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GHETTO COMEDIES
by
ISRAEL ZANGWILL
* * * * *
New 6s. Novels.
THE EXPENSIVE MISS DU CANE. By S. MACNAUGHTAN. 'To resist the charm
of Hetty Du Cane one must be singularly hard to
please.'--_Spectator._
THE LOST WORD. By EVELYN UNDERHILL. 'She writes vigorously and well,
with a clear sense of the beauty of language and a notable power
of description.'--_Times._
THE COUNTRY HOUSE. By JOHN GALSWORTHY. 'It deserves the widest
measure of success as a careful study of modern life and an
interesting piece of fiction, presented with remarkable literary
ability.'--_Daily Telegraph._
MEMOIRS OF A PERSON OF QUALITY. By ASHTON HILLIERS. 'Such a recruit
as Mr. Hilliers is welcome to the ranks of novelists.... He has
absorbed the spirit of the times with remarkable ability. Mr.
Hilliers has a fine literary future before him, and we are glad
to give his maiden effort a cordial greeting.'--_Athenaeum._
PAUL. By E.F. BENSON. 'A genuinely fine novel; a story marked by
powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of
life.'--_Daily Telegraph._
THE SWIMMERS. By E.S. RORISON. 'Full of crisp dialogue and bright
descriptive passages.'--_Athenaeum._
THE TRAIL TOGETHER. By H.H. BASHFORD. 'Very interesting, very well
constructed, and admirably written; altogether an excellent piece
of work.'--_Daily Telegraph._
FOOLS RUSH IN. By MARY GAUNT and J.R. ESSEX. 'A live story, full of
the stir and stress of existence on the fringe of civilization,
very vividly and interestingly written.'--_Sketch._
JOSEPH VANCE. By WILLIAM DE MORGAN. 'Humorous, thoughtful, pathetic,
and thoroughly entertaining.... Fresh, original, and unusually
clever.'--_Athenaeum._
MOONFACE, AND OTHER STORIES. By JACK LONDON. 'Jack London at his
best.'--_Standard._
LOVE'S TRILOGY. By PETER NANSEN. 'Humour the author possesses, and
tenderness. Sensibility he has, and shrewd sense. The tale "God's
Peace" shows that he has a soul.'--_Evening Standard._
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET.
* * * * *
[Illustration: At last I said "Good morning."]
GHETTO COMEDIES
by
ISRAEL ZANGWILL
Author of
'The Grey Wig,' 'Dreamers of the Ghetto,'
'The Master,' 'Children of the Ghetto,'
'Ghetto Tragedies,' etc.
With Illustrations by J.H. Amschewitz
[Illustration]
London
William Heinemann
1907
Copyright by William Heinemann, 1907
TO
MY OLD FRIEND
M.D. EDER
NOTE
Simultaneously with the publication of these 'Ghetto Comedies' a fresh
edition of my 'Ghetto Tragedies' is issued, with the original title
restored. In the old definition a comedy could be distinguished from a
tragedy by its happy ending. Dante's Hell and Purgatory could thus
appertain to a 'comedy.' This is a crude conception of the distinction
between Tragedy and Comedy, which I have ventured to disregard,
particularly in the last of these otherwise unassuming stories.
I.Z.
SHOTTERMILL,
_April, 1907._
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE MODEL OF SORROWS 1
ANGLICIZATION 49
THE JEWISH TRINITY 89
THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 119
THE RED MARK 173
THE BEARER OF BURDENS 193
THE LUFTMENSCH 225
THE TUG OF LOVE 249
THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET' 259
THE CONVERTS 293
HOLY WEDLOCK 313
ELIJAH'S GOBLET 335
THE HIRELINGS 351
SAMOOBORONA 375
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
AT LAST I SAID 'GOOD MORNING' _Frontispiece_
_To face page_
'I WORK ON--ON _SHABBOS_' 142
'YOU COMPARE MY WIFE TO A KANGAROO!' 276
THE JEWS SCATTERED BEFORE HIM LIKE DOGS 408
THE MODEL OF SORROWS
THE MODEL OF SORROWS
CHAPTER I
HOW I FOUND THE MODEL
I cannot pretend that my ambition to paint the Man of Sorrows had any
religious inspiration, though I fear my dear old dad at the Parsonage
at first took it as a sign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist,
I have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the
beautiful; for I have ever held that the beautiful has in it the same
infinite element as forms the essence of religion. But I cannot
explain very intelligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only
instrument through which I can speak. And if I am here paradoxically
proposing to use my pen to explain what my brush failed to make clear,
it is because the criticism with which my picture of the Man of
Sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal
elucidation. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; perhaps
my pen can manage to say the other half, especially as this other half
mainly consists of things told me and things seen.
