Spring was in the air. But such radiant, joyous spring as one coming
out of the dark shadows of the ghetto never could dream. Earth and sky
seemed to sing with the joy of an unceasing holiday. Rebecca Yudelson
felt as though she had suddenly stepped into fairyland, where the
shadow of sorrow or sickness, where the black blight of poverty had
never been.
An ecstasy of wonder and longing shone from her hungry, young eyes as
she gazed at the luxurious dwellings. Such radiance of colour! Fruits,
flowers and real orange-trees! Beauty and plenty! Each house outshone
the other in beauty and plenty.
Fresh from the East Side tenements, worn from the nerve-racking grind
of selling ribbons at the Five and Ten Cent Store, the residential
section of Los Angeles was like a magic world of romance too perfect to
be real. She had often seen the Fifth Avenue palaces of the New York
millionaires when she had treated herself to a bus ride on a holiday.
But nothing she had ever seen before compared with this glowing
splendour.
“And in one of these mansions of sunshine and roses my own sister
lives!” she breathed. “How could Minnie get used to so much free space
and sunshine for every day?”
Ten years since Minnie had left Delancey Street. Ten years’ freedom
from the black worry for bread. There must have come a new sureness in
her step, a new joy of life in her every movement. And to think that
Abe Shmukler from cloaks and suits had bought her and brought her to
this new world!
Rebecca wondered if her sister ever thought back to Felix Weinberg, the
poet who had loved her and whom she had given up to marry this bank
account man.
With the passionate ardour of adolescence Rebecca had woven an idyll
for herself out of her sister’s love affair. Felix Weinberg had become
for her the symbol of beauty and romance. His voice, his face, the
lines he had written to Minnie, coloured Rebecca’s longings and dreams.
With the love cadence of the poet’s voice still stirring in her heart,
she put her finger on the door bell.
The door was opened by a trim maid in black, whose superior scrutiny
left Rebecca speechless.
Her own sister Minnie with a stiff lady for a servant!
“My sister, is she in? I just came from New York.”
“Rebecca!” cried a familiar voice, as she was smothered in hungry arms.
“_Oi weh!_ How many years! You were yet so little then. Now you’re a
grown-up person.” And overcome by the memories of their ghetto days
together, they sobbed in one another’s arms.
Rebecca had been prepared for a change in Minnie. Ten years of plenty.
But to think that Abe Shmukler with his cloaks and suits could have
blotted out the fine sensitiveness of the sister she had loved and left
in its place his own gross imprint! Minnie’s thin long fingers were now
heavy and weighted with diamonds. The slender lines of her figure had
grown bulky with fat.
“And to think that you who used to shine up the street like a princess
in your home-mades are such a fashion-plate now?” Rebecca laughed
reproachfully.
They drew apart and gazed achingly at one another. Rebecca’s soul grew
faint within her as though her own flesh and blood had grown alien to
her. Why couldn’t Minnie have lifted Abe to her high thoughts? Why did
she let him drag her down to his cloaks and suits--make her a thing of
store-bought style?
“Minnie--Minnie!” the younger sister wept, bewildered. “Where have you
gone? What have you done with yourself?”
Minnie brushed away her tears and laughed away her sister’s reproach.
“Did you want me to remain always an East Side _venteh_?”
Then she hugged the young sister with a fresh burst of affection.
“Rebecca, you little witch! All you need is a little style. I’ll take
you to the best stores, and when I get through with you no one will
guess that you came from Delancey Street.”
“You have the same old heart, Minnie, although you shine like a born
Mrs. Vanderbilt.”
“No wonder you have no luck for a man with these clothes,” Minnie
harped back to the thing uppermost in her mind.
“But you weren’t fixed up in style when Felix Weinberg was so crazy
about you.”
“Do you ever see him?” came eagerly.
“Yes, I meet him every once in a while, but his thoughts are far away
when he talks to me.” She paused, overcome by a rush of feeling.
“Sometimes, in my dreams, I feel myself crying out to him, ‘Look at
me! Can’t you see I’m here?’”
“Don’t be a little fool and let yourself fall in love with a poet. He’s
all right for poetry, but to get married you need a man who can make a
living. I sent for you not only because I was lonesome and wanted you
near, but because I have a man who’ll be a great catch for you. He’s
full of money and crazy to marry himself.”
