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We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* The Rise of David Levinsky by Abraham Cahan Book I - Home and School Book II - Enter Satan Book III - I Lose My Mother Book IV - Matilda Book V - I Discover America Book VI - A Greenhorn No Longer Book VII - My Temple Book VIII - The Destruction of My Temple Book IX - Dora Book X - On the Road Book XI - Matrimony Book XII - Miss Tevkin Book XIII - At Her Father's House Book XIV - Episodes of a Lonely Life BOOK I HOME AND SCHOOL CHAPTER I SOMETIMES, when I think of my past in a superficial, casual way, the metamorphosis I have gone through strikes me as nothing short of a miracle. I was born and reared in the lowest depths of poverty and I arrived in America--in 1885--with four cents in my pocket. I am now worth more than two million dollars and recognized as one of the two or three leading men in the cloak-and-suit trade in the United States. And yet when I take a look at my inner identity it impresses me as being precisely the same as it was thirty or forty years ago. My present station, power, the amount of worldly happiness at my command, and the rest of it, seem to be devoid of significance When I was young I used to think that middle-aged people recalled their youth as something seen through a haze. I know better now. Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be. The last years that I spent in my native land and my first years in America come back to me with the distinctness of yesterday. Indeed, I have a better recollection of many a trifle of my childhood days than I have of some important things that occurred to me recently. I have a good memory for faces, but I am apt to recognize people I have not seen for a quarter of a century more readily than I do some I used to know only a few years ago I love to brood over my youth. The dearest days in one's life are those that seem very far and very near at once. My wretched boyhood appeals to me as a sick child does to its mother. I was born in Antomir, in the Northwestern Region, Russia, in 1865. All I remember of my father is his tawny beard, a huge yellow apple he once gave me at the gate of an orchard where he was employed as watchman, and the candle which burned at his head his body lay under a white shroud on the floor. I was less than three years old when he died, so my mother would carry me to the synagogue in her arms to have somebody say the Prayer for the Dead with me. I was unable fully to realize the meaning of the ceremony, of course, but its solemnity and pathos were not altogether lost upon me. There is a streak of sadness in the blood of my race. Very likely it is of Oriental origin. If it is, it has been amply nourished by many centuries of persecution Left to her own resources, my mother strove to support herself and me by peddling pea mush or doing odds and ends of jobs. She had to struggle hard for our scanty livelihood and her trials and loneliness came home to me at an early period. I was her all in all, though she never poured over me those torrents of senseless rhapsody which I heard other Jewish mothers shower over their children. The only words of endearment I often heard from her were, "My little bean," and, "My comfort." Sometimes, when she seemed to be crushed by the miseries of her life, she would call me, "My poor little orphan." Otherwise it was, "Come here, my comfort," "Are you hungry, my little bean?" or, "You are a silly little dear, my comfort." These words of hers and the sonorous contralto in which they were uttered are ever alive in my heart, like the Flame Everlasting in a synagogue "Mamma, why do you never beat me like other mammas do?" I once asked her She laughed, kissed me, and said, "Because God has punished you hard enough as it is, poor orphan mine." I scarcely remembered my father, yet I missed him keenly. I was ever awake to the fact that other little boys had fathers and that I was a melancholy exception; that most married women had husbands, while my mother had to bear her burden unaided. In my dim childish way I knew that there was a great blank in our family nest, that it was a widow's nest; and the feeling of it seemed to color all my other feelings. When I was a little older and would no longer sleep with my mother, a rusty old coat of my deceased father's served me as a quilt. At night, before falling asleep, I would pull it over my head, shut my eyes tight, and evoke a flow of fantastic shapes, bright, beautifully tinted, and incessantly changing form and color. While the play of these figures and hues was going on before me I would see all sorts of bizarre visions, which at times seemed to have something to do with my father's spirit "Is papa in heaven now? Is he through with hell?" I once inquired of my mother. Some things or ideas would assume queer forms in my mind. God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the form of an oblong box I was a great dreamer of day dreams. One of my pastimes was to imagine a host of tiny soldiers each the size of my little finger, "but alive and real." These I would drill as I saw officers do their men in front of the barracks some distance from our home. Or else I would take. to marching up and down the room with mother's rolling-pin for a rifle, grunting, ferociously, in Russian: "Left one! Left one! Left one!" in the double capacity of a Russian soldier and of David fighting Goliath. Often, while bent upon her housework, my mother would hum some of the songs of the famous wedding bard, Eliakim Zunzer, who later emigrated to America. I distinctly remember her singing his "There is a flower on the road, decaying in the dust, Passers-by treading upon it," his "Summer and Winter," and his "Rachael is bemoaning her children." I vividly recall these brooding airs as she used to sing them, for I have inherited her musical memory and her passionate love for melody, though not her voice. I cannot sing myself, but some tunes give me thrills of pleasure, keen and terrible as the edge of a sword. Some haunt me like ghosts. But then this is a common trait among our people. She was a wiry little woman, my mother, with prominent cheek-bones, a small, firm mouth, and dark eyes. Her hair was likewise dark, though I saw it but very seldom, for like all orthodox daughters of Israel she always had it carefully covered by a kerchief, a nightcap, or--on Saturdays and holidays--by a wig. She was extremely rigorous about it. For instance, while she changed her kerchief for her nightcap she would cause me to look away My great sport during my ninth and tenth years was to play buttons. These we would fillip around on some patch of unpaved ground with a little pit for a billiard pocket. My own pockets were usually full of these buttons. As the game was restricted to brass ones from the uniforms of soldiers, my mother had plenty to do to keep those pockets of mine in good repair. To develop skill for the sport I would spend hours in some secluded spot, secretly practising it by myself. Sometimes, as I was thus engaged, my mother would seek me out and bring me a hunk of rye bread. "Here," she would say, gravely, handing me it. And I would accept it with preoccupied mien, take a deep bite, and go on filliping my buttons I gambled passionately and was continually counting my treasure, or running around the big courtyard, jingling it self-consciously. But one day I suddenly wearied of it all and traded my entire hoard of buttons for a pocket-knife and some trinkets "Don't you care for buttons any more?" mother inquired "I can't bear the sight of them," I replied She shrugged her shoulders smilingly, and called me "queer fellow." Sometimes I would fall to kissing her passionately. Once, after an outburst of this kind, I said: "Are people sorry for us, mamma?" "What do you mean?" "Because I have no papa and we have no money." Antomir, which then boasted eighty thousand inhabitants, was a town in which a few thousand rubles was considered wealth, and we were among the humblest and poorest in it. The bulk of the population lived on less than fifty copecks (twenty-five cents) a day, and that was difficult to earn. A hunk of rye bread and a bit of herring or cheese constituted a meal. A quarter of a copeck (an eighth of a cent) was a coin with which one purchased a few crumbs of pot-cheese or some boiled water for tea. Rubbers were worn by people "of means" only. I never saw any in the district in which my mother and I had our home. A white starched collar was an attribute of "aristocracy." Children had to nag their mothers for a piece of bread "Mamma, I want a piece of bread," with a mild whimper "Again bread! You'll eat my head off. May the worms eat you." Dialogues such as this were heard at every turn My boyhood recollections include the following episode: Mother once sent me to a tinker's shop to have our drinking-cup repaired. It was a plain tin affair and must have cost, when new, something like four or five cents. It had done service as long as I could remember. It was quite rusty, and finally sprang a leak. And so I took it to the tinker, or tinsmith, who soldered it up. On my way home I slipped and fell, whereupon the cup hit a cobblestone and sprang a new leak. When my mother discovered the damage she made me tell the story of the accident over and over again, wringing her hands and sighing as she listened. The average mother in our town would have given me a whipping in the circumstances. She did not CHAPTER II WE lived in a deep basement, in a large, dusky room that we shared with three other families, each family occupying one of the corners and as much space as it was able to wrest. Violent quarrels were a commonplace occurrence, and the question of floor space a staple bone of contention. The huge brick oven in which the four housewives cooked dinner was another prolific source of strife. Fights over pots were as frequent and as truculent as those over the children Of our room-mates I best recall a bookbinder and a retired old soldier who mended old sheepskin coats for a living. My memories of home are inseparable from the odors of sheepskin and paste and the image of two upright wooden screws (the bookbinder's "machine"). The soldier had finished his term of military service years before, yet he still wore his uniform--a dilapidated black coat with new brass buttons, and a similar overcoat of a coarse gray material. Also, he still shaved his chin, sporting a pair of formidable gray side-whiskers. Shaving is one of the worst sins known to our faith, but, somehow, people overlooked it in one who had once been compelled to practise it in the army. Otherwise the furrier or sheepskin tailor was an extremely pious man. He was very kind to me, so that his military whiskers never awed me. Not so his lame, tall wife, who often hit me with one of her crutches. She was the bane of my life. The bookbinder's wife was much younger than her husband and one of the things I often heard was that he was "crazy for her because she is his second wife," from which I inferred that second wives were loved far more than first ones. The bookbinder had a red-haired little girl whom I hated like poison. Red Esther we called her, to distinguish her from a Black Esther, whose home was on the same yard. She was full of fight. Knowing how repulsive she was to me, she was often the first to open hostilities, mocking my way of speaking, or sticking out her tongue at me. Or else she would press her freckled cheek against my lips and then dodge back, shouting, gloatingly: "He has kissed a girl! He has kissed a girl! Sinner! Shame! Sinner! Sinner!" There were some other things that she or some of the other little girls of our courtyard would do to make an involuntary "sinner" of me, but these had better be left out I had many a fierce duel with her. I was considered a strong boy, but she was quick and nimble as a cat, and I usually got the worst of the bargain, often being left badly scratched and bleeding. At which point the combat would be taken up by our mothers The room, part of which was our home, and two other single-room apartments, similarly tenanted, opened into a pitch-dark vestibule which my fancy peopled with "evil ones." A steep stairway led up to the yard, part of which was occupied by a huddle of ramshackle one-story houses. It was known as Abner's Court. During the summer months it swarmed with tattered, unkempt humanity. There was a peculiar odor to the place which I can still smell. (Indeed, many of the things that I conjure up from the past appeal as much to my sense of smell as to my visual memory.) It was anything but a grateful odor The far end of our street was part of a squalid little suburb known as the Sands. It was inhabited by Gentiles exclusively. Sometimes, when a Jew chanced to visit it some of its boys would descend upon him with shouts of "Damned Jew!" "Christ-killer!" and sick their dogs at him. As we had no dogs to defend us, orthodox Jews being prohibited from keeping these domestic animals by a custom amounting to a religious injunction, our boys never ventured into the place except, perhaps, in a spirit of dare-devil bravado One day the bigger Jewish boys of our street had a pitched battle with the Sands boys, an event which is one of the landmarks in the history of my childhood Still, some of the Sands boys were on terms of friendship with us and would even come to play with us in our yard. The only Gentile family that lived in Abner's Court was that of the porter. His children spoke fairly good Yiddish One Saturday evening a pock-marked lad from the Sands, the son of a chimney-sweep, meeting me in the street, set his dog at me. As a result I came home with a fair-sized piece of my trousers (knee-breeches were unknown to us) missing "I'm going to kill him," my mother said, with something like a sob. "I'm just going to kill him." "Cool down," the retired soldier pleaded, without removing his short-stemmed pipe from his mouth Mother was silent for a minute, and even seated herself, but presently she sprang to her feet again and made for the door The soldier's wife seized her by an arm "Where are you going? To the Sands? Are you crazy? If you start a quarrel over there you'll never come back alive." "I don't care!" She wrenched herself free and left the room. Half an hour later she came back beaming "His father is a lovely Gentile," she said. "He went out, brought his murderer of a boy home, took off his belt, and skinned him alive." "A good Gentile," the soldier's wife commented, admiringly There was always a pile of logs somewhere in our Court, the property of some family that was to have it cut up for firewood. This was our great gathering-place of a summer evening. Here we would bandy stories (often of our own inventing) or discuss things, the leading topic of conversation being the soldiers of the two regiments that were stationed in our town. We saw a good deal of these soldiers, and we could tell their officers, commissioned or non-commissioned, by the number of stars or bands on their shoulder-straps. Also, we knew the names of their generals, colonels, and some of their majors or captains. The more important manoeuvers took place a great distance from Abner's Court, but that did not matter. If they occurred on a Saturday, when we were free from school--and, as good luck would have it, they usually did--many of us, myself invariably included, would go to see them. The blare of trumpets, the beat of drums, the playing of the band, the rhythmic clatter of thousands of feet, the glint or rows and rows of bayonets, the red or the blue of the uniforms, the commanding officer on his mount, the spirited singing of the men marching back to barracks--all this would literally hold me spellbound That we often played soldiers goes without saying, but we played "hares" more often, a game in which the counting was done by means of senseless words like the American "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe." Sometimes we would play war, with the names of the belligerents borrowed from the Old Testament, and once in a while we would have a real "war" with the boys of the next street I was accounted one of the strong fellows among the boys of Abner's Court as well as one of the conspicuous figures among them. Compactly built, broad-shouldered, with a small, firm mouth like my mother's, a well-formed nose and large, dark eyes, I was not a homely boy by any means, nor one devoid of a certain kind of magnetism One of my recollections is of my mother administering a tongue-lashing to a married young woman whom she had discovered flirting in the dark vestibule with a man not her husband A few minutes later the young woman came in and begged my mother not to tell her husband "If I was your husband I would skin you alive." "Oh, don't tell him! Take pity! Don't." "I won't. Get out of here, you lump of stench." "Oh, swear that you won't tell him! Do swear, dearie. Long life to you. Health to every little bone of yours." "First you swear that you'll never do it again, you heap of dung." "Strike me blind and dumb and deaf if I ever do it again. There." "Your oaths are worth no more than the barking of a dog. Can't you be decent? You ought to be knouted in the market-place. You are a plague. Black luck upon you. Get away from me." "But I will be decent. May I break both my legs and both my arms if I am not. Do swear that you won't tell him." My mother yielded She was passionately devout, my mother. Being absolutely illiterate, she would murmur meaningless words, in the singsong of a prayer, pretending to herself that she was performing her devotions. This, however, she would do with absolute earnestness and fervor, often with tears of ecstasy coming to her eyes. To be sure, she knew how to bless the Sabbath candles and to recite the two or three other brief prayers that our religion exacts from married women. But she was not contented with it, and the sight of a woman going to synagogue with a huge prayer-book under her arm was ever a source of envy to her. Most of the tenants of the Court were good people, honest and pure, but there were exceptions. Of these my memory has retained the face of a man who was known as "Carrot Pudding" Moe, a red-headed, broad-shouldered "finger worker," a specialist in "short change," yardstick frauds, and other varieties of market-place legerdemain. One woman, a cross between a beggar and a dealer in second-hand dresses, had four sons, all of whom were pickpockets, but she herself was said to be of spotless honesty. She never allowed them to enter Abner's Court, though every time one of them was in prison she would visit him and bring him food Nor were professional beggars barred from the Court as tenants. Indeed, one of our next-door neighbors was a regular recipient of alms at the hands of my mother. For, poor as she was, she seldom let a Friday pass without distributing a few half-groschen (an eighth of a cent) in charity. The amusing part of it was the fact that one of the beggars on her list was far better off than she "He's old and lame, and no hypocrite like the rest of them," she would explain She had a ferocious temper, but there were people (myself among them) with whom she was never irritated. The women of Abner's Court were either her devoted followers or her bitter enemies. She was a leader in most of the feuds that often divided the whole Court into two warring camps, and in those exceptional cases when she happened to be neutral she was an ardent peacemaker. She wore a dark-blue kerchief, which was older than I, and almost invariably, when there was a crowd of women in the yard, that kerchief would loom in its center Growing as I did in that crowded basement room which was the home of four families, it was inevitable that the secrets of sex should be revealed to me before I was able fully to appreciate their meaning. Then, too, the neighborhood was not of the purest in town. Located a short distance from Abner's Court, midway between it and the barracks, was a lane of ill repute, usually full of soldiers. If it had an official name I never heard it. It was generally referred to as "that street," in a subdued voice that was suggestive either of shame and disgust or of waggish mirth. For a long time I was under the impression that "That" was simply the name of the street. One summer day--I must have been eight years old--I told my mother that I had peeked in one of the little yards of the mysterious lane, that I had seen half-naked women and soldiers there, and that one of the women had beckoned me in and given me some cake "Why, you mustn't do that, Davie!" she said, aghast. "Don't you ever go near that street again! Do you hear?" "Why?" "Because it is a bad street." "Why is it bad?" "Keep still and don't ask foolish questions." I obeyed, with the result that the foolish questions kept rankling in my brain On a subsequent occasion, when she was combing my dark hair fondly, I ventured once more: "Mamma, why mustn't I come near that street?" "Because it is a sin to do so, my comfort. Fie upon it!" This answer settled it. One did not ask why it was a sin to do this or not to do that. "You don't demand explanations of the Master of the World," as people were continually saying around me. My curiosity was silenced. That street became repellent to me, something hideously wicked and sinister Sometimes some of the excommunicated women would drop in at our yard. As a rule, my mother was bitterly opposed to their visits and she often chased them out with maledictions and expressions of abhorrence; but there was one case in which she showed unusual tolerance and even assumed the part of father confessor to a woman of this kind. She would listen to her tale of woe, homesickness and repentance, including some of the most intimate details of her loathsome life. She would even deliver her donations to the synagogue, thus helping her cheat the Biblical injunction which bars the gifts of fallen women from a house of God My mother would bid me keep away during these confabs of theirs, but this only whetted my curiosity and I often overheard far more than I should Fridays were half-holidays with us Jewish boys. One Friday afternoon a wedding was celebrated in our courtyard. The procession emerged from one of the rickety one-story houses, accompanied by a band playing a solemn tune. When it reached the center of the vacant part of the yard it came to a halt and a canopy was stretched over the principal figures of the ceremony. Prayers and benedictions were chanted. The groom put the ring on the bride's finger, "dedicating her to himself according to the laws of Moses and Israel "; more prayers were recited; the bridegroom and the bride received sips of wine; a plate was smashed, the sound being greeted by shouts of "Good luck! Good luck!" The band struck up a lively tune with a sad tang to it The yard was crowded with people. It was the greatest sensation we children had ever enjoyed there. We remained out chattering of the event till the windows were aglitter with Sabbath lights I was in a trance. The ceremony was a poem to me, something inexpressibly beautiful and sacred. Presently a boy, somewhat older than I, made a jest at the young couple's expense. What he said was a startling revelation to me. Certain things which I had known before suddenly appeared in a new light to me. I relished the discovery and I relished the deviltry of it. But the poem vanished. The beauty of the wedding I had just witnessed, and of weddings in general, seemed to be irretrievably desecrated That boy's name was Naphtali. He was a trim-looking fellow with curly brown hair, somewhat near-sighted. He was as poor as the average boy in the yard and as poorly dressed, but he was the tidiest of us. He would draw, with a piece of chalk, figures of horses and men which we admired. He knew things, good and bad, and from that Friday I often sought his company. Unlike most of the other boys, he talked little, throwing out his remarks at long intervals, which sharpened my sense of his wisdom. His father never let him attend the manoeuvers, yet he knew more about soldiers than any of the other boys, more even than I, though I had that retired soldier, the sheepskin man, to explain things military to me. One summer evening Naphtali and I sat on a pile of logs in the yard, watching a boy who was "playing" on a toy fiddle of his own making. I said: "I wish I knew how to play on a real fiddle, don't you?" Naphtali made no answer. After a little he said: "You must think it is the bow that does the playing, don't you?" "What else does it?" I asked, perplexed "It's the fingers of the other hand, those that are jumping around." "Is it?" I did not understand, but I was deeply impressed all the same. The question bothered me all that evening. Finally I submitted it to my mother: "Mamma, Naphtali says when you play on a fiddle it is not the bow that makes the tune, but the fingers that are jumping around. Is it true?" She told me not to bother her with foolish questions, but the retired soldier, who had overheard my query, volunteered to answer it. "Of course it is not the bow," he said "But if you did not work the bow the strings would not play, would they?" I urged. "You could play a tune by pinching them," he answered. "But if you just kept passing the bow up and down there would be no tune at all." I plied him with further questions and he answered them all, patiently and fondly, illustrating his explanations with a thread for a violin string, my mother looking from him to me beamingly When we were through she questioned him: "Do you think he understands it all?" "He certainly does. He has a good head," he answered, with a wink. And she flushed with happiness CHAPTER III THE tuition fee at a school for religious instruction or cheder was from eight to ten rubles (five dollars) for a term of six months. My mother could not afford it. On the other hand, she would not hear of sending me to the free cheder of our town, because of its reputation for poor instruction. So she importuned and harassed two distant relatives of ours until they agreed to raise part of the sum between them. The payments were made with anything but promptness, the result being that I was often turned out of school. Mother, however, would lose no time in bringing me back. She would implore the schoolmaster to take pity on the poor, helpless woman that she was, assuring him, with some weird oaths, that she would pay him every penny. If that failed she would burst into a flood of threats and imprecations, daring him to let a fatherless boy grow up in ignorance of the Word of God. This was followed by similar scenes at the houses of my cousins, until finally I was allowed to resume my studies, sometimes at the same cheder, sometimes at some other one. There were scores of such private schools in our town, and before I got through my elementary religious education I had become acquainted with a considerable number of them Sometimes when a teacher or his wife tried to oust me, I would clutch at the table and struggle sullenly until they yielded I may explain that instruction in these cheders was confined to the Hebrew Old Testament and rudiments of the Talmud, the exercises lasting practically all day and part of the evening. The class-room was at the same time the bedroom, living-room, and kitchen of the teacher's family. His wife and children were always around. These cheder teachers were usually a haggard-looking lot with full beards and voices hoarse with incessant shouting. A special man generally came for an hour to teach the boys to write. As he was to be paid separately, I was not included. The feeling of envy, abasement, and self-pity with which I used to watch the other boys ply their quills is among the most painful memories of my childhood During the penmanship lesson I was generally kept busy in other directions. The teacher's wife would make me help her with her housework, go her errands, or mind the baby (in one instance I became so attached to the baby that when I was expelled I missed it keenly) I seized every opportunity to watch the boys write and would practise the art, with chalk, on my mother's table or bed, on the door of our basement room, on many a gate or fence. Sometimes a boy would let me write a line or two in his copy-book. Sometimes, too, I would come to school before the schoolmaster had returned from the morning service at the synagogue, and practise with pen and ink, following the copy of some of my classmates. One of my teachers once caught me in the act. He held me up as an ink-thief and forbade me come to school before the beginning of exercises Otherwise my teachers scarcely ever complained of my behavior. As to the progress I was making in my studies, they admitted, some even with enthusiasm, that mine was a "good head." Nevertheless, to be beaten by them was an every-day experience with me Overworked, underfed, and goaded by the tongue-lashings of their wives, these enervated drudges were usually out of sorts. Bursts of ill temper, in the form of invective, hair-pulling, ear-pulling, pinching, caning, "nape-cracking," or "chin-smashing," were part of the routine, and very often I was the scapegoat for the sins of other boys. When a pupil deserved punishment and the schoolmaster could not afford to inflict it because the culprit happened to be the pet of a well-to-do family, the teacher's anger was almost sure to be vented on me. If I happened to be somewhat absent-minded (the only offense I was ever guilty of), or was not quick enough to turn over a leaf, or there was the slightest halt in my singsong, I received a violent "nudge" or a pull by the ear. "Lively, lively, carcass you!" I can almost hear one of my teachers shout these words as he digs his elbow into my side. "The millions one gets from your mother!" This man would beat and abuse me even by way of expressing approval "A bright fellow, curse him!" he would say, punching me with an air of admiration. Or, "Where did you get those brains of yours, you wild beast?" with a violent pull at my forelock During the winter months, when the exercises went on until 9 in the evening, the candle or kerosene was paid for by the boys, in rotation. When it was my turn to furnish the light it often happened that my mother was unable to procure the required two copecks (one cent). Then the teacher or his wife, or both, would curse me for a sponge and a robber, and ask me why I did not go to the charity school Almost every teacher in town was known among us boys by some nickname, which was usually borrowed from some trade. If he had a predilection for pulling a boy's hair we would call him "wig-maker" or "brush-maker"; if he preferred to slap or "calcimine" the culprit's face we would speak of him as a mason. A "coachman" was a teacher who did not spare the rod or the whip; a "carpenter," one who used his finger as a gimlet, boring a pupil's side or cheek; a "locksmith," one who had a weakness for "turning the screw," or pinching The greatest "locksmith" in town was a man named Shmerl. But then he was more often called simply Shmerl the Pincher. He was one of my schoolmasters. He seemed to prefer the flesh of plump, well-fed boys, but as these were usually the sons of prosperous parents, he often had to forego the pleasure and to gratify his appetite on me. There was something morbid in his cruel passion for young flesh something perversely related to sex, perhaps. He was a young man with a wide, sneering mouth He would pinch me black and blue till my heart contracted with pain. Yet I never uttered a murmur. I was too profoundly aware of the fact that I was kept on sufferance to risk the slightest demonstration. I had developed a singular faculty for bearing pain, which I would parade before the other boys. Also, I had developed a relish for flaunting my martyrdom, for being an object of pity Oh, how I did hate this man, especially his sneering mouth! In my helplessness I would seek comfort in dreams of becoming a great man some day, rich and mighty, and avenging myself on him. Behold! Shmerl the Pincher is running after me, cringingly begging my pardon, and I, omnipotent and formidable, say to him: "Do you remember how you pinched the life out of me for nothing? Away with you, you cruel beast!" Or I would vision myself dropping dead under one of his onslaughts. Behold him trembling with fright, the heartless wretch! Serves him right. If my body happened to bear some mark of his cruelty I would conceal it carefully from my mother, lest she should quarrel with him. Moreover, to betray school secrets was considered a great "sin." One night, as I was changing my shirt, anxiously manoeuvering to keep a certain spot on my left arm out of her