I returned to my window and gazed curiously at the _Klaus_, and now
that my eye was upon it I saw it was astir with restless life. Men
came and went continually. I looked toward the synagogue, and the more
pretentious building seemed dead. Then I remembered what Yarchi had
told me, that the _Chassidim_ had revolted against set prayer-times.
("They pray and drink at all hours," was his way of putting it.)
Something must always be forward in the _Klaus_, I thought, as I took
my hat and stick, on exploring bent. Instinctively I put my pistol in
my hip pocket, then bethought myself with a laugh that I was not
likely to be molested by the "pious ones." But as it was unloaded, I
let it remain in the pocket.
I slipped into the building and on to a bench near the door. But for
the veiled Ark at the end, I should not have known the place for a
house of worship. True, some men were sitting or standing about,
shouting and singing, with odd spasmodic gestures, but the bulk were
lounging, smoking clay pipes, drinking coffee, and chattering, while a
few, looking like tramps, lay snoring on the hard benches, deaf to all
the din. My eye sought at once for the Wonder Rabbi himself, but amid
the many quaint physiognomies there was none with any apparent seal of
supremacy. The note of all the faces was easy-going good-will, and
even the passionate contortions of melody and body which the
worshippers produced, the tragic clutchings at space, the clinching of
fists, and the beating of breasts had an air of cheery impromptu. They
seemed to enjoy their very tears. And every now and then the
inspiration would catch one of the gossipers and contort him likewise,
while a worshipper would as suddenly fall to gossiping.
Very soon a frost-bitten old man I remembered coming across in the
cemetery on the mountain-slope, where he was sweeping the fallen
leaves from a tomb, and singing like the grave-digger in _Hamlet_,
sidled up to me and asked me if I needed vodka. I thought it advisable
to need some, and was quickly supplied from a box the old fellow
seemed to keep under the Ark. The price was so moderate that I tipped
him with as much again, doubtless to the enhancement of the "rich
stranger's" reputation. Sipping it, I was able to follow with more
show of ease the bursts of rambling conversation. Sometimes they
talked about the floods, anon about politics, then about sacred texts
and the illuminations of the _Zohar_. But there was one topic which
ran like a winding pattern through all the talk, bursting in at the
most unexpected places, and this was the wonders wrought by their
rabbi.
As they dilated "with enkindlement" upon miracle after miracle, some
wrought on earth and some in the higher spheres to which his soul
ascended, my curiosity mounted, and calling for more vodka, "Where is
the rabbi?" I asked the sexton.
"He may perhaps come down to lunch," said he, in reverent accents, as
if to imply that the rabbi was now in the upper spheres. I waited till
tables were spread with plain fare in the _Klaus_ itself. At the
savour the fountain of worship was sealed; the snorers woke up. I was
invited to partake of the meal, which, I was astonished to find, was
free to all, provided by the rabbi.
"Truly royal hospitality," I thought. But our royal host himself did
not "come down."
My neighbour, of whom I kept inquiring, at last told me,
sympathetically, to have patience till Friday evening, when the rabbi
would come to welcome in the Sabbath. But as it was then Tuesday,
"Cannot I call upon him?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Ben David holds his court no more this year," he
said. "He is in seclusion, preparing for the exalted soul-flights of
the pilgrim season. The Sabbath is his only public day now."
There was nothing for it but to wait till the Friday eve, though in
the meantime I got Yarchi to show me the royal palace--a plain
two-storied Oriental-looking building with a flat roof, and a turret
on the eastern side, whose high, ivy-mantled slit of window turned at
the first rays of the sun into a great diamond.
"He couldn't come down, couldn't he?" Yarchi commented. "I daresay he
wasn't sober enough."
Somehow this jarred upon me. I was beginning to conjure up romantic
pictures, and assuredly my one glimpse of the sect had not shown any
intoxication save psychic.
"He is very generous, anyhow," I said. "He supplies a free lunch."
"Free to him," retorted the incorrigible Yarchi. "The worshippers
fancy it is free, but it is they who pay for it." And he snuffed
himself, chuckling. "I'll tell you what is free," he added. "His
morals!"
"But how do you know?"
"Oh, all those fellows go in for the Adamite life."
"What is the Adamite life?"