“Aren’t there plenty of girls in California for him?”
“But he’s like Abe. He wants the plain, settled down kind.”
“Am I the plain, settled-down kind like my sister?” thought Rebecca.
And so the whole afternoon sped by in reminiscence of the past and
golden plans for the future. Minnie told with pride that her children
were sent to a swell camp, where they rubbed sleeves with the
millionaires’ children of California. Abe had sold out the greater
share of his cloaks and suits business to Moe Mirsky--this very man
whom Minnie had picked out for Rebecca.
“And if we have the luck to land him, I’ll charge you nothing for the
matchmaking. My commission will be to have you live near me.”
Before Rebecca could answer there was a footstep in the outer hall and
a hearty voice called: “So your sister has come! No wonder you’re not
standing by the door waiting to kiss your husband.”
Abe Shmukler, fatter and more prosperous than ten years ago, filled
the doorway with his bulk. “Now there’ll be peace in the house,” he
exploded genially. “I’ve had nothing from my wife but cryings from
lonesomeness since I brought her here. You’ll have to keep my wife
company till we get you a man.”
Instinctively Rebecca responded to the fulsomeness of Abe’s greeting.
His sincerity, his simple joy in welcoming her, touched her. She
wondered if her sister had been quite fair to this big, happy-hearted
man.
And even as she wondered the vision of Felix Weinberg stood before her.
This man of fire and romance and dreams, against Abe Shmukler, was like
sunrise and moonrise and song against cloaks and suits. How could any
woman who had known the fiery wonder of the poet be content with this
tame, ox-like husband?
“I’ve already picked out a man for you, so you can settle near us for
good,” said Abe, giving Rebecca another affectionate hug.
Again her heart warmed to him. He was so well intentioned, so
lovable. The world needed these plain, bread-and-butter men. Their
affection-craving natures, their generous instincts, kept the home
fires burning.
Abe fulfilled the great essentials of life. He was a good provider, a
good husband, a good father and a genial host. But though he could feed
her sister with the fat of the land, what nourishment could this stolid
bread-giver provide for the heart, the soul, the mind?
Rebecca’s reverie was interrupted by the jangle of the telephone.
“I’ll bet it’s already that man asking if you arrived.” Abe winked at
his wife and twitted his sister-in-law under the chin as he picked up
the receiver.
“Yes, she’s here,” Rebecca heard Abe say. And turning to his wife:
“Minnie, our friend Moe is coming for dinner.”
“Coming right for dinner,” cried Minnie. “Quickly we must fix you up. I
can’t have that man see you looking like a greenhorn just off the ship.”
Rebecca surveyed herself critically in the gilt mirror. The excitement
of the arrival had brought a faint flush to her cheeks. Her hair had
become softer, wavier in the moist California air.
“Why can’t I see your Rockefeller prince as I am?” Rebecca was not
aware that her charm was enhanced by the very simplicity of her attire.
“Is he so high tone that plain me is not good enough for him?”
Her sister cut short her objections and hurried her upstairs, where she
tried on one gown after another. But they were all too big.
Then on a sudden thought she snatched a long, fillet scarf, which she
draped loosely around Rebecca’s neck.
“Why, you look like a picture for a painter.” Even Minnie, accustomed
now to the last word in style, recognized that the little sister had a
charm of personality that needed no store-bought clothes to set it off.
Awaiting them at the foot of the stairs was the smiling Abe. Behind him
with one hand grasping the banisters stood a short stocky young man.
Under his arm he held tightly to his side a heart-shaped box of candy
tied with a flowing red ribbon.
“My, look him over, kid! Ain’t he the swellest feller you ever set
your eyes on? Ain’t you glad you left your ribbon counter for your
California prince?”
Moe’s colour outshone the red ribbon which tied his box of candy. With
a clumsy flourish, he bowed and offered it to the girl. In a panic of
confusion, Rebecca let the box slip from her nervous fingers. And Moe
stooped jerkily to recover it.
And Abe burst into loud laughter.
“On! Solemiel!” Minnie cried, shaking him by the arm. “You’re a grand
brother-in-law.” And led the way to the dining-room.
Never had Rebecca seen such a rich spread of luxuries. Roast squabs,
a silver platter of _gerfulta_ fish, shimmering cut glass containing
chopped chicken livers and spiced jellies. The under-nourished girl saw
for the first time a feast of plenty fit for millionaires.
