"FOR AULD LANG SYNE, MY DEAR."
The learned say that Passover was a Spring festival even before it was
associated with the Redemption from Egypt, but there is not much Nature
to worship in the Ghetto and the historical elements of the Festival
swamp all the others. Passover still remains the most picturesque of the
"Three Festivals" with its entire transmogrification of things culinary,
its thorough taboo of leaven. The audacious archaeologist of the
thirtieth century may trace back the origin of the festival to the
Spring Cleaning, the annual revel of the English housewife, for it is
now that the Ghetto whitewashes itself and scrubs itself and paints
itself and pranks itself and purifies its pans in a baptism of fire.
Now, too, the publican gets unto himself a white sheet and suspends it
at his door and proclaims that he sells _Kosher rum_ by permission of
the Chief Rabbi. Now the confectioner exchanges his "stuffed monkeys,"
and his bolas and his jam-puffs, and his cheese-cakes for unleavened
"palavas," and worsted balls and almond cakes. Time was when the
Passover dietary was restricted to fruit and meat and vegetables, but
year by year the circle is expanding, and it should not be beyond the
reach of ingenuity to make bread itself Passoverian. It is now that the
pious shopkeeper whose store is tainted with leaven sells his business
to a friendly Christian, buying it back at the conclusion of the
festival. Now the Shalotten _Shammos_ is busy from morning to night
filling up charity-forms, artistically multiplying the poor man's
children and dividing his rooms. Now is holocaust made of a people's
bread-crumbs, and now is the national salutation changed to "How do the
_Motsos_ agree with you?" half of the race growing facetious, and the
other half finical over the spotted Passover cakes.
It was on the evening preceding the opening of Passover that Esther
Ansell set forth to purchase a shilling's worth of fish in Petticoat
Lane, involuntarily storing up in her mind vivid impressions of the
bustling scene. It is one of the compensations of poverty that it allows
no time for mourning. Daily duty is the poor man's nepenthe.
Esther and her father were the only two members of the family upon whom
the death of Benjamin made a deep impression. He had been so long away
from home that he was the merest shadow to the rest. But Moses bore the
loss with resignation, his emotions discharging themselves in the daily
_Kaddish_. Blent with his personal grief was a sorrow for the
commentaries lost to Hebrew literature by his boy's premature
transference to Paradise. Esther's grief was more bitter and defiant.
All the children were delicate, but it was the first time death had
taken one. The meaningless tragedy of Benjamin's end shook the child's
soul to its depths. Poor lad! How horrible to be lying cold and ghastly
beneath the winter snow! What had been the use of all his long prepay
rations to write great novels? The name of Ansell would now become
ingloriously extinct. She wondered whether _Our Own_ would collapse and
secretly felt it must. And then what of the hopes of worldly wealth she
had built on Benjamin's genius? Alas! the emancipation of the Ansells
from the yoke of poverty was clearly postponed. To her and her alone
must the family now look for deliverance. Well, she would take up the
mantle of the dead boy, and fill it as best she might. She clenched her
little hands in iron determination. Moses Ansell knew nothing either of
her doubts or her ambitions. Work was still plentiful three days a week,
and he was unconscious he was not supporting his family in comparative
affluence. But even with Esther the incessant grind of school-life and
quasi-motherhood speedily rubbed away the sharper edges of sorrow,
though the custom prohibiting obvious pleasures during the year of
mourning went in no danger of transgression, for poor little Esther
gadded neither to children's balls nor to theatres. Her thoughts were
full of the prospects of piscine bargains, as she pushed her way through
a crowd so closely wedged, and lit up by such a flare of gas from the
shops and such streamers of flame from the barrows that the cold wind
of early April lost its sting.
Two opposing currents of heavy-laden pedestrians were endeavoring in
their progress to occupy the same strip of pavement at the same moment,
and the laws of space kept them blocked till they yielded to its
remorseless conditions. Rich and poor elbowed one another, ladies in
satins and furs were jammed against wretched looking foreign women with
their heads swathed in dirty handkerchiefs; rough, red-faced English
betting men struggled good-humoredly with their greasy kindred from over
the North Sea; and a sprinkling of Christian yokels surveyed the Jewish
hucksters and chapmen with amused superiority.
