MR COHEN, who had obtained the situation indirectly for Clara, thought
nothing more about it until, one day, he went to the shop, and he then
recollected his recommendation, which had been given solely in faith, for
he had never seen the young woman, and had trusted entirely to Marshall.
He found her at her dark desk, and as he approached her, she hastily put
a mark in a book and closed it.
‘Have you sold a little volume called _After Office Hours_ by a man named
Robinson?’
‘I did not know we had it. I have never seen it.’
‘I do not wonder, but I saw it here about six months ago; it was up
there,’ pointing to a top shelf. Clara was about to mount the ladder,
but he stopped her, and found what he wanted. Some of the leaves were
torn.
‘We can repair those for you; in about a couple of days it shall be
ready.’
He lingered a little, and at that moment another customer entered. Clara
went forward to speak to him, and Cohen was able to see that it was the
_Heroes and Hero Worship_ she had been studying, a course of lectures
which had been given by a Mr Carlyle, of whom Cohen knew something. As
the customer showed no signs of departing, Cohen left, saying he would
call again.
Before sending Robinson’s _After Office Hours_ to the binder, Clara
looked at it. It was made up of short essays, about twenty altogether,
bound in dark-green cloth, lettered at the side, and published in 1841.
They were upon the oddest subjects: such as, _Ought Children to learn
Rules before Reasons_? _The Higher Mathematics and Materialism_. _Ought
We to tell Those Whom We love what We think about Them_? _Deductive
Reasoning in Politics_. _What Troubles ought We to Make Known and What
ought We to Keep Secret_: _Courage as a Science and an Art_.
Clara did not read any one essay through, she had no time, but she was
somewhat struck with a few sentences which caught her eye; for example—‘A
mere dream, a vague hope, ought in some cases to be more potent than a
certainty in regulating our action. The faintest vision of God should be
more determinative than the grossest earthly assurance.’
‘I knew a case in which a man had to encounter three successive trials of
all the courage and inventive faculty in him. Failure in one would have
been ruin. The odds against him in each trial were desperate, and
against ultimate victory were overwhelming. Nevertheless, he made the
attempt, and was triumphant, by the narrowest margin, in every struggle.
That which is of most value to us is often obtained in defiance of the
laws of probability.’
‘What is precious in Quakerism is not so much the doctrine of the Divine
voice as that of the preliminary stillness, the closure against other
voices and the reduction of the mind to a condition in which it can
_listen_, in which it can discern the merest whisper, inaudible when the
world, or interest, or passion, are permitted to speak.’
‘The acutest syllogiser can never develop the actual consequences of any
system of policy, or, indeed, of any change in human relationship, man
being so infinitely complex, and the interaction of human forces so
incalculable.’
‘Many of our speculative difficulties arise from the unauthorised
conception of an _omnipotent_ God, a conception entirely of our own
creation, and one which, if we look at it closely, has no meaning. It is
because God _could_ have done otherwise, and did not, that we are
confounded. It may be distressing to think that God cannot do any
better, but it is not so distressing as to believe that He might have
done better had He so willed.’
Although these passages were disconnected, each of them seemed to Clara
to be written in a measure for herself, and her curiosity was excited
about the author. Perhaps the man who called would say something about
him.
Baruch Cohen was now a little over forty. He was half a Jew, for his
father was a Jew and his mother a Gentile. The father had broken with
Judaism, but had not been converted to any Christian church or sect. He
was a diamond-cutter, originally from Holland, came over to England and
married the daughter of a mathematical instrument maker, at whose house
he lodged in Clerkenwell. The son was apprenticed to his maternal
grandfather’s trade, became very skilful at it, worked at it himself,
employed a man and a boy, and supplied London shops, which sold his
instruments at about three times the price he obtained for them. Baruch,
when he was very young, married Marshall’s elder sister, but she died at
the birth of her first child and he had been a widower now for nineteen
years. He had often thought of taking another wife, and had seen, during
these nineteen years, two or three women with whom he had imagined
himself to be really in love, and to whom he had been on the verge of
making proposals, but in each case he had hung back, and when he found
that a second and a third had awakened the same ardour for a time as the
first, he distrusted its genuineness. He was now, too, at a time of life
when a man has to make the unpleasant discovery that he is beginning to
lose the right to expect what he still eagerly desires, and that he must
beware of being ridiculous. It is indeed a very unpleasant discovery.