“What’s this--a holiday?” she asked, recovering her voice.
“Don’t think you’re yet in Delancey Street,” admonished the host. “In
California the fat of the land is for every day.”
As they fell to the food Rebecca understood the over-fed look of those
about her. She wondered if she would have sufficient self-control not
to make a pig of herself with such delicious plenty, making the eyes
glisten, the mouth water, and the heart glad as with song.
Rebecca, watching Moe as he smacked his lips in enjoyment of every
mouthful, understood why he wanted the plain, settled-down kind of
girl. A home, a wife, and fat dimpling babies belonged to him as
flowers and all green-growing things belong to the earth.
“Nu, could you tell on my sister-in-law that she never had meat
except on a holiday the way she eats like a bird?” Abe began anew his
raillery. And it was not until after dinner, when Minnie dragged her
Abe away to a neighbour, that Moe and Rebecca had a chance to talk
together.
“I got something grand to show you,” Moe burst out once the road was
clear. Why waste time and words in the slow love-making of cheap skates
who haven’t the shekels to show? His money could talk. And he led her
out proudly to see his red-lacquered limousine. “Swellest car in the
market, and I got it the minute your sister said you were coming.”
Rebecca was thrilled with this obvious flattery. It was the first time
she had had a man so on his knees to her.
“To-morrow I take you for a ride,” he said with the sure tone that
came into his voice when he concluded a good sale of cloaks and suits.
She nodded happily as they walked back to the parlour. Moe continued
his eager questions. Was she crazy for the movies? Did they have good
vaudeville out there on the East Side? Why did she not come sooner to
California? His eyes travelled over the girl with thick satisfaction.
“How becoming it would be to your diamonds on your neck!” And he rubbed
his palms ecstatically.
It was good to be made love to even though the man was not a poet.
Till now she had only eaten out her heart for a look, a word, from
Felix Weinberg. What a fool she was not to have come to California a
year ago as Minnie had begged her.
“I was so scared I’d be lonesome here, so far away from what I’m used
to,” she said, with a look that told him that a woman’s home is where
love is. “Now I wonder how I’ll ever be able to go back,” she finished
softly.
“Go back! You got to stay!” he commanded masterfully. “And I’ll see
that you shouldn’t be so skinny. You got to eat more.” And suiting his
action to his word, he forced more candy upon the already over-filled
girl.
Then he offered to teach her how to play cards. “Minnie and Abe are
such grand poker players,” he explained.
“My sister Minnie playing cards?”
“Shah! Little queen, you’ll have to learn cards, too. There ain’t
no other pleasure for women here, except cards or the movies or
vaudeville, and the bills don’t change more than once a week.” And he
told her that it was the custom in their group to play every night in a
different house.
A sudden pity gripped him. He longed to brighten the lonely look of
this little greenhorn, put roses into her pale thin cheeks.
“Tell me what is your best pleasure,” he asked with the sweeping manner
of a Rothschild.
“Ach! How I love music!” The glow of an inner sun lit up her face.
“I can’t afford a seat in the opera, but even if I have to stand all
evening and save the pennies from my mouth, music I’ve got to have.”
“Hah--ha!” He laughed in advance of his own humour. “My sweetest music
is the click of the cash register. The ring of the dollars I make is
grander to me than the best songs on the phonograph.”
His face became suddenly alive. For the first time she saw Moe
galvanized into a man of action, a man of power. The light that burned
throughout the ages in the eyes of poets and prophets burned also in
the eyes of the traders of her race.
“When I was a little hungry boy in the gutters of the ghetto, the
only songs I heard were the bargaining cries over pennies. Even when
I worked myself up to a clothing store in Division Street they were
still tearing my flesh in pieces, squeezing out cheaper, another dime,
another nickel from a suit.” But the eloquent story of his rise in the
world till now--here he was king of clothing--fell upon deaf ears.
Rebecca had ceased to listen.
She saw again their kitchen on Sunday night. Felix Weinberg’s pale
face under the sputtering gas jet, her sister leaning eagerly forward,
her hand instinctively reaching towards him across the table, her face
alight with the inner radiance that glowed from him like a burning
sun. She, Rebecca, close to him, at his feet, all a-tremble with the
nearness of him. The children on his knees, clutching at his neck,
peering from behind his shoulder. The eternal cadences of Keats and
Shelley, the surging rhythm of their song playing upon their hearts,
holding them enthralled with a music that they felt all the more deeply
because they did not understand.
