?"
"Is it a part?" he cried eagerly.
She shook her head. His face fell again. She could hardly fail to note
the change.
"No, it's a stern reality," she said. "I wish it wasn't."
It seemed a bold confession, but it was easy to understand. Sam had been
an old school-fellow of his, and David had not thought highly of him. He
was silent a moment.
"Are you not happy?" he said gently.
"Not in my marriage."
"Sam must be a regular brute!" he cried indignantly. "He doesn't know
how to treat you. He ought to have his head punched the way he's going
on with that fat thing in red."
"Oh, don't run her down," said Hannah, struggling to repress her
emotions, which were not purely of laughter. "She's my dearest friend."
"They always are," said David oracularly. "But how came you to marry
him?"
"Accident," she said indifferently.
"Accident!" he repeated, open-eyed.
"Ah, well, it doesn't matter," said Hannah, meditatively conveying a
spoonful of trifle to her mouth. "I shall be divorced from him
to-morrow. Be careful! You nearly broke that plate."
David stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Going to be divorced from him to-morrow?"
"Yes, is there anything odd about it?"
"Oh," he said, after staring at her impassive face for a full minute.
"Now I'm sure you've been making fun of me all along."
"My dear Mr. Brandon, why will you persist in making me out a liar?"
He was forced to apologize again and became such a model of perplexity
and embarrassment that Hannah's gravity broke down at last and her merry
peal of laughter mingled with the clatter of plates and the hubbub of
voices.
"I must take pity on you and enlighten you," she said, "but promise me
it shall go no further. It's only our own little circle that knows about
it and I don't want to be the laughing-stock of the Lane."
"Of course I will promise," he said eagerly.
She kept his curiosity on the _qui vive_ to amuse herself a little
longer, but ended by telling him all, amid frequent exclamations of
surprise.
"Well, I never!" he said when it was over. "Fancy a religion in which
only two per cent. of the people who profess it have ever heard of its
laws. I suppose we're so mixed up with the English, that it never occurs
to us we've got marriage laws of our own--like the Scotch. Anyhow I'm
real glad and I congratulate you."
"On what?"
"On not being really married to Sam."
"Well, you're a nice friend of his, I must say. I don't congratulate
myself, I can tell you."
"You don't?" he said in a disappointed tone.
She shook her head silently.
"Why not?" he inquired anxiously.
"Well, to tell the truth, this forced marriage was my only chance of
getting a husband who wasn't pious. Don't look so puzzled. I wasn't
shocked at your wickedness--you mustn't be at mine. You know there's
such a lot of religion in our house that I thought if I ever did get
married I'd like a change."
"Ha! ha! ha! So you're as the rest of us. Well, it's plucky of you to
admit it."
"Don't see it. My living doesn't depend on religion, thank Heaven.
Father's a saint, I know, but he swallows everything he sees in his
books just as he swallows everything mother and I put before him in his
plate--and in spite of it all--" She was about to mention Levi's
shortcomings but checked herself in time. She had no right to unveil
anybody's soul but her own and she didn't know why she was doing that.
"But you don't mean to say your father would forbid you to marry a man
you cared for, just because he wasn't _froom_?"
"I'm sure he would."
"But that would be cruel."
"He wouldn't think so. He'd think he was saving my soul, and you must
remember he can't imagine any one who has been taught to see its beauty
not loving the yoke of the Law. He's the best father in the world--but
when religion's concerned, the best-hearted of mankind are liable to
become hard as stone. You don't know my father as I do. But apart from
that, I wouldn't marry a man, myself, who might hurt my father's
position. I should have to keep a _kosher_ house or look how people
would talk!"
"And wouldn't you if you had your own way?"
"I don't know what I would do. It's so impossible, the idea of my having
my own way. I think I should probably go in for a change, I'm so
tired--so tired of this eternal ceremony. Always washing up plates and
dishes. I dare say it's all for our good, but I _am_ so tired."
"Oh, I don't see much difficulty about _Koshers_. I always eat _kosher_
meat myself when I can get it, providing it's not so beastly tough as it
has a knack of being. Of course it's absurd to expect a man to go
without meat when he's travelling up country, just because it hasn't
been killed with a knife instead of a pole-axe. Besides, don't we know
well enough that the folks who are most particular about those sort of
things don't mind swindling and setting their houses on fire and all
manner of abominations? I wouldn't be a Christian for the world, but I
should like to see a little more common-sense introduced into our
religion; it ought to be more up to date. If ever I marry, I should like
my wife to be a girl who wouldn't want to keep anything but the higher
parts of Judaism. Not out of laziness, mind you, but out of conviction."
David stopped suddenly, surprised at his own sentiments, which he
learned for the first time. However vaguely they might have been
simmering in his brain, he could not honestly accuse himself of having
ever bestowed any reflection on "the higher parts of Judaism" or even on
the religious convictions apart from the racial aspects of his future
wife. Could it be that Hannah's earnestness was infecting him?
"Oh, then you _would_ marry a Jewess!" said Hannah.
"Oh, of course," he said in astonishment. Then as he looked at her
pretty, earnest face the amusing recollection that she _was_ married
already came over him with a sort of shock, not wholly comical. There
was a minute of silence, each pursuing a separate train of thought. Then
David wound up, as if there had been no break, with an elliptical,
"wouldn't you?"
Hannah shrugged her shoulders and elevated her eyebrows in a gesture
that lacked her usual grace.
"Not if I had only to please myself," she added.
"Oh, come! Don't say that," he said anxiously. "I don't believe mixed
marriages are a success. Really, I don't. Besides, look at the scandal!"
Again she shrugged her shoulders, defiantly this time.
"I don't suppose I shall ever get married," she said. "I never could
marry a man father would approve of, so that a Christian would be no
worse than an educated Jew."
David did not quite grasp the sentence; he was trying to, when Sam and
Leah passed them. Sam winked in a friendly if not very refined manner.
"I see you two are getting on all right." he said.
"Good gracious!" said Hannah, starting up with a blush. "Everybody's
going back. They _will_ think us greedy. What a pair of fools we are to
have got into such serious conversation at a ball."
"Was it serious?" said David with a retrospective air. "Well, I never
enjoyed a conversation so much in my life."
"You mean the supper," Hannah said lightly.
"Well, both. It's your fault that we don't behave more appropriately."
"How do you mean?"
"You won't dance."
"Do you want to?"
"Rather."
"I thought you were afraid of all the swells."
"Supper has given me courage."
"Oh, very well if you want to, that's to say if you really can waltz."
"Try me, only you must allow for my being out of practice. I didn't get
many dances at the Cape, I can tell you."
"The Cape!" Hannah heard the words without making her usual grimace. She
put her hand lightly on his shoulder, he encircled her waist with his
arm and they surrendered themselves to the intoxication of the slow,
voluptuous music.