For this was the night of nights, when the purchases were made for the
festival, and great ladies of the West, leaving behind their daughters
who played the piano and had a subscription at Mudie's, came down again
to the beloved Lane to throw off the veneer of refinement, and plunge
gloveless hands in barrels where pickled cucumbers weltered in their own
"_russell_," and to pick fat juicy olives from the rich-heaped tubs. Ah,
me! what tragic comedy lay behind the transient happiness of these
sensuous faces, laughing and munching with the shamelessness of
school-girls! For to-night they need not hanker in silence after the
flesh-pots of Egypt. To-night they could laugh and talk over _Olov
hasholom_ times--"Peace be upon him" times--with their old cronies, and
loosen the stays of social ambition, even while they dazzled the Ghetto
with the splendors of their get-up and the halo of the West End whence
they came. It was a scene without parallel in the history of the
world--this phantasmagoria of grubs and butterflies, met together for
auld lang syne in their beloved hatching-place. Such violent contrasts
of wealth and poverty as might be looked for in romantic gold-fields, or
in unsettled countries were evolved quite naturally amid a colorless
civilization by a people with an incurable talent for the picturesque.
"Hullo! Can that be you, Betsy?" some grizzled shabby old man would
observe in innocent delight to Mrs. Arthur Montmorenci; "Why so it is!
I never would have believed my eyes! Lord, what a fine woman you've
grown! And so you're little Betsy who used to bring her father's coffee
in a brown jug when he and I stood side by side in the Lane! He used to
sell slippers next to my cutlery stall for eleven years--Dear, dear, how
time flies to be sure."
Then Betsy Montmorenci's creamy face would grow scarlet under the
gas-jets, and she would glower and draw her sables around her, and look
round involuntarily, to see if any of her Kensington friends were within
earshot.
Another Betsy Montmorenci would feel Bohemian for this occasion only,
and would receive old acquaintances' greeting effusively, and pass the
old phrases and by-words with a strange sense of stolen sweets; while
yet a third Betsy Montmorenci, a finer spirit this, and worthier of the
name, would cry to a Betsy Jacobs:
"Is that you, Betsy, how _are_ you? How _are_ you? I'm so glad to see
you. Won't you come and treat me to a cup of chocolate at Bonn's, just
to show you haven't forgot _Olov hasholom_ times?"
And then, having thus thrown the responsibility of stand-offishness on
the poorer Betsy, the Montmorenci would launch into recollections of
those good old "Peace be upon him" times till the grub forgot the
splendors of the caterpillar in a joyous resurrection of ancient
scandals. But few of the Montmorencis, whatever their species, left the
Ghetto without pressing bits of gold into half-reluctant palms in shabby
back-rooms where old friends or poor relatives mouldered.
Overhead, the stars burned silently, but no one looked up at them.
Underfoot, lay the thick, black veil of mud, which the Lane never
lifted, but none looked down on it. It was impossible to think of aught
but humanity in the bustle and confusion, in the cram and crush, in the
wedge and the jam, in the squeezing and shouting, in the hubbub and
medley. Such a jolly, rampant, screaming, fighting, maddening, jostling,
polyglot, quarrelling, laughing broth of a Vanity Fair! Mendicants,
vendors, buyers, gossips, showmen, all swelled the roar.
"Here's your cakes! All _yontovdik_ (for the festival)! _Yontovdik_--"
"Braces, best braces, all--"
"_Yontovdik_! Only one shilling--"
"It's the Rav's orders, mum; all legs of mutton must be porged or my
license--"
"Cowcumbers! Cowcumbers!"
"Now's your chance--"
"The best trousers, gentlemen. Corst me as sure as I stand--"
"On your own head, you old--"
"_Arbah Kanfus_ (four fringes)! _Arbah_--"
"My old man's been under an operation--"
"Hokey Pokey! _Yontovdik_! Hokey--"
"Get out of the way, can't you--"
"By your life and mine, Betsy--"
"Gord blesh you, mishter, a toisand year shall ye live."
"Eat the best _Motsos_. Only fourpence--"
"The bones must go with, marm. I've cut it as lean as possible."
"_Charoises_ (a sweet mixture). _Charoises! Moroire_ (bitter herb)!
_Chraine_ (horseradish)! _Pesachdik_ (for Passover)."