sight, she became suspicious "Hold on. What are you hiding there?" she said, stepping up and inspecting my bare arm. She found an ugly blotch. "Woe is me! A lamentation upon me!" she said, looking aghast. "Who has been pinching you?" "Nobody." "It is that beast of a teacher, isn't it?" "No." "Don't lie, Davie. It is that assassin, the cholera take him! Tell me the truth. Don't be afraid." "A boy did it." "What is his name?" "I don't know. It was a boy in the street." "You are a liar." The next morning when I went to cheder she accompanied me Arrived there, she stripped me half-naked and, pointing at the discoloration on my arm, she said, with ominous composure: "Look! Whose work is it?" "Mine," Shmerl answered, without removing his long-stemmed pipe from his wide mouth. He was no coward "And you are proud of it, are you?" "If you don't like it you can take your ornament of a son along with you. Clear out, you witch!" She flew at him and they clenched. When they had separated, some of his hair was in her hand, while her arms, as she subsequently owned to me, were marked with the work of his expert fingers. Another schoolmaster had a special predilection for digging the huge nail of his thumb into the side of his victim, a peculiarity for which he had been named "the Cossack," his famous thumb being referred to by the boys as his spear. He had a passion for inventing new and complex modes of punishment, his spear figuring in most of them. One of his methods of inflicting pain was to slap the boy's face with one hand and to prod his side with the thumb of the other, the slaps and the thrusts alternating rhythmically. This heartless wretch was an abject coward. He was afraid of thunder, of rats, spiders, dogs, and, above all, of his wife, who would call him indecent names in our presence. I abhorred him, yet when he was thus humiliated I felt pity for him His wife kept a stand on a neighboring street corner, where she sold cheap cakes and candy, and those of her husband's pupils who were on her list of "good customers" were sure of immunity from his spear. As I scarcely ever had a penny, he could safely beat me whenever he was so disposed CHAPTER IV THE Cossack had a large family and one of his daughters, a little girl, named Sarah-Leah, was the heroine of my first romance. Sarah-Leah had the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to a sister of her father's, an offense which her mother never forgave her. She treated her as she might a stepdaughter. As for the Cossack, he may have cared for the child, but if he did he dared not show it. Poor little Sarah-Leah! She was the outcast of the family just as I was the outcast of her father's school. She was about eleven years old and I was somewhat younger. The similarity of our fates and of our self-pity drew us to each other. When her father beat me I was conscious of her commiserating look, and when she was mistreated by her mother she would cast appealing glances in my direction. Once when the teacher punished me with special cruelty her face twitched and she broke into a whimper, whereupon he gave her a kick, saying: "Is it any business of yours? Thank God your own skin has not been peeled off." Once during the lunch hour, when we were alone, Sarah-Leah and I, in a corner of the courtyard, she said: "You are so strong, Davie! Nothing hurts you." "Nothing at all. I could stand everything," I bragged "You could not, if I bit your finger." "Go ahead!" I said, with bravado, holding out my hand. She dug her teeth into one of my fingers. It hurt so that I involuntarily ground my own teeth, but I smiled "Does it not hurt you, Davie?" she asked, with a look of admiration "Not a bit. Go on, bite as hard as you can." She did, the cruel thing, and like many an older heroine, she would not desist until she saw her lover's blood "It still does not hurt, does it?" she asked, wiping away a red drop from her lips. I shook my head contemptuously "When you are a man you will be strong as Samson the Strong." I was the strongest boy in her father's school. She knew that most of the other boys were afraid of me, but that did not seem to interest her. At least when I began to boast of it she returned to my ability "to stand punishment," as the pugilists would put it One day one of my schoolmates aroused her admiration by the way he "played" taps with his fist for a trumpet. I tried to imitate him, but failed grievously. The other boy laughed and Sarah-Leah joined him. That was my first taste of the bitter cup called jealousy I went home a lovelorn boy I took to practising "taps." I was continually trumpeting. I kept at it so strenuously that my mother had many a quarrel with our room-mates because of it My efforts went for nothing, however. My rival, and with him my lady love, continued to sneer at my performances I had only one teacher who never beat me, or any of the other boys. Whatever anger we provoked in him would spend itself in threats, and even these he often turned to a joke, in a peculiar vein of his own "If you don't behave I'll cut you to pieces," he would say. "I'll just cut you to tiny bits and put you into my pipe and you'll go up in smoke." Or, "I'll give you such a thrashing that you won't be able to sit down, stand up, or lie down. The only thing you'll be able to do is to fly--to the devil." This teacher used me as a living advertisement for his school. He would take me from house to house, flaunting my recitations and interpretations. Very often the passage which he thus made me read was a lesson I had studied under one of his predecessors, but I never gave him away Every cheder had its king. As a rule, it was the richest boy in the school, but I was usually the power behind the throne. Once one of these potentates (it was at the school of that kindly man) mimicked my mother hugging her pot of pea mush "If you do it again I'll kill you," I said "If you lay a finger on me," he retorted, "the teacher will kick you out. Your mother doesn't pay him, anyhow." I flew at him. His Majesty tearfully begged for mercy. Since then he was under my thumb and never omitted to share his ring-shaped rolls or apples with me Often when a boy ate something that was beyond my mother's means--a cookie or a slice of buttered white bread--I would eye him enviously till he complained that I made him choke. Then I would go on eying him until he bribed me off with a piece of the tidbit. If staring alone proved futile I might try to bring him to terms by naming all sorts of loathsome objects. At this it frequently happened that the prosperous boy threw away his cookie from sheer disgust, whereupon I would be mean enough to pick it up and to eat it in triumph, calling him something equivalent to "Sissy." The compliments that were paid my brains were ample compensation for my mother's struggles. Sending me to work was out of the question. She was resolved to put me in a Talmudic seminary. I was the "crown of her head" and she was going to make a "fine Jew" of me. Nor was she a rare exception in this respect, for there were hundreds of other poor families in our town who would starve themselves to keep their sons studying the Word of God Whenever one of the neighbors suggested that I be apprenticed to some artisan she would flare up. On one occasion a suggestion of this kind led to a violent quarrel One afternoon when we happened to pass by a bookstore she stopped me in front of the window and, pointing at some huge volumes of the Talmud, she said: "This is the trade I am going to have you learn, and let our enemies grow green with envy." BOOK II ENTER SATAN CHAPTER I THE Talmudic seminary, or yeshivah, in which my mother placed me was a celebrated old institution, attracting students from many provinces. Like most yeshivahs, it was sustained by donations, and instruction in it was free. Moreover, out-of-town students found shelter under its roof, sleeping on the benches or floors of the same rooms in which the lectures were delivered and studied during the day. Also, they were supplied with a pound of rye bread each for breakfast. As to the other meals, they were furnished by the various households of the orthodox community. I understand that some school-teachers in certain villages of New England get their board on the rotation plan, dining each day in the week with another family. This is exactly the way a poor Talmud student gets his sustenance in Russia, the system being called "eating days." One hour a day was devoted to penmanship and a sorry smattering of Russian, the cost of tuition and writing-materials being paid by a "modern" philanthropist I was admitted to that seminary at the age of thirteen. As my home was in the city, I neither slept in the classroom nor "ate days." The lectures lasted only two hours a day, but then there was plenty to do, studying them and reviewing previous work. This I did in an old house of prayer where many other boys and men of all ages pursued similar occupations. It was known as the Preacher's Synagogue, and was famed for the large number of noted scholars who had passed their young days reading Talmud in it. The Talmud is a voluminous work of about twenty ponderous tomes. To read these books, to drink deep of their sacred wisdom, is accounted one of the greatest "good deeds" in the life of a Jew. It is, however, as much a source of intellectual interest as an act of piety. If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in the spiritual life of the race A Talmudic education was until recent years practically the only kind of education a Jewish boy of old-fashioned parents received. I spent seven years at it, not counting the several years of Talmud which I had had at the various cheders What is the Talmud? The bulk of it is taken up with debates of ancient rabbis. It is primarily concerned with questions of conscience, religious duty, and human sympathy--in short, with the relations "between man and God" and those "between man and man." But it practically contains a consideration of almost every topic under the sun, mostly with some verse of the Pentateuch for a pretext. All of which is analyzed and explained in the minutest and keenest fashion, discussions on abstruse subjects being sometimes relieved by an anecdote or two, a bit of folklore, worldly wisdom, or small talk. Scattered through its numerous volumes are priceless gems of poetry, epigram, and story-telling It is at once a fountain of religious inspiration and a "brain-sharpener." "Can you fathom the sea? Neither can you fathom the depths of the Talmud," as we would put it. We were sure that the highest mathematics taught in the Gentile universities were child's play as compared to the Talmud In the Preacher's Synagogue, then, I spent seven years of my youthful life. For hours and hours together I would sit at a gaunt reading-desk, swaying to and fro over some huge volume, reading its ancient text and interpreting it in Yiddish. All this I did aloud, in the peculiar Talmud singsong, a trace of which still persists in my intonation even when I talk cloaks and bank accounts and in English The Talmud was being read there, in a hundred variations of the same singsong, literally every minute of the year, except the hours of prayer. There were plenty of men to do it during the day and the evening, and at least ten men (a sacred number) to keep the holy word echoing throughout the night. The majority of them were simply scholarly business men who would drop in to read the sacred books for an hour or two, but there was a considerable number of such as made it the occupation of their life. These were supported either by the congregation or by their own wives, who kept shops, stalls, inns, or peddled, while their husbands spent sixteen hours a day studying Talmud One of these was a man named Reb (Rabbi) Sender, an insignificant, ungainly little figure of a man, with a sad, child-like little face flanked by a pair of thick, heavy, dark-brown side-locks that seemed to weigh him down His wife kept a trimming-store or something of the sort, and their only child, a girl older than I, helped her attend to business as well as to keep house in the single-room apartment which the family occupied in the rear of the little shop. As he invariably came to the synagogue for the morning prayer, and never left it until after the evening service, his breakfasts and dinners were brought to the house of worship. His wife usually came with the meal herself. Waiting on one's husband and "giving him strength to learn the law" was a "good deed." She was a large woman with an interesting dark face, and poor Reb Sender cut a sorry figure by her side Men of his class are described as having "no acquaintance with the face of a coin." All the money he usually handled was the penny or two which he needed to pay for his bath of a Friday afternoon. Occasionally he would earn three or four copecks by participating in some special prayer, for a sick person, for instance. These pennies he invariably gave away. Once he gave his muffler to a poor boy. His wife subsequently nagged him to death for it. The next morning he complained of her to one of the other scholars "Still," he concluded, "if you want to serve God you must be ready to suffer for it. A good deed that comes easy to you is like a donation which does not cost you anything." I made his acquaintance by asking him to help me out with an obscure passage. This he did with such simple alacrity and kindly modesty as to make me feel a chum of his. I warmed to him and he reciprocated my feelings. He took me to his bosom. He often offered to go over my lesson with me, and I accepted his services with gratitude. He spoke in a warm, mellow basso that had won my heart from the first. His singsong lent peculiar charm to the pages that we read in duet. As he read and interpreted the text he would wave his snuff-box, by way of punctuating and emphasizing his words, much as the conductor of an orchestra does his baton, now gently, insinuatingly, now with a passionate jerk, now with a sweeping majestic movement. One cannot read Talmud without gesticulating, and Reb Sender would scarcely have been able to gesticulate without his snuff-box. It was of tortoise shell, with a lozenge-shaped bit of silver in the center. It gradually became dear to me as part of his charming personality. Sometimes, when we were reading together, that glistening spot in the center of the lid would fascinate my eye so that I lost track of the subject in hand He often hummed some liturgical melody of a well-known synagogue chanter. One afternoon he sang something to me, with his snuff-box for a baton, and then asked me how I liked it "I composed it myself," he explained, boastfully I did not like the tune. In fact, I failed to make out any tune at all, but I was overflowing with a desire to please him, so I said, with feigned enthusiasm: "Did you really? Why, it's so beautiful, so sweet!" Reb Sender's face shone After that he often submitted his compositions to me, though he was too shy to sing them to older people. They were all supposed to be liturgical tunes, or at least some "hop" for the Day of the Rejoicing of the Law. When I hailed the newly composed air with warm approval he would show his satisfaction either with shamefaced reserve or with child-like exuberance. If, on the other hand, I failed to conceal my indifference, he would grow morose, and it would be some time before I succeeded in coaxing him back to his usual good humor Nor were his melodies the only things he confided to me. When I was still a mere boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, he would lay bare to me some of the most intimate secrets of his heart "You see, my wife thinks me a fool," he once complained to me. "She thinks I don't see it. Do you understand, David? She looks up to me for my learning, but otherwise she thinks I have no sense. It hurts, you know." He was absolutely incapable of keeping a secret or of saying or acting anything that did not come from the depths of his heart. He often talked to me of God and His throne, of the world to come, and of the eternal bliss of the righteous, quoting from a certain book of exhortations and adding much from his own exalted imagination. And I would listen, thrilling, and make a silent vow to be good and to dedicate my life to the service of God "Study the Word of God, Davie dear," he would say, taking my hand into his. "There is no happiness like it. What is wealth? A dream of fools. What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter. Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds and holy learning have tangible worth. Beware of Satan, Davie. When he assails you, just say no; turn your heart to steel and say no. Do you hear, my son?" The anecdotes and sayings of the Talmud, its absurdities no less than its gems of epigrammatic wisdom, were mines of poetry, philosophy, and science to him. He was a dreamer with a noble imagination, with a soul full of beauty This unsophisticated, simple-hearted man, with the mind of an infant, was one of the most quick-witted, nimble-minded scholars in town. His great delight was to tackle some intricate maze of Talmudic reasoning. This he would do with ferocious zest, like a warrior attacking the enemy, flashing his tortoise snuff-box as if it were his sword. When away from his books or when reading some of the fantastic tales in them he was meek and gentle as a little bird. No sooner did he come across a fine bit of reasoning than he would impress me as a lion On one occasion, after Reb Sender got through a celebrated tangle with me, arousing my admiration by the ingenuity with which he discovered discrepancies and by the adroitness with which he explained them away, he said: "I do enjoy reading with you. Sometimes, when I read by myself, I feel lonely. Anyhow, I love to have you around, David. If you went to study somewhere else I should miss you very much." On another occasion he said: "You are like a son to me, Davie. Be good, be genuinely pious; for my sake, if for nothing else. Above all, don't be double-faced; never say what you do not mean; do not utter words of flattery." As I now analyze my reminiscences of him I feel that he was a yearning, lonely man. He was in love with his wife and, in spite of her devotion to him, he was love-lorn. Poor Reb Sender! He was anything but a handsome man, while she was well built and pretty. And so it may be that she showed more reverence for his learning and piety than love for his person. He was continually referring to her, apparently thirsting to discuss her demeanor toward him "The Lord of the Universe has been exceptionally good to me," he once said to me. "May I not forfeit His kindness for my sins. He gives me health and my daily bread, and I have a worthy woman for a wife. Indeed, she is a woman of rare merits, so clever, so efficient, and so good. She nags me but seldom, very seldom." He paused to take snuff and then remained silent, apparently hesitating to come to the point. Finally he said: "In fact, she is so wise I sometimes wish I could read her thoughts. I should give anything to have a glimpse into her heart. She has so little to say to me. She thinks I am a fool. There is a sore in here "--pointing at his heart. "We have been married over twenty-two years, and yet--would you believe it?--I still feel shy in her presence, as if we were brought together for the first time, by a match-maker, don't you know. But then you are too young to understand these things. Nor, indeed, ought I to talk to you about them, for you are only a child. But I cannot help it. If I did not unburden my mind once in a while I might not be able to stand it." That afternoon he composed what he called a "very sad tune," and hummed it to me. I failed to make out the tune, but I could feel its sadness I loved him passionately. As for the other men of the synagogue, if they did not share my ardent affection for him, they all, with one exception, liked him. The exception was a middle-aged little Talmudist with a tough little beard who held everybody in terror by his violent temper and pugnacity. He was a pious man, but his piety never manifested itself with such genuine fervor as when he exposed the impiety of others. He was forever picking quarrels, forever challenging people to debate with him, forever offering to show that their interpretation of this passage or that was all wrong. The sound of his acrimonious voice or venomous laughter grated on Reb Sender's nerves, but he bore him absolutely no ill-will. Nor did he ever utter a word of condemnation concerning a certain other scholar, an inveterate tale-bearer and gossip-monger, though a good-natured fellow, who not infrequently sought to embroil him with some of his warmest friends. One Talmudist, a corpulent old man whose seat was next to Reb Sender's, was more inclined to chat than to study. Now and again he would break in upon my friend's reading with some piece of gossip; and the piteous air with which Reb Sender would listen to him, casting yearning glances at his book as he did so, was as touching as it was amusing My mother usually brought my dinner to the synagogue. She would make her entrance softly, so as to take me by surprise while I was absorbed in my studies. It did her heart good to see me read the holy book. As a result, I was never so diligent as I was at the hour when I expected her arrival with the dinner-pot. Very often I discovered her tiptoeing in or standing at a distance and watching me admiringly. Then I would take to singing and swaying to and fro with great gusto. She often encountered Reb Sender's wife at the synagogue. They did not take to each other. On one occasion my mother found Reb Sender's daughter at the house of prayer. Having her father's figure and features, the girl was anything but prepossessing. My mother surveyed her from head to foot That evening when I was eating my supper at home my mother said: "Look here, Davie. I want you to understand that Reb Sender's wife is up to some scheme about you. She wants you to marry that monkey of hers. That's what she is after." I was not quite fifteen "Leave me alone," I retorted, coloring "Never mind blushing. It is she who tells Reb Sender to be so good to you. The foxy thing! She thinks I don't see through her. That scarecrow of a girl is old enough to be your mother, and she has not a penny to her marriage portion, either. A fine match for a boy like you! Why, you can get the best girl in town." She said it aloud, by way of flaunting my future before our room-mates. Two of the three families who shared the room with us, by the way, were the same as when I was a little boy. Moving was a rare event in the life of the average Antomir family Red Esther was still there. She was one of those who heard my mother's boastful warning to me. She grinned. After a little, as I was crossing the room, she sang out with a giggle: "Bridegroom!" "I'll break your bones," I returned, pausing She stuck out her tongue at me I still hated her, but, somehow, she did not seem to be the same as she had been before. The new lines that were developing in her growing little figure, and more particularly her own consciousness of them, were not lost upon me. A new element was stealing into my rancor for her--a feeling of forbidden curiosity. At night, when I lay in bed, before falling asleep, I would be alive to the fact that she was sleeping in the same room, only a few feet from me. Sometimes I would conjure up the days of our childhood when Red Esther caused me to "sin" against my will, whereupon I would try to imagine the same scenes, but with the present fifteen-year-old Esther in place of the five-year-old one of yore. The word "girl" had acquired a novel sound for me, one full of disquieting charm. The same was true of such words as "sister," "niece," or "bride," but not of "woman." Somehow sisters and nieces were all young girls, whereas a woman belonged to the realm of middle-aged humanity, not to my world Naphtali went to the same seminary. He was two grades ahead of me. He "ate days," for his father had died and his mother had married a man who refused to support him. He was my great chum at the seminary. The students called him Tidy Naphtali or simply the Tidy One. He was a slender, trim lad, his curly brown hair and his near-sighted eyes emphasizing his Talmudic appearance. He was the cleanliest and neatest boy at the yeshivah. This often aroused sardonic witticism from some of the other students. Scrupulous tidiness was so uncommon a virtue among the poorer classes of Antomir that the painstaking care he bestowed upon his person and everything with which he came in contact struck many of the boys as a manifestation of girl-like squeamishness. As for me, it only added to my admiration of him. His conscience seemed to be as clean as his finger-nails. He wrote a beautiful hand, he could draw and carve, and he was a good singer. His interpretations were as clear-cut as his handwriting. He seemed to be a Jack of all trades and master of all. I admired and envied him. His reticence piqued me and intensified his power over me. I strove to emulate his cleanliness, his graceful Talmud gestures, and his handwriting. At one period I spent many hours a day practising caligraphy with some of his lines for a model "Oh, I shall never be able to write like you," I once said to him, in despair "Let us swap, then," he replied, gaily.. "Give me your mind for learning and I shall let you have my handwriting." "Pshaw! Yours is a better mind than mine, too." "No, it is not," he returned, and resumed his reading. "Besides, you are ahead of me in piety and conduct." He shook his head deprecatingly and went on reading. He was one of the noted "men of diligence" at the seminary. With his near-sighted eyes close to the book he would read all day and far into the night in ringing, ardent singsongs that I thought fascinating. The other reticent Talmudists I knew usually read in an undertone, humming their recitatives quietly. He seldom did. Sparing as he was of his voice in conversation, he would use it extravagantly when intoning his Talmud It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work. While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse Regularly every Thursday night he and I had our vigil at the Preacher's Synagogue, where many other young men would gather for the same purpose. We would sit up reading, side by side, until the worshipers came to morning service. To spend a whole night by his side was one of the joys of my existence in those days Reb Sender was somewhat jealous of him Soon after graduation Naphtali left Antomir for a town in which lived some of his relatives. I missed him as I would a sweetheart CHAPTER II I WAS nearly sixteen. I had graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a boy no longer." I was free to loaf, but I worked harder than ever. I was either in an exalted state of mind or pining away under a spell of yearning and melancholy--of causeless, meaningless melancholy. My Talmudic singsong reflected my moods. Sometimes it was a spirited recitative, ringing with cheery self-consciousness and the joy of being a lad of sixteen; at other times it was a solemn song, aglow with devotional ecstasy. When I happened to be dejected in the commonplace sense of the word, it was a listless murmur, doleful or sullen. But then the very reading of the Talmud was apt to dispel my gloom. My voice would gradually rise and ring out, vibrating with intellectual passion The intonations of the other scholars, too, echoed the voices of their hearts, some of them sonorous with religious bliss, others sad, still others happy-go-lucky. Although absorbed in my book, I would have a vague consciousness of the connection between the various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of acumen" whose father-in-law had made a fortune as a war-contractor in the late conflict with Turkey. All these voices blended in a symphonic source of inspiration for me. It was divine music in more senses than one The ancient rabbis of the Talmud, the Tanaim of the earlier period and the Amorairn of later generations, were living men. I could almost see them, each of them individualized in my mind by some of his sayings, by his manner in debate, by some particular word he used, or by some particular incident in which he figured. I pictured their faces, their beards, their voices. Some of them had won a warmer corner in my heart than others, but they were all superior human beings, godly, unearthly, denizens of a world that had been ages ago and would come back in the remote future when Messiah should make his appearance Added to the mystery of that world was the mystery of my own singsong. Who is there?--I seemed to be wondering, my tune or recitative sounding like the voice of some other fellow. It was as if somebody were hidden within me. What did he look like? If you study the Talmud you please God even more than you do by praying or fasting. As you sit reading the great folio He looks down from heaven upon you. Sometimes I seemed to feel His gaze shining down upon me, as though casting a halo over my bead My relations with God were of a personal and of a rather familiar character. He was interested in everything I did or said; He watched my every move or thought; He was always in heaven, yet, somehow, he was always near me, and I often spoke to Him as I might to Reb Sender If I caught myself slurring over some of my prayers or speaking ill of another boy or telling a falsehood, I would say to Him, audibly: "Oh, forgive me once more. You know that I want to be good. I will be good. I know I will." Sometimes I would continue to plead in this manner till I broke into sobs. At other times, as I read my Talmud, conscious of His approval of me, tears of bliss would come into my eyes I loved Him as one does a woman. Often while saying my prayers I would fall into a veritable delirium of religious infatuation. Sometimes this fit of happiness and yearning would seize me as I walked in the street "O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!" I would sigh. "Oh, how I love you!" I also had talks with the Evil Spirit, or Satan. He, too, was always near me. But he was always trying to get me into trouble "You won't catch me again, scoundrel you," I would assure him with sneers and leers. Or, "Get away from me, heartless mischief-maker you! You're wasting your time, I can tell you that." My bursts of piety usually lasted a week or two. Then there was apt to set in a period of apathy, which was sure to be replaced by days of penance and a new access of spiritual fervor. One day, as Reb Sender and I were reading a page together, a very pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud, but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances Reb Sender paused, with evident annoyance. "What are you looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! You are yielding to Satan." I colored He was too deeply interested in the Talmudic argument under consideration to say more on the matter at this minute, but he returned to it as soon as we had reached the end of the section. He spoke earnestly, with fatherly concern: "You are growing, David. You are a boy no longer. You are getting to be a man. This is just the time when one should be on his guard against Satan." I sat, looking down, my brain in a daze of embarrassment "Remember, David, 'He who looks even at the little finger of a woman is as guilty as though he looked at a woman that is wholly naked.'" He quoted the Talmudic maxim in a tone of passionate sternness, beating the desk with his snuff-box at each word As to his own conduct, he was one of three or four men at the synagogue of whom it was said that they never looked at women, and, to a very considerable extent, his reputation was not unjustified "You must never tire fighting Satan, David," he proceeded. "Fight him with might and main." As I listened I was tingling with a mute vow to be good. Yet, at the same time, the vision of "a woman that is wholly naked" was vividly before me He caused me to bring a certain ancient work, one not included in the Talmud, in which he made me read the following: "Rabbi Mathia, the son of Chovosh, had never set eyes on a woman. Therefore when he was at the synagogue studying the Law, his visage would shine as the sun and its features would be the features of an angel. One day, as he thus sat reading, Satan chanced to pass by, and in a fit of jealousy Satan said: "'Can it really be that this man has never sinned?' "'He is a man of spotless purity,' answered God "'Just grant me the liberty,' Satan urged, 'and I will lead him to sin.' "'You will never succeed.' "'Let me try.' "'Proceed.' "Satan then appeared in the guise of the most beautiful woman in the world, of one the like of whom had not been born since the days of Naomi, the sister of Tuval Cain, the woman who had led angels astray. When Rabbi Mathia espied her he faced about. So Satan, still in the disguise of a beautiful woman, took up a position on the left side of him; and when he turned away once more he walked over to the right side again. Finally Rabbi Mathia had nails and fire brought him and gouged out his own eyes. "At this God called for Angel Raphael and bade him cure the righteous man. Presently Raphael came back with the report that Rabbi Mathia would not be cured lest he should again be tempted to look at pretty women. "'Go tell him in My name that he shall never be tempted again,' said God "And so the holy man regained his eyesight and was never molested by Satan again." The painful image of poor Rabbi M athia gouging out his eyes supplanted the nude figure of the previous quotation in my mind Reb Sender pursued his "exhortative talk." He dwelt on the duties of man to man. "If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs. Nor should you hate a man who has a weakness for telling falsehoods. This, too, is an affliction, like stuttering or being lame. Say to yourself, 'Poor fellow, he is given to lying.' Above all, you must fight conceit, envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. Remember, the sum and substance of all learning lies in the words, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Another thing, remember that it is not enough to abstain from lying by word of mouth; for the worst lies are often conveyed by a false look, smile, or act. Be genuinely truthful, then. And if you feel that you are good, don't be too proud of it. Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger." He worked me up to a veritable frenzy of penitence "I will, I will," I said, tremulously. "And if I ever catch myself looking at a woman again I will gouge out my eyes like Rabbi Mathia." "'S-sh! Don't say that, my son." About a quarter of an hour later, as I sat reading by myself, I suddenly sprang to my feet and walked over to Reb Sender "You are so dear to me," I gasped out. "You are a man of perfect righteousness. I love you so. I should jump into fire or into water for your sake." "'S-sh!" he said, taking me gently by the hand and pressing me down into a seat by his side. "You are a good boy. As to my being a man of perfect righteousness, alas! I am far from being one. We are all sinful. Come, let us read another page together." Satan kept me rather busy these days. It was not an easy task to keep one's eyes off the girls who came to the Preacher's Synagogue, and when none was around I would be apt to think of one. I would even picture myself touching a feminine cheek with the tip of my finger. Then my heart would sink in despair and I would hurl curses at Satan "Eighty black years on you, vile wretch you!" I would whisper, gnashing my teeth, and fall to reading with ferocious zeal In the relations between men and women it is largely case of forbidden fruit and the mystery of distance. The great barrier that religion, law, and convention have laced between the sexes adds to the joys and poetry of love, but it is responsible also for much of the suffering, degradation, and crime that spring from it. In my case his barrier was of special magnitude. Dancing with a girl, or even taking one out for a walk, was out of the question. Nor was the injunction confined to men who devoted themselves to the study of holy books. It was the rule of ordinary decency for any Jew except one who lived "like a Gentile," that is, like a person of modern culture. Indeed, there were scores of towns in the vicinity of Antomir where one could not take a walk even with one's own wife without incurring universal condemnation. There was a lancing-school or two in Antomir, but they were attended by young mechanics of the coarser type. To be sure, there were plenty of young Jews in our town who did live "like Gentiles," who called the girls of their acquaintance "young ladies," took off their hats to them, took them out for a walk in the public park, and danced with them, just like the nobles or the army officers of my birthplace. But then these fellows spoke Russian instead of Yiddish and altogether they belonged to a world far removed from mine. Many of these "modern" young Jews went to high school and wore pretty uniforms with silver-plated buttons and silver lace. To me they were apostates, sinners in Israel. And yet I could not think of them without a lurking feeling of envy. The Gentile books they studied and their social relations with girls who were dressed "like young noblewomen" piqued my keenest curiosity and made me feel small and wretched The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life. Attending divine service is not obligatory for her, and those of the sex who wish to do so are allowed to follow the devotions not in the synagogue proper, but through little windows or peepholes in the wall of an adjoining room. In the eye of the spiritual law that governed my life women were intended for two purposes only: for the continuation of the human species and to serve as an instrument in the hands of Satan for tempting the stronger sex to sin. Marriage was simply a duty imposed by the Bible. Love? So far as it meant attraction between two persons of the opposite sex who were not man and wife, there was no such word in my native tongue. One loved one's wife, mother, daughter, or sister. To be "in love" with a girl who was an utter stranger to you was something unseemly, something which only Gentiles or "modern" Jews might indulge in But at present all this merely deepened the bewitching mystery of the forbidden sex in my young blood. And Satan, wide awake and sharp-eyed as ever, was not slow to perceive the change that had come over me and made the most of it There was no such thing as athletics or outdoor sports in my world. The only physical exercise known to us was to be swinging like a pendulum in front of your reading-desk from nine in the morning to bedtime every day, and an all-night vigil every Thursday in addition. Even a most innocent frolic among the boys was suppressed as an offense to good Judaism All of which tended to deepen the mystery of girlhood and to increase the chances of Satan. I must explain that although women could not attend divine service except through a peephole, they were free to visit the house of worship on all sorts of other errands. So some of them would come with food for the scholars, others with candles for the chandeliers, while still others wanted letters read or written. One of the several rabbis of the town was in the habit of spending his evenings reading Talmud in the Preacher's Synagogue, so housewives of the neighborhood, or their daughters, would bring some spoon, pot, or chicken to have them passed upon according to the dietary laws of Moses and the Talmud I would scrutinize the faces and figures of these girls, I would draw comparisons, make guesses as to whether they were engaged to be married (I did not have to speculate upon whether they were already married, because a young matron who would visit our synagogue was sure to have her hair covered with a wig). It became one of my pastimes to make forecasts as to the looks of the next young woman to call at the synagogue, whether she would be pretty or homely, tall or short, fair or dark, plump or spare. I was interested in their eyes, but, somehow, I was still more interested in their mouths. Some mouths would set my blood on fire. I would invent all sorts of romantic episodes with myself as the hero. I would portray my engagement to some of the pretty girls I had seen, our wedding, and, above all, our married life. The worst of it was that these images often visited my brain while I was reading the holy book. Satan would choose such moments of all others because in this manner he would involve me in two great sins at once; for in addition to the wickedness of indulging in salacious thoughts there was the offense of desecrating the holy book by them Reb Sender's daughter was about to be married to a tradesman of Talmudic education. I did not care for her in the least, yet her approaching wedding aroused a lively interest in me Red Esther had gone out to service. She came home but seldom, and when she did we scarcely ever talked to each other. The coarse brightness of her complexion and the harsh femininity of her laughter repelled me "I do hate her," I once said to myself, as I heard that laugh of hers "And yet you would not mind kissing her, would you, now?" a voice retorted I had to own that I would not, and then I cudgeled my brains over the amazing discrepancy of the thing. Kissing meant being fond of one. I enjoyed kissing my mother, for instance. Now, I certainly was not fond of Esther. I was sure that I hated her. Why, then, was I impelled to kiss her? How could I hate and be fond of her at once? I went on reasoning it out, Talmud fashion, till I arrived at the conclusion that there were two kinds of kisses: the kiss of affection and the kiss of Satan. I submitted it, as a discovery, to some of the other young Talmudists, but they scouted it as a truism. A majority of us were modest of speech and conduct. But there were some who were not CHAPTER III WHEN I was a little over eighteen the number of steady readers at the Old Synagogue was increased by the advent of a youth from the Polish provinces. His appearance produced something of a sensation, for, in addition to being the son of a rich merchant and the prospective son-in-law of a celebrated rabbi, he was the possessor of a truly phenomenal memory. He was well versed in the entire Talmud, and could recite by heart about five hundred leaves, or one thousand pages, of it. He was generally called the Pole. He was tall and supple, fair-complexioned, and well-groomed, with a suggestion of self-satisfaction and aloofness in the very sinuosity of his figure. His velvet skull-cap, which was always pushed back on his head, exposed to view a forelock of golden hair. His long-skirted, well-fitting coat was of the richest broadcloth I had ever seen. He wore a watch and chain that were said to be worth a small fortune. I hated him. He was repugnant to me for his Polish accent, for his good clothes, for his well-fed face, for his haughty manner, for the servile attention that was showered on him, and, above all, for his extraordinary memory. I had always been under the impression that the boys of well-to-do parents were stupid. Brains did not seem to be in their line. That this young man, who was so well supplied with this world's goods, should possess a wonderful mind as well jarred on me as an injustice to us poor boys I would seek comfort in the reflection that "the essence of scholarship lay in profundity and acumen rather than in the ability to rattle off pages like so many psalms." Yet those "five hundred leaves" of his gave me no peace. Five hundred! The figure haunted me. Finally I set myself the task of memorizing five hundred leaves. It was a gigantic undertaking, although my memory was rather above the average. I worked with unflagging assiduity for weeks and weeks. Nobody was to know of my purpose until it had been achieved. I worked so hard and was so absorbed in my task that my interest in girls lost much of its usual acuteness. At times I had a sense of my own holiness. When I walked through the streets, on my way to or from the synagogue, I kept reciting some of the pages I had mastered. While in bed for the night, I whispered myself to sleep reciting Talmud. When I ate, some bit of Talmud was apt to be running through my mind. If there was a hitch, and I could not go on, my heart would sink within me. I would stop eating and make an effort to recall the passage It was inevitable that the new character of my studies should sooner or later attract Reb Sender's attention. My secret hung like a veil between us. He was jealous of it. Ultimately he questioned me, beseechingly, and I was forced to make a clean breast of it Reb Sender beamed. The veil was withdrawn. Presently his face fell again "What I don't like about it is your envy of the Pole," he said, gravely. "Don't take it ill, my son, but I am afraid you are envious and begrudging. Fight it, Davie. Give up studying by heart. It is not with a pure motive you are doing it. Your studies are poisoned with hatred and malice. Do you want to gladden my heart, Davie?" "I do. I will. What do you mean?" "Just step up to the Pole and beg his pardon for the evil thoughts you have harbored about him." A minute later I stood in front of my hated rival, thrilling with the ecstasy of penitence. "I have sinned against you. Forgive me," I said, with downcast eyes The Pole was puzzled "I envied you," I explained. "I could not bear to hear everybody speak of the five hundred leaves you know by heart. So I wanted to show you that I could learn by heart just as much, if not more." A suggestion of a sneer flitted across his well-fed face. It stung me as if it were some loathsome insect. His golden forelock exasperated me "And I could do it, too," I snapped. "I have learned more than fifty leaves already. It is not so much of a trick as I thought it was." "Is it not?" the Pole said, with a full-grown sneer "You need not be so stuck up, anyhow," I shot back, and turned away Before I had reached Reb Sender, who had been watching us, I rushed back to the Pole "I just want to say this," I began, in a towering rage. "With all your boasted memory you would be glad to change brains with me." His shoulders shook with soundless mirth "Laugh away. But let Reb Sender examine both of us. Let him select a passage and see who of us can delve deeper into it, you or I? Memory alone is nothing." "Isn't it? Then why are you green with envy of me?" And once more he burst into a laugh, with a graceful jerk of his head which set my blood on fire "You're a pampered idiot." "You're green with envy." "I'll break every bone in you." We flew at each other, but Reb Sender and two other scholars tore us apart "Shame!" the Talmudists cried, shrugging their shoulders in disgust "Just like Gentiles," some one commented "It is an outrage to have the holy place desecrated in this manner." "What has got into you?" Reb Sender said to me as he led me back to my desk I resumed studying by heart with more energy than ever. "That's all right!" I thought to myself. "I'll have that silk-stocking of a fellow lick the dust of my shoes." I now took special measures to guard my secret even from Reb Sender. One of these was to take a book home and to work there, staying away from synagogue as often as I could invent a plausible pretext. I was lying right and left. Satan chuckled in my face, but I did not care. I promised myself to settle my accounts with the Uppermost later on. The only thing that mattered now was to beat the Pole The sight of me learning the Word of God so diligently was a source of indescribable joy to my mother. She struggled to suppress her feeling, but from time to time a sigh would escape her, as though the rush of happiness was too much for her heart Alas! this happiness of hers was not to last much longer BOOK III I LOSE MY MOTHER CHAPTER I IT was Purim, the feast of Esther. Our school-boys were celebrating the downfall of Haman, and they were doing it in the same war-like fashion in which American boys celebrate their forefathers' defiance of George III. The synagogues roared with the booming of fire-crackers, the report of toy pistols, the whir-whir of Purim rattles. It was four weeks to the great eight-day festival of Passover and my mother went to work in a bakery of unleavened bread. She toiled from eighteen to twenty hours a day, so that she often dozed off over her rolling-pin from sheer exhaustion. But then she earned far more than usual. Including tips from customers (the baker merely acted as a contractor for the families whose flour he transformed into fiat, round, tasteless Passover cakes, or "matzoths") she saved up, during the period, a little over twenty rubles. With a part of this sum she ordered a new coat for me and bought me a new cap. I remember that coat very well. It was of a dark-brown cotton stuff, neat at the waist and with absurdly long skirts, of course. The Jewish Passover often concurs with the Christian Easter. This was the case in the year in question. One afternoon--it was the seventh day of our festival--I chanced to be crossing the Horse-market. As it was not market day, it was deserted save for groups of young Gentiles, civilians and soldiers, who were rolling brightly colored Easter eggs over the ground. My new long-skirted coat and side-locks provoked their mirth until one of them hit me a savage blow in the face, splitting my lower lip. Another rowdy snatched off my new cap--just because our people considered it a sin to go bareheaded. And, as I made my way, bleeding, with one hand to my lip and the other over my bare head, the company sent a shower of broken eggs and a chorus of jeers after me It was only a short distance from Abner's Court. When I entered our basement and faced my mother, she stared at me for a moment, as though dumfounded, and then, slapping her hands together, she sobbed: "Woe is me! Darkness is me! What has happened to you?" When she had heard my story she stood silent awhile, looking aghast, and then left the house. "I'm going to kill him. I am just going to kill him," she said, in measured accents which still ring in my ears The bookbinder's wife, the retired soldier, and I ran after her, imploring her not to risk her life on such a foolhardy errand, but she took no heed of us "Foolish woman! You don't even know who did it," urged the soldier "I'll find out!" she answered The bookbinder's wife seized her by an arm, but she shook her off. I pleaded with her with tears in my eyes "Go back," she said to me, trying to be gentle while her eyes were lit with an ominous look These were the last words I ever heard her utter Fifteen minutes later she was carried into our basement unconscious. Her face was bruised and swollen and the back of her head was broken. She died the same evening I have never been able to learn the ghastly details of her death. The police and an examining magistrate were said to be investigating the case, but nothing came of it There was no lack of excitement among the Jews of Antomir. The funeral was expected to draw a vast crowd. But the epidemic of anti-Jewish atrocities of 1881 and 1882 were fresh in one's mind, so word was passed round "not to irritate the Gentiles." The younger and "modern" element in town took exception to this timidity. They insisted upon a demonstrative funeral. They were organizing for self-defense in case the procession was interfered with, but the counsel of older people prevailed. As a consequence, the number of mourners following the hearse was even smaller than it would have been if my mother had died a natural death. And the few who did take part in the sad procession were unusually silent. A Jewish funeral without a chorus of sobbing women was inconceivable in Antomir. Indeed, a pious matron who happens to come across such a scene will join in the weeping, whether she had ever heard of the deceased or not. On this occasion, however, sobs were conspicuous by their absence "'S-sh! 's-sh! None of your wailing!" an old man kept admonishing the women I spent the "Seven Days "(of mourning) in our basement, where I received visits from neighbors, from the families of my two distant relatives, from Reb Sender and other Talmudists of my synagogue. Among these was the Pole. This time my rival begged my forgiveness. I granted it, of course, but I felt that we never could like each other There was a great wave of sympathy for me. Offers of assistance came pouring in in all sorts of forms. Had there been a Yiddish newspaper in town and such things as public meetings, the outburst might have crystallized into what, to me, would have been a great fortune. As it was, public interest in me died before anything tangible was done. Still, there were several prosperous families of the old-fashioned class, each of which wanted to provide me with excellent board. But then Reb Sender's wife, in a fit of compassion and carried away by the prevailing spirit of the moment, claimed the sole right to feed me "I'll take his mother's place," she said. "Whatever the Upper One gives us will be enough for him, too." Her husband was happy, while I lacked the courage to overrule them As to lodgings, it was deemed most natural that I should sleep in some house of worship, as thousands of Talmud students did in Antomir and other towns. To put up with a synagogue bench for a bed and to "eat days" was even regarded as a desirable part of a young man's Talmud education. And so I selected a pew in the Preacher's Synagogue for my bed. I was better off than some others who lived in houses of God, for I had some of my mother's bedding while they mostly had to sleep on hay pillows with a coat for a blanket It was not until I found myself lying on this improvised bed that I realized the full extent of my calamity. During the first seven days of mourning I had been aware, of course, that something appalling had befallen me, but I had scarcely experienced anything like keen anguish. I had been in an excited, hazy state of mind, more conscious of being the central figure of a great sensation than of my loss. As I went to bed on the synagogue bench, however, instead of in my old bunk at what had been my home, the fact that my mother was dead and would never be alive again smote me with crushing violence. It was as though I had just discovered it. I shall never forget that terrible night At the end of the first thirty days of mourning I visited mother's grave. "Mamma! Mamma!" I shrieked, throwing myself upon the mound in a wild paroxysm of grief The dinners which Reb Sender's wife brought to the synagogue for her husband and myself were never quite enough for two, and for supper, which he had at home, she would bring me some bread and cheese or herring. Poor Reb Sender could not look me in the face. The situation grew more awkward every day. It was not long before his wife began to drop hints that I was hard to please, that she did far more than she could afford for me and that I was an ingrate. The upshot was that she "allowed" me to accept "days" from other families. But the well-to-do people had by now forgotten my existence and the housewives who were still vying with one another in offering me meals were mostly of the poorer class. These strove to make me feel at home at their houses, and yet, in some cases at least, as I ate, I was aware of being watched lest I should consume too much bread. As a consequence, I often went away half hungry. All of which quickened my self-pity and the agony of my yearnings for mother. I grew extremely sensitive and more quarrelsome than I am naturally. I quarreled with one of my relatives, a woman, and rejected the "day" which I had had in her house, and shortly after abandoned one of my other "days." Reb Sender kept tab of my missing "days" and tried to make up for them by sharing his dinner with me. His wife, however, who usually waited for the dishes and so was present while I ate, was anything but an encouraging witness of her husband's hospitality. The food would stick in my throat under her glances. I was repeatedly impelled abruptly to leave the meal, but refrained from doing so for Reb Sender's sake. I obtained two new "days." One of these I soon forfeited, having been caught stealing a hunk of bread; but I kept the matter from Reb Sender. To conceal the truth from him I would spend the dinner hour in the street or in a little synagogue in another section of the city. Tidy Naphtali had recently returned to Antomir, and this house of worship was his home now. His vocal cords had been ruined by incessantly reading Talmud at the top of his lungs. He now spoke or read in a low, hoarse voice. He still spent most of his time at a reading-desk, but he had to content himself with whispering I found a new "day," but lost three of my old ones. Naphtali had as little to eat as I, yet he scarcely ever left his books. One late afternoon I sat by his side while he was reading in a spiritless whisper. Neither of us had lunched that day. His curly head was propped upon his arm, his near-sighted eyes close to the book. He never stirred. He was too faint to sway his body or to gesticulate. I was musing wearily, and it seemed as though my hunger was a living thing and was taking part in my thoughts "Do you know, Naphtali," I said, "it is pleasant even to famish in company. If I were alone it would be harder to stand it. 'The misery of the many is a consolation.'" He made no answer. Minutes passed. Presently he turned from his desk "Do you really think there is a God?" he asked, irrelevantly I stared "Don't be shocked. It is all bosh." And he fell to swaying over his book I was dumfounded. "Why do you keep reading Talmud, then?" I asked, looking aghast "Because I am a fool," he returned, going on with his reading. A minute later he added, "But you are a bigger one." I was hurt and horrified. I tried to argue, but he went on murmuring, his eyes on the folio before him Finally I snapped: "You are a horrid atheist and a sinner in Israel. You are desecrating the holy place." And I rushed from the little synagogue His shocking whisper, "Do you really think there is a God?" haunted me all that afternoon and evening. He appeared like another man to me. I was burning to see him again and to smash his atheism, to prove to him that there was a God. But as I made a mental rehearsal of my argument I realized that I had nothing clear or definite to put forth. So I cursed Naphtali for an apostate, registered a vow to shun him, and was looking forward to the following day when I should go to see him again My interest in the matter was not keen, however, and soon it died down altogether. Nothing really interested me except the fact that I had not enough to eat, that mother was no more, that I was all alone in the world. The shock of the catastrophe had produced a striking effect on me. My incessant broodings, and the corroding sense of my great irreparable loss and of my desolation had made a nerveless, listless wreck of me, a mere shadow of my former self. I was incapable of sustained thinking My communions with God were quite rare now. Nor did He take as much interest in my studies as He used to. Instead of the Divine Presence shining down on me while I read, the face of my martyred mother would loom before me. Once or twice in my hungry rambles I visited Abner's Court and let my heart be racked by the sight of what had once been our home, mother's and mine. I said prayers for her three times a day with great devotion, with a deep yearning. But this piety was powerless to restore me to my former feeling for the Talmud I distinctly recall how I would shut my eyes and vision my mother looking at me from her grave, her heart contracted with anguish and pity for her famished orphan. It was an excruciating vision, yet I found comfort in it. I would mutely complain of the world to her. It would give me satisfaction to denounce the whole town to her. "Ah, I have got you!" I seemed to say to the people of Antomir. "The ghost of my mother and the whole Other World see you in all your heartlessness. You can't wriggle out of it." This was my revenge. I reveled in it. But, nothing daunted, the people of Antomir would go about their business as usual and my heart would sink with a sense of my helplessness. I was restless. I coveted diversion, company, and I saw a good deal of Naphtali. As for his Free Thought, it soon, after we had two mild quarrels over it, began to bore me. It appeared that the huge tomes of the Talmud were not the only books he read these days. He spent much time, clandestinely, on little books written in the holy tongue on any but holy topics. They were taken up with such things as modern science, poetry, fiction, and, above all, criticism of our faith. He made some attempts to lure me into an interest in these books, but without avail. The only thing connected with them that appealed to me were the anecdotes that Naphtali would tell me, in his laconic way, concerning their authors. I scarcely ever listened to these stories without invoking imprecations upon the infidels, but I enjoyed them all the same. They were mostly concerned with their apostasy, but there were many that were not. Some of these, or rather the fact that I had first heard them from Naphtali, in my youth, were destined to have a peculiar bearing on an important event in my life, on something that occurred many years later, when I was already a prosperous merchant in New York. They were about Doctor Rachaeles, a famous Hebrew writer who practised medicine in Odessa, and his son-in-law, a poet named Abraham Tevkin. Doctor Rachacles's daughter was a celebrated beauty and the poet's courtship of her had been in the form of a long series of passionate letters addressed, not to his lady-love, but to her father. This love-story made a strong impression on me. The figures of the beautiful girl and of the enamoured young poet, as I pictured them, were vivid in my mind. "Did he write of his love in those letters?" I demanded, shyly "He did not write of onions, did he?" Naphtali retorted. After a little I asked: "But how could she read those letters? She certainly does not read holy tongue?" "Go ask her." "You're a funny fellow. Did Tevkin get the girl?" "He did, and they have been married for many years. Why, did you wonder if you mightn't have a chance?" "You're impossible, Naphtali." He smiled CHAPTER II ONE afternoon Naphtali called on me at the Preacher's Synagogue "Have you got all your 'days'?" he asked, in his whisper "Why?" He had discovered a "treasure"--a pious, rich, elderly woman whose latest hobby was to care for at least eighteen poor Talmudists--eighteen being the numerical value of the letters composing the Hebrew word for "life." Her name was Shiphrah Minsker. She belonged to one of the oldest families in Antomir, and her husband was equally well-born. Her religious zeal was of recent origin, in fact, and even now she wore her hair "Gentile fashion." It was a great sin, but she had never worn a wig in her life, and putting on one now seemed to be out of the question. This hair of hers was of a dark-brown hue, threaded with silver, and it grew in a tousled abundance of unruly wisps that seemed to be symbolic of her harum-scarum character. She was as pugnacious as she was charitable, and as quick to make up a quarrel as to pick one. Her husband, Michael Minsker, was a "worldly" man, with only a smattering of Talmud, and their younger children were being educated at the Russian schools. But they all humored her newly adopted old-fashioned ways, to a certain extent at least, while she tolerated their "Gentile" ones as she did her own uncovered hair. Relegating her household affairs to a devoted old servant, with whom she was forever wrangling, Shiphrah spent most of her time raising contributions to her various charity funds, looking after her Talmud students, quarreling with her numerous friends, and begging their forgiveness. If she was unable to provide meals for a student in the houses of some people of her acquaintance she paid for his board out of her own purse Her husband was an exporter of grain and his business often took him to Koenigsberg, Prussia, for several weeks at a time. Occasions of this kind were hailed by Shiphrah as a godsend (in the literal sense of the term), for in his absence she could freely spend on her beneficiaries and even feed some of them at her own house When I was introduced to her as "the son of the woman who had been killed on the Horse-market" and she heard that I frequently had nothing to eat, she burst into tears and berated me soundly for not having knocked at her door sooner "It's terrible! It's terrible!" she moaned, breaking into tears again. "In fact I, too, deserve a spanking. To think that I did not look him up at once when that awful thing happened!" As a matter of fact, she had not done so because at the time of my mother's death her house had been agog with a trouble of its own. But of this presently She handed me a three-ruble bill and set about filling up the gaps in my eating calendar and substituting fat "days" for lean ones. She often came to see me at the synagogue, never empty-handed. Now she had a silver coin for me, now a pair of socks, a shirt, or perhaps a pair of trousers which some member of her family had discarded. Often, too, she would bring me a quarter of a chicken, cookies, or