If he has done anything well which was worth doing, or has made himself a
name, he may be treated by women with respect or adulation, but any
passable boy of twenty is really more interesting to them, and,
unhappily, there is perhaps so much of the man left in him that he would
rather see the eyes of a girl melt when she looked at him than be adored
by all the drawing-rooms in London as the author of the greatest poem
since _Paradise Lost_, or as the conqueror of half a continent. Baruch’s
life during the last nineteen years had been such that he was still
young, and he desired more than ever, because not so blindly as he
desired it when he was a youth, the tender, intimate sympathy of a
woman’s love. It was singular that, during all those nineteen years, he
should not once have been overcome. It seemed to him as if he had been
held back, not by himself, but by some external power, which refused to
give any reasons for so doing. There was now less chance of yielding
than ever; he was reserved and self-respectful, and his manner towards
women distinctly announced to them that he knew what he was and that he
had no claims whatever upon them. He was something of a philosopher,
too; he accepted, therefore, as well as he could, without complaint, the
inevitable order of nature, and he tried to acquire, although often he
failed, that blessed art of taking up lightly and even with a smile
whatever he was compelled to handle. ‘It is possible,’ he said once, ‘to
consider death too seriously.’ He was naturally more than half a Jew;
his features were Jewish, his thinking was Jewish, and he believed after
a fashion in the Jewish sacred books, or, at anyrate, read them
continuously, although he had added to his armoury defensive weapons of
another type. In nothing was he more Jewish than in a tendency to dwell
upon the One, or what he called God, clinging still to the expression of
his forefathers although departing so widely from them. In his ethics
and system of life, as well as in his religion, there was the same
intolerance of a multiplicity which was not reducible to unity. He
seldom explained his theory, but everybody who knew him recognised the
difference which it wrought between him and other men. There was a
certain concord in everything he said and did, as if it were directed by
some enthroned but secret principle.
He had encountered no particular trouble since his wife’s death, but his
life had been unhappy. He had no friends, much as he longed for
friendship, and he could not give any reasons for his failure. He saw
other persons more successful, but he remained solitary. Their needs
were not so great as his, for it is not those who have the least but
those who have the most to give who most want sympathy. He had often
made advances; people had called on him and had appeared interested in
him, but they had dropped away. The cause was chiefly to be found in his
nationality. The ordinary Englishman disliked him simply as a Jew, and
the better sort were repelled by a lack of geniality and by his inability
to manifest a healthy interest in personal details. Partly also the
cause was that those who care to speak about what is nearest to them are
very rare, and most persons find conversation easy in proportion to the
remoteness of its topics from them. Whatever the reasons may have been,
Baruch now, no matter what the pressure from within might be, generally
kept himself to himself. It was a mistake and he ought not to have
retreated so far upon repulse. A word will sometimes, when least
expected, unlock a heart, a soul is gained for ever, and at once there is
much more than a recompense for the indifference of years.
After the death of his wife, Baruch’s affection spent itself upon his son
Benjamin, whom he had apprenticed to a firm of optical instrument makers
in York. The boy was not very much like his father. He was indifferent
to that religion by which his father lived, but he inherited an aptitude
for mathematics, which was very necessary in his trade. Benjamin also
possessed his father’s rectitude, trusted him, and looked to him for
advice to such a degree that even Baruch, at last, thought it would be
better to send him away from home in order that he might become a little
more self-reliant and independent. It was the sorest of trials to part
with him, and, for some time after he left, Baruch’s loneliness was
intolerable. It was, however, relieved by a visit to York perhaps once
in four or five months, for whenever business could be alleged as an
excuse for going north, he managed, as he said, ‘to take York on his
way.’
The day after he met Clara he started for Birmingham, and although York
was certainly not ‘on his way,’ he pushed forward to the city and reached
it on a Saturday evening. He was to spend Sunday there, and on Sunday
morning he proposed that they should hear the cathedral service, and go
for a walk in the afternoon. To this suggestion Benjamin partially
assented. He wished to go to the cathedral in the morning, but thought
his father had better rest after dinner. Baruch somewhat resented the
insinuation of possible fatigue consequent on advancing years.
‘What do you mean?’ he said; ‘you know well enough I enjoy a walk in the
afternoon; besides, I shall not see much of you, and do not want to lose
what little time I have.’
About three, therefore, they started, and presently a girl met them, who
was introduced simply as ‘Miss Masters.’
‘We are going to your side of the water,’ said the son; ‘you may as well
cross with us.’