Even mother, clattering busily with the pots at the stove, would pause
in her work, drawn by the magic of the enraptured group.
“_Nu_, with a clean apron I’m also a person to listen,” she said as
she tore from her the soiled rag which she wore around the stove and
reached for a clean blue-checked apron that she wore only for holidays.
“Ah, _Mammeniu_!” Felix would respond. “In honour of this shining
beautifulness, I’ll read something special for you,” and he would,
opening his Browning. At the words Rabbi Ben Ezra, _Mammeniu’s_ sigh
was the joy of a child in fairyland.
“Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made.”
Then like a child repeating its well-loved lesson for the hundredth
time, “_Nu_, I didn’t yet live out my years,” she would breathe
happily. “It will only begin my real life when my children work
themselves up in America.”
What matter if they had only potato-soup for supper--only the flavour
of fried onions in a little suet to take the place of meat? What
matter if the only two chairs were patched with boards and the rickety
table had for its support a potato barrel? Wonder and beauty filled the
room. Voices of poets and prophets of all time were singing in their
hearts.
And all that Minnie had given up. For what? For silver platters with
_gefulta_ fish. For roast squabs. For spiced jellies. And the dollar
music from cash registers.
Yes, Minnie, like this blustering Moe, had worked herself up in
America. She had a rich house, a Rolls-Royce car, a lady servant to
wait on her body. But what had happened to her spirit, her soul--the
soul that had once been watered and flowered with the love songs of a
poet?
“You see, in California nobody worries for bread,” broke in the heavy
guttural voice of Moe Mirsky. “People’s only trouble is how to enjoy
themselves.”
Excited, high-pitched voices from the hallway, and Minnie and Abe
entered. “So much your sister is crazy for you that she tore herself
away from the cards to be with you the first night,” said Abe with an
inquisitive, quizzical look at the young couple.
“And I was winning at the first shot, too,” Minnie added.
“My wife is the best poker player in the bunch,” Abe asserted. “Wait,
you’ll see Friday night when they come around.” And turning back to
Moe: “You’ve got to teach her quick the cards so she can join the
company.”
“Cards don’t go in her head at all.” Moe looked with unconcealed
proprietorship at his future wife. “I guess she ain’t yet used to a
little pleasure. Let’s only introduce her to our society, and she’ll
soon learn what it is in good time.”
The next few days were spent in a wild orgy of shopping. Not only was
Rebecca to be made presentable to the higher society in which generous
Abe was anxious she should shine, but Minnie was also preparing herself
for a month’s vacation in Cataline Islands with some of Abe’s new
real estate friends. As Abe’s wife it was a matter of business that
she should be more richly dressed than the wives of his prosperous
competitors.
For the first time in her life Rebecca saw things bought, not because
they were needed, but because they appealed to her sister’s insatiable
eye.
“When will you ever have enough things?” Rebecca remonstrated. “Why are
we going from store to store like a couple of drunkards from bar to
bar? The more you buy, the more drunk you get to buy more.”
“Just only this one dress. That’s the newest thing in style and so
becoming.”
“But you have so much already. Your closet is so stacked full.”
“I saw Mrs. Rosenbaum wear something like it. And Abe wouldn’t want she
should come dressed better than I.”
At last Rebecca was to meet her sister’s society friends. Although
Minnie and Abe despaired of making little Rebecca stylish, they were
satisfied by Friday night that at least she could be introduced without
her Delancey Street background too evident.
The dining-room table covered with green baize was piled high with
pyramids of poker chips. Packs of cards were on the table. A mahogany
cellarette laden with Scotch, cognac, bottles of White Rock and
high-ball glasses stood near by.
Minnie was radiant in a black-and-gold spangled dress. The shine of
Abe’s cheeks outshone the diamond that glistened from his shirt front.
Moe, who had arrived before the rest of the guests, had brought Rebecca
another heart-shaped gift, containing “the most smelly perfume in the
whole drug store.”
Before the guests arrived Moe devoted himself to showing Rebecca the
sequence of the cards, but try as she would she could make no sense out
of it.
“It’s such a waste of time. It’s so foolish, so brainless....”