"Come and have a glass of Old Tom, along o' me, sonny."
"Fine plaice! Here y'are! Hi! where's yer pluck! S'elp me--"
"Bob! _Yontovdik! Yontovdik_! Only a bob!"
"Chuck steak and half a pound of fat."
"A slap in the eye, if you--"
"Gord bless you. Remember me to Jacob."
"_Shaink_ (spare) _meer_ a 'apenny, missis _lieben_, missis _croin_
(dear)--"
"An unnatural death on you, you--"
"Lord! Sal, how you've altered!"
"Ladies, here you are--"
"I give you my word, sir, the fish will be home before you."
"Painted in the best style, for a tanner--"
"A spoonge, mister?"
"I'll cut a slice of this melon for you for--"
"She's dead, poor thing, peace be upon him."
"_Yontovdik_! Three bob for one purse containing--"
"The real live tattooed Hindian, born in the African Harchipellygo. Walk
up."
"This way for the dwarf that will speak, dance, and sing."
"Tree lemons a penny. Tree lemons--"
"A _Shtibbur_ (penny) for a poor blind man--"
"_Yontovdik! Yontovdik! Yontovdik! Yontovdik!_"
And in this last roar, common to so many of the mongers, the whole Babel
would often blend for a moment and be swallowed up, re-emerging anon in
its broken multiplicity.
Everybody Esther knew was in the crowd--she met them all sooner or
later. In Wentworth Street, amid dead cabbage-leaves, and mud, and
refuse, and orts, and offal, stood the woe-begone Meckisch, offering his
puny sponges, and wooing the charitable with grinning grimaces tempered
by epileptic fits at judicious intervals. A few inches off, his wife in
costly sealskin jacket, purchased salmon with a Maida Vale manner.
Compressed in a corner was Shosshi Shmendrik, his coat-tails yellow with
the yolks of dissolving eggs from a bag in his pocket. He asked her
frantically, if she had seen a boy whom he had hired to carry home his
codfish and his fowls, and explained that his missus was busy in the
shop, and had delegated to him the domestic duties. It is probable, that
if Mrs. Shmendrik, formerly the widow Finkelstein, ever received these
dainties, she found her good man had purchased fish artificially
inflated with air, and fowls fattened with brown paper. Hearty Sam
Abrahams, the bass chorister, whose genial countenance spread sunshine
for yards around, stopped Esther and gave her a penny. Further, she met
her teacher, Miss Miriam Hyams, and curtseyed to her, for Esther was not
of those who jeeringly called "teacher" and "master" according to sex
after her superiors, till the victims longed for Elisha's influence over
bears. Later on, she was shocked to see her teacher's brother piloting
bonny Bessie Sugarman through the thick of the ferment. Crushed between
two barrows, she found Mrs. Belcovitch and Fanny, who were shopping
together, attended by Pesach Weingott, all carrying piles of purchases.
"Esther, if you should see my Becky in the crowd, tell her where I am,"
said Mrs. Belcovitch. "She is with one of her chosen young men. I am so
feeble, I can hardly crawl around, and my Becky ought to carry home the
cabbages. She has well-matched legs, not one a thick one and one a thin
one."'
Around the fishmongers the press was great. The fish-trade was almost
monopolized by English Jews--blonde, healthy-looking fellows, with
brawny, bare arms, who were approached with dread by all but the bravest
foreign Jewesses. Their scale of prices and politeness varied with the
status of the buyer. Esther, who had an observant eye and ear for such
things, often found amusement standing unobtrusively by. To-night there
was the usual comedy awaiting her enjoyment. A well-dressed dame came up
to "Uncle Abe's" stall, where half a dozen lots of fishy miscellanaea
were spread out.
"Good evening, madam. Cold night but fine. That lot? Well, you're an old
customer and fish are cheap to-day, so I can let you have 'em for a
sovereign. Eighteen? Well, it's hard, but--boy! take the lady's fish.
Thank you. Good evening."
"How much that?" says a neatly dressed woman, pointing to a precisely
similar lot.
"Can't take less than nine bob. Fish are dear to-day. You won't get
anything cheaper in the Lane, by G---- you won't. Five shillings! By my
life and by my children's life, they cost me more than that. So sure as
I stand here and--well, come, gie's seven and six and they're yours. You
can't afford more? Well, 'old up your apron, old gal. I'll make it up
out of the rich. By your life and mine, you've got a _Metsiah_ (bargain)
there!"
