after your marriage she will always throw it in your teeth that you
wished to marry her. Moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her
father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. Still, what is
done is done.” And he sighed regretfully.
“And what more do I want? I love her.”
“You piece of clay!” cried Sugarman, contemptuously. “Love will not turn
machines, much less buy them. You must have a dowry. Her father has a
big stocking; he can well afford it.”
Leibel’s eyes lit up. There was really no reason why he should not have
bread and cheese with his kisses.
“Now, if _you_ went to her father,” pursued the Shadchan, “the odds
are that he would not even give you his daughter--to say nothing of the
dowry. After all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. As you told me
from the first, you haven’t saved a penny. Even my commission you won’t
be able to pay till you get the dowry. But if _I_ go I do not despair of
getting a substantial sum--to say nothing of the daughter.”
“Yes, I think you had better go,” said Leibel, eagerly.
“But if I do this thing for you I shall want a pound more,” rejoined
Sugarman.
“A pound more!” echoed Leibel, in dismay. “Why?”
“Because Rose Green’s hump is of gold,” replied Sugarman, oracularly.
“Also, she is fair to see, and many men desire her.”
“But you have always your five per cent, on the dowry.”
“It will be less than Volcovitch’s,” explained Sugarman. “You see, Green
has other and less beautiful daughters.”
“Yes, but then it settles itself more easily. Say five shillings.”
“Eliphaz Green is a hard man,” said the Shadchan instead.
“Ten shillings is the most I will give!”
“Twelve and sixpence is the least I will take. Eliphaz Green haggles so
terribly.”
They split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the
predominance of Eliphaz Green’s stinginess over Volcovitch’s.
The very next day Sugarman invaded the Green workroom. Rose bent over
her seams, her heart fluttering. Leibel had duly apprised her of
the roundabout manner in which she would have to be won, and she had
acquiesced in the comedy. At the least it would save her the trouble of
father-taming.
Sugarman’s entry was brusque and breathless. He was overwhelmed with
joyous emotion. His blue bandana trailed agitatedly from his coat-tail.
“At last!” he cried, addressing the little white-haired master tailor;
“I have the very man for you.”
“Yes?” grunted Eliphaz, unimpressed. The monosyllable was packed with
emotion. It said, “Have you really the face to come to me again with an
ideal man?”
“He has all the qualities that you desire,” began the Shadchan, in a
tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. “He is young,
strong, God-fearing--”
“Has he any money?” grumpily interrupted Eliphaz.
“He _will_ have money,” replied Sugarman, unhesitatingly, “when he
marries.”
“Ah!” The father’s voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the treadle.
He worked one of his machines himself, and paid himself the wages so as
to enjoy the profit. “How much will he have?”
“I think he will have fifty pounds; and the least you can do is to let
him have fifty pounds,” replied Sugarman, with the same happy ambiguity.
Eliphaz shook his head on principle.
“Yes, you will,” said Sugarman, “when you learn how fine a man he is.”
The flush of confusion and trepidation already on Leibel’s countenance
became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what
was being said, owing to the lull of the master tailor’s machine.
“Tell me, then,” rejoined Eliphaz.
“Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy,
hard-working, God-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master
tailor on his own account? And you know how profitable that is!”
“To a man like that,” said Eliphaz, in a burst of enthusiasm, “I would
give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten!”
Sugarman groaned inwardly, but Leibel’s heart leaped with joy. To get
four months’ wages at a stroke! With twenty-seven pounds ten he could
certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment system.
Out of the corners of his eyes he shot a glance at Rose, who was beyond
earshot.
“Unless you can promise thirty it is waste of time mentioning his name,”
said Sugarman.
“Well, well--who is he?”
Sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father’s ear.
“What! Leibel!” cried Eliphaz, outraged.
“Sh!” said Sugarman, “or he will overhear your delight, and ask more. He
has his nose high enough, as it is.”
“B--b--b--ut,” sputtered the bewildered parent, “I know Leibel myself.
I see him every day. I don’t want a Shadchan to find me a man I know--a
mere hand in my own workshop!”
“Your talk has neither face nor figure,” answered Sugarman, sternly. “It
is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. I warrant
that if I had not put it into your head you would never have dreamt of
Leibel as a son-in-law. Come now, confess.”
Eliphaz grunted vaguely, and the Shadchan went on triumphantly: “I
thought as much. And yet where could you find a better man to keep your
daughter?”
“He ought to be content with her alone,” grumbled her father.
Sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength: “It’s
a question whether he will have her at all. I have not been to him about
her yet. I awaited your approval of the idea.” Leibel admired the verbal
accuracy of these statements, which he had just caught.