“Is it foolish, brainless, to win five hundred, a thousand, in one
little night?” cried Moe, the ring of the cash register in his voice.
“It’s not only to win money,” broke in Minnie. “Cards are life to me.
When I play I get so excited I forget about everything. There’s no
past, no future--only the now, the life of the game.”
“Just the same,” put in Abe doggedly. “When you win you’re crazy to
grab in more, and when you lose you’re crazy to stake it all to win
again.”
Dimly Rebecca began to see the lure of gambling. It was as contagious
as small-pox. Minnie had caught the poison from Abe and his friends.
In a world where there was no music, no books, no spiritual stimulus,
where people had nothing but money, what else was there to fill the
eternal emptiness but excitement?
The guests arrived. Mrs. Rosenbaum and her husband, the biggest
department store owner of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Soikolsky, real
estate owners of half of Hollywood. Mr. Einstein, the Tecla of
California, whose wife and children had just sailed for the Orient.
As Rebecca was introduced to one solid citizen after another, she was
unable to distinguish between them. The repellently prosperous look of
the “all-rightnik” stamped them all. The vulgar boastfulness of the
man who had forced his way up in the world only to look down with smug
superiority upon his own people.
“Always with your thoughts in the air,” chuckled Moe, a stubby hand
tenderly reaching towards her.
The sad eyes of the little greenhorn stirred vague memories in
his heart. Warming things welled up in him to say to her. But Abe
interrupted by calling the guests to their places.
A wave of expectancy swept over the gathering as they elbowed
themselves about the table. Eyes sharp. Measuring glances shot from one
to the other. A business-like air settled upon the group.
Abe poured a generous drink of whisky for each. “_Nu_, my friends, only
get yourself drunk enough so I can have a chance to win once from you.”
A fresh pack of cards was opened. The deal fell to the tight-laced,
high-bosomed Mrs. Rosenbaum, whose fat fingers flashed with diamonds as
she dealt.
“You got to sit here, by me, all evening to bring me luck,” Moe
whispered in Rebecca’s ear, and drew a chair for her alongside of him.
An audible silence pervaded the room. The serious business of the game
began.
Unconsciously Rebecca was caught by the contagion of their excitement.
She even began to hope that Minnie would win, that she would bring luck
to the well-meaning Moe.
“Usual limit five dollars,” Abe declared.
Moe explained that the white chips represented one dollar, the blue
two, the red five, and the yellow ten.
Slowly the air became filled with smoke and the smell of alcohol. The
betting rose higher and higher. Rebecca could stand it no longer and
rushed from the room to the parlour. She looked with sharp distaste at
the gaudy furnishings. Till now she had been taken in by the glamour
of her sister’s wealth. But now the crowded riches of the place choked
her. Who had chosen all this? Her sister or her sister’s husband? Here
and there was a beautiful pillow or finely woven rug, but its beauty
was killed by the loud clash of colour, the harsh glare of cheap gilt.
Cheapness and showiness stuck like varnish over the costly fabrics of
the room. It was a sort of furniture display Rebecca had often seen in
department stores. It smelled cloaks and suits.
The vivid pale face of the poet, with eyes that burned with the fire of
beauty, gazed accusingly at the rich velvet hangings and overstuffed
furniture that had won Minnie away from him.
How different Minnie’s home would have been if she had married the
poet! A small room in a tenement. A bare floor. A bare table. A room
that lacked beautiful things but was filled with beautiful thoughts.
Felix Weinberg’s flaming presence, the books he read, the dreams he
dreamed, the high thoughts that lit up his face would have filled the
poorest room with sunshine.
The shrill voices of the dining-room startled her.
“Ach! What’s the matter?” Rebecca gasped in a panic. “Are they killing
themselves?” and hurried in.
She could hardly distinguish the faces, so thick was the air with smoke
and whisky fumes. The look of wild animals distorted their features.
Mrs. Rosenbaum’s hair had slipped from its net. Her own sister was
flushed, dishevelled. Moe’s face was set in sullen, bitter lines as he
called for more money. A scoffing devil of greed seemed to possess them
all. It was Bedlam let loose.
“No use showing that you come from Division Street, even if you did
lose a couple of hundred,” Minnie shrilled savagely at Moe.
“You’re worse than that push-cart, Kike,” leered the half-drunken Abe.