some other article of food from her own table My days of hunger were at an end. I lived in clover. "Now I can work," I thought to myself, with the satisfaction of a well-filled stomach. "And work I will. I'll show people what I can do." I applied myself to my task with ardor, but it did not last long. My former interest in the Talmud was gone. The spell was broken irretrievably. Now that I did not want for food, my sense of loneliness became keener than ever. Indeed, it was a novel sense of loneliness, quite unlike the one I had experienced before My surroundings had somehow lost their former meaning. Life was devoid of savor, and I was thirsting for an appetizer, as it were, for some violent change, for piquant sensations Then it was that the word America first caught my fancy The name was buzzing all around me. The great emigration of Jews to the United States, which had received its first impulse two or three years before, was already in full swing. It may not be out of order to relate, briefly. how it had all come about An anti-Semitic riot broke out in a southern town named Elisabethgrad in the early spring of 1881. Occurrences of this kind were, in those days, quite rare in Russia, and when they did happen they did not extend beyond the town of their origin. But the circumstances that surrounded the Elisabethgrad outbreak were of a specific character. It took place one month after the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. The actual size and influence of the "underground" revolutionary organization being an unknown quantity, St. Petersburg was full of the rumblings of a general uprising. The Elisabethgrad riot, however, was not of a revolutionary nature. Yet the police, so far from suppressing it, encouraged it. The example of the Elisabethgrad rabble was followed by the riffraff of other places. The epidemic quickly spread from city to city. Whereupon the scenes of lawlessness in the various cities were marked by the same method in the mob's madness, by the same connivance on the part of the police, and by many other traits that clearly pointed to a common source of inspiration. It has long since become a well-established historical fact that the anti-Jewish disturbances were encouraged, even arranged, by the authorities as an outlet for the growing popular discontent with the Government. Count von Plehve was then at the head of the Police Department in the Ministry of the Interior. This bit of history repeated itself, on a larger scale, twenty-two years later, when Russia was in the paroxysm of a real revolution and when the ghastly massacres of Jews in Kishineff, Odessa, Kieff, and other cities were among the means employed in an effort to keep the masses "busy." Count von Plehve then held the office of Prime Minister. To return to 1881 and 1882. Thousands of Jewish families were left homeless. Of still greater moment was the moral effect which the atrocities produced on the whole Jewish population of Russia. Over five million people were suddenly made to realize that their birthplace was not their home (a feeling which the great Russian revolution has suddenly changed). Then it was that the cry "To America!" was raised. It spread like wild-fire, even over those parts of the Pale of Jewish Settlement which lay outside the riot zone This was the beginning of the great New Exodus that has been in progress for decades My native town and the entire section to which it belongs had been immune from the riots, yet it caught the general contagion, and at the time I became one of Shiphrah's wards hundreds of its inhabitants were going to America or planning to do so. Letters full of wonders from emigrants already there went the rounds of eager readers and listeners until they were worn to shreds in the process I succumbed to the spreading fever. It was one of these letters from America, in fact, which put the notion of emigrating to the New World definitely in my mind. An illiterate woman brought it to the synagogue to have it read to her, and I happened to be the one to whom she addressed her request. The concrete details of that letter gave New York tangible form in my imagination. It haunted me ever after The United States lured me not merely as a land of milk and honey, but also, and perhaps chiefly, as one of mystery, of fantastic experiences, of marvelous transformations. To leave my native place and to seek my fortune in that distant, weird world seemed to be just the kind of sensational adventure my heart was hankering for. When I unburdened myself of my project to Reb Sender he was thunderstruck "To America!" he said. "Lord of the World! But one becomes a Gentile there." "Not at all," I sought to reassure him. "There are lots of good Jews there, and they don't neglect their Talmud, either." The amount that was necessary to take me to America loomed staggeringly large. Where was it to come from? I thought of approaching Shiphrah, but the idea of her helping me abandon my Talmud and go to live in a godless country seemed preposterous. So I began by saving the small allowance which I received from her and by selling some of the clothes and food she brought me. For the evening meal I usually received some rye bread and a small coin for cheese or herring, so I invariably added the coin to my little hoard, relishing the bread with thoughts of America. While I was thus pinching and saving pennies I was continually casting about for some more effective way of raising the sum that would take me to New York. I confided my plan to Naphtali. "Not a bad idea," he said, "but you will never raise the money. You are a master of dreams, David." "I'll get the money, and, what is more, when I am in America I shall bring you over there, too." "May your words pass from your lips into the ear of God." "I thought you did not believe in God." "How long will you believe in Him after you get to America?" BOOK IV MATILDA CHAPTER I I COULD scarcely think of anything but America. I read every letter from there that I could obtain. I was constantly seeking information about the country and the opportunities it held out to a man of my type, and cudgeling my brains for some way of scraping together the formidable sum. I was restless, sleepless, and finally, when I caught a slight cold, my health broke down so completely that I had to be taken to the hospital. Shiphrah visited me every day, calling me poor orphan boy and quarreling with the superintendent over me. One afternoon, after I had been discharged, when she saw me at the synagogue, feeble and emaciated, she gasped "You're a cruel, heartless man," she flared up, addressing herself to the beadle. "The poor boy needs a good soft bed, fine chicken soup, and real care. Why didn't you let me know at once? Come on, David!" "Where to?" I inquired, timidly. "None of your business. Come on. I'm not going to take you to the woods, you may be sure of that. I want you to stay in my house until you are well rested and strong enough to study. Don't you like it?" she added, with a wink to the beadle It appeared that her husband was away on one of his prolonged business excursions. Otherwise installing in her "modern" home an old-fashioned, ridiculous young creature like a Talmud student would have been out of the question I followed her with fast-beating heart. I knew that her family was "modern," that her children spoke Russian and "behaved like Gentiles," that there was a grown young woman among them and that her name was Matilda The case of this young woman had been the talk of the town the year before. She had been persuaded to marry a man for whom she did not care, and shortly after the wedding and after a sensational passage at arms between his people and hers, she made her father pay him a small fortune for divorcing her Matilda's family being one of the "upper ten" in our town, its members were frequently the subject of envious gossip, and so I had known a good deal about them even before Shiphrah befriended me. I had heard, for example, that Matilda had received her early education in a boarding-school in Germany (in accordance with a custom that had been in existence among people of her father's class until recently); that she had subsequently studied Russian and other subjects under Russian tutors at home; and that her two brothers, who were younger than she, were at the local Russian gymnasium, or high school. I had heard, also, that Matilda was very pretty. That she was well dressed went without saying All this both fascinated and cowed me Suddenly Shiphrah paused, as though bethinking herself of something. "Wait. Don't stir," she said, rushing back. Ten or fifteen minutes later she returned, saying: "I was not long, was I? I just went to get the beadle's forgiveness. Had insulted him for nothing. But he's a dummy, all the same. Come on, David." Arrived at her house, she introduced me to her old servant, in the kitchen "He'll stay a week with us, perhaps more," she explained. "I want you to build him up. Fatten him up like a Passover goose. Do you hear?" The servant, a tall, spare woman, with an extremely dark face tinged with blue, began by darting hostile glances at me "Look at the way she is staring at him!" Shiphrah growled. "He is the son of the woman who was murdered at the Horse-market." The old servant started. "Is he?" she said, aghast "Are you pleased now? Will you take good care of him?" "May the Uppermost give him a good appetite." As Shiphrah led me from the kitchen into another room she said: "She took a fancy to you. It will be all right." She towed me into a vast sitting-room, so crowded with new furniture that it had the appearance of a furniture-store. There were many rooms in the apartment and they all produced a similar impression. I subsequently learned that the superabundance of sofas, chests of drawers, chairs, or bric-à-brac-stands was due to Shiphrah's passion for bargains, a weakness which made her the fair game of tradespeople and artisans. Several of her wardrobes and bureaus were packed full of all sorts of things for which she had no earthly use and many of which she had smuggled in when her husband and the children were out Ensconced in a corner of an enormous green sofa in the big crowded sitting-room, with a book in her lap, we found a young woman with curly brown hair and sparkling brown eyes set in a small oval face. She looked no more than twenty, but when her mother addressed her as Matilda I knew that I was facing the heroine of the sensational divorce. She was singularly interesting, but pretty she certainly was not. Her Gentile name had a world of charm for my ear One of the trifles that clung to my memory is the fact that upon seeing her I felt something like amazement at her girlish appearance. I had had a notion that a married woman, no matter how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did not begin to look married. Matilda got up, cast a frowning side-glance at her mother, and walked over to one of the four immense windows illuminating the room. Less than a minute later she turned around and crossed over to her mother's side She was small, but well made, and her movements were brisk, firm, elastic "Come on, mother, there's something I want to tell you," she said, a jerk of her curly head indicating the adjoining room "I have no secrets," Shiphrah growled. "What do you want?" A snappish whispered conference ensued, the trend of which was at once betrayed in an acrimonious retort by Shiphrah: "Just keep your foolish nose out of my affairs, will you? When I say he is going to stay here for some time I mean it. Don't you mind her, David." "Mother! Mother! Mother!" Matilda trilled with a gesture of disgust, and flounced out of the room I felt my face turning all colors, and at the same time her "Mother! Mother! Mother!" (instead of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!") was echoing in my brain enchantingly Presently a fair-complexioned youth of eighteen or nineteen came in, apparently attracted by his mother's angry voice. He wore a blue coat with silver lace and silver buttons, the uniform of a Russian high school, which sent a flutter of mixed envy and awe through me. He threw a frowning glance at me, and withdrew. Two smaller children, a uniformed boy and a little girl, made their appearance, talking in Russian noisily. At sight of me they fell silent, looked me over, from my side-locks to the edge of my long-skirted coat, and then took to whispering and giggling "Clear out, you devils!" Shiphrah shouted, stamping her foot. "Shoo!" A young chambermaid passed through the room, and Shiphrah stopped her long enough to introduce me and to command her to look after me as if I were one of the family--"even better." CHAPTER II THE spacious sitting-room was used as a breakfast-room as well. It was in this room, on the enormous green sofa, that my bed was made for the night. It was by far the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in Early the next morning, after I finished my long prayer and had put away my phylacteries, the young chambermaid removed the bedding and the swarthy old servant served me my breakfast "Go wash your hands and eat in good health. Eat hearty, and may it well agree with you," she said, with a compound of deep commiseration, reverence, and disdain. I went to the kitchen, where I washed my hands, and, while wiping them, muttered the brief prayer which one offers before eating. As I returned to the sitting-room I found Matilda there. She was seated at some distance from the table upon which my breakfast was spread. She wore a sort of white kimono. One did not have to stand on ceremony with a fellow who did not even wear a stiff collar and a necktie. Nor did I know enough to resent her costume. She did not order anything to eat for herself, not even a glass of tea. It seemed as though she had come in for the express purpose of eying me out of countenance. If she had, she succeeded but too well. Her silent glances fell on me like splashes of hot water. I was so disconcerted I could not swallow my food. There were centuries of difference between her and myself, not to speak of the economic chasm that separated us. To me she was an aristocrat, while I was a poor, wretched "day" eater, a cross between a beggar and a recluse. I dared not even look at her. Talmud students were expected to be the shyest creatures under the sun. On this occasion I certainly was The other children entered the room. They were dressing themselves, eating and studying their Gentile lessons all at once. Matilda had a mild altercation with Yeffim, her eighteen-year-old brother, ordered breakfast for herself, and seemed to have forgotten my existence. Her mother came in and took to cloying me with food At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon I was alone in the drawing-room. I stood at the piano--the first I had ever laid eyes on--timidly sounding some of the keys, when I heard approaching voices. With my heart in my mouth, I rushed over to the nearest window, where I paused, feigning interest in some passing peasant teams. Presently Matilda made her appearance. accompanied by two girl friends The three young women were chattering in Russian, a language of which I understood scarcely three dozen words. I could conjecture, however, that the subject of their talk was no other than my own quailing personality Suddenly Matilda addressed herself to me in Yiddish: "Look here, young man! Don't you know it is bad manners for a gentleman to stand with his back to ladies?" I faced about, all flushed and scared "That's better," she said, gaily. "Never mind staring at the floor. Give us a look, will you? Don't act as a shy bridegroom." I made no answer. The room seemed to be in a whirl "Why don't you speak?" Matilda insisted, concealing her quizzical purpose under a well-acted air of gravity Her two friends roared, and, spurred on by their merriment, she continued to make game of me. "Won't you give us one look, at least? Do, please! Come, my mother will never find out you have been guilty of a great sin like that." I was dying to get up and fling out of the room, but I felt glued to the spot. Their cruel sport, which made me faint with embarrassment and misery, had something inexpressibly alluring in it One of the two girls said something in Russian of which I caught the word "kiss" and which was greeted by a new outburst of laughter. I was terror-stricken "Well, pious Jew!" Matilda resumed. "Suppose a girl were to give you a kiss. What would you do? Commit suicide, would you? Well, never fear; we won't be as cruel as all that. I tell you what, though. I'll hide your side-locks behind your ears. I just want to see how you would look without them." At this she stepped up close to me and reached out her hands for my two appendages I pushed her off. "Please, let me alone," I protested "At last we have heard his voice. Bravo! We're making headway, aren't we?" At this point her mother's angry voice made itself heard. Matilda desisted, with a merry remark to her friends The next morning when she and I were alone she tantalized me again. She made another attempt to tuck my side-locks behind my ears. As we were alone I had more courage "If you don't stop I'll go away from here," I said, in a rage. "What do you want of me?" As I thus gave vent to my resentment I instinctively felt that, so far from causing her to avoid me, it would quicken her rompish interest in me. And I hoped it would "'S-sh! don't yell," she said, startled. "Can't you take a joke?" "A nice joke, that." "Very well, I won't do it again. I didn't know you were a touch-me-not." After a pause she resumed, in grave, friendly accents: "Come, don't be angry. I want to talk to you. Look here. Is there any sense in your wasting your life the way you do? Look at the way you are dressed, the way you live generally. Besides, the idea of a young man like you not being able to speak a word of Russian! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why, mother says you are remarkably bright. Isn't it a pity that you should throw it all away? Why don't you try to study Russian, geography, history? Why don't you try to become an educated man?" "The idea!" I said, with a laugh. My confusion was gone, partly, at least. I looked her full in the face She flared up. "The idea!" she mocked me. "Rather say, 'The idea of a bright young fellow being so ignorant!' Did you ever hear of a provoking thing like that?" There was a good deal of her mother's helter-skelter explosiveness in her Now, that I had scanned her features in the light of the fact that she was a married woman, I read that fact into them. She did look married, I remarked to myself. Her exposed hair gave her an effect of "aristocratic" wickedness and wantonness which repelled and drew me at once. She was a girl, and yet she was a married woman. This duality of hers deepened the fascinating mystery of the distance between us She proceeded to draw me out. She made me tell her the story of my young life, and I obeyed her but too willingly. I told her my whole tale of woe, reveling in my own rehearsal of my sufferings and more especially in the expressions of horror and heartfelt pity which it elicited from her. "My God! My God!" she cried, gasping and wringing her hands. "Poor boy!" or, "Oh, I can't hear it! I can't hear it! It is enough to drive one crazy." At one point, as I described the pangs of hunger which I had often borne, there were tears in her interesting eyes When I had finished my story, flushed with a sense of my histrionic success, she ordered tea and preserves, as though to indemnify me for my past sufferings "All the more reason for you to study Russian and to become an educated man," she said, as she put sugar into my glass. She cited the cases of former Talmudists, poor and friendless like myself, who had studied at the universities, fighting every inch of their way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up and down the room fiercely All this sounded shockingly wicked, and yet it did not shock me in the least "I have a plan," I said When she heard what I wanted to do she shook her head and frowned. She said, in substance, that America was a land of dollars, not of education, and that she wanted me to be an educated man. I assured her that I should study English in America and, after I had laid up some money, prepare for college there (she could have made me promise anything). But colleges in which the instruction was not in Russian failed to appeal to her imagination Still, when she saw that my heart was set on the project, she yielded. She seemed to like the fervor with which I defended my cause, and the notion of my going to a far-away land was apparently beginning to have its effect. I was the hero of an adventure. Gradually she became quite enthusiastic about my plan "I tell you what. I can raise the money for you," she said, with a gesture of sudden resolution. "How much is it?" When I said, forlornly, that it would come to about eighty rubles, she declared, gravely: "That's all right. I shall get it for you. Only, say nothing to mother about it." I thought myself in a flurry of joy over this windfall, but a little later, when I was left to myself, I became aware that the flurry I was in was of quite a different nature. When I tried to think of America I found that my ambition in that direction had lost its former vitality I was deeply in love with Matilda CHAPTER III SHE continued to treat me in a patronizing, playful way; but we were supposed to be great friends and I asked myself no questions. "The money is assured," she once announced. "You shall get it in a few days. You may begin to pack your great baggage," she jested My heart sank within me, but I feigned exultation "Do you deserve it, pious soul that you are?" she laughed. And casting a glance at my side-locks, she added: "I do wish you would cut off those horrid things of yours. You won't take them to America, will you?" I smiled. Small as was my stock of information of the New World, I knew enough of it to understand, in a general way, that side-locks were out of place there She proceeded to put my side-locks behind my ears, and this time I did not object. She then smoothed them down, the touch of her fingers thrilling me through and through. Then she brought a hand-glass and made me look at myself. "Do you see the difference?" she demanded. "If you were not rigged out like the savage that you are you wouldn't be a bad-looking fellow, after all. Why, girls might even fall in love with you. But then what does a pious soul like you know about such things as love?" "How do you know I don't?" I ventured to say, blushing like a poppy "Do you, really?" she said, with mischievous surprise I nodded "Well, well. So you are not quite so saintly as I thought you were! Perhaps you have even been in love yourself? Have you? Tell me." I kept silent. My heart was throbbing wildly. "Do you love me?" I nodded once more. My heart stood still. "Kiss me, then." She put my arms around her, made me clasp her to my breast, and we kissed, passionately I suddenly felt ten years older She broke away from me, jumping around, slapping her hands and bubbling over with triumphant mirth, as she shouted: "There is a pious soul for you! There is a pious soul for you!" A thought of little Red Esther of my childhood days flashed through my brain, of the way she would force me to "sin" and then gloat over my "fall." "A penny for your piety," Matilda added, gravely. "When you are in America you'll dress like a Gentile and even shave. Then you won't look so ridiculous. Good clothes would make another man of you." At this she looked me over in a business-like sort of way. "Pretty good figure, that," she concluded In the evening of that day, when there was company in the house, she bore herself as though she did not know me. But the next morning, after the children had gone to school and her mother was away on her various missions, she made me put on the glittering coat and cap of her brother's Sunday uniform "It's rather too small for you, but it's becoming all the same," she said, enthusiastically. "If mamma came in now she would not know you. But then there would be a nice how-do-you-do if she did." She gave a titter which rolled through my very heart. "Well, Mr. Gymnasist, [note] are you really in love with me?" "Don't make fun of me, pray," I implored her. "It hurts, you know." "Very well, I sha'n't. But you haven't answered my question." "What question?" "What a poor memory you have! And yet mother says you have 'a good head.' Try to remember." "I do remember your question." "Then what is your answer?" "Yes." "Yes!" she mocked me. "That's not the way gentlemen declare their love." "What else shall I say?" "What else! Well, say: 'I am ready to die for you. You are the sunshine of my life.'" "'You are the sunshine of my life,'" I echoed, with a smile that was a combination of mirth and resentment "'You are my happiness, my soul. The world would be dark without you.'" "I am no baby to parrot somebody else's words." "Then you don't love me." "Yes, I do. But I hate to be made fun of. Don't! Please don't!" I said it with a beseeching, passionate tremor in my voice, and all at once I clasped her violently to me and was about to kiss her. She put up her lips responsively, but suddenly she wrenched herself back "Easy, easy, you saintly Talmudist," she said, good-naturedly. "You must not forget that you are not a gymnasist, that to kiss a woman is a sin, a great sin. You'll be beaten with rods of iron in the world to come. Well, good-by," she concluded, gravely. "I must go. Take off that coat and cap. Mamma may come in at any moment." She showed me where to hang them [note: Gymnasist] A pupil of a gymnasium or high school CHAPTER IV In my incessant reveries of her I developed the theory that if I abandoned my plan about going to America she would have her father send me to college with a view to my marrying her. Indeed, matches of this kind were not an unusual arrangement in our town (nor are they in the Jewish districts of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, for example) My bed was usually made on the enormous green sofa in the spacious sitting-room. One night, when I was asleep on that great sofa, I was suddenly aroused by the touch of a hand "'S-sh," I heard Matilda's whisper. "I want to talk to you. I can't sleep, anyhow. I don't know why. So I was thinking of all kinds of things till I came to your plan about America. It is foolish. Why go so far? Perhaps something can be done to get you into high school and then into the university." "I have guessed it right, then," I exclaimed within myself. The room was pitch-dark. Her white kimono was all I could see of her She explained certain details. She spoke in a very low undertone, with great earnestness. I took her by the hand and drew her down to a seat on the edge of the sofa beside me. She offered no resistance. She continued to talk, partly in the same undertone, partly in whispers, with her hand remaining in mine. I was aflame with happiness, yet I listened intently. I felt sure that she was my bride-to-be, that it was only a matter of days when our engagement would be celebrated. My heart went out to her with a passion that seemed to be sanctioned by God and men. I strained down her head and kissed her, but that was the stainless kiss of a man yearning upon the lips of his betrothed. I clasped her flimsily garmented form, kissed her again and again, let her kiss and bite me; and still it all seemed legitimate, or nearly so. I saw in it an emphatic confirmation of my feeling that she did not regard herself a stranger to me. That mattered more than anything else at this moment "You're a devil," she whispered, slapping me on both cheeks, "a devil with side-locks." And she broke into a suppressed laugh "I'll study as hard as I can," I assured her, with boyish exultation. "You'll see what I can do. The Gentile books are child's play in comparison with the Talmud." I went into details. She took no part in my talk, but she let me go on. I became so absorbed in what I was saying that my caresses ceased. I sat up and spoke quite audibly "'S-sh!" she cautioned me in an irritated whisper I dropped my voice. She listened for another minute or two and then, suddenly rising, she said: "Oh, you are a Talmud student, after all," and her indistinct kimono vanished in the darkness I felt crushed, but I was sure that the words "Talmud student," which are Yiddish for "ninny," merely referred to my rendering our confab dangerous by speaking too loud The next afternoon she kissed me once more, calling me Talmud student again. But she was apparently getting somewhat fidgety about our relations. She was more guarded, more on the alert for eavesdroppers, as though somebody had become suspicious. My Gentile education she never broached again. Finally when a letter came from her father announcing his speedy return and Shiphrah hastened to terminate my stay at the house, Matilda was obviously glad to have me go. "I shall bring you the money to the synagogue," she whispered as I was about to leave I was stunned. I left in a turmoil of misery and perplexity, yet not in despair When I returned to the synagogue everybody and everything in it looked strange to me. Reb Sender was dearer than ever, but that was chiefly because I was longing for a devoted friend. I was dying to relieve my fevered mind by telling him all and seeking advice, but I did not "Are you still weak?" he asked, tenderly, looking close into niy eyes "Oh, it is not that, Reb Sender." "Is it the death of your dear mother--peace upon her?" "Yes, of course. That and lots of other things." "It will all pass. She will have a bright paradise, and The Upper One will help you. Don't lose heart, my boy." I ran over to Naphtali's place. We talked of Shiphrah and her children--at least I did. He asked about Matilda, and I answered reluctantly. Now and again I felt impelled to tell him all. It would have been such a relief to ease my mind of its cruel burden and to hear somebody's, anybody's opinion about it. But his laconical questions and answers were anything but encouraging I spent many an hour in his company, but he was always absorbed in the Talmud, or in some of his infidel books. The specific character of my restlessness was lost upon him I was in the grip of a dull, enervating, overpowering agony that seemed to be weighing my heart down and filling my throat with pent-up sobs. I was writhing inwardly, praying for Matilda's mercy. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever experienced. I remember it distinctly in every detail. If I now wished to imagine a state of mind driving one to suicide I could not do it better than by recalling my mental condition in those days In point of fact I took pride in my misery. "I am in love. I am no mere slouch of a Talmud student," I would say to myself In the evening of the fourth day, as I was making a pretense at reading Talmud, a poor boy came in to call me out. In the alley outside the house of worship I found Matilda. She had the money with her "I don't think I want it now," I said. "I don't care to go to America." "Why?