“But I didn’t know he would be having money,” murmured Eliphaz.
“Of course you didn’t know. That’s what the Shadchan is for--to point
out the things that are under your nose.”
“But where will he be getting this money from?”
“From you,” said Sugarman, frankly.
“From me?”
“From whom else? Are you not his employer? It has been put by for his
marriage day.”
“He has saved it?”
“He has not _spent_ it,” said Sugarman, impatiently.
“But do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds?”
“If he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages he would be
indeed a treasure,” said Sugarman. “Perhaps it might be thirty.”
“But you said fifty.”
“Well, _you_ came down to thirty,” retorted the Shadchan. “You cannot
expect him to have more than your daughter brings.”
“I never said thirty,” Eliphaz reminded him. “Twenty-seven ten was my
last bid.”
“Very well; that will do as a basis of negotiations,” said Sugarman,
resignedly. “I will call upon him this evening. If I were to go over
and speak to him now, he would perceive you were anxious, and raise his
terms, and that will never do. Of course you will not mind allowing me a
pound more for finding you so economical a son-in-law?”
“Not a penny more.”
“You need not fear,” said Sugarman, resentfully. “It is not likely I
shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law. So
you will be none the worse for promising.”
“Be it so,” said Eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started
his machine again.
“Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember,” said Sugarman, above the whir.
Eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheel-work louder.
“And paid before the wedding, mind.”
The machine took no notice.
“Before the wedding, mind,” repeated Sugarman. “Before we go under the
canopy.”
“Go now, go now!” grunted Eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. “It
shall all be well.” And the white-haired head bowed immovably over its
work.
In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman’s
visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.
“But dost thou think he will have me, little father?” she asked, with
cajoling eyes.
“Any one would have my Rose.”
“Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and
said nothing.”
“He had his work to think of. He is a good, saving youth.”
“At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him--not so? I
suppose he will want much money.”
“Be easy, my child.” And he passed his discoloured hand over her hair.
Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was
unobtainable under thirty pounds, and Eliphaz, weary of the contest,
called over Leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his
scientific chalk marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first
time. “I am not a man to bargain,” Eliphaz said, and so he gave the
young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere,
and work was suspended for five minutes, and the “hands” all drank
amid surprised excitement. Sugarman’s visits had prepared them to
congratulate Rose; but Leibel was a shock.
The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last
the marriage day came. Leibel was resplendent in a diagonal frockcoat,
cut by his own hand; and Rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers,
fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids,--her
sisters,--a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn pavement outside
the synagogue. Eliphaz looked almost tall in his shiny high hat and
frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-socked
little Ebenezer tucked under his arm.
Leibel and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was
the thirty-third day of the Omer--a day fruitful in marriages.
But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their turn,
and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had
lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken place
a whisper began to circulate. The rumour of a hitch gained ground
steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And, indeed, the rose was
not to be picked without a touch of the thorn.
Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran
through the waiting synagogue. Eliphaz had not paid up!
At first he declared he would put down the money immediately after the
ceremony. But the wary Sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its
instant delivery on behalf of his other client. Hard pressed, Eliphaz
produced ten sovereigns from his trousers-pocket, and tendered them on
account. These Sugarman disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were
suspended. The bridegroom’s party was encamped in one room, the bride’s
in another, and after a painful delay Eliphaz sent an emissary to say
that half the amount should be forthcoming, the extra five pounds in a
bright new Bank of England note. Leibel, instructed and encouraged by
Sugarman, stood firm.
And then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions; friends
rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in
the synagogue to add to the confusion. But Eliphaz had taken his stand
upon a rock--he had no more ready money. To-morrow, the next day, he
would have some. And Leibel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at those
machines that were slipping away momently from him. He had not yet seen
his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the
tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were married
women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From the female
camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that
tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. Eliphaz sent word
that he would give an I O U for the balance, but that he really could
not muster any more current coin. Sugarman instructed the ambassador to
suggest that Eliphaz should raise the money among his friends.
And the short spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of
the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed
them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the
Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only
orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of
solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling
tongues, as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal party still
failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead
faint. The afternoon was waning fast. The minister left his post near
the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add
his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared no better than
the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he
would close the synagogue. He gave the couple ten minutes to marry in
or quit. Then chaos came, and pandemonium--a frantic babel of suggestion
and exhortation from the crowd. When five minutes had passed a legate
from Eliphaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds,
and that this was their final bid.
Leibel wavered; the long day’s combat had told upon him; the reports
of the bride’s distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his
cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more and both commissions might
slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the synagogue, it would
not be easy to drive them there another day. But he cheered on his man
still: one could always surrender at the tenth minute.