“What a wife! What a wife! She’d steal the whites out from my eyes.
She’d grab the gold out of my teeth.”
There followed an avalanche of abuse between her sister, her husband
and the sodden Moe. Rebecca had never heard such language used.
“They’re only drunk. They don’t know what they’re saying,” she
apologized for them herself.
Thank God, her mother, her father couldn’t see what cloaks and suits
had made of Minnie. Her own sister a common card-player! Where was that
gentle bud of a girl that Felix had loved? How was that fine spirit
of hers lost in this wild lust for excitement? And these people whom
she called friends, this very Moe whom she had picked out for her to
marry--what were they? All-rightniks--the curse of their people, the
shame of their race, Jews dehumanized, destroyed by their riches.
Glutted stomachs--starved souls, escaped from the prison of poverty to
smother themselves in the fleshpots of plenty.
It was towards noon the next day that Minnie with dull, puffy eyes and
aching head stumbled into Rebecca’s room. The half-filled valise was
on the bed, clothes were piled on chairs, and the trunk open as though
ready for packing.
“What’s this? Are you eloping with Moe?” Minnie was too spent from the
night of excitement to be surprised at anything, but a closer look at
Rebecca’s tear-stained face aroused her from her apathy. “_Yok!_ Can’t
you speak?” she demanded irritably.
“My God! How can you stand it here--this life of the flesh? What have
you here, in this land of plenty, but overeating, oversleeping----”
“Why shouldn’t I over-eat?” Minnie hurled back. “I was starved enough
all my youth. Never knew the taste of meat or milk till I came here. I
slaved long enough in the sweat-shop. The world owes me a little rest.”
Her face grew hard with bitter memories. “I don’t know how I stood it
there, in the dirt of Delancey Street, ten people in three rooms, like
herrings in a barrel, without a bath-tub, without----”
“Marble bath-tubs--bathing yourself morning and night don’t yet keep
your soul alive. How could you have sunk yourself into such drunken
card-playing?”
“If not for cards I’d be dead from loneliness. Are there any people
to talk to here?” She threw out bediamonded hands in a gesture of
helplessness. “I hate Abe like poison when he’s home so much of the
time. Cards and clothes help me run away from myself--help me forget
my terrible emptiness.” Minnie reached out imploringly to her sister.
“Here you see how I’m dying before your eyes, and yet you want to leave
me.”
Rebecca felt herself growing hard and inhuman. Didn’t she love her
sister enough to respond to her cry of loneliness? But the next moment
she knew that though it tore the heart out of her body she could never
stand this bloated ease of the flesh into which Minnie was trying to
beguile her.
“Would you want me to marry Moe and bury myself alive in cloaks and
suits like you? I’d rather starve on dry crusts where life is real,
where there’s still hope for higher things. It would kill me to stay
here another day. Your fine food, your fresh air, your velvet limousine
smothers me.... It’s all a desert of emptiness painted over with money.
Nothing is real. The sky is too blue. The grass is too green. This
beauty is all false paint, hiding dry rot. There’s only one hope for
you. Leave your killing comforts and come with me.”
“And what about the children?” Minnie leaped to her feet in quick
defence. “I want them to have a chance in life. I couldn’t bear to have
them go through the misery and dirt that nearly killed me. You’re not a
mother. You don’t know a mother’s heart.”
“Your mother’s heart--it’s only selfishness! You’re only trying to save
yourself the pain of seeing your children go through the struggle that
made you what you are. No,” she corrected, “that made you what you once
were.”
Rebecca towered over her sister like the living spirit of struggle
revolting against the deadening inertia of ease.
“What is this chance that you are giving your children? To rub sleeves
with millionaire children? Will that feed their hungry young hearts?
Fire their spirits for higher things? Children’s hands reach out for
struggle. Their youth is hungry for hardships, for danger, for the
rough fight with life even more than their bodies are hungry for bread.”
Minnie looked at her little sister. From where came that fire, that
passion? She saw again Felix Weinberg’s flaming eyes. She heard again
his biting truths, the very cadence of his voice.
Minnie buried her throbbing head in the pillows. As surely as Rebecca
sold ribbons over the counter at ten cents a yard, so surely Minnie
knew that she had sold her own soul for the luxuries which Abe’s money
had bought. And now it was out of her power to call this real part of
her back. The virus of luxury had eaten into her body and soul till she
could no longer exist without it.
