Asriel found his daughter playing.
"Stop that or I'll smash your Gentile piano to pieces!" he commanded
her, feeling as though the instrument had all along been in the
conspiracy and were now bidding him defiance.
"Why, what's the matter?" she questioned, getting up from her stool in
stupefaction.
"Matter? Bluff a dead rooster, not me--my head is still on my
shoulders. Here it is, you see?" he added, taking himself by the head.
"It's all up, Flora."
"What do you mean?" she made out to inquire.
"I mean that if Shayke[12] ever enters this house I'll murder both of
you. You thought your papa was a fool, didn't you? Well, you are a
poor hand at figuring, Flora. I knew everything, but I wanted some
particulars. I have got them all now here, in my pocket, and a minute
ago I took the pleasure of bidding him 'bless the sitter' in a Gentile
restaurant--may he be choked with his treife gorge!"
[12] Contemptuous diminutive of Shaya.
"You've got no business to curse him like that!" she flamed out,
coloring violently.
"_I_ have no business? And who is to stop me, pray?"
"_I_ am. It ain't my fault. You know I did not care at first."
The implication that he had only himself to blame threw him into a new
frenzy. But he restrained himself, and said with ghastly
deliberation:--
"Flora, you are not going to marry him."
"I _am_. I can't live without him," she declared with quiet emphasis.
Asriel left her room.
* * * * *
"It's all gone, Tamara! My candle is blown out," he said, making his
way from the dining-room to the kitchen. "There is no Shaya any
longer."
"A weeping, a darkness to me! Has an accident--mercy and
peace!--befallen the child?"
"Yes, he is 'dead and buried, and gone from the market-place.' Worse
than that: a convert Jew is worse than a dead one. It's all gone,
Tamara!" he repeated gravely. "I have just seen him eating treife in
a Gentile restaurant. America has robbed me of my glory."
"Woe is me!" the housekeeper gasped, clutching at her wig. "Treife!
Does he not get enough to eat here?" She then burst out, "Don't I
serve him the best food there is in the world? Any king would be glad
to get such dinners."
"Well, it seems treife tastes better," Asriel rejoined bitterly.
"A calamity upon my sinful head! We must have evil-eyed the child; we
have devoured him with our admiring looks."
While Asriel was answering her volley of questions, Flora stealthily
left the house.
When Stroon missed her he hurried off to Clinton Street. There he
learned of the landlady that her lodger had left a short while before,
in the company of his friend and a young lady whom the two young men
had found waiting in her parlor. In his despair Asriel betook himself
to the Astor Library, to some of Flora's friends, and even to the
Bowery restaurant.
When he reached home, exhausted with fatigue and rage, he found his
daughter in her room.
"Where have you been?" he demanded, sternly.
"I'll tell you where, but don't aggravate yourself, papaly," she
replied in beseeching, tearful accents.
"Where have you been?"
"I am going to tell you, but don't blame Shaya. He is awful fond of
you. It's all my fault. He didn't want to go, but I couldn't help it,
papaly. We've been to the city court and got married by a judge. Shaya
didn't want to."
"You married!"
"Yes, but don't be angry, papaly darlin'. We'll do everything to
please you. If you don't want him to be a doctor, he won't."
"A doctor!" he resumed, still speaking like one in a daze. "Is that
what you have been up to? I see--you have got the best of me, after
all. You married, Flora?" he repeated, unable to apply the meaning of
the word to his daughter. "In court--without Canopy and
Dedication--like Gentiles? What have you done, Flora?" He sank into a
chair, gnashing his teeth and tearing at his sidelocks.
"Papaly, papaly, don't!" she sobbed, hugging and kissing him. "You
know I ain't to blame for it all."
It dawned upon him that no serious wrong had been committed, after
all, and that it could all be mended by a Jewish marriage ceremony;
and so great was his relief at the thought that it took away all his
anger, and he even felt as if he were grateful to his daughter for not
being guilty of a graver transgression than she was.
"I know you are not to blame," he said, tragic in his calmness.
"America has done it all. But what is the use talking! It's gone, and
I am not going to take another sin upon my soul. I won't let you be
his wife without Canopy and Dedication. Let the Jewish wedding come
off at once--this week--to-morrow. You have got the best of me and I
don't kick, do I? It seems God does not want Asrielke the boor to have
some joy in his old age, nor a Kaddish for his soul, when the worms
will be feasting upon his silly bones"--
"Oh, don't say that, papa. It'll break my heart if you do. You know
Shaya is as good as a son to you."
"An appikoros my son? An appikoros my Kaddish? No," he rejoined,
shaking his head pensively.
As he said it he felt as if Flora, too, were a stranger to him.
He descended to the basement in a state of mortal indifference.
"I have lost everything, Tamara," he said. "I have no daughter,
either. I am all alone in the world--alone as a stone."
He had no sooner closed the kitchen door behind him, than Flora was
out and away to Clinton Street to surprise her bridegroom with the
glad news of her father's surrender.
The housekeeper was in the kitchen, sewing upon some silk vestments
for the scrolls of her synagogue. Asriel stood by her side, leaning
against the cupboard door, in front of the Palestine box. Speaking in
a bleak, resigned undertone, he told her of Flora's escapade and of
his determination to make the best of it by precipitating the Jewish
ceremony. A gorgeous celebration was now, of course, out of the
question. The proposed fête which was to have been the talk of the
synagogues and which had been the centre of his sweetest dreams had
suddenly turned in his imagination to something like a funeral feast.
Tamara bade him be of good cheer, and cited Rabbi Nochum And-This-Too,
who would hail the severest blows of fate with the words: "And this,
too, is for the best." But Asriel would not be comforted.
"Yes, Tamara, it is gone, all gone," he murmured forlornly. "It was
all a dream,--a last year's lemon pie. It has flown away and you can't
catch it. Gone, and that's all. You know how I feel? As if some fellow
had played a joke on me."
The pious woman was moved.
"But it is a sin to take things so close to heart," she said
impetuously. "You must take care of your health. Bear up under your
affliction like a righteous Jew, Reb Asriel. Trust to the Uppermost,
and you will live to rejoice in your child and in her children, if God
be pleased."
Asriel heaved a sigh and fell silent. He stood with his eyes upon the
pilgrim box, listening to the whisper of her needle.
"You know what; let us go to the Land of Israel," he presently said,
as though continuing an interrupted sentence. "They have got the best
of me. I cannot change the world. Let them live as they please and be
responsible to the Uppermost for themselves. I don't care the kernel
of a hollow nut. I shall give Flora half my property and the rest I'll
sell. You are a righteous woman, Tamara. Why not marry and end our
days serving God in the Holy Land together?"
Tamara plied her needle with redoubled zeal. He could see only her
glossy black wig and the flaming dusk of her cheek.
"We'll have a comfortable living and plenty of money for deeds of
charity," he pursued. "I know I am only a boor. Do I say I am not? But
is a boor no human being at all? Can't I die a righteous Jew?" he
pleaded piteously.
The glossy wig bent lower and the silk rustled busily.
"You know that I have on my tongue what I have on my lung, Tamara. I
mean what I say, and we want no matchmakers. America is now treife to
me. I can't show my head. The world is dark and empty to me. All is
gone, gone, gone. I am a little baby, Tamara. Come, take pity. I shall
see Flora married according to the laws of Moses and Israel, and then
let us put up a canopy and set out on our journey. I want to be born
again. Well?"
There was no response.
"Well, Tamara?"
"Since it is the will of God," she returned resignedly, without
raising her head from the vestments.