At the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed
into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly swept
that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is
coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the
BRIDE herself--the poor hysteric bride--had left the paternal camp, was
coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover.
And as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed
upon Leibel’s vision his heart melted in worship, and he knew his
citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first touch.
Was it fair fighting? As his troubled vision cleared, and as she came
nigh unto him, he saw to his amazement that she was speckless and
composed--no trace of tears dimmed the fairness of her face, there was
no disarray in her bridal wreath.
The clock showed the ninth minute.
She put her hand appeallingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came
into her face--the expression of a Joan of Arc animating her country.
“Do not give in, Leibel!” she said. “Do not have me! Do not let them
persuade thee! By my life, thou must not! Go home!”
So at the eleventh minute the vanquished Eliphaz produced the balance,
and they all lived happily ever afterward.
AN IDYL OF LONDON, By Beatrice Harraden
It was one o’clock, and many of the students in the National Gallery
had left off work and were refreshing themselves with lunch and
conversation. There was one old worker who had not stirred from his
place, but he had put down his brush, and had taken from his pocket a
small book, which was like its owner--thin and shabby of covering. He
seemed to find pleasure in reading it, for he turned over its pages with
all the tenderness characteristic of one who loves what he reads. Now
and again he glanced at his unfinished copy of the beautiful portrait of
Andrea del Sarto, and once his eyes rested on another copy next to
his, better and truer than his, and once he stopped to pick up a girl’s
prune-coloured tie, which had fallen from the neighbouring easel.
After this he seemed to become unconscious of his surroundings, as
unconscious, indeed, as any one of the pictures near him. Any one might
have been justified in mistaking him for the portrait of a man, but that
his lips moved; for it was his custom to read softly to himself.
The students passed back to their places, not troubling to notice him,
because they knew from experience that he never noticed them, and that
all greetings were wasted on him and all words were wanton expenditure
of breath. They had come to regard him very much in the same way as many
of us regard the wonders of nature, without astonishment, without any
questionings, and often without any interest. One girl, a new-comer, did
chance to say to her companion:
“How ill that old man looks!”
“Oh, he always looks like that,” was the answer. “You will soon get
accustomed to him. Come along! I must finish my ‘Blind Beggar’ this
afternoon.”
In a few minutes most of the workers were busy again, although there
were some who continued to chat quietly, and several young men who
seemed reluctant to leave their girl friends, and who were by no means
encouraged to go! One young man came to claim his book and pipe, which
he had left in the charge of a bright-eyed girl, who was copying Sir
Joshua’s “Angels.” She gave him his treasures, and received in exchange
a dark-red rose, which she fastened in her belt; and then he returned
to his portrait of Mrs. Siddons. But there was something in his
disconsolate manner which made one suspect that he thought less of Mrs.
Siddons’s beauty than of the beauty of the girl who was wearing the
dark-red rose! The strangers, strolling through the rooms, stopped now
and again to peer curiously at the students’ work. They were stared at
indignantly by the students themselves, but they made no attempt to
move away, and even ventured sometimes to pass criticisms of no tender
character on some of the copies. The fierce-looking man who was copying
“The Horse Fair” deliberately put down his brushes, folded his arms,
and waited defiantly until they had gone by; but others, wiser in their
generation, went on painting calmly. Several workers were painting the
new Raphael; one of them was a white-haired old gentlewoman, whose hand
was trembling, and yet skilful still. More than once she turned to give
a few hints to the young girl near her, who looked in some distress
and doubt. Just the needful help was given, and then the girl plied
her brush merrily, smiling the while with pleasure and gratitude. There
seemed to be a genial, kindly influence at work, a certain homeliness
too, which must needs assert itself where many are gathered together,
working side by side. All made a harmony; the wonderful pictures,
collected from many lands and many centuries, each with its meaning and
its message from the past; the ever-present memories of the painters
themselves, who had worked and striven and conquered; and the living
human beings, each with his wealth of earnest endeavour and hope.
Meanwhile the old man read on uninterruptedly until two hands were put
over his book and a gentle voice said:
“Mr. Lindall, you have had no lunch again. Do you know, I begin to hate
Lucretius. He always makes you forget your food.”
The old man looked up, and something like a smile passed over his
joyless face when he saw Helen Stanley bending over him.
“Ah,” he answered, “you must not hate Lucretius. I have had more
pleasant hours with him than with any living person.”
He rose and came forward to examine her copy of Andrea del Sarto’s
portrait.
“Yours is better than mine,” he said, critically; “in fact, mine is
a failure. I think I shall only get a small price for mine; indeed, I
doubt whether I shall get sufficient to pay for my funeral.”
“You speak dismally,” she answered, smiling.
