It was at the head of a dozen venerable Talmudists, including the
rabbi of the congregation, that Asriel returned from the synagogue
next Saturday morning. The learned company was entertained with wine,
cold fish, and some of the lemon pie and genuine Yiddish pastry for
which Tamara was famous.
"Here is life, Mr. Stroon! Here is life, Shaya!" each of the guests
said, raising his glass.
"Life and peace! Life and peace!" was the uniform response.
"God bless the union and let them live a hundred and twenty years,"
pursued Reb Mendele, a little man with luxuriant red sidelocks, as he
reached for a piece of Sabbath cake.
"And grant that they give birth to children and bring them up to the
Law, the Bridal Canopy, and deeds of righteousness," chimed in
another, whose ear-locks were two sorry corkscrew-like appendages, as
he held up a slice of fish on the points of his fork.
"And Shaya continue a child of the Law and study it with never-failing
zeal," came from between a dangling pair of tubes.
"That's the point!" emphasized a chorus of munching mouths.
"But where is the bride?" somebody demanded. "She must show herself!
she must show herself!"
"That's right," Reb Mendele seconded heartily. "Out with the bride!
'And the daughters of Jerusalem come out dancing,'" he quoted; "and
what do they say? 'Lift thine eyes, young man, and behold the maiden
thou choosest. Do not set thine eye on beauty, but'"--He broke off
abruptly, reddening. The remainder of the quoted passage runs as
follows: "Set thine eye (the maidens say to the young man) on good
family connections, as is written in Proverbs: 'False is grace and
vain is beauty: a woman that feareth the Lord shall indeed be
praised.'" It would have been anything but appropriate to the
occasion, and while the Chaldaic and the Hebrew of the citation were
Greek to Asriel, there was the prodigy to resent it.
Another hoary-headed child of the Law interposed: "'Go forth and look,
O ye daughters of Zion, on King Solomon, with the crown wherewith his
mother hath crowned him on the day of his espousals, and on the day of
the joy of his heart.' Saith the Talmud: 'By "the day of his
espousals" is meant the day of the Giving of the Law.' Accordingly,
when Shaya's wedding takes place, if God be pleased, it will be an
espousal in the literal as well as in the Talmudic sense, for is he
not full of Law? It will therefore be the Giving of the Law in
marriage to Reb Asriel's daughter, will it not?"
"Never mind blushing, Shaya," said the rabbi, although the prodigy,
engrossed with the "paradise taste" of the lemon pie,--a viand he had
never dreamed of,--and keeping a sharp eye on the dwindling contents
of the tart-dish, was too busy to blush.
Flora was in her bedroom, the place of her voluntary exile most of the
time that her compulsory sweetheart was in the house. Her father was
kind and attentive to her, as usual, and never mentioned Shaya's name
to her. But she knew that he was irrevocably bent upon the marriage,
and her mood often verged on suicide. Could it really be that after
all her cherished dreams of afternoon drives in Central Park, in a
doctor's buggy and with the doctor himself by her side, she was doomed
to be the wife of that clumsy rustic, who did not even know how to
shake hands or to bow to a lady, and who could not say a word without
performing some grotesque gesture or curling his horrid sidelocks? Oh,
what would the girls say! She had twitted them on the broken English
of their otherwise worldly and comparatively well-mannered
sweethearts, and now she herself was matched with that wretch of a
holy soul!
And yet Shaya was never in her mind invested in the image of a "clumsy
rustic" nor of a "holy soul." Whenever she saw him she would screw up
a frown, but on one occasion, when their eyes met across the
supper-table, they could not help smiling to each other, like children
at church.
"Flora dear, I want to speak to you," Asriel said, knocking at the
locked door of her hiding-place.
"Leave me alone, papa, will you? I've got a headache," she responded.
"That's all right, but unlock the door. I won't eat you up."
She was burning to have her father broach the painful subject, so that
she might have it out with him. With that end in view, she set her
teeth and turned the key. But Asriel came in so unaggressive, so meek,
in a pleading attitude so utterly unlike him, that he took her by
surprise, as it were, and she stood completely disarmed.
"I beg you, my daughter, do not shorten my days, and come downstairs,"
he entreated with heartfelt ardor. "I have so little to live, and the
Uppermost has sent me a piece of comfort so that I may die a
righteous Jew,--will you take it away from me? Will you put me to
shame before God and man?"
The words and the pathos with which they were delivered so oddly
contrasted with all she knew of her father that she felt as if he were
really praying for his life. She was deeply touched and dazed, and
before she knew what she was about, found herself in the crowded
little dining-room below.
"Good Sabbath, Flora, good Sabbath!" the venerable assemblage greeted
her.
"Good Sabbath!" she returned, bowing gracefully, and blushing.
"May your guest be pleasing to you," one of the company went on in
time-honored phrase; "and, if God be pleased, we shall live to make
merry at your wedding."
Flora's face turned a deeper red.
Several of the Talmudists were itching for some banter at the expense
of the young pair, but the American girl's dignified bearing and her
commanding figure and dress bore down every tendency in that
direction, so that the scholarly old gentlemen turned their
overflowing spirits in other channels.
"Give us some Law, Shaya!" said Reb Mendele, with a Talmudic wave of
both hands.
"That's right," the others concurred. "Your prospective father-in-law
is feasting us upon fare of the earth, and it is meet that you should
regale us with Words of Law."
Shaya, his face as red as Flora's, was eyeing the tablecloth as he
murmured,--
"'No conversing during repast.'"
"Words of Law are no converse," Reb Mendele retorted.