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh, take it and let me be done with it," she said, forcing a small packet into my hand. "I have no time to bother with you. Go to America. I wish you good luck." "But I'll miss you. I sha'n't be able to live without you." "What? Are you crazy?" she said, sternly. "You forget your place, young man!" She stalked hastily away, her form, at once an angel of light and a messenger of death, being swallowed up by the gloom Ten minutes later, when I was at my book again, my heart bleeding and my head in a daze, I was called out once more Again I found her standing in the lane "I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she said. "I wish you good luck from the bottom of my heart." She uttered it with a warm cordiality, and yet the note of impatience which rang in her voice ten minutes before was again there "Try to become an educated man in America," she added. "That's the main thing. Good-by. You have my best wishes. Good-by." And before I had time to say anything she shook my hand and was gone CHAPTER V A LITTLE over three weeks had elapsed. It was two days after Passover. I had just solemnized the first anniversary of my mother's death. The snow had melted. Each of my five senses seemed to be thrillingly aware of the presence of spring I was at the railway station. Clustered about me were Reb Sender and his wife, two other Talmudists from the Preacher's Synagogue, the retired old soldier with the formidable side-whiskers, and Naphtali As I write these words I seem to see the group before me. It is one of those scenes that never grow dim in one's memory "Be a good Jew and a good man," Reb Sender murmured to me, confusedly. "Do not forget that there is a God in heaven in America as well as here. Do not forget to write us." Naphtali, speaking in his hoarse whisper, half in jest, half in earnest, made me repeat my promise to send him a "ship ticket" from America. I promised everything that was asked of me. My head was swimming While the first bell was sounding for the passengers to board the train, Shiphrah rushed in, puffing for breath. I looked at the door to see if Matilda was not following her. She was not. The group around me made way for the rich woman "Here," she said, handing me a ten-ruble bill and a package. "There is a boiled chicken in it, and some other things, provided you won't neglect your Talmud in America." A minute later she drew her purse from her skirt pocket, produced a five-ruble bill, and put it into my hand. That all the other money I had for my journey had come from her daughter she had not the remotest idea I made my final farewells amid a hubbub of excited voices and eyes glistening with tears BOOK V I DISCOVER AMERICA CHAPTER I TWO weeks later I was one of a multitude of steerage passengers on a Bremen steamship on my way to New York. Who can depict the feeling of desolation, homesickness, uncertainty, and anxiety with which an emigrant makes his first voyage across the ocean? I proved to be a good sailor, but the sea frightened me. The thumping of the engines was drumming a ghastly accompaniment to the awesome whisper of the waves. I felt in the embrace of a vast, uncanny force. And echoing through it all were the heart-lashing words: "Are you crazy? You forget your place, young man!" When Columbus was crossing the Atlantic, on his first great voyage, his men doubted whether they would ever reach land. So does many an America-bound emigrant to this day. Such, at least, was the feeling that was lurking in my heart while the Bremen steamer was carrying me to New York. Day after day passes and all you see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are skeptical In my devotions, which I performed three times a day, without counting a benediction before every meal and every drink of water, grace after every meal and a prayer before going to sleep, I would mentally plead for the safety of the ship and for a speedy sight of land. My scanty luggage included a pair of phylacteries and a plump little prayer-book, with the Book of Psalms at the end. The prayers I knew by heart, but I now often said psalms, in addition, particularly when the sea looked angry and the pitching or rolling was unusually violent. I would read all kinds of psalms, but my favorite among them was the 104th, generally referred to by our people as "Bless the Lord, O my soul," its opening words in the original Hebrew. It is a poem on the power and wisdom of God as manifested in the wonders of nature, some of its verses dealing with the sea. It is said by the faithful every Saturday afternoon during the fall and winter; so I could have recited it from memory; but I preferred to read it in my prayer-book. For it seemed as though the familiar words had changed their identity and meaning, especially those concerned with the sea. Their divine inspiration was now something visible and audible. It was not I who was reading them. It was as though the waves and the clouds, the whole far-flung scene of restlessness and mystery, were whispering to me: "Thou who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. . . . So is this great and wide sea wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. . . ." The relentless presence of Matilda in my mind worried me immeasurably, for to think of a woman who is a stranger to you is a sin, and so there was the danger of the vessel coming to grief on my account. And, as though to spite me, the closing verse of Psalm 104 reads, "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more." I strained every nerve to keep Matilda out of my thoughts, but without avail When the discoverers of America saw land at last they fell on their knees and a hymn of thanksgiving burst from their souls. The scene, which is one of the most thrilling in history, repeats itself in the heart of every immigrant as he comes in sight of the American shores. I am at a loss to convey the peculiar state of mind that the experience created in me When the ship reached Sandy Hook I was literally overcome with the beauty of the landscape The immigrant's arrival in his new home is like a second birth to him. Imagine a new-born babe in possession of a fully developed intellect. Would it ever forget its entry into the world? Neither does the immigrant ever forget his entry into a country which is, to him, a new world in the profoundest sense of the term and in which he expects to pass the rest of his life. I conjure up the gorgeousness of the spectacle as it appeared to me on that clear June morning: the magnificent verdure of Staten Island, the tender blue of sea and sky, the dignified bustle of passing craft--above all, those floating, squatting, multitudinously windowed palaces which I subsequently learned to call ferries. It was all so utterly unlike anything I had ever seen or dreamed of before. It unfolded itself like a divine revelation. I was in a trance or in something closely resembling one "This, then, is America!" I exclaimed, mutely. The notion of something enchanted which the name had always evoked in me now seemed fully borne out In my ecstasy I could not help thinking of Psalm 104, and, opening my little prayer-book, I glanced over those of its verses that speak of hills and rocks, of grass and trees and birds. My transport of admiration, however, only added to my sense of helplessness and awe. Here, on shipboard, I was sure of my shelter and food, at least. How was I going to procure my sustenance on those magic shores? I wished the remaining hour could be prolonged indefinitely Psalm 104 spoke reassuringly to me. It reminded me of the way God took care of man and beast: "Thou openest thine hand and they are filled with good." But then the very next verse warned me that "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die." So I was praying God not to hide His face from me, but to open His hand to me; to remember that my mother had been murdered by Gentiles and that I was going to a strange land. When I reached the words, "I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being," I uttered them in a fervent whisper My unhappy love never ceased to harrow me. The stern image of Matilda blended with the hostile glamour of America One of my fellow-passengers was a young Yiddish-speaking tailor named Gitelson. He was about twenty-four years old, yet his forelock was gray, just his forelock, the rest of his hair being a fine, glossy brown. His own cap had been blown into the sea and the one he had obtained from the steerage steward was too small for him, so that gray tuft of his was always out like a plume. We had not been acquainted more than a few hours, in fact, for he had been seasick throughout the voyage and this was the first day he had been up and about. But then I had seen him on the day of our sailing and subsequently, many times, as he wretchedly lay in his berth. He was literally in tatters. He clung to me like a lover, but we spoke very little. Our hearts were too full for words As I thus stood at the railing, prayer-book in hand, he took a look at the page. The most ignorant "man of the earth" among our people can read holy tongue (Hebrew), though he may not understand the meaning of the words. This was the case with Gitelson "Saying, 'Bless the Lord, O my soul'?" he asked, reverently. "Why this chapter of all others?" "Because--Why, just listen." With which I took to translating the Hebrew text into Yiddish for him He listened with devout mien. I was not sure that he understood it even in his native tongue, but, whether he did or not, his beaming, wistful look and the deep sigh he emitted indicated that he was in a state similar to mine When I say that my first view of New York Bay struck me as something not of this earth it is not a mere figure of speech. I vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those at home!" For the moment the little animal made America real to me. At the same time it seemed unreal itself. I was tempted to feel its fur to ascertain whether it was actually the kind of creature I took it for We were ferried over to Castle Garden. One of the things that caught my eye as I entered the vast rotunda was an iron staircase rising diagonally against one of the inner walls. A uniformed man, with some papers in his hands, ascended it with brisk, resounding step till he disappeared through a door not many inches from the ceiling. It may seem odd, but I can never think of my arrival in this country without hearing the ringing footfalls of this official and beholding the yellow eyes of the black cat which stared at us at the Hoboken pier. The harsh manner of the immigration officers was a grievous surprise to me. As contrasted with the officials of my despotic country, those of a republic had been portrayed in my mind as paragons of refinement and cordiality. My anticipations were rudely belied. "They are not a bit better than Cossacks," I remarked to Gitelson. But they neither looked nor spoke like Cossacks, so their gruff voices were part of the uncanny scheme of things that surrounded me. These unfriendly voices flavored all America with a spirit of icy inhospitality that sent a chill through my very soul The stringent immigration laws that were passed some years later had not yet come into existence. We had no difficulty in being admitted to the United States, and when I was I was loath to leave the Garden Many of the other immigrants were met by relatives, friends. There were cries of joy, tears, embraces, kisses. All of which intensified my sense of loneliness and dread of the New World. The agencies which two Jewish charity organizations now maintain at the Immigrant Station had not yet been established. Gitelson, who like myself had no friends in New York, never left my side. He was even more timid than I. It seemed as though he were holding on to me for dear life. This had the effect of putting me on my mettle "Cheer up, old man!" I said, with bravado. "America is not the place to be a ninny in. Come, pull yourself together." In truth, I addressed these exhortations as much to myself as to him; and so far, at least, as I was concerned, my words had the desired effect. I led the way out of the big Immigrant Station. As we reached the park outside we were pounced down upon by two evil-looking men, representatives of boarding-houses for immigrants. They pulled us so roughly and their general appearance and manner were so uninviting that we struggled and protested until they let us go--not without some parting curses. Then I led the way across Battery Park and under the Elevated railway to State Street. A train hurtling and panting along overhead produced a bewildering, a daunting effect on me. The active life of the great strange city made me feel like one abandoned in the midst of a jungle. Where were we to go? What were we to do? But the presence of Gitelson continued to act as a spur on me. I mustered courage to approach a policeman, something I should never have been bold enough to do at home. As a matter of fact, I scarcely had an idea what his function was. To me he looked like some uniformed nobleman--an impression that in itself was enough to intimidate me. With his coat of blue cloth, starched linen collar, and white gloves, he reminded me of anything but the policemen of my town. I addressed him in Yiddish, making it as near an approach to German as I knew how, but my efforts were lost on him. He shook his head. With a witheringly dignified grimace he then pointed his club in the direction of Broadway and strutted off majestically "He's not better than a Cossack, either," was my verdict At this moment a voice hailed us in Yiddish. Facing about, we beheld a middle-aged man with huge, round, perpendicular nostrils and a huge, round, deep dimple in his chin that looked like a third nostril. Prosperity was written all over his smooth-shaven face and broad-shouldered, stocky figure. He was literally aglow with diamonds and self-satisfaction. But he was unmistakably one of our people. It was like coming across a human being in the jungle. Moreover, his very diamonds somehow told a tale of former want, of a time when he had landed, an impecunious immigrant like myself; and this made him a living source of encouragement to me "God Himself has sent you to us," I began, acting as the spokesman; but he gave no heed to me. His eyes were eagerly fixed on Gitelson and his tatters "You're a tailor, aren't you?" he questioned him My steerage companion nodded. "I'm a ladies' tailor, but I have worked on men's clothing, too," he said "A ladies' tailor?" the well-dressed stranger echoed, with ill-concealed delight. "Very well; come along. I have work for you." That he should have been able to read Gitelson's trade in his face and figure scarcely surprised me. In my native place it seemed to be a matter of course that one could tell a tailor by his general appearance and walk. Besides, had I not divined the occupation of my fellow-passenger the moment I saw him on deck? As I learned subsequently, the man who accosted us on State Street was a cloak contractor, and his presence in the neighborhood of Castle Garden was anything but a matter of chance. He came there quite often, in fact, his purpose being to angle for cheap labor among the newly arrived immigrants We paused near Bowling Green. The contractor and my fellow-passenger were absorbed in a conversation full of sartorial technicalities which were Greek to me, but which brought a gleam of joy into Gitelson's eye. My former companion seemed to have become oblivious of my existence. As we resumed our walk up Broadway the bejeweled man turned to me "And what was your occupation? You have no trade, have you?" "I read Talmud," I said, confusedly. "I see, but that's no business in America," he declared. "Any relatives here?" "Well, don't worry. You will be all right. If a fellow isn't lazy nor a fool he has no reason to be sorry he came to America. It'll be all right." "All right" he said in English, and I conjectured what it meant from the context. In the course of the minute or two which he bestowed upon me he uttered it so many times that the phrase engraved itself upon my memory. It was the first bit of English I ever acquired The well-dressed, trim-looking crowds of lower Broadway impressed me as a multitude of counts, barons, princes. I was puzzled by their preoccupied faces and hurried step. It seemed to comport ill with their baronial dress and general high-born appearance In a vague way all this helped to confirm my conception of America as a unique country, unlike the rest of the world When we reached the General Post-Office, at the end of the Third Avenue surface line, our guide bade us stop "Walk straight ahead," he said to me, waving his hand toward Park Row. "Just keep walking until you see a lot of Jewish people. It isn't far from here." With which he slipped a silver quarter into my hand and made Gitelson bid me good-by The two then boarded a big red horse-car I was left with a sickening sense of having been tricked, cast off, and abandoned. I stood watching the receding public vehicle, as though its scarlet hue were my last gleam of hope in the world. When it finally disappeared from view my heart sank within me. I may safely say that the half-hour that followed is one of the worst I experienced in all the thirty-odd years of my life in this country The big, round nostrils of the contractor and the gray forelock of my young steerage-fellow haunted my brain as hideous symbols of treachery. With twenty-nine cents in my pocket (four cents was all that was left of the sum which I had received from Matilda and her mother) I set forth in the direction of East Broadway CHAPTER II TEN minutes' walk brought me to the heart of the Jewish East Side. The streets swarmed with Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The sign-boards were in English and Yiddish, some of them in Russian. The scurry and hustle of the people were not merely overwhelmingly greater, both in volume and intensity, than in my native town. It was of another sort. The swing and step of the pedestrians, the voices and manner of the street peddlers, and a hundred and one other things seemed to testify to far more self-confidence and energy, to larger ambitions and wider scopes, than did the appearance of the crowds in my birthplace The great thing was that these people were better dressed than the inhabitants of my town. The poorest-looking man wore a hat (instead of a cap), a stiff collar and a necktie, and the poorest woman wore a hat or a bonnet The appearance of a newly arrived immigrant was still a novel spectacle on the East Side. Many of the passers-by paused to look at me with wistful smiles of curiosity "There goes a green one!" some of them exclaimed The sight of me obviously evoked reminiscences in them of the days when they had been "green ones" like myself. It was a second birth that they were witnessing, an experience which they had once gone through themselves and which was one of the greatest events in their lives. "Green one" or "greenhorn" is one of the many English words and phrases which my mother-tongue has appropriated in England and America. Thanks to the many millions of letters that pass annually between the Jews of Russia and their relatives in the United States, a number of these words have by now come to be generally known among our people at home as well as here. In the eighties, however, one who had not visited any English-speaking country was utterly unfamiliar with them. And so I had never heard of "green one" before. Still, "green," in the sense of color, is Yiddish as well as English, so I understood the phrase at once, and as a contemptuous quizzical appellation for a newly arrived, inexperienced immigrant it stung me cruelly. As I went along I heard it again and again. Some of the passers-by would call me "greenhorn" in a tone of blighting gaiety, but these were an exception. For the most part it was "green one" and in a spirit of sympathetic interest. It hurt me, all the same. Even those glances that offered me a cordial welcome and good wishes had something self-complacent and condescending in them. "Poor fellow! he is a green one," these people seemed to say. "We are not, of course. We are Americanized." For my first meal in the New World I bought a three-cent wedge of coarse rye bread, off a huge round loaf, on a stand on Essex Street. I was too strict in my religious observances to eat it without first performing ablutions and offering a brief prayer. So I approached a bewigged old woman who stood in the doorway of a small grocery-store to let me wash my hands and eat my meal in her place. She looked old-fashioned enough, yet when she heard my request she said, with a laugh: "You're a green one, I see." "Suppose I am," I resented. "Do the yellow ones or black ones all eat without washing? Can't a fellow be a good Jew in America?" "Yes, of course he can, but--well, wait till you see for yourself." However, she asked me to come in, gave me some water and an old apron to serve me for a towel, and when I was ready to eat my bread she placed a glass of milk before me, explaining that she was not going to charge me for it "In America people are not foolish enough to be content with dry bread," she said, sententiously While I ate she questioned me about my antecedents. I remember how she impressed me as a strong, clever woman of few words as long as she catechised me, and how disappointed I was when she began to talk of herself. The astute, knowing mien gradually faded out of her face and I had before me a gushing, boastful old bore My intention was to take a long stroll, as much in the hope of coming upon some windfall as for the purpose of taking a look at the great American city. Many of the letters that came from the United States to my birthplace before I sailed had contained a warning not to imagine that America was a "land of gold" and that treasure might be had in the streets of New York for the picking. But these warnings only had the effect of lending vividness to my image of an American street as a thoroughfare strewn with nuggets of the precious metal. Symbolically speaking, this was the idea one had of the "land of Columbus." It was a continuation of the widespread effect produced by stories of Cortes and Pizarro in the sixteenth century, confirmed by the successes of some Russian emigrants of my time I asked the grocery-woman to let me leave my bundle with her, and, after considerable hesitation, she allowed me to put it among some empty barrels in her cellar I went wandering over the Ghetto. Instead of stumbling upon nuggets of gold, I found signs of poverty. In one place I came across a poor family who--as I learned upon inquiry--had been dispossessed for non-payment of rent. A mother and her two little boys were watching their pile of furniture and other household goods on the sidewalk while the passers-by were dropping coins into a saucer placed on one of the chairs to enable the family to move into new quarters What puzzled me was the nature of the furniture. For in my birthplace chairs and a couch like those I now saw on the sidewalk would be a sign of prosperity. But then anything was to be expected of a country where the poorest devil wore a hat and a starched collar I walked on The exclamation "A green one" or "A greenhorn" continued. If I did not hear it, I saw it in the eyes of the people who passed me When it grew dark and I was much in need of rest I had a street peddler direct me to a synagogue. I expected to spend the night there. What could have been more natural? At the house of God I found a handful of men in prayer. It was a large, spacious room and the smallness of their number gave it an air of desolation. I joined in the devotions with great fervor. My soul was sobbing to Heaven to take care of me in the strange country The service over, several of the worshipers took up some Talmud folio or other holy book and proceeded to read them aloud in the familiar singsong. The strange surroundings suddenly began to look like home to me One of the readers, an elderly man with a pinched face and forked little beard, paused to look me over "A green one?" he asked, genially. He told me that the synagogue was crowded on Saturdays, while on week-days people in America had no time to say their prayers at home, much less to visit a house of worship "It isn't Russia," he said, with a sigh. "Judaism has not much of a chance here." When he heard that I intended to stay at the synagogue overnight he smiled ruefully "One does not sleep in an American synagogue," he said. "It is not Russia." Then, scanning me once more, he added, with an air of compassionate perplexity: "Where will you sleep, poor child? I wish I could take you to my house, but--well, America is not Russia. There is no pity here, no hospitality. My wife would raise a rumpus if I brought you along. I should never hear the last of it." With a deep sigh and nodding his head plaintively he returned to his book, swaying back and forth. But he was apparently more interested in the subject he had broached. "When we were at home," he resumed, "she, too, was a different woman. She did not make life a burden to me as she does here. Have you no money at all?" I showed him the quarter I had received from the cloak contractor "Poor fellow! Is that all you have? There are places where you can get a night's lodging for fifteen cents, but what are you going to do afterward? I am simply ashamed of myself." "'Hospitality,'" he quoted from the Talmud, "'is one of the things which the giver enjoys in this world and the fruit of which he relishes in the world to come.' To think that I cannot offer a Talmudic scholar a night's rest! Alas! America has turned me into a mound of ashes." "You were well off in Russia, weren't you?" I inquired, in astonishment. For, indeed, I had never heard of any but poor people emigrating to America "I used to spend my time reading Talmud at the synagogue," was his reply Many of his answers seemed to fit, not the question asked, but one which was expected to follow it. You might have thought him anxious to forestall your next query in order to save time and words, had it not been so difficult for him to keep his mouth shut "She," he said, referring to his wife, "had a nice little business. She sold feed for horses and she rejoiced in the thought that she was married to a man of learning. True, she has a tongue. That she always had, but over there it was not so bad. She has become a different woman here. Alas! America is a topsy-turvy country." He went on to show how the New World turned things upside down, transforming an immigrant shoemaker into a man of substance, while a former man of leisure was forced to work in a factory here. In like manner, his wife had changed for the worse, for, lo and behold! instead of supporting him while he read Talmud, as she used to do at home, she persisted in sending him out to peddle. "America is not Russia," she said. "A man must make a living here." But, alas! it was too late to begin now! He had spent the better part of his life at his holy books and was fit for nothing else now. His wife, however, would take no excuse. He must peddle or be nagged to death. And if he ventured to slip into some synagogue of an afternoon and read a page or two he would be in danger of being caught red-handed, so to say, for, indeed, she often shadowed him to make sure that he did not play truant. Alas! America was not Russia A thought crossed my mind that if Reb Sender were here, he, too, might have to go peddling. Poor Reb Sender! The very image of him with a basket on his arm broke my heart. America did seem to be the most cruel place on earth "I am telling you all this that you may see why I can't invite you to my house," explained the peddier All I did see was that the poor man could not help unburdening his mind to the first listener that presented himself He pursued his tale of woe. He went on complaining of his own fate, quite forgetful of mine. Instead of continuing to listen, I fell to gazing around the synagogue more or less furtively. One of the readers attracted my special attention. He was a venerable-looking man with a face which, as I now recall it, reminds me of Thackeray. Only he had a finer head than the English novelist At last the henpecked man discovered my inattention and fell silent. A minute later his tongue was at work again "You are looking at that man over there, aren't you?" he asked "Who is he?" "When the Lord of the World gives one good luck he gives one good looks as well." "Why, is he rich?" "His son-in-law is, but then his daughter cherishes him as she does the apple of her eye, and--well, when the Lord of the World wishes to give a man happiness he gives him good children, don't you know." He rattled on, betraying his envy of the venerable-looking man in various ways and telling me all he knew about him--that he was a widower named Even, that he had been some years in America, and that his daughter furnished him all the money he needed and a good deal more, so that "he lived like a monarch." Even would not live in his daughter's house, however, because her kitchen was not conducted according to the laws of Moses, and everything else in it was too modern. So he roomed and boarded with pious strangers, visiting her far less frequently than she visited him and never eating at her table. "He is a very proud man," my informant said. "One must not approach him otherwise than on tiptoe." I threw a glance at Even. His dignified singsong seemed to confirm my interlocutor's characterization of him "Perhaps you will ask me how his son-in-law takes it all?" the voluble Talmudist went on. "Well, his daughter is a beautiful woman and well favored." The implication was that her husband was extremely fond of her and let her use his money freely. "They are awfully rich and they live like veritable Gentiles, which is a common disease among the Jews of America. But then she observes the commandment, 'Honor thy father.' That she does." Again he tried to read his book and again the temptation to gossip was too much for him. He returned to Even's pride, dwelling with considerable venom upon his love of approbation and vanity. "May the Uppermost not punish me for my evil words, but to see him take his roll of bills out of his pocket and pay his contribution to the synagogue one would think he was some big merchant and not a poor devil sponging on his son-in-law." A few minutes later he told me admiringly how Even often "loaned" him a half-dollar to enable him to do some reading at the house of God. "I tell my virago of a wife I have sold fifty cents' worth of goods," he explained to me, sadly After a while the man with the Thackeray face closed his book, kissed it, and rose to go. On his way out he unceremoniously paused in front of me, a silver snuff-box in his left hand, and fell to scrutinizing me. He had the appearance of a well-paid rabbi of a large, prosperous town. "He is going to say, 'A green one,'" I prophesied to myself, all but shuddering at the prospect. And, sure enough, he did, but he took his time about it, which made the next minute seem a year to me. He took snuff with tantalizing deliberation. Next he sneezed with great zest and then he resumed sizing me up. The suspense was insupportable. Another second and I might have burst out, "For mercy's sake say 'A green one,' and let us be done with it." But at that moment he uttered it of his own accord: "A green one, I see. Where from?" And grasping my hand he added in Hebrew, "Peace be to ye." His first questions about me were obsequiously answered by the man with the forked beard, whereupon my attention was attracted by the fact that he addressed him by his Gentile name--that is, as "Mr. Even," and not by his Hebrew name, as he would have done in our birthplace. Surely America did not seem to be much of a God-fearing country When Mr. Even heard of my Talmud studies he questioned me about the tractates I had recently read and even challenged me to explain an apparent discrepancy in a certain passage, for the double purpose of testing my "Talmud brains" and flaunting his own. I acquitted myself creditably, it seemed, and I felt that I was making a good impression personally as well. Anyhow, he invited me to supper in a restaurant. On our way there I told him of my mother's violent death, vaguely hoping that it would add to his interest in me. It did--even more than I had expected. To my pleasant surprise, he proved to be familiar with the incident. It appeared that because our section lay far outside the region of pogroms, or anti-Jewish riots, the killing of my mother by a Gentile mob had attracted considerable attention. I was thrilled to find myself in the lime-light of world-wide publicity. I almost felt like a hero "So you are her son?" he said, pausing to look me over, as though I had suddenly become a new man. "My poor orphan boy!" He caused me to recount the incident in every detail. In doing so I made it as appallingly vivid as I knew how. He was so absorbed and moved that he repeatedly made me stop in the middle of the sidewalk so as to look me in the face as he listened "Oh, but you must be hungry," he suddenly interrupted me. "Come on." Arrived at the restaurant, he ordered supper for me. Then he withdrew, commending me to the care of the proprietress until he should return. He had no sooner shut the door behind him than she took to questioning me: Was I a relative of Mr. Even? If not, then why was he taking so much interest in me? She was a vivacious, well-fed young matron with cheeks of a flaming red and with the consciousness of business success all but spurting from her black eyes. From what she, assisted by one of the other customers present, told me about my benefactor I learned that his son-in-law was the owner of the tenement-house in which the restaurant was located, as well as of several other buildings. They also told me of the landlord's wife, of her devotion to her father, and of the latter's piety and dignity. It appeared, however, that in her filial reverence she would draw the line upon his desire not to spare the rod upon her children, which was really the chief reason why he was a stranger at her house I had been waiting about two hours and was growing uneasy, when Mr. Even came back, explaining