Here old Mrs. Shmendrik, Shosshi's mother, came up, a rich Paisley shawl
over her head in lieu of a bonnet. Lane women who went out without
bonnets were on the same plane as Lane men who went out without collars.
One of the terrors of the English fishmongers was that they required the
customer to speak English, thus fulfilling an important educative
function in the community. They allowed a certain percentage of
jargon-words, for they themselves took licenses in this direction, but
they professed not to understand pure Yiddish.
"Abraham, 'ow mosh for dees lot," said old Mrs. Shmendrik, turning over
a third similar heap and feeling the fish all over.
"Paws off!" said Abraham roughly. "Look here! I know the tricks of you
Polakinties. I'll name you the lowest price and won't stand a farthing's
bating. I'll lose by you, but you ain't, going to worry me. Eight bob!
There!"
"Avroomkely (dear little Abraham) take lebbenpence!"
"Elevenpence! By G----," cried Uncle Abe, desperately tearing his hair.
"I knew it!" And seizing a huge plaice by the tail he whirled it round
and struck Mrs. Shmendrik full in the face, shouting, "Take that, you
old witch! Sling your hook or I'll murder you."
"Thou dog!" shrieked Mrs. Shmendrik, falling back on the more copious
resources of her native idiom. "A black year on thee! Mayest thou swell
and die! May the hand that struck me rot away! Mayest thou be burned
alive! Thy father was a _Gonof_ and thou art a _Gonof_ and thy whole
family are _Gonovim_. May Pharaoh's ten plagues--"
There was little malice at the back of it all--the mere imaginative
exuberance of a race whose early poetry consisted in saying things twice
over.
Uncle Abraham menacingly caught up the plaice, crying:
"May I be struck dead on the spot, if you ain't gone in one second I
won't answer for the consequences. Now, then, clear off!"
"Come, Avroomkely," said Mrs. Shmendrik, dropping suddenly from
invective to insinuativeness. "Take fourteenpence. _Shemah, beni_!
Fourteen _Shtibbur's_ a lot of _Gelt."_
"Are you a-going?" cried Abraham in a terrible rage. "Ten bob's my price
now."
"Avroomkely, _noo, zoog_ (say now)! Fourteenpence 'apenny. I am a poor
voman. Here, fifteenpence."
Abraham seized her by the shoulders and pushed her towards the wall,
where she cursed picturesquely. Esther thought it was a bad time to
attempt to get her own shilling's worth--she fought her way towards
another fishmonger.
There was a kindly, weather-beaten old fellow with whom Esther had often
chaffered job-lots when fortune smiled on the Ansells. Him, to her joy,
Esther perceived--she saw a stack of gurnards on his improvised slab,
and in imagination smelt herself frying them. Then a great shock as of a
sudden icy douche traversed her frame, her heart seemed to stand still.
For when she put her hand to her pocket to get her purse, she found but
a thimble and a slate-pencil and a cotton handkerchief. It was some
minutes before she could or would realize the truth that the four and
sevenpence halfpenny on which so much depended was gone. Groceries and
unleavened cakes Charity had given, raisin wine had been preparing for
days, but fish and meat and all the minor accessories of a well-ordered
Passover table--these were the prey of the pickpocket. A blank sense of
desolation overcame the child, infinitely more horrible than that which
she felt when she spilled the soup; the gurnards she could have touched
with her finger seemed far off, inaccessible; in a moment more they and
all things were blotted out by a hot rush of tears, and she was jostled
as in a dream hither and thither by the double stream of crowd. Nothing
since the death of Benjamin had given her so poignant a sense of the
hollowness and uncertainty of existence. What would her father say,
whose triumphant conviction that Providence had provided for his
Passover was to be so rudely dispelled at the eleventh hour. Poor Moses!
He had been so proud of having earned enough money to make a good
_Yontov_, and was more convinced than ever that given a little capital
to start with he could build up a colossal business! And now she would
have to go home and spoil everybody's _Yontov_, and see the sour faces
of her little ones round a barren _Seder_ table. Oh, it was terrible!
and the child wept piteously, unheeded in the block, unheard amid the
Babel.