"The Commentary adds: 'Not so much as to quote the precept about
silence during repast,'" Shaya rejoined reluctantly, without raising
his eyes. "Now the precept is Words of the Law, is it not? Which means
that the prohibition does extend to Words of Law."
Apart from his embarrassment, the prodigy was somehow loath to engage
in a spiritual discussion in the presence of the stylish young lady.
"Why did you quote it then?" Reb Mendele pursued aggressively. He
referred to two other passages, in support of his position; and Shaya,
with his eyes still on the tablecloth, and refraining from all
gesticulation, could not help showing the irrelevance of both. It was
a "knock-out blow," but his red-bearded opponent cleverly extricated
himself from the ignominy of his defeat by assuming an amused air, as
if it had all been mere bait to decoy the prodigy to a display of his
erudition and mental powers; and retaining his smile against further
emergency, Reb Mendele hazarded another assault. Some of the other
Talmudists took a hand. The battle waxed hot, though Shaya, fighting
single-handed against half a dozen elders, remained calm, and parried
their blows with a shamefaced but contemptuous look, never raising a
finger nor his eyes from the tablecloth. Once in the fray, he would
not have Flora see him get the worst of it.
She, on her part, could not help a growing interest in the debate, and
finally accepted the chair which Tamara had tenderly placed by her
side five minutes before. To be sure, she understood not a word of the
controversy. To her it was something like a boxing-match, with every
exciting element of the sport, but without any of its violence (which
alone kept Flora from attending pugilistic performances), though the
arms and fingers of our venerable combatants were even more active
than are the arms and fists of two athletes in a modern ring. As she
watched the progress of the discussion she became conscious of a
decided partisan feeling in favor of the younger man. "It ain't fair a
bit!" she said to herself. "Six old-timers against one boy--I
declare!"
Asriel and Tamara, to both of whom the contest was as unintelligible
as it was to Flora, were so abandoned to their admiration of the
youthful disputant that they omitted to notice the girl's undisguised
interest in the scene and to congratulate themselves upon it. The host
followed the controversy with a sheepish look of reverence, as if the
company were an assemblage of kings. The housekeeper looked on with a
beaming face, and every time one of the patriarchs made a bold attack,
she would nod her head as if she understood it all, and conceded the
strength of his contention.
Egged on by Flora's presence as well as by the onslaughts of his
adversaries, Shaya gradually warmed up to the debate, until, having
listened, with sardonic patience, to a lengthy and heated argument by
a fleshy child of the Law, he suddenly leaped upon his man.
"Is this the way you understand the passage?" he shouted, with a
vicious chuckle. Then, thrusting his curly head in his opponent's
face, and savagely gesticulating, he poured forth a veritable cataract
of the most intricate syllogisms and quotations.
It was quite a new Shaya. His blue eyes flashed fire, his whole
countenance gleamed, his sing-song rang with tuneful ferocity.
"But it seems to me that Rabbi Yohanon does not say that," the portly
Talmudist objected. "I am afraid you have misquoted him."
It was the drowning man's straw. Even Flora, who understood the
Yiddish of the retort, could see that; and her heart bounded with
cruel delight.
"Have I? You are sure, are you?" Shaya demanded, with boyish
virulence. "All right. We shall see!" With which he darted out of the
room and upstairs.
"The boy is a _gaon_,"[4] the corpulent old man remarked humbly. "What
a head! What a memory, what a _chariff_!"[5]
[4] A genius.
[5] Acute intellect.
"Yes, and what a _bokki_!"[6] chimed in the rabbi. "One cannot help
wondering when he had time to study up so much."
[6] Man of erudition.
"He'll just take a peep at a book and then he knows it all by heart,"
put in Asriel. "He licked all the rabbis around Pravly."
The boorish remark disposed some of the listeners to laugh, but they
did not.
"You have got a treasure, Mr. Stroon," said Reb Mendele.
"You bet!" the host answered with a blissful simper, as he took to
stroking his daughter's hair.
"You know what the Talmud says, Mr. Stroon?" resumed the rabbi. "That
he who supports a scholar of the Law is like unto him who offers
sacrifices."
"I know," Asriel returned exultingly. At the Pravly synagogue the
preacher had applied the same quotation to Reb Lippe.
Presently Shaya returned with a pile of huge volumes in his arms. His
citation proved correct, and meeting with no further opposition, but
too far carried away by the subject to quit it so soon, he volunteered
an extemporaneous discourse. His face was now wrapped in genial,
infantile ecstasy and his intonation was a soft, impassioned melody.
The old man followed him with paternal admiration.
When he concluded and leaned back in his chair, he gave Flora a
triumphant smile. The color mounted to her cheeks and she dropped her
gaze. At the same moment Asriel flung himself upon the young hero.
"Oh, you dear little sparrow!" he exclaimed, lifting Shaya in his arms
like a baby, and passionately kissing him.
Tamara wiped her eyes with her apron. Flora had a mind to flee for
safety, but she forthwith saw herself out of danger, for her father
seemed unmindful of her presence, and the first thing he did as he let
the prodigy down was to invite his guests upstairs to show them the
newly imported library.
As the patriarchal company was filing out of the dining-room, Shaya,
passing by Flora, said to her gleefully:--
"I gave it to them, didn't I?"
"Tell me now," said Tamara, when the two women found themselves alone
in the room; "ought you not to thank God for such a treasure of a
sweetheart?"
"He is nothing of the kind to me," Flora burst out, "and he never will
be, either. I don't care how long papa is going to keep him in the
house."