“I missed you yesterday,” he continued, half dreamily. “I left my work,
and I wandered through the rooms, and I did not even read Lucretius.
Something seemed to have gone from my life. At first I thought it must
be my favourite Raphael, or the Murillo; but it was neither the one nor
the other; it was you. That was strange, wasn’t it? But you know we get
accustomed to anything, and perhaps I should have missed you less the
second day, and by the end of a week I should not have missed you at
all. Mercifully, we have in us the power of forgetting.”
“I do not wish to plead for myself,” she said, “but I do not believe
that you or any one could really forget. That which outsiders call
forgetfulness might be called by the better name of resignation.”
“I don’t care about talking any more now,” he said, suddenly, and he
went to his easel and worked silently at his picture; and Helen Stanley
glanced at him, and thought she had never seen her old companion look
so forlorn and desolate as he did to-day. He looked as if no gentle hand
had ever been placed on him in kindliness and affection, and that seemed
to her a terrible thing; for she was one of those prehistorically minded
persons who persist in believing that affection is as needful to
human life as rain to flower life. When first she came to work at the
gallery--some twelve months ago--she had noticed this old man, and had
wished for his companionship; she was herself lonely and sorrowful, and,
although young, had to fight her own battles, and had learned something
of the difficulties of fighting, and this had given her an experience
beyond her years. She was not more than twenty-four years of age, but
she looked rather older, and, though she had beautiful eyes, full of
meaning and kindness, her features were decidedly plain as well as
unattractive. There were some in the gallery who said among themselves
that, as Mr. Lindall had waited so many years before talking to any one,
he might have chosen some one better worth the waiting for! But they
soon became accustomed to seeing Helen Stanley and Mr. Lindall together,
and they laughed less than before; and meanwhile the acquaintance
ripened into a sort of friendship, half sulky on his part and wholly
kind on her part. He told her nothing about himself, and he asked
nothing about herself; for weeks he never even knew her name. Sometimes
he did not speak at all, and the two friends would work silently side
by side until it was time to go; and then he waited until she was ready,
and walked with her across Trafalgar Square, where they parted and went
their own ways.
But occasionally, when she least expected it, he would speak with
glowing enthusiasm on art; then his eyes seemed to become bright, and
his bent figure more erect, and his whole bearing proud and dignified.
There were times, too, when he would speak on other subjects: on the
morality of free thought--on Bruno, of blessed memory, on him, and
scores of others too. He would speak of the different schools of
philosophy; he would laugh at himself, and at all who, having given time
and thought to the study of life’s complicated problems, had not reached
one step further than the Old-World thinkers. Perhaps he would quote one
of his favourite philosophers, and then suddenly relapse into silence,
returning to his wonted abstraction and to his indifference to his
surroundings. Helen Stanley had learned to understand his ways and to
appreciate his mind, and, without intruding on him in any manner, had
put herself gently into his life as his quiet champion and his friend.
No one in her presence dared speak slightingly of the old man, or to
make fun of his tumble-down appearance, or of his worn-out silk hat with
a crack in the side, or of his rag of a black tie, which, together with
his overcoat, had “seen better days.” Once she brought her needle and
thread, and darned the torn sleeve during her lunch-time; and, though he
never knew it, it was a satisfaction to her to have helped him.
To-day she noticed that he was painting badly, and that he seemed
to take no interest in his work; but she went on busily with her own
picture, and was so engrossed in it that she did not at first observe
that he had packed up his brushes and was preparing to go home.
“Three more strokes,” he said, quietly, “and you will have finished your
picture. I shall never finish mine; perhaps you will be good enough to
set it right for me. I am not coming here again. I don’t seem to have
caught the true expression; what do you think? But I am not going to let
it worry me, for I am sure you will promise to do your best for me. See,
I will hand over these colours and these brushes to you, and no doubt
you will accept the palette as well. I have no further use for it.”
Helen Stanley took the palette which he held out toward her, and looked
at him as though she would wish to question him.
“It is very hot here,” he continued, “and I am going out. I am tired of
work.”
He hesitated, and then added, “I should like you to come with me, if you
can spare the time.”
She packed up her things at once, and the two friends moved slowly away,
he gazing absently at the pictures, and she wondering in her mind as to
the meaning of his strange mood.
When they were on the steps inside the building, he turned to Helen
Stanley and said:
“I should like to go back to the pictures once more. I feel as if I must
stand among them just a little longer. They have been my companions for
so long that they are almost part of myself. I can close my eyes and
recall them faithfully. But I want to take a last look at them; I want
to feel once more the presence of the great masters, and to refresh my
mind with their genius. When I look at their work I think of their life,
and can only wonder at their death. It was so strange that they should
die.”