“If I could only go back with you,” she sobbed impotently, “if I could
only go back.”
* * * * *
Love and hate tore at Rebecca’s heart--love of Minnie and hatred of
the fleshpots that were destroying her sister. The days and nights
of journey home were spent in tortured groping for the light.
Ach--sisters! Flesh of one flesh, blood of one blood, aching to help
one another in the loneliness of life, yet doomed like strangers to
meet only to part again.
If she could only talk out her confusion to someone. Felix Weinberg!
How he could make her clear! And suddenly she knew--knew with burning
certainty that after ten years of worshipping him at a distance she
must come to him face to face. Truth itself was driving her to him.
As she got off the train, her feet instinctively led her to the cellar
café on East Broadway, where far into the morning hours Felix Weinberg
and his high-thinking friends were to be found.
Even before she caught sight of him at a corner table surrounded by his
followers, she felt a vast release. She looked in through the grated
window. How different these--her own people--from the dollar-chasers
she had just left! The dirt, the very squalor of the place was life to
her, as the arrogant cleanliness, the strutting shirt-fronts of cloaks
and suits had deadened her. Here rags talked high thoughts and world
philosophies, like princes at a royal court. Here only what was in your
heart and head counted, not your bank account or the shine of your
diamonds.
Even the torn wall-plaster in this palace of dreams had a magic all its
own. The pictures, the poems, the fragmentary bits of self-expression
that were scribbled everywhere were marks of the vivid life that surged
about--clamouring to be heard.
She never knew how she got inside, but as in a dream she heard herself
talking to _him_--looking straight into Felix’s eyes in a miraculously
natural way as though her whole life was but a leading up to this grand
moment.
The youth who used to light up their little kitchen with his flaming
presence was gone. In his place had come a man grown strong with
suffering. Fine as silk and strong as steel shone every feature. He
was scarred with all the hurts of the world--hurts that lay like whip
lashes on the furrows of his face. She felt nothing would be too small
or too big for him to understand.
“Years ago when I was only that big at your feet,” Rebecca measured the
table height with her hand, “your words were life to me. Now I come
three thousand miles to talk my heart out with you.” And she told him
everything, her doubt of herself, her hard intolerance of the plain
bread-and-butter people, her revolt against her own flesh and blood.
His face lit with quick comprehension. He stopped sipping his glass
of tea and leaned towards her across the table. With every word, with
every gesture she revealed herself as one of his own kind! This girl
of whose existence he had scarcely been aware all these years seemed
suddenly to have grown up under his very eyes, and he had not seen her
till now.
“Don’t you see, little heart,” he responded warmly, “the dollars are
their dreams. They eat the fleshpots with the same passionate intensity
that they once fasted in faith on the Day of Atonement. They’ve been
hungry for so many centuries. Let them eat! Give them only a chance
for a few generations. They’ll find their souls again. The deeper down
under the surface you get, the more you see that the dollar-chasers are
also pursuing a dream, but their dream is different from ours, that is
all.”
“Where did you get to feel and know so much?” she breathed adoringly.
He did not answer. But his eyes dwelt on her in ardent reverie,
marvelling at the gift of the gods that she was. Through unceasing
frustration of the things for which he had striven, he had come to a
point of understanding the materialists no less than the dreamers. He
had learned to forgive even Minnie who had turned from his love for the
security of wealth. But here was the glowing innocence of a girl with
the heart and brain of a woman--a woman in his own poet’s world, one
who had rejected the fleshpots of her own free will. It was as though
after years of parching thirst life had suddenly brought him a draught
of wine, a heady vintage of youth, of living poetry, of love perhaps.
Straining closer to her, he abandoned himself to the exaltation that
swept him and kissed her hand.
“No--no! It was Minnie you always loved,” Rebecca gasped, frightened at
his ardour.
“Minnie I loved as a dreaming youth, a half-fledged poet,” he flashed
back at her. “But you--you----”
She knew now why she had come back home again--back to the naked
struggle for bread--back to the crooked, narrow streets filled
with shouting children, the haggling push-carts and bargaining
housewives--back to the relentless, penny-pinched poverty--but a
poverty rich in romance, in dreams--rich in its very hunger of
unuttered, unsung beauty.