that he had spent the time taking his own supper and finding lodgings for me He then took me to store after store, buying me a suit of clothes, a hat, some underclothes, handkerchiefs (the first white handkerchiefs I ever possessed), collars, shoes, and a necktie. He spent a considerable sum on me. As we passed from block to block he kept saying, "Now you won't look green," or, "That will make you look American." At one point he added, "Not that you are a bad-looking fellow as it is, but then one must be presentable in America." At this he quoted from the Talmud an equivalent to the saying that one must do in Rome as the Romans do When all our purchases had been made he took me to a barber shop with bathrooms in the rear "Give him a hair-cut and a bath," he said to the proprietor. "Cut off his side-locks while you are at it. One may go without them and yet be a good Jew." He disappeared again, but when I emerged from the bathroom I found him waiting for me. I stood before him, necktie and collar in hand, not knowing what to do with them, till he showed me how to put them on "Don't worry. David," he consoled me. "When I came here I, too, had to learn these things." When he was through with the job he took me in front of a looking-glass. "Quite an American, isn't he?" he said to the barber, beamingly. "And a good-looking fellow, too." When I took a look at the mirror I was bewildered. I scarcely recognized myself I was mentally parading my "modern" make-up before Matilda. A pang of yearning clutched my heart. It was a momentary feeling. For the rest, I was all in a flutter with embarrassment and a novel relish of existence. It was as though the hair-cut and the American clothes had changed my identity. The steamer, Gitelson, and the man who had snatched him up now appeared to be something of the remote past. The day had been so crowded with novel impressions that it seemed an age He took me to an apartment in a poor tenement-house and introduced me to a tall, bewhiskered, morose-looking, elderly man and a smiling woman of thirty-five, explaining that he had paid them in advance for a month's board and lodging. When he said, "This is Mr. Levinsky," I felt as though I was being promoted in rank as behooved my new appearance. "Mister" struck me as something like a title of nobility. It thrilled me. But somehow it seemed ridiculous, too. Indeed, it was some time before I could think of myself as a "Mister" without being tempted to laugh. "And here is some cash for you," he said, handing me a five-dollar bill, and some silver, in addition. "And now you must shift for yourself. That's all I can do for you. Nor, indeed, would I do more if I could. A young man like you must learn to stand on his own legs. Understand? If you do well, come to see me. Understand?" There was an eloquent pause which said that if I did not do well I was not to molest him. Then he added, aloud: "There is only one thing I want you to promise me. Don't neglect your religion nor your Talmud. Do you promise that, David?" I did. There was a note of fatherly tenderness in the way this utter stranger called me David. It reminded me of Reb Sender. I wanted to say something to express my gratitude, but I felt a lump in my throat He advised me to invest the five dollars in dry-goods and to take up peddling. Then, wishing me good luck, he left My landlady, who had listened to Mr. Even's parting words with pious nods and rapturous grins, remarked that one would vainly search the world for another man like him, and proceeded to make my bed on a lounge The room was a kitchen. The stove was a puzzle to me. I wondered whether it was really a stove. "Is this used for heating?" I inquired "Yes, for heating and cooking," she explained, with smiling cordiality. And she added, with infinite superiority, "America has no use for those big tile ovens." When I found myself alone in the room the feeling of desolation and uncertainty which had tormented me all day seized me once again I went to bed and began to say my bed-prayer. I did so mechanically. My mind did not attend to the words I was murmuring. Instead, it was saying to God: "Lord of the Universe, you have been good to me so far. I went out of that grocery-store in the hope of coming upon some good piece of luck and my hope was realized. Be good to me in the future as well. I shall be more pious than ever, I promise you, even if America is a godless country." I was excruciatingly homesick. My heart went out to my poor dead mother. Then I reflected that it was my story of her death that had led Even to spend so much money on me. It seemed as if she were taking care of me from her grave. It seemed, too, as though she had died so that I might arouse sympathy and make a good start in America. I thought of her and of all Antomir, and my pangs of yearning for her were tinged with pangs of my unrequited love for Matilda CHAPTER III MY landlady was a robust little woman, compact and mobile as a billiard-ball, continually bustling about, chattering and smiling or laughing. She was a good-natured, silly creature, and her smile, which automatically shut her eyes and opened her mouth from ear to ear, accentuated her kindliness as well as her lack of sense. When she did not talk she would hum or sing at the top of her absurd voice the then popular American song "Climbing Up the Golden Stairs." She told me the very next day that she had been married less than a year, and one of the first things I noticed about her was the pleasure it gave her to refer to her husband or to quote him. Her prattle was so full of, "My husband says, says my husband," that it seemed as though the chief purpose of her jabber was to parade her married state and to hear herself talk of her spouse. The words, "My husband," were music to her ears. They actually meant, "Behold, I am an old maid no longer!" She was so deeply impressed by the story of my meeting with Mr. Even, whose son-in-law was her landlord, and by the amount he had spent on me that she retailed it among her neighbors, some of whom she invited to the house in order to exhibit me to them Her name was Mrs. Dienstog, which is Yiddish for Tuesday. Now Tuesday is a lucky day, so I saw a good omen in her, and thanked God her name was not Monday or Wednesday, which, according to the Talmud, are unlucky One of the first things I did was to make up a list of the English words and phrases which our people in this country had adopted as part and parcel of their native tongue. This, I felt, was an essential step toward shedding one's "greenhornhood," an operation every immigrant is anxious to dispose of without delay. The list included, "floor," "ceiling," "window," "dinner," "supper," "hat," "business," "job," "clean," "plenty," "never," "ready," "anyhow," "never mind," "hurry up," "all right," and about a hundred other words and phrases I was quick to realize that to be "stylishly" dressed was a good investment, but I realized, too, that to use the Yiddish word for "collar" or "clean" instead of their English correlatives was worse than to wear a dirty collar I wrote down the English words in Hebrew characters and from my landlady's dictation, so that "never mind," for example, became "nevermine." When I came home with a basket containing my first stock of wares, Mrs. Dienstog ran into ecstasies over it. She took to fingering some of my collar-buttons and garters, and when I protested she drew away, pouting Still, the next morning, as I was leaving the house with my stock, she wished me good luck ardently; and when I left the house she ran after me, shouting: "Wait, Mr. Levinsky. I'll buy something of you 'for a lucky start.'" She picked out a paper of pins, and as she paid me the price she said, devoutly, "May this little basket become one of the biggest stores in New York." My plan of campaign was to peddle in the streets for a few weeks--that is, until my "greenness" should wear off-- and then to try to sell goods to tenement housewives. I threw myself into the business with enthusiasm, but with rather discouraging results. I earned what I then called a living, but made no headway. As a consequence, my ardor cooled off. It was nothing but a daily grind. My heart was not in it. My landlord, who was a truck-driver, but who dreamed of business, thought that I lacked dash, pluck, tenacity; and the proprietor of the "peddler supply store" in which I bought my goods seemed to be of the same opinion, for he often chaffed me on the smallness of my bill. On one occasion he said: "If you want to make a decent living you must put all other thoughts out of your mind and think of nothing but your business." Only my smiling little landlady was always chirping words of encouragement, assuring me that I was not doing worse than the average beginner. This and her cordial, good-natured manner were a source of comfort to me. We became great friends. She taught me some of her broken English; and I let her talk of her husband as long as she wanted. One of her weaknesses was to boast of holding him under her thumb, though in reality she was under his. Ceaselessly gay in his absence, she would become shy and reticent the moment he came home. I never saw him talk to her save to give her some order, which she would execute with feverish haste. Still, in his surly, domineering way he was devoted to her I was ever conscious of my modern garb, and as I walked through the streets I would repeatedly throw glances at store windows, trying to catch my reflection in them. Or else I would pass my fingers across my temples to feel the absence of my side-locks. It seemed a pity that Matilda could not see me now One of the trifles that have remained embedded in my memory from those days is the image of a big, florid-faced huckster shouting at the top of his husky voice: "Strawberri-i-ies, strawberri-i-ies, five cents a quart!" I used to hear and see him every morning through the windows of my lodging; and to this day, whenever I hear the singsong of a strawberry-peddler I scent the odors of New York as they struck me upon my arrival, in 1885, and I experience the feeling of uncertainty, homesickness, and lovesickness that never left my heart at that period I often saw Antomir in my dreams The immigrants from the various Russian, Galician, or Roumanian towns usually have their respective synagogues in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago. So I sought out the house of worship of the Sons of Antomir There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of small congregations on the East Side, each of which had the use of a single room, for the service hours on Saturdays and holidays, in a building rented for all sorts of gatherings--weddings, dances, lodge meetings, trade-union meetings, and the like. The Antomir congregation, however, was one of those that could afford a whole house all to themselves. Our synagogue was a small, rickety, frame structure It was for a Saturday-morning service that I visited it for the first time. I entered it with throbbing heart. I prayed with great fervor. When the devotions were over I was disappointed to find that the congregation contained not a single worshiper whom I had known or heard of at home. Indeed, many of them did not even belong to Antomir. When I told them about my mother there was a murmur of curiosity and sympathy, but their interest in me soon gave way to their interest in the information I could give each of them concerning the house and street that had once been his home Upon the advice of my landlord, the truck-driver, and largely with his help, I soon changed the character of my business. I rented a push-cart and tried to sell remnants of dress-goods, linen, and oil-cloth. This turned out somewhat better than basket peddling; but I was one of the common herd in this branch of the business as well Often I would load my push-cart with cheap hosiery collars, brushes, hand-mirrors, note-books, shoe-laces, and the like, sometimes with several of these articles at once, but more often with one at a time. In the latter case I would announce to the passers-by the glad news that I had struck a miraculous bargain at a wholesale bankruptcy sale, for instance, and exhort them not to miss their golden opportunity. I also learned to crumple up new underwear, or even to wet it somewhat, and then shout that I could sell it "so cheap" because it was slightly damaged I earned enough to pay my board, but I developed neither vim nor ardor for the occupation. I hankered after intellectual interest and was unceasingly homesick. I was greatly tempted to call on Mr. Even, but deferred the visit until I should make a better showing. I hated the constant chase and scramble for bargains and I hated to yell and scream in order to create a demand for my wares by the sheer force of my lungs. Many an illiterate dolt easily outshouted me and thus dampened what little interest I had mustered. One fellow in particular was a source of discouragement to me. He was a half -witted, hideous-looking man, with no end of vocal energy and senseless fervor. He was a veritable engine of imbecile vitality. He would make the street ring with deafening shrieks, working his arms and head, sputtering and foaming at the mouth like a madman. And it produced results. His nervous fit would have a peculiar effect on the pedestrians. One could not help pausing and buying something of him. The block where we usually did business was one of the best, but I hated him so violently that I finally moved my push-cart to a less desirable locality I came home in despair "Oh, it takes a blockhead to make a success of it," I complained to Mrs. Dienstog "Why, why," she consoled me, "it is a sin to be grumbling like that. There are lots of peddlers who have been years in America and who would be glad to earn as much as you do. It'll be all right. Don't worry, Mr. Levinsky." It was less than a fortnight before I changed my place of business once again. The only thing by which these few days became fixed in my memory was the teeth of a young man named Volodsky and the peculiar tale of woe he told me. He was a homely, commonplace-looking man, but his teeth were so beautiful that their glistening whiteness irritated me somewhat. They were his own natural teeth, but I thought them out of place amid his plain features, or amid the features of any other man, for that matter. They seemed to be more suited to the face of a woman. His push-cart was next to mine, but he sold--or tried to sell--hardware, while my cart was laden with other goods; and as he was, moreover, as much of a failure as I was, there was no reason why we should not he friends. So we would spend the day in heart-to-heart talks of our hard luck and homesickness. His chief worry was over the "dower money" which he had borrowed of his sister, at home, to pay for his passage "She gave it to me cheerfully," he said, in a brooding, listless way. "She thought I would send it back to her at once. People over there think treasure can really be had for the picking in America. Well, I have been over two years here, and have not been able to send her a cent. Her letters make holes in my heart. She has a good marriage chance, so she says, and unless I send her the money at once it will be off. Her lamentations will drive me into the grave." CHAPTER IV I SOON had to move from the Dienstogs' to make room for a relative of the truck-driver's who had arrived from England. My second lodgings were an exact copy of my first, a lounge in a kitchen serving me as a bed. To add to the similarity, my new landlady was incessantly singing. Only she had three children and her songs were all in Yiddish. Her ordinary speech teemed with oaths like: "Strike me blind," "May I not be able to move my arms or my legs," "May I spend every cent of it on doctor's bills," "May I not be able to get up from this chair." A great many of our women will spice their Yiddish with this kind of imprecations, but she was far above the average in this respect The curious thing about her was that her name was Mrs. Levinsky, though we were not related in the remotest degree Whatever enthusiasm there was in me found vent in religion. I spent many an evening at the Antomir Synagogue, reading Talmud passionately. This would bring my heart in touch with my old home, with dear old Reb Sender, with the grave of my poor mother. It was the only pleasure I had in those days, and it seemed to be the highest I had ever enjoyed. At times I would feel the tears coming to my eyes for the sheer joy of hearing my own singsong, my old Antomir singsong. It was like an echo from the Preacher's Synagogue. My former self was addressing me across the sea in this strange, uninviting, big town where I was compelled to peddle shoe-black or oil-cloth and to compete with a yelling idiot. I would picture my mother gazing at me as I stood at my push-cart. I could almost see her slapping her hands in despair As for my love, it had settled down to a chronic dull pain that asserted itself on special occasions only I was so homesick that my former lodging in New York, to which I had become used, now seemed like home by comparison. I missed the Dienstogs keenly, and I visited them quite often I wrote long, passionate letters to Reb Sender, in a conglomeration of the Talmudic jargon, bad Hebrew, and good Yiddish, referring to the Talmud studies I pursued in America and pouring out my forlorn heart to him. His affectionate answers brought me inexpressible happiness But many of the other peddlers made fun of my piety and it could not last long. Moreover, I was in contact with life now, and the daily surprises it had in store for me dealt my former ideas of the world blow after blow. I saw the cunning and the meanness of some of my customers, of the tradespeople of whom I bought my wares, and of the peddlers who did business by my side. Nor was I unaware of certain unlovable traits that were unavoidably developing in my own self under these influences. And while human nature was thus growing smaller, the human world as a whole was growing larger, more complex, more heartless, and more interesting. The striking thing was that it was not a world of piety. I spoke to scores of people and I saw tens of thousands. Very few of the women who passed my push-cart wore wigs, and men who did not shave were an exception. Also, I knew that many of the people with whom I came in daily contact openly patronized Gentile restaurants and would not hesitate even to eat pork The orthodox Jewish faith, as it is followed in the old Ghetto towns of Russia or Austria, has still to learn the art of trimming its sails to suit new winds. It is exactly the same as it was a thousand years ago. It does not attempt to adopt itself to modern conditions as the Christian Church is continually doing. It is absolutely inflexible. If you are a Jew of the type to which I belonged when I came to New York and you attempt to bend your religion to the spirit of your new surroundings, it breaks. It falls to pieces. The very clothes I wore and the very food I ate had a fatal effect on my religious habits. A whole book could be written on the influence of a starched collar and a necktie on a man who was brought up as I was. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, I should let a barber shave my sprouting beard "What do you want those things for?" Mrs. Levinsky once said to me, pointing at my nascent whiskers. "Oh, go take a shave and don't be a fool. It will make you ever so much better-looking. May my luck be as handsome as your face will then be." "Never!" I retorted, testily, yet blushing She gave a sarcastic snort. "They all speak like that at the beginning," she said. "The girls will make you shave if nobody else does." "What girls?" I asked, with a scowl, but blushing once again "What do I know what girls?" she laughed. "That's your own lookout, not mine." I did not like her. She was provokingly crafty and cold, and she had a mean smile and a dishonest voice that often irritated me. She was ruddy-faced and bursting with health, taller than Mrs. Dienstog, yet too short for her great breadth of shoulder and the enormous bulk of her bust. I thought she looked absurdly dumpy. What I particularly hated in her was her laughter, which sounded for all the world like the gobble of a turkey She was constantly importuning me to get her another lodger who would share her kitchen lounge with me "Rent is so high, I am losing money on you. May I have a year of darkness if I am not," she would din in my ears She was intolerable to me, but I liked her cooking and I hated to be moving again, so I remained several months in her house It was not long before her prediction as to the fate of my beard came true. I took a shave. What actually decided me to commit so heinous a sin was a remark dropped by one of the peddlers that my down-covered face made me look like a "green one." It was the most cruel thing he could have told me. I took a look at myself as soon as I could get near a mirror, and the next day I received my first shave. "What would Reb Sender say?" I thought. When I came home that evening I was extremely ill at ease. Mrs. Levinsky noticed the change at once, but she also noticed my embarrassment, so she said nothing, but she was continually darting furtive glances at me, and when our eyes met she seemed to be on the verge of bursting into one of her turkey laughs. I could have murdered her BOOK VI A GREENHORN NO LONGER CHAPTER I I BOUGHT my goods in several places and made the acquaintance of many peddlers. One of these attracted my attention by his popularity among the other men and by his peculiar talks of women. His name was Max Margolis. We used to speak of him as Big Max to distinguish him from a Little Max, till one day a peddler who was a good chess-player and was then studying algebra changed the two names to "Maximum Max" and "Minimum Max," which the other peddlers pronounced "Maxie Max" and "Minnie Max." Some of the other fellows, too, were addicted to obscene story-telling, but these mostly made (or pretended to make) a joke of it. The man who had changed Max's sobriquet, for instance, never tired of composing smutty puns, while another man, who had a married daughter, was continually hinting, with merry bravado, at his illicit successes with Gentile women. Maximum Max, on the other hand, would treat his lascivious topics with peculiar earnestness, and even with something like sadness, as though he dwelt on them in spite of himself, under the stress of an obsession Otherwise he was a jovial fellow He was a tall, large-boned man, loosely built. His lips were always moist and when closed they were never in tight contact. He had the reputation of a liar, and, as is often the case with those who suffer from that weakness, people liked him. Nor, indeed, were his fibs, as a rule, made out of whole cloth. They usually had a basis of truth. When he told a story and he felt that it was producing no effect he would "play it up," as newspapermen would put it, often quite grotesquely. Altogether he was so inclined to overemphasize and embellish his facts that it was not always easy to say where truth ended and fiction began. Somehow it seemed to me as though the moistness and looseness of his lips had something to do with his mendacity He was an ignorant man, barely able to write down an address Max was an instalment peddler, his chief business being with frequenters of dance-halls, to whom he sold clothing, dress-goods, jewelry, and--when there was a marriage among them--furniture. Many a young housewife who had met her "predestined one" in one of these halls wore a marriage ring, and had her front room furnished with a "parlor set," bought of Max Margolis. He was as popular among the dancers as he was among the men he met at the stores. He was married, Max, yet it was as much by his interest in the dancers as by his business interest that he was drawn to the dance-halls. He took a fancy to me and he often made me listen to his discourses on women The youngest married man usually appealed to me as being old enough to be my father, and as Maximum Max was not only married, but eleven years my senior, there seemed to be a great chasm between us. That he should hold this kind of conversations with an unmarried youngster like myself struck me as something unnatural, doubly indecent. As I listened I would feel awkward, but would listen, nevertheless One day he looked me over, much as an expert in horseflesh would a colt, and said, with the utmost seriousness: "Do you know, Levinsky, you have an awfully fine figure. You are a good-looking chap all around, for that matter. A fellow like you ought to make a hit with women. Why don't you learn to dance?" The compliment made me wince and blush. Perhaps, if he had put it in the form of a jest I should even have liked it. As it was, I felt like one stripped in public. Still, I recalled with pleasure that Matilda had said similar things about my figure "Why don't you learn to dance, Levinsky?" he repeated I laughed, waving the suggestion aside as a joke On another occasion he said, "Every woman can be won, absolutely every one, provided a fellow knows how to go about it." As he proceeded to develop his theory he described various types of women and the various methods to be used with them "Of course, the man must not be repulsive to her," he said That evening, when Mrs. Levinsky's husband, their three children, and myself sat around the table and she was serving us our supper she appeared in a new light to me. She was nearly twice my age and I hated her not only for her meanness and low cunning, but also for her massive, broad-shouldered figure and for her turkey laugh, but she was a full-blooded, healthy female, after all. So, as I looked at her bustling between the table and the stove, Max's rule came back to me. I could almost hear his voice, "Every woman can be won, absolutely every one. Mrs. Levinsky's oldest child was a young man of nearly my age, yet I looked her over lustfully and when I found that her florid skin was almost spotless, her lips fresh, and her black hair without a hint of gray, I was glad. Presently, while removing my plate, she threw the trembling bulk of her great, firm bust under my very eyes. I felt disturbed. "Some morning when we are alone," I said to myself, "I shall kiss those red lips of hers." From that moment on she was my quarry As her husband worked in a sweatshop, while I peddled, he usually got up at least an hour before me. And it was considered perfectly natural that Mrs. Levinsky should be hovering about the kitchen while I was sleeping or lying awake on the kitchen lounge. Also, that after her husband left for the day I should go around half-naked, washing and dressing myself, in the same crowded little room in which she was then doing her work, as scantily clad as I was and with the sleeves of her flimsy blouse rolled up to her armpits. I had never noticed these things before, but on the morning following the above supper I did. As I opened my eyes and saw her bare, fleshy arms held out toward the little kerosene-stove I thought of my resolve to kiss her She was humming something in a very low voice. To let her know that I was awake I stretched myself and yawned audibly. Her voice rose. It was a song from a well-known Jewish play she was singing "Good mornings Mrs. Levinsky," I greeted her, in a familiar tone which she now heard for the first time from me. "You seem to be in good spirits this morning." She was evidently taken aback. I was the last man in the world she would have expected to address a remark of this kind to her "How can you see it?" she asked, with a side-glance at me "Have I no ears? Don't I hear your beautiful singing?" "Beautiful singing!" she said, without looking at me After a considerable pause I said, awkwardly, "You know, Mrs. Levinsky, I dreamed of you last night!" "Did you?" "Aren't you interested to know something more about it?" "I dreamed of telling you that you are a good-looking lady," I pursued, with fast-beating heart "What has got into that fellow?" she asked of the kerosene-stove. "He is a greenhorn no longer, as true as I am alive." "You won't deny you are good-looking, will you?" "What is that to you?" And again addressing herself to the kerosene-stove: "What do you think of that fellow? A pious Talmudist indeed! Strike me blind if I ever saw one like that." And she uttered a gobble-like chuckle I saw encouragement in her manner. I went on to talk of her songs and the Jewish theater, a topic for which I knew her to have a singular weakness. The upshot was that I soon had her telling me of a play she had recently seen. As she spoke, it was inevitable that she should come up close to the lounge. As she did so, her fingers touched my quilt, her bare, sturdy arms paralyzing my attention. The temptation to grasp them was tightening its grip on me. I decided to begin by taking hold of her hand. I warned myself that it must be done gently, with romance in my touch. "I shall just caress her hand," I decided, not hearing a word of what she was saving I brought my hand close to hers. My heart beat violently. I was just about to touch her fingers, but I let the opportunity pass. I turned the conversation on her husband, on his devotion to her, on their wedding. She mocked my questions, but answered them all the same "He must have been awfully in love with you," I said "What business is that of yours? Where did you learn to ask such questions? At the synagogue? Of course he loved me! What would you have? That he should have hated me? Why did he marry me, then? Of course he was in love with me! Else I would not have married him, would I? Are you satisfied now?" She boasted of the rich and well-connected suitors she had rejected I felt that I had side-tracked my flirtation. Touching her hand would have been out of place now A few minutes later, when I was saying my morning prayers, I carefully kept my eyes away from her lest I should meet her sneering glance. When I had finished my devotions and had put my phylacteries into their little bag I sat down to breakfast. "I don't like this woman at all," I said to myself, looking at her. "In fact, I abhor her. Why, then, am I so crazy to carry on with her?" It was the same question that I had once asked myself concerning my contradictory feelings for Red Esther, but my knowledge of life had grown considerably since then In those days I had made the discovery that there were "kisses prompted by affection and kisses prompted by Satan." I now added that even love of the flesh might be of two distinct kinds: "There is love of body and soul, and there is a kind of love that is of the body only," I theorized. "There is love and there is lust." I thought of my feeling for Matilda. That certainly was love Various details of my relations with Matilda came back to me during these days One afternoon, as I was brooding over these recollections, while passively awaiting customers at my cart, I conjured up that night scene when she sat on the great green sofa and I went into ecstasies speaking of my prospective studies for admission to a Russian university. I recalled how she had been irritated with me for talking too loud and how, calling me "Talmud student," or ninny, she had abruptly left the room. I had thought of the scene a hundred times before, but now a new interpretation of it flashed through my mind. It all seemed so obvious. I certainly had been a ninny, an idiot. I burst into a sarcastic titter at Matilda's expense and my own "Of course I was a ninny," I scoffed at myself again and again I saw Matilda from a new angle. It was as if she had suddenly slipped off her pedestal. Instead of lamenting my fallen idol, however, I gloated over her fall. And, instead of growing cold to her, I felt that she was nearer to me than ever, nearer and dearer CHAPTER II ONE morning, after breakfast, when I was about to leave the house and Mrs. Levinsky was detaining me, trying to exact a promise that I should get somebody to share the lounge with me, I said: "I'll see about it. I must be going. Good-by!" At this I took her hand, ostensibly in farewell "Good-by," she said, coloring and trying to free herself "Good-by," I repeated, shaking her hand gently and smiling upon her She wrenched out her hand. I took hold of her chin, but she shook it free "Don't," she said, shyly, turning away "What's the matter?" I said, gaily. She faced about again. "I'll tell you what the matter is," she said. "If you do that again you will have to move. If you think I am one of those landladies--you know the kind I mean--you are mistaken." She uttered it in calm, rather amicable accents. So I replied: "Why, why, of course I don't! Indeed you are the most respectable and the most sweet-looking