They came to a point where a boat was moored, and a man was in it. There
was no regular ferry, but on Sundays he earned a trifle by taking people
to the opposite meadow, and thus enabling them to vary their return
journey to the city. When they were about two-thirds of the way over,
Benjamin observed that if they stood up they could see the Minster. They
all three rose, and without an instant’s warning—they could not tell
afterwards how it happened—the boat half capsized, and they were in eight
or nine feet of water. Baruch could not swim and went down at once, but
on coming up close to the gunwale he caught at it and held fast. Looking
round, he saw that Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss
Masters, and, having caught her by the back of the neck, was taking her
ashore. The boatman, who could also swim, called out to Baruch to hold
on, gave the boat three or four vigorous strokes from the stern, and
Baruch felt the ground under his feet. The boatman’s little cottage was
not far off, and, when the party reached it, Benjamin earnestly desired
Miss Masters to take off her wet clothes and occupy the bed which was
offered her. He himself would run home—it was not half-a-mile—and, after
having changed, would go to her house and send her sister with what was
wanted. He was just off when it suddenly struck him that his father
might need some attention.
‘Oh, father—’ he began, but the boatman’s wife interposed.
‘He can’t be left like that, and he can’t go home; he’ll catch his death
o’ cold, and there isn’t but one more bed in the house, and that isn’t
quite fit to put a gentleman in. Howsomever, he must turn in there, and
my husband, he can go into the back-kitchen and rub himself down. You
won’t do yourself no good, Mr Cohen,’ addressing the son, whom she knew,
‘by going back; you’d better stay here and get into bed with your
father.’
In a few minutes the boatman would have gone on the errand, but Benjamin
could not lose the opportunity of sacrificing himself for Miss Masters.
He rushed off, and in three-quarters of an hour had returned with the
sister. Having learned, after anxious inquiry, that Miss Masters, so far
as could be discovered, had not caught a chill, he went to his father.
‘Well, father, I hope you are none the worse for the ducking,’ he said
gaily. ‘The next time you come to York you’d better bring another suit
of clothes with you.’
Baruch turned round uneasily and did not answer immediately. He had had
a narrow escape from drowning.
‘Nothing of much consequence. Is your friend all right?’
‘Oh, yes; I was anxious about her, for she is not very strong, but I do
not think she will come to much harm. I made them light a fire in her
room.’
‘Are they drying my clothes?’
‘I’ll go and see.’
He went away and encountered the elder Miss Masters, who told him that
her sister, feeling no ill effects from the plunge, had determined to go
home at once, and in fact was nearly ready. Benjamin waited, and
presently she came downstairs, smiling.
‘Nothing the matter. I owe it to you, however, that I am not now in
another world.’
Benjamin was in an ecstasy, and considered himself bound to accompany her
to her door.
Meanwhile, Baruch lay upstairs alone in no very happy temper. He heard
the conversation below, and knew that his son had gone. In all genuine
love there is something of ferocious selfishness. The perfectly divine
nature knows how to keep it in check, and is even capable—supposing it to
be a woman’s nature—of contentment if the loved one is happy, no matter
with what or with whom; but the nature only a little less than divine
cannot, without pain, endure the thought that it no longer owns privately
and exclusively that which it loves, even when it loves a child, and
Baruch was particularly excusable, considering his solitude.
Nevertheless, he had learned a little wisdom, and, what was of much
greater importance, had learned how to use it when he needed it. It had
been forced upon him; it was an adjustment to circumstances, the wisest
wisdom. It was not something without any particular connection with him;
it was rather the external protection built up from within to shield him
where he was vulnerable; it was the answer to questions which had been
put to _him_, and not to those which had been put to other people. So it
came to pass that, when he said bitterly to himself that, if he were at
that moment lying dead at the bottom of the river, Benjamin would have
found consolation very near at hand, he was able to reflect upon the
folly of self-laceration, and to rebuke himself for a complaint against
what was simply the order of Nature, and not a personal failure.
His self-conquest, however, was not very permanent. When he left York
the next morning, he fancied his son was not particularly grieved, and he
was passive under the thought that an epoch in his life had come, that
the milestones now began to show the distance to the place to which he
travelled, and, still worse, that the boy who had been so close to him,
and upon whom he had so much depended, had gone from him.
There is no remedy for our troubles which is uniformly and progressively
efficacious. All that we have a right to expect from our religion is
that gradually, very gradually, it will assist us to a real victory.
After each apparent defeat, if we are bravely in earnest, we gain
something on our former position. Baruch was two days on his journey
back to town, and as he came nearer home, he recovered himself a little.
Suddenly he remembered the bookshop and the book for which he had to
call, and that he had intended to ask Marshall something about the
bookseller’s new assistant.