And in the first place, let me explain that the conception of the
picture which now hangs in its gilded frame is far from the conception
with which I started--was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an
evolution--for I began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a
realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue of Jerusalem, or
walked about the shores of Galilee. As a painter in love with the
modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations
of Him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their
inspiration in reality. Each nation had unconsciously given Him its
own national type, and though there was a subtle truth in this, for
what each nation worshipped was truly the God made over again in its
own highest image, this was not the truth after which I was seeking.
I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which Da Vinci and
others have imposed upon the world, for Christ, to begin with, must be
a Jew. And even when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish
model, I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed
to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic of the Oriental face, as
I figured it, was a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the
very antithesis of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The characteristic
Jewish face must suggest more of the Arab than of the Goth.
I do not know if the lay reader understands how momentous to the
artist is his model, how dependent he is on the accident of finding
his creation already anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in
Nature. To me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in
Nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those
subtle _nuances_ which give the full sense of life. After which, if I
say, that my aim is not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I
suppose I shall again seem to be self-contradictory. But that, again,
must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes.
Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search of the ideal
model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief
railway run of the Parsonage. Besides, I understood that the
dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish
types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed all the
streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting in the Jewish quarter
left me despairing. I could find types of all the Apostles, but never
of the Master.
Running down one week-end to Brighton to recuperate, I joined the
Church Parade on the lawns. It was a sunny morning in early November,
and I admired the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky,
making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the stuccoed
boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered amid the vast crowd of
promenaders like a swarm of brilliant butterflies. I noted with
amusement that the Church Parade was guarded by beadles from the
intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed Jews
paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search.
In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking
in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest.
Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting
oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat
a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green
cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the
face of my desire. The head was bowed towards the earth; it did not
even turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle was
beadle-barred. I was about to accost this strange creature who sat
there so immovably, when a venerable Royal Academician who resides at
Hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore me along
in the stream of his conversation and geniality. I looked back
yearningly; it was as if the Academy was dragging me away from true
Art.
'I think, if you don't mind, I'll get that old chap's address,' I
said.
He looked back and shook his head in laughing reproof.
'Another study in dirt and ugliness! Oh, you youngsters!'
My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with his own
conventional patterns and prettinesses.
'Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,' I retorted. 'I
certainly did not see Him in the Church Parade.'
'Have you gone on the religious lay now?' he asked, with a burst of
his bluff laughter.
'No, but I'm going,' I said, and turned back.
I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying
my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement,
I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery
of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity
with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified.
I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan,
while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that
the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his
abstention from the holy ground of the Church Parade, and the less
sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes
drew towards him, move him on from further profaning those frigidly
respectable windows and stuccoed portals?
At last I said: 'Good-morning.' And he rose hurriedly and began to
move away uncomplainingly, as one used to being hounded from
everywhere.
'_Guten Morgen_,' I said in German, with a happy inspiration, for in
my futile search in London I had found that a corrupt German called
Yiddish usually proved a means of communication.
He paused, as if reassured. '_Gut' Morgen_,' he murmured; and then I
saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of Anak, and
his manner a strange blend of majesty and humility.
'Pardon me,' I went on, in my scrupulously worst German, 'may I ask
you a question?'
He made a curious movement of acquiescence, compounded of a shrug and
a slight uplifting of his palms.
'Are you in need of work?'
'And why do you wish to know?' he replied, answering, as I had already
found was the Jewish way, one question by another.
'I thought I could find you some,' I said.
'Have you scrolls of the Law for me to write?' he replied
incredulously. 'You are not even a Jew.'
'Still, there may be something,' I replied. 'Let us walk along.'
I felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us both, and I
hurried my model down a side-street. I noticed he hobbled as if
footsore. He did not understand what I wanted, but he understood a
pound a week, for he was starving, and when I said he must leave
Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck: 'It is the finger of
God.' For in London were his wife and children.
His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia.
The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel Quarriar's presence
dignified the studio. It was thrilling and stimulating to see his
noble figure and tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like
a prophet's.
'It is the finger of God,' I, too, murmured, and fell to work,
exalted.
I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence--perhaps the model's
silence was contagious--but gradually through the days I grew to
communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I
give his story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I often
paused to take down, when they were characteristic.