woman in the world!" I stepped up close to ner and reached out my hand to seize hold of her bare arm "None of that, mister!" she flared up, drawing back. "Keep your hands where they belong. If you try that again I'll break every bone in your body. May both my hands be paralyzed if I don't!" "'S-sh," I implored. Which only added fuel to her rage "'S-sh nothing! I'll call in all the neighbors of the house and tell them the kind of pious man you are. Saying his prayers three times a day, indeed!" I sneaked out of the house like a thief. I was wretched all day, wondering how I should come to supper in the evening. I wondered whether she was going to deliver me over to the jealous wrath of her husband. I should have willingly forfeited my trunk and settled in another place, but Mrs. Levinsky had an approximate knowledge of the places where I was likely to do business and there was the danger of a scene from her. Maximum Max's theory did not seem to count for much. But then he had said that one must know "how to go about it." Perhaps I had been too hasty. Late in the afternoon of that day Mrs. Levinsky came to see me. Pretending to be passing along on some errand, she paused in front of my cart, accosting me pleasantly "I'll bet you are angry with me," she said, smiling broadly "I am not angry at all," I answered, with feigned moroseness. "But you certainly have a tongue. Whew! And, well, you can't take a joke." "I did not mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Levinsky. May my luck be as good as is my friendship for you. I certainly wish you no evil. May God give me all the things I wish you. I just want you to behave yourself. That's all. I am so much older than you, anyhow. Look for somebody of your own age. You are not angry at me, are you?" she added, suavely She simply could not afford to lose the rent I paid her Since then she held herself at a respectful distance from me I called on smiling Mrs. Dienstog, my former landlady, in whose house I was no stranger. I timed this visit at an hour when I knew her to be alone In this venture I met with scarcely any resistance at first. She let me hold her hand and caress it and tell her how soft and tender it was. "Do you think so?" she said, coyly, her eyes clouding with embarrassment. "I don't think they are soft at all. They would be if I did not have so much washing and scrubbing to do." Then she added, sadly: "America has made a servant of me. A land of gold, indeed! When I was in my father's house I did not have to scrub floors." I attempted to raise her wrist to my lips, but she checked me. She did not break away from me, however. She held me off, but she did not let go of the index finger of my right hand, which she clutched with all her might, playfully. As we struggled, we both laughed nervously. At last I wrenched my finger from her grip, and before she had time to thwart my purpose she was in my arms. I was aiming a kiss at her lips, but she continued to turn and twist, trying to clap her hand over my mouth as she did so, and my kiss landed on one side of her chin "Just one more, dearest," I raved. "Only one on your sweet little lips, my dove. Only one. Only one." She yielded. Our lips joined in a feverish kiss. Then she thrust me away from her and, after a pause, shook her finger at me with a good-natured gesture, as much as to say, "You must not do that, bad boy, you." I went away in high feather I called on Mrs. Dienstog again the very next morning. She received me well, but the first thing she did after returning my greeting was to throw the door wide open and to offer me a chair in full view of the hallway "Oh, shut the door," I whispered, in disgust. "Don't be foolish." She shook her head "Just one kiss," I begged her. "You are so sweet." She held firm I came away sorely disappointed, but convinced that her inflexibility was a mere matter of practical common sense I kept these experiences and reflections to myself. Nor did an indecent word ever cross my lips. In the street, while attending to my business, I heard uncouth language quite often. The other push-cart men would utter the most revolting improprieties in the hearing of the women peddlers, or even address such talk to them, as a matter of course. Nor was it an uncommon incident for a peddler to fire a volley of obscenities at a departing housewife who had priced something on his cart without buying it. These things scandalized me beyond words. I could never get accustomed to them "Look at Levinsky standing there quiet as a kitten," the other peddlers would twit me. "One would think he is so innocent he doesn't know how to count two. Shy young fellows are the worst devils in the world." They were partly mistaken, during the first few weeks of our acquaintance, at least. For the last thread that bound me to chastity was still unbroken. It was rapidly wearing away, though. CHAPTER III THE last thread snapped. It was the beginning of a period of unrestrained misconduct. Intoxicated by the novelty of yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact, business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening, call on her again or on some other woman of her class Many of these women would simulate love, but they failed to deceive me. I knew that they lied and shammed to me just as I did to giy customers, and their insincerities were only another source of repugnance to me. But I frequented them in spite of it all, in spite of myself. I spent on them more than I could afford. Sometimes I would borrow money or pawn something for the purpose of calling on them The fact that these wretched women were not segregated as they were in my native town probably had something to do with it. Instead of being confined to a fixed out-of-the-way locality, they were allowed to live in the same tenement-houses with respectable people, beckoning to men from the front steps, under open protection from the police. Indeed, the police, as silent partners in the profits of their shame, plainly encouraged this vice traffic. All of which undoubtedly helped to make a profligate of me, but, of course, it would be preposterous to charge it all, or even chiefly, to the police My wild oats were flavored with a sense of my failure as a business man, by my homesickness and passion for Matilda. My push-cart bored me. I was hungry for intellectual interest, for novel sensations. I was restless. Sometimes I would stop from business in the middle of the day to plunge into a page of Talmud at some near-by synagogue, and sometimes I would lay down the holy book in the middle of a sentence and betake myself to the residence of some fallen woman In my loneliness I would look for some human element in my acquaintance with these women. I would ply them with questions about their antecedents, their family connections, as my mother had done the girl from "That" Street As a rule, my questions bored them and their answers were obvious fabrications, but there were some exceptions One of these, a plump, handsome, languid-eyed female named Bertha, occupied two tiny rooms in which she lived with her ten-year-old daughter. One of the two rooms was often full of men, some of them with heavy beards, who would sit there, each awaiting his turn, as patients do in the reception-room of a physician, and whiling their time away by chaffing the little girl upon her mother's occupation and her own future. Some of the questions and jokes they would address to her were of the most revolting nature, whereupon she would reply, "Oh, go to hell!" or stick out her tongue resentfully One day I asked Bertha why she was giving her child this sort of bringing up "I once tried to keep her in another place, with a respectable family," she replied, ruefully. "But she would not stay there. Besides, I missed her so much I could not stand it." Another fallen woman who was frank with me proved to be a native of Antomir. When she heard that I was from the same place she flushed with excitement "Go away!" she shouted. "You're fooling me." We talked of the streets, lanes, and yards of our birthplace, she hailing every name I uttered with outbursts of wistful enthusiasm I wondered whether she knew of my mother's sensational death, but I never disclosed my identity to her, though she, on her part, told me with impetuous frankness the whole story of her life "You are a Talmudist, aren't you?" she asked "How do you know?" "How do I know! As if it could not be seen by your face." A little later she said: "I am sorry you came here. Honest. You should have stayed at home and stuck to your holy books. It would have been a thousand times better than coming to America and calling on girls like myself. Honest." She was known as Argentine Rachael It was from her that I first heard of the relations existing between the underworld and the police of New York. But then my idea of the Russian police had always been associated in my mind with everything cruel and dishonest, so the cormption of the New York police did not seem to be anything unusual One day she said to me: "If you want a good street corner for your cart I can fix it for you. I know Cuff-Button Leary." "Who is he?" "Why, have you never heard about him?' "Is he a big police officer?" "Bigger. The police are afraid of him." "Why?" "Because he is the boss. He is the district leader. What he says goes." She went on to explain that he was the local chieftain of the dominant "politician party," as she termed it "What is a politician party?" I asked She tried to define it and, failing in her attempt, she said, with a giggle: "Oh, you are a boob. You certainly are a green one. Why, it's an organization, a lot of people who stick together, don't you know." She talked on, and the upshot was that I formed a conception of political parties as of a kind of competing business companies whose specialty it was to make millions by ruling some big city, levying tribute on fallen women, thieves, and liquor-dealers, doing favors to friends and meting out punishment to foes. I learned also that District-Leader Leary owed his surname to a celebrated pair of diamond cuff-buttons, said to have cost him fifteen thousand dollars, from which he never was separated, and by the blaze of which he could be recognized at a distance. "Well, shall I speak to him about you?" she asked. I gave her an evasive answer "Why, don't you want to have favors from a girl like me?" she laughed I colored, whereupon she remarked, reflectively: "I don't blame you, either." She never tired talking of our birthplace. "Aren't you homesick?" she once demanded "Not a bit," I answered, with bravado "Then you have no heart. I have been away five times as long as you, yet I am homesick." "Really?" "Honest." She was as repellent to me as the rest of her class. I could never bring myself to accept a cup of tea from her hands. And yet I could not help liking her spirit. She was truthful and affectionate. This and, above all, her yearning for our common birthplace appealed to me strongly. I was very much inclined to think that in spite of the horrible life she led she was a good girl. To hold this sort of opinion about a woman of her kind seemed to be an improper thing to do. I knew that according to the conventional idea concerning women of the street they were all the most hideous creatures in the world in every respect. So I would tell myself that I must consider her, too, one of the most hideous creatures in the world in every respect. But I did not. For I knew that at heart she was better than some of the most respectable people I had met. It was one of the astonishing discrepancies I had discovered in the world. Also, it was one of the things I had found to be totally different from what people usually thought they were. I was gradually realizing that the average man or woman was full of all sorts of false notions CHAPTER IV I ENROLLED in a public evening school. I threw myself into my new studies with unbounded enthusiasm. After all, it was a matter of book-learning, something in which I felt at home. Some of my classmates had a much better practical acquaintance with English than I, but few of these could beast the mental training that my Talmud education had given me. As a consequence, I found things irksomely slow. Still, the teacher--a young East Side dude, hazel-eyed, apple-faced, and girlish of feature and voice--was a talkative fellow, with oratorical proclivities, and his garrulousness was of great value to me. He was of German descent and, as I subsequently learned from private conversations with him, his mother was American-born, like himself, so English was his mother-tongue in the full sense of the term. He would either address us wholly in that tongue, or intersperse it with interpretations in labored German, which, thanks to my native Yiddish, I had no difficulty in understanding. His name was Bender. At first I did not like him. Yet I would hang on his lips, striving to memorize every English word I could catch and watching intently, not only his enunciation, but also his gestures, manners, and mannerisms, and accepting it all as part and parcel of the American way of speaking Sign language, which was the chief means of communication in the early days of mankind, still holds its own. It retains sway over nations of the highest culture with tongues of unlimited wealth and variety. And the gestures of the various countries are as different as their spoken languages. The gesticulations and facial expressions with which an American will supplement his English are as distinctively American as those of a Frenchman are distinctively French. One can tell the nationality of a stranger by his gestures as readily as by his language. In a vague, general way I had become aware of this before, probably from contact with some American-born Jews whose gesticulations, when they spoke Yiddish, impressed me as utterly un-Yiddish. And so I studied Bender's gestures almost as closely as I did his words Even the slight lisp in his "s" I accepted as part of the "real Yankee" utterance. Nor, indeed, was this unnatural, in view of the "th" sound, that stumbling-block of every foreigner, whom it must needs strike as a full-grown lisp. Bender spoke with a nasal twang which I am now inclined to think he paraded as an accessory to the over-dignified drawl he affected in the class-room. But then I had noticed this kind of twang in the delivery of other Americans as well, so, altogether, English impressed me as the language of a people afflicted with defective organs of speech. Or else it would seem to me that the Americans had normal organs of speech, but that they made special efforts to distort the "t" into a "th" and the "v" into a "w." One of the things I discovered was the unsmiling smile. I often saw it on Bender and on other native Americans-- on the principal of the school, for instance, who was an Anglo-Saxon. In Russia, among the people I knew, at least, one either smiled or not. here I found a peculiar kind of smile that was not a smile. It would flash up into a lifeless flame and forthwith go out again, leaving the face cold and stiff. "They laugh with their teeth only," I would say to myself. But, of course, I saw "real smiles," too, on Americans, and I instinctively learned to discern the smile of mere politeness from the sort that came from one's heart. Nevertheless, one evening, when we were reading in our school-book that "Kate had a smile for everybody," and I saw that this was stated in praise of Kate, I had a disagreeable vision of a little girl going around the streets and grinning upon everybody she met I abhorred the teacher for his girlish looks and affectations, but his twang and "th" made me literally pant with hatred. At the same time I strained every nerve to imitate him in these very sounds. It was a hard struggle, and when I had overcome all difficulties at last, and my girlish-looking teacher complimented me enthusiastically upon my 'thick" and "thin." my aversion for him suddenly thawed out Two of my classmates were a grizzly, heavy-set man and his sixteen-year-old son, both trying to learn English after a long day's work. On one occasion, when it was the boy's turn to read and he said "bat" for "bath," the teacher bellowed, imperiously: "Stick out the tip of your tongue! This way." The boy tried, and failed "Oh, you have the brain of a horse!" his father said, impatiently, in Yiddish. "Let me try, Mr. Teacher." And screwing up his bewhiskered old face, he yelled, "Bat-t-t!" and then he shot out half an inch of thick red tongue The teacher grinned, struggling with a more pronounced manifestation of his mirth "His tongue missed the train," I jested, in Yiddish One of the other pupils translated it into English, whereupon Bender's suppressed laughter broke loose, and I warmed to him still more. Election Day was drawing near. The streets were alive with the banners, transparencies, window portraits of rival candidates, processions, fireworks, speeches. I heard scores of words from the political jargon of the country. I was continually asking questions, inquiring into the meaning of the things I saw or heard around me. Each day brought me new experiences, fresh impressions, keen sensations. An American day seemed to be far richer in substance than an Antomir year. I was in an everlasting flutter. I seemed to be panting for breath for the sheer speed with which I was rushing through life What was the meaning of all this noise and excitement? Everybody I spoke to said it was "all humbug." People were making jokes at the expense of all politicians, irrespective of parties. "One is as bad as the other," I heard all around me. "They are all thieves." Argentine Rachael's conception of politics was clearly the conception of respectable people as well Rejoicing of the Law is one of our great autumn holidays. It is a day of picturesque merrymaking and ceremony, when the stringent rule barring women out of a synagogue is relaxed. On that day, which was a short time before Election Day, I saw an East Side judge, a Gentile, at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir. He was very short, and the high hat he wore gave him droll dignity. He went around the house of worship kissing babies in their mothers' arms and saying pleasant things to the worshipers. Every little while he would instinctively raise his hand to his high hat and then, reminding himself that one did not bare one's head in a synagogue, he would feverishly drop his hand again This part of the scene was so utterly, so strikingly un-Russian that I watched it open-mouthed "A great friend of the Jewish people, isn't he?" the worshiper who stood next to me remarked, archly "He is simply in love with us," I chimed in, with a laugh, by way of showing off my understanding of things American. "It's Jewish votes he is after." "Still, he's not a bad fellow," the man by my side remarked. "If you have a trial in his court he'll decide it in your favor." "How is that?" I asked, perplexed. "And how about the other fellow? He can't decide in favor of both, can he?" "There is no 'can't' in America," the man by my side returned, with a sage smile I pondered the riddle until I saw light. "I know what you mean," I said. "He does favors only to those who vote for his party." "You have hit it, upon my word! You're certainly no longer a green one." "Voting alone may not be enough, though," another worshiper interposed. "If you ever happen to have a case in his court, take a lawyer who is close to the judge. Understand?" All such talks notwithstanding, the campaign, or the spectacular novelty of it, thrilled me. Bender delivered a speech to our class, but all I could make of it was that it dealt with elections in general, and that it was something solemn and lofty, like a prayer or a psalm Election Day came round. I did not rest. I was continually snooping around, watching the politicians and their "customers," as we called the voters. Traffic in votes was quite an open business in those days, and I saw a good deal of it, on a side-street in the vicinity ot a certain polling-place, or even in front of the polling-place itself, under the very eyes of policemen. I saw the bargaining, the haggling between buyer and seller; I saw money passed from the one to the other; I saw a heeler put a ballot into the hand of a man whose vote he had just purchased (the present system of voting had not yet been introduced) and then march him into a polling-place to make sure that he deposited the ballot for which he had paid him. I saw a man beaten black and blue because he had cheated the party that had paid him for his vote. I saw Leary, blazing cuff-buttons and all. He was a broad-shouldered man with rather pleasing features. I saw him listening to a whispered report from one of the men whom I had seen buying votes There was no such thing as political life in the Russia of that period. The only political parties in existence there were the secret organizations of revolutionists, of people for whom government detectives were incessantly searching so that they might be hanged or sent to Siberia. As a consequence a great many of our immigrants landed in America absolutely ignorant of the meaning of citizenship, and the first practical instrnctors on the subject into whose hands they fell were men like Cuff-Button Leary or his political underlings. These taught them that a vote was something to be sold for two or three dollars, with the prospect of future favors into the bargain, and that a politician was a specialist in doing people favors. Favors, favors, favors! I heard the word so often, in connection with politics, that the two words became inseparable in my mind. A politician was a "master of favors," as my native tongue would have it I attended school with religious devotion. This and the rapid progress I was making endeared me to Bender, and he gave me special attention. He taught me grammar, which I relished most keenly. The prospect of going to school in the evening would loom before me, during the hours of boredom or distress I spent at my cart, as a promise of divine pleasure Some English words inspired me with hatred, as though they were obnoxious living things. The disagreeable impression they produced on me was so strong that it made them easy to memorize, so that I welcomed them in spite of my aversion or, rather, because of it. The list of these words included "satisfaction," "think," and "because." At the end of the first month I knew infinitely more English than I did Russian One evening I asked Bender to tell me the "real difference" between "I wrote" and "I have written." He had explained it to me once or twice before, but I was none the wiser for it "What do you mean by 'real difference'?" he demanded. "I have told you, haven't I, that 'I wrote' is the perfect tense, while 'I have written' is the imperfect tense." This was in accordance with the grammatical terminology of those days "I know," I replied in my wretched English, "but what is the difference between these two tenses? That's just what bothers me." "Well," he said, grandly, "the perfect refers to what was, while the imperfect means something that has been." "But when do you say 'was' and when do you say 'has been'? That's just the question." "You're a nuisance, Levinsky," was his final retort I was tempted to say, "And you are a blockhead." But I did not, of course. At the bottom of my heart I had a conviction that one who had not studied the Talmud could not be anything but a blockhead The first thing he did the next evening was to take up the same subject with me, the rest of the class watching the two of us curiously. I could see that his performance of the previous night had been troubling him and that he was bent upon making a better showing. He spent the entire lesson of two hours with me exclusively, trying all sorts of elucidations and illustrations, all without avail. The trouble with him was that he pictured the working of a foreigner's mind, with regard to English, as that of his own. It did not occur to him that people born to speak another language were guided by another language logic, so to say, and that in order to reach my understanding he would have to impart his ideas in terms of my own linguistic psychology. Still, one of his numerous examples gave me a glimmer of light and finally it all became clear to me. I expressed my joy so boisterously that it brought a roar of laughter from the other men He made a pet of me. I became the monitor of his class (that is, I would bring in and distribute the books), and he often had me escort him home, so as to talk to me as we walked. He was extremely companionable and loquacious. He had a passion for sharing with others whatever knowledge he had, or simply for hearing himself speak. Upon reaching the house in which he lived we would pause in front of the building for an hour or even more. Or else we would start on a ramble, usually through Grand Street to East River and back again through East Broadway. His favorite topics during these walks were civics, American history, and his own history "Dil-i-gence, perr-severance, tenacity!" he would drawl out, with nasal dignity. "Get these three words engraved on your mind, Levinsky. Diligence, perseverance, tenacity." And by way of illustration he would enlarge on how he had fought his way through City College, how he had won some prizes and beaten a rival in a race for the presidency of a literary society; how he had obtained his present two occupations--as custom-house clerk during the day and as school-teacher in the winter evenings--and how he was going to work himself up to something far more dignified and lucrative. He unbosomed himself to me of all his plans; he confided some of his intimate secrets in me, often dwelling on "my young lady," who was a first cousin of his and to whom he had practically been engaged since boyhood All this, his boasts not excepted, were of incalculable profit to me. It introduced me to detail after detail of American life. It accelerated the process of "getting me out of my greenhornhood" in the better sense of the phrase Bender was an ardent patriot. He was sincerely proud of his country. He was firmly convinced that it was superior to any other country, absolutely in every respect. One evening, in the course of one of those rambles of ours, he took up the subject of political parties with me. He explained the respective principles of the Republicans and the Democrats. Being a Democrat himself, he eulogized his own organization and assailed its rival, but he did it strictly along the lines of principle and policy "The principles of a party are its soul," he thundered, probably borrowing the phrase from some newspaper. And he proceeded to show that the Democratic soul was of superior quality He went into the question of State rights, of personal liberty, of "Jeffersonian ideals." It was all an abstract formula, and I was so overwhelmed by the image of a great organization fighting for lofty ideals that the concrete question of political baby-kissing, of Cuff-Button Leary's power, and of the scenes I had witnessed on Election Day escaped me at the moment. I merely felt that all I had heard about politics and political parties from Argentine Rachael and from other people was the product of untutored brains that looked at things from the special viewpoint of the gutter Presently, however, the screaming discrepancy between Cuff-Button Leary's rule and "Jeffersonian ideals" did occur to me. I conveyed my thoughts to Bender as well as I could He flared up. "Nonsense," he said, "Mr. Leary is the best man in the city. He is a friend of mine and I am proud of it. Ask him for any favor and he will do it for you if he has to get out of bed in the middle of the night. He spends a fortune on the poor. He has the biggest heart of any man in all New York, I don't care who he is. He helps a lot of people out of trouble, but he can't help everybody, can he? That's why you hear so many bad things about him. He has a lot of enemies. But I love him just for the enemies he has made." "People say he collects bribes from disreputable women," I ventured to urge. "It's a lie. It's all rumors," he shouted, testily "On Election Day I saw a man who was buying votes whisper to him." "Whisper to him! Whisper to him! Ha-ha, ha-ha! Well, is that all the evidence you have got against Mr. Leary? I suppose that's the kind of evidence you have about the buying of votes, too. I am afraid you don't quite understand what you see, Levinsky." His answers were far from convincing. I was wondering what interest he had to defend Leary, to deny things that everybody saw. But he disarmed me by the force of his irritation Bender himself was a clean, honest fellow. In his peculiar American way, he was very religious, and I knew that his piety was not a mere affectation. Which was another puzzle to me, for all the educated Jews of my birthplace were known to be atheists. He belonged to a Reformed synagogue, where he conducted a Bible class One evening he expanded on the beauty of the English translation of the Old Testament. He told me it was the best English to be found in all literature "Study the Bible, Levinsky! Read it and read it again." The suggestion took my fancy, for I could read the English Bible with the aid of the original Hebrew text. I began with Psalm 104, the poem that had thrilled me when I was on shipboard. I read the English version of it before Bender until I pronounced the words correctly. I thought I realized their music. I got the chapter by heart. When I recited it before Bender he was joyously surprised and called me a "corker." "What is a corker?" I asked, beamingly "It's slang for 'a great fellow.'" With which he burst into a lecture on slang I often sat up till the small hours, studying the English Bible. I had many a quarrel with Mrs. Levinsky over the kerosene I consumed. Finally it was arranged that I should pay her five cents for every night I sat up late. But this merely changed the bone of contention between us. Instead of quarreling over kerosene, we would quarrel over hours--over the question whether I really had sat up late or not To this day, whenever I happen to utter certain Biblical words or names in their English version, they seem to smell of Mrs. Levinsky's lamp CHAPTER V EVENING school closed in April. The final session was of a festive character. Bender, excited and sentimental, distributed some presents "Promise me that you will read this glorious book from beginning to end, Levinsky," he said, solemnly, as he handed me a new volume of Dombey and Son and a small dictionary. "We may never meet again. So you will have something to remind you that once upon a time you had a teacher whose name was Bender and who tried to do his duty." I wanted to thank him, to say something handsome, but partly because I was overcome by his gift, partly because I was at a loss for words, I merely kept saying, sheepishly, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." That volume of Dickens proved to be the ruin of my push-cart business and caused m.e some weeks of the blackest misery I had ever experienced As I started to read the voluminous book I found it an extremely difficult task. It seemed as though it was written in a language other than the one I had been studying during the past few months. I had to turn to the dictionary for the meaning of every third word, if not more often, while in many cases several words in succession were Greek to me. Some words could not be found in my little dictionary at all, and in the case of many others the English definitions were as much of an enigma to me as the words they were supposed to interpret. Yet I was making headway. I had to turn to the dictionary less and less often It was the first novel I had ever read. The dramatic interest of the narrative, coupled with the poetry and the humor with which it is so richly spiced, was a revelation to me. I had had no idea that Gentiles were capable of anything so wonderful in the line of book-writing. To all of which should be added my self-congratulations upon being able to read English of this sort, a state of mind which I was too apt to mistake for my raptures over Dickens. It seemed to me that people who were born to speak this language were of a superior race I was literally intoxicated, and, drunkard-like, I would delay going to business from hour to hour. The upshot was that I became so badly involved in debt that I dared not appear with my push-cart for fear of scenes from my creditors. Moreover, I scarcely had anything to sell. Finally I disposed of what little stock I still possessed for one-fourth of its value, and, to my relief as well as to my despair, my activities as a peddler came to an end I went on reading, or, rather, studying, Dombey and Son with voluptuous abandon till I found myself literally penniless. I procured a job with a man who sold dill pickles to Jewish grocers. From his description of my duties-- chiefly as his bookkeeper--I expected that they would leave me plenty of leisure, between whiles, to read my Dickens. I was mistaken. My first attempt to open the book during business hours, which extended from 8 in the morning to bedtime, was suppressed. My employer, who had the complexion of a dill pickle, by the way, proved to be a severe taskmaster, absurdly exacting, and so niggardly that I dared not take a decent-looking pickle for my lunch. I left him at the end of the second week, obtaining employment in a prosperous fish-store next door. My new "boss" was a kinder and pleasanter man, but then the malodorous and clamorous chaos of his place literally sickened me I left the fishmonger and jumped my board at Mrs. Levinsky's to go to a New Jersey farm, where I was engaged to read Yiddish novels to the illiterate wife of a New York merchant, but my client was soon driven from the place by the New Jersey mosquitoes and I returned to New York with two dollars in my pocket. I worked as assistant in a Hebrew school where the American-born boys mocked my English and challenged me to have an "American fight" with them, till--on the third day--I administered a sound un-American thrashing to one of them and lost my job Maximum Max got the proprietor of one of the dance-halls in which he did his instalment business to let me sleep in his basement in return for some odd jobs. While there I earned from two to three dollars a week in tips and a good supper every time there was a wedding in the place, which happened two or three times a week. I had plenty of time for Dickens (I was still burrowing my way through Dombey and Son) while the "affairs" of the hall--weddings, banquets, balls, mass meetings--were quite exciting. I felt happy, but this happiness of mine did not last long. I was soon sent packing. This is the way it came about. It was in the large ballroom of the establishment in question that I saw a "modern" dance for the first time in my life. It produced a bewitching effect on me. Here were highly respectable young women who would let men encircle their waists, each resting her arm on her partner's shoulder, and then go spinning and hopping with him, with a frank relish of the physical excitement in which they were joined. As I watched one of these girls I seemed to see her surrender much of her womanly reserve. I knew that the dance--an ordinary waltz--was considered highly proper, yet her pose and his struck me as a public confession of unseemly mutual interest. I almost blushed for her. And for the moment I was in love with her. As this young woman went round and round her face bore a faint smile of embarrassed satisfaction. I knew that it was a sex smile. Another woman danced with grave mien, and I knew that it was the gravity of sex To watch dancing couples became a passion with me. One evening, as I stood watching the waltzing members of a wedding party, a married sister of the bride's shouted to me in Yiddish: "What are you doing here? Get out. You're a kill-joy." This was her way of alluding to my unpresentable appearance. When the proprietor heard of the incident he sent for me. He told me that I was a nuisance and bade me find another "hang-out" for myself The following month or two constitute the most wretched period of my life in America. I slept in the cheapest lodging-houses on the Bowery and not infrequently in some express-wagon. I was constantly borrowing quarters, dimes, nickels. Maximum Max was very kind to me. As I could not meet him at the stores, where I dared not face my creditors, I would waylay him in front of his residence "I tell you what, Levinsky," he once said to me. "You ought to learn some trade. It's plain you were not born to be a business man. The black dots [meaning the words in books] take up too much room in your head." Finally I owed him so many quarters, and even half-dollars, that I had not the courage to ask him for more Hunger was a frequent experience. I had been no stranger to the sensation at Antomir, at least after the death of my mother; but, for some reason, I was now less capable of bearing it. The pangs I underwent were at times so acute that I would pick up cigarette stubs in the street and smoke them, without being a smoker, for the purpose of having the pain supplanted by dizziness and nausea. Sometimes, too, I would burn my hand with a match or bite it as hard as I could. Any kind of suffering or excitement was welcome, provided it made me forget my hunger When famished I would sometimes saunter through the streets on the lower East Side which disreputable creatures used as their market-place. It was mildly exciting to watch women hunt for men and men hunt for women: their furtive glances, winks, tacit understandings, bargainings, the little subterfuges by which they sought to veil their purpose from the other passers-by; the way a man would take stock of a passing woman to ascertain whether she was of the approachable class; the timidity of some of the men and the matter-of-fact ease of others; the mutual spying of two or three rivals aiming at the same quarry; the pretended abstraction of the policemen, and a hundred and one other details of the traffic. Many a time I joined in the chase without having a cent in my pocket, stop to discuss terms with a woman in front of some window display, or around a corner, only soon to turn away from her on the pretense that I had expected to be taken to her residence while she proposed going to some hotel. Thus, held by a dull, dogged fascination, I would tramp around, sometimes for hours, until, feeling on the verge of a fainting-spell with hunger and exhaustion, I would sit down on the front steps of some house I often thought of Mr. Even, but nothing was further from my mind than to let him see me in my present plight. One morning I met him, face to face, on the Bowery, but he evidently failed to recognize me One afternoon I called on Argentine Rachael. "Look here, Rachace," I said, in a studiously matter-of-fact voice, "I'm dead broke to-day. I'll pay you in a day or two." Her face fell. "I never trust. Never," she said, shaking her head mournfully. "It brings bad luck, anyhow." I felt like sinking into the ground. "All right, I'll see you some other time," I said, with an air of bravado She ran after me. "Wait a moment. What's your hurry?" By way of warding off "bad luck," she offered to lend me three dollars in cash, out of which I could pay her. I declined her offer. She pleaded and expostulated. But I stood finn, and I came away in a state of the blackest wretchedness and self-disgust I could never again bring myself to show my face at her house A little music-store was now my chief resort. It was kept by a man whom I had met at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir, a former cantor who now supplemented his income from the store by doing occasional service as a wedding bard. The musicians, singers, and music-teachers who made the place their headquarters had begun by taking an interest in me, but the dimes and nickels I was now unceasingly "borrowing" of them had turned me into an outcast in their eyes. I felt it keenly. I would sulk around the store, anxious to leave, and loitering in spite of myself. There was a piano in the store, upon which they often played. This, their talks of music, and their venomous gossip had an irresistible fascination for me I noticed that morbid vanity was a common disease among them. Some of them would frankly and boldly sing their own panegyrics, while others, more discreet and tactful, let their high opinions of themselves be inferred. Nor could they conceal the grudges they bore one another, the jealousies with which they were eaten up. I thought them ludicrous, repugnant, and yet they lured me. I felt that some of those among them who were most grotesque and revolting in their selfishness had something in their make-up--certain interests, passions, emotions, visions-- which placed them above the common herd. This was especially true of a spare, haggard-looking violinist, boyish of figure and cat-like of manner, with deep dark rings under his insatiable blue eyes. He called himself Octavius. He was literally consumed by the blaze of his own conceit and envy. When he was not in raptures over the poetry, subtlety, or depth of his own playing or compositions, he would give way to paroxysms of malice and derision at the expense of some other musician, from his East Side rivals all the way up to Sarasate, who was then at the height of his career and had recently played in New York. Wagner was his god, yet no sooner would somebody else express admiration for Wagner music than he would offer to show that all the good things in the works of the famous German were merely so many paraphrased plagiarisms from the compositions of other men. He possessed a phenomenal memory. He seemed to remember every note in every opera, symphony, oratorio, or concerto that anybody ever mentioned, and there was not a piece of music by a celebrated man but he was ready to "prove" that it had been stolen from some other celebrated man His invective was particularly violent when he spoke of those Jewish immigrants in the musical profession whose success had extended beyond the East Side. He could never mention without a jeer or some coarse epithet the name of a Madison Street boy, a violinist, who was then attracting attention in Europe and who was booked for a series of concerts before the best audiences in the United States He was a passionate phrase-maker. Indeed, it would have been difficult to determine which afforded him more pleasure--his self-laudations or the colorful, pungent, often preposterous language in which they were clothed "I am writing something with hot tears in it," I once heard him brag. "They'll be so hot they'll scald the heart of every one who hears it, provided he has a heart." He had given me some nickels, yet his boasts would fill me with disgust. On the occasion just mentioned I was so irritated with my poverty and with the whole world that I was seized with an irresistible desire to taunt him. As he continued to eulogize his forthcoming masterpiece I threw out a Hebrew quotation: "Let others praise thee, but not thine own mouth." He took no heed of my thrust. But since then he never looked at me and I never dared ask him for a nickel again He had a ferocious temper. When it broke loose it would be a veritable volcano of revolting acrimony, his thin, firm opening and snapping shut in a peculiar fashion, as though he were squirting venom all over the floor. He was as sensual as Maximum Max, only his voluptuous talks of women were far more offensive in form. But then his lewd drivel was apt to glitter with flashes of imagination. I do not remember ever seeing him in good humor BOOK VII MY TEMPLE CHAPTER I ONE Friday evening in September I stood on Grand Street with my eyes raised to the big open windows of a dance-hall on the second floor of a brick building on the opposite side of the lively thoroughfare. Only the busts of the dancers could be seen. This and the distance that divided me from the hall enveloped the scene in mystery. As the couples floated by, as though borne along on waves of the music, the girls clinging to the men, their fantastic figures held me spellbound. Several other people were watching the dancers from the street, mostly women, who gazed at the appearing and disappearing images with envying eyes Presently I was accosted by a dandified-looking young man who rushed at me with an exuberant, "How are you?" in English. He was dressed in the height of the summer fashion. He looked familiar to me, but I was at a loss to locate him "Don't you know me? Try to remember!" It was Gitelson, my fellow-passenger on board the ship that had brought me to America, the tailor who clung to my side when I made my entry into the New World, sixteen months before The change took my breath away "You didn't recognize me, did you?" he said, with a triumphant snicker, pulling out his cuffs so as to flaunt their gold or gilded buttons He asked me what I was doing, but he was more interested in telling me about himself. That cloak-contractor who picked him up near Castle Garden had turned out to be a skinflint and a slave-driver. He had started him on five dollars a week for work the market price of which was twenty or thirty. So Gitelson left him as soon as he realized his real worth, and he had been making good wages ever since. Being an excellent tailor, he was much sought after, and although the trade had two long slack seasons he always had plenty to do. He told me that he was going to that dance-hall across the street, which greatly enhanced his importance in my eyes and seemed to give reality to the floating phantoms that I had been watching in those windows. He said he was in a hurry to go up there, as he had "an appointment with a lady" (this in English), yet he went on describing the picnics, balls, excursions he attended Thereupon I involuntarily shot a look at his jaunty straw hat, thinking of his gray forelock. I did so several times. I could not help it. Finally my furtive glances attracted his attention "What are you looking at? Anything wrong with my hat?" he asked, baring his head. His hair was freshly trimmed and dudishly dressed. As I looked at the patch of silver hair that shone in front of a glossy expanse of brown, he exclaimed, with a laugh: "Oh, you mean that! That's nothing. The ladies like me all the same He went on boasting, but he did it in an inoffensive way. He simply could not get over the magic transformation that had come over him. While in his native place his income had amounted to four rubles (about two dollars) a week, his wages here were now from thirty to forty dollars. He felt like a peasant suddenly turned to a prince. But he spoke of his successes in a pleasing, soft voice and with a kindly, confiding smile that won my heart. Altogether he made the impression of an exceedingly unaggressive, good-natured fellow, without anything like ginger in his make-up After he had bragged his fill he invited me to have a glass of soda with him. There was a soda-stand on the next corner, and when we reached it I paused, but he pulled me away "Come on," he said, disdainfully. "We'll go into a drug-store, or, better still, let's go to an ice-cream parlor." This I hesitated to do because of my shabby clothes. When he divined the cause of my embarrassment he was touched "Come on!' he said, with warm hospitality, uttering the two words in English. "When I say 'Come on' I know what I am talking about." "But your lady is waiting for you." "She can wait. Ladies are never on time, anyhow." "But maybe she is." "If she is she can dance with some of the other fellows. I wouldn't be jealous. There are plenty of other ladies. I should not take fifty ladies for this chance of seeing you. Honest." He took me into a little candy-store, dazzlingly lighted and mirrored and filled with marble-topped tables We seated ourselves and he gave the order. He did so ra.ther swaggeringly, but his manner to me was one of affectionate and compassionate respectfulness "Oh, I am so glad to see you," he said. "You remember the ship?" "As if one could ever forget things of that kind." "I have often thought of you. 'I wonder what has become of him,' I said to myself." He did not remember my name, or perhaps he had never known it, so I had to introduce myself afresh. The contrast between his flashy clothes and my frowsy, wretched-looking appearance, as I saw ourselves in the mirrors on either side of me, made me sorely ill at ease. The brilliancy of the gaslight chafed my nerves. It was as though it had been turned on for the express purpose of illuminating my disgrace. I was longing to go away, but Gitelson fell to questioning me about my affairs once more, and this time he did so with such unfeigned concern that I told him the whole cheerless story of my sixteen months' life in America He was touched. In his mild, unemphatic way he expressed heartfelt sympathy "But why don't you learn some trade?" he inquired. "You don't seem to be fit for business, anyhow" (the last two words in mispronounced English) "Everybody is telling me that." "There you are. You just listen to me, Mr. Levinsky. You won't be sorry for it." He proposed machine-operating in a cloak-shop, which paid even better than tailoring and was far easier to learn. Finally he offered to introduce me to an operator who would teach me the trade, and to pay him my tuition fee He went into details. He continued to address me as Mr. Levinsky and tried to show me esteem as his intellectual superior, but, in spite of himself, as it were, he gradually took a respectfully contemptuous tone with me "Don't be a lobster, Mr. Levinsky." (" Lobster" he said in English.) "This is not Russia. Here a fellow must be no fool. There is no sense in living the way you do. Do as Gitelson tells you, and you'll live decently, dress decently, and lay by a dollar or two. There are lots of educated fellows in the shops." He told me of some of these, particularly of one young man who was a shopmate of his. "He never comes to work without some book" he said. "When there is not enough to do he reads. When he has to wait for a new 'bundle,' as we call it, he reads. Other fellows carry on, but he is always reading. He is so highly educated he could read any kind of book, and I don't believe there is a book in the world that he has not read. He is saving up money to go to college." On parting he became fully respectful again. "Do as I tell you, Mr. Levinsky," he said. "Take up cloak-making." He made me write down his address. He expected that I would do it in Yiddish. When he saw me write his name and the name of the street in English he said, reverently: "Writing English already! There is a mind for you! If I could write like that I could become a designer. Well, don't lose the address. Call on me, and if you make up your mind to take up cloak-making just say the word and I'll fix you up. When Gitelson says he will, he will." The image of that cloak-operator reading books and laying by money for a college education haunted me. Why could I not do the same? I pictured myself working and studying and saving money for the kind of education which Matilda had dinned into my ears I accepted Gitelson's offer. Cloak-making or the cloak business as a career never entered my dreams at that time. I regarded the trade merely as a stepping-stone to a life of intellectual interests CHAPTER II THE operator to whom Gitelson apprenticed me was a short, plump, dark-complexioned fellow named Joe. I have but a dim recollection of his features, though I distinctly remember his irresistible wide-eyed smile and his emotional nature He taught me to bind seams, and later to put in pockets, to stitch on "under collars," and so forth. After a while he began to pay me a small weekly wage, he himself being paid, for our joint work, by the piece. The shop was not the manufacturer's. It belonged to one of his contractors, who received from him "bundles" of material which his employees (tailors, machine - operators, pressers, and finisher girls) made up into cloaks or jackets. The cheaper goods were made entirely by operators; the better grades partly by tailors, partly by operators, or wholly by tailors; but these were mostly made "inside," in the manufacturer's own establishment. The designing, cutting, and making of samples were "inside" branches exclusively. Gitelson, as a skilled tailor, was an "inside" man, being mostly employed on samples My work proved to be much harder and the hours very much longer than I had anticipated. I had to toil from six in the morning to nine in the evening. (Joe put in even more time. I always found him grinding away rapturously when I came to the shop in the morning, and always left him toiling as rapturously when I went home in the evening.) Ours is a seasonal trade. All the work of the year is crowded into two short seasons of three and two months, respectively, during which one is to earn enough to last him twelve months (only sample-makers, high-grade tailors like Gitelson, were kept busy throughout the year). But then wages were comparatively high, so that a good mechanic, particularly an operator, could make as much as seventy-five dollars a week, working about fifteen hours a day. However, during the first two or three weeks I was too much borne down by the cruelty of my drudgery to be interested in the luring rewards which it held out. Not being accustomed to physical exertion of any kind, I felt like an innocent man suddenly thrown into prison and put at hard labor. I was shocked. I was crushed. I was continually looking at the clock, counting the minutes, and when I came home I would feel so sore in body and spirit that I could not sleep. Studying or reading was out of the question Moreover, as a peddler I seemed to have belonged to the world of business, to the same class as the rich, the refined, while now, behold! I was a workman, a laborer, one of the masses. I pitied myself for a degraded wretch. And when some of my shopmates indulged in coarse pleasantry in the hearing of the finisher girls it would hurt me personally, as a confirmation of my disgrace. "And this is the kind of people with whom I am doomed to associate!" I would lament. In point of fact, there were only four or five fellows of this kind in a shop of fifty. Nor were some of the peddlers or music-teachers I had known more modest of speech than the worst of these cloak-makers. What was more, I felt that some of my fellow-employees were purer and better men than I. But that did not matter. I abhorred the shop and everybody in it as a well-bred convict abhors his jail and his fellow-inmates When the men quarreled they would call one another, among other things, "bundle-eaters." This meant that they accused one another of being ever hungry for bundles of raw material, ever eager to "gobble up all the work in the shop." I wondered how one could be anxious for physical toil. They seemed to be a lot of savages The idea of leaving the shop often crossed my mind, but I never had the courage to take it seriously. I had tried my hand at peddling and failed. Was I a failure as a mechanic as well? Was I unfit for anything? The other fellows at the shop had a definite foothold in life, while I was a waif, a ne'er-do-well, nearly two years in America with nothing to show for it. Thoughts such as these had a cowing effect on me. They made me feel somewhat like the fresh prisoner who has been put to work at stone-breaking to have his wild spirit broken. I dared not give up my new occupation. I would force myself to work hard, and as I did so the very terrors of my toil would fascinate me, giving me a sense of my own worth. As the jackets that bore my stitches kept piling up, the concrete result of my useful performance would become a source of moral satisfaction to me. And when I received my first wages--the first money I had ever earned by the work of my hands--it seemed as if it were the first money I had ever earned honestly By little and little I got used to my work and even to enjoy its processes. Moreover, the thinking and the dreaming I usually indulged in while plying my machine became a great pleasure to me. It seemed as though one's mind could not produce such interesting thoughts or images unless it had the rhythmic whir of a sewing-machine to stimulate it I now ate well and slept well. I was in the best of health and in the best of spirits. I was in an uplifted state of mind. No one seemed to be honorable who did not earn his bread in the sweat of his brow as I did. Had I then chanced to hear a Socialist speech I might have become an ardent follower of Karl Marx and my life might have been directed along lines other than those which brought me to financial power The girls in the shop, individually, scarcely interested me, but their collective presence was something of which I never seemed to be quite unconscious. It was as though the workaday atmosphere were scented with the breath of a delicate perfume--a perfume that was tainted with the tang of my yearning for Matilda Two girls who were seated within a yard from my machine were continually bandying secrets. Now one and then the other would look around to make sure that the contractor was not watching, and then she would bend over and whisper something into her chum's ear. This would set my blood tingling with a peculiar kind of inquisitiveness. It was reasonable to suppose that their whispered conferences mostly bore upon such innocent matters as their work, earnings, lodgings, or dresses. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that their whispers, especially when accompanied by a smile, a giggle, or a wink, conveyed some of their intimate thoughts of men. They were homely girls, with pinched faces, yet at such moments they represented to me all that there was fascinating and disquieting in womanhood The jests of the foul-mouthed rowdies would make me writhe with disgust. As a rule they were ostensibly addressed to some of the other fellows or to nobody in particular, their real target being the nearest girls. These would receive them with gestures of protest or with an exclamation of mild repugnance, or--in the majority of cases--pass them unnoticed, as one does some unavoidable discomfort of toil. There was only one girl in the shop who received these jests with a shamefaced grin or even with frank appreciation, and she was a perfectly respectable girl like the rest. There were some finisher girls who could not boast an unsullied reputation, but none of them worked in our shop, and, indeed, their number in the entire trade was very small One of the two girls who sat nearest to my machine was quite popular in the shop, but that was because of her sweet disposition and sound sense rather than for her looks. She was known to have a snug little account in a savings-bank. It was for a marriage portion she was saving; but she was doing it so strenuously that she stinted herself the expense of a decent dress or hat, or the price of a ticket to a ball, picnic, or dancing-class. The result was that while she was pinching and scrimping herself to pave the way to her marriage she barred herself, by this very process, from contact with possible suitors. She was a good soul. From time to time she would give some of her money to a needy relative, and then she would try to make up for it by saving with more ardor than ever. Her name was Gussie Joe, the plump, dark fellow who was teaching me the trade, was one of the several men in the shop who were addicted to salacious banter. One of his favorite pranks was to burlesque some synagogue chant from the solemn service of the Days of Awe, with disgustingly coarse Yiddish in place of the Hebrew of the prayer. But he was not a bad fellow, by any means. He was good-natured, extremely impressionable, and susceptible of good influences. A sad tune would bring a woebegone look into his face, while a good joke would make him laugh to tears. He was fond of referring to himself as my "rabbi," which is Hebrew for teacher, and that was the way I would address him, at first playfully, and then as a matter of course One day, after he had delivered himself of a quip that set my teeth on edge, I said to him, appealingly: "Why should you be saying these things, rabbi?" "If you don't like them you can stop your God-fearing ears," he fired back, good-naturedly I retorted that it was not a matter of piety, but of common decency, and my words were evidently striking home, but the girls applauded me, which spoiled it all "If you want to preach sermons you're in the wrong place," he flared up. "This is no synagogue." "Nor is it a pigsty," Gussie urged, without raising her eyes from her work A month or two later he abandoned these sallies of his own accord. The other fellows twitted him on his burst of "righteousness" and made efforts to lure him into a race of ribald punning, but he stood his ground By and by it leaked out that he was engaged and madly in love with his girl. I warmed to him. The young woman who had won his heart was not an employee of our shop. Indeed, love-affairs between working-men and working-girls who are employed in the same place are not quite so common as one might suppose. The factory is scarcely a proper setting for romance. It is one of the battle-fields in our struggle for existence, where we treat woman as an inferior being, whereas in civilized love-making we prefer to keep up the chivalrous fiction that she is our superior. The girls of our shop, hard-worked, disheveled, and handled with anything but chivalry, aroused my sympathy, but it was not the kind of feeling that stimulates romantic interest. Still, collectively, as an abstract reminder of their sex, they flavored my sordid environment with poetry CHAPTER III THE majority of the students at the College of the City of New York was already made up of Jewish boys, mostly from the tenement-houses. One such student often called at the cloak-shop in which I was employed, and in which his father--a tough-looking fellow with a sandy beard, a former teamster--was one of the pressers. A classmate of this boy was supported by an aunt, a spinster who made good wages as a bunch-maker in a cigar-factory. To make an educated man of her nephew was the great ambition of her life. All this made me feel as though I were bound to that college with the ties of kinship. Two of my other shopmates had sons at high school. The East Side was full of poor Jews--wage-earners, peddlers, grocers, salesmen, insurance agents--who would beggar themselves to give their children a liberal education. Then, too, thousands of our working-men attended public evening school, while many others took lessons at home. The Ghetto rang with a clamor for knowledge To save up some money and prepare for college seemed to be the most natural thing for me to do. I said to myself that I niust begin to study for it without delay. But that was impossible, and it was quite some time before I took up the course which the presser's boy had laid out for me. During the first three months I literally had no time to open a book. Nor was that all. My work as a cloak-maker had become a passion with me, so much so that even on Saturdays, when the shop was closed, I would scarcely do any reading. Instead, I would seek the society of other cloak-makers with whom I might talk shop I was developing speed rather than skill at my sewing-machine, but this question of speed afforded exercise to my brain. It did not take me long to realize that the number of cloaks or jackets which one turned out in a given length of time was largely a matter of method and system. I perceived that Joe, who was accounted a fast hand, would take up the various parts of a garment in a certain order calculated to reduce to a minimum the amount of time lost in passing from section to section. So I watched him intently, studying his system with every fiber of my being. Nor did I content myself with imitating his processes. I was forever pondering the problem and introducing little improvements of my own. I was making a science of it. It was not merely physical exertion. It was a source of intellectual interest as well. I was wrapped up in it. If I happened to meet a cloak-operator who was noted for extraordinary speed I would feel like an ambitious musician meeting a famous virtuoso. Some cloak-operators were artists. I certainly was not one of them. I admired their work and envied them, but I lacked the artistic patience and the dexterity essential to workmanship of a high order. Much to my chagrin, I was a born bungler. But then I possessed physical strength, nervous vitality, method, and inventiveness--all the elements that go to make up speed I was progressing with unusual rapidity. Joe criticized my work severely, often calling me botcher, but I knew that this was chiefly intended to veil his satisfaction at the growing profits that my work was yielding him I now earned about ten dollars a week, of which I spent about five, saving the rest for the next season of idleness At last that season set in. There was not a stroke of work in the shop. I was so absorbed in my new vocation that I would pass my evenings in a cloak-makers' haunt, a café on Delancey Street, where I never tired talking sleeves, pockets, stitches, trimmings, and the like. There was a good deal of card-playing in the place, but somehow I never succumbed to that temptation. But then, under the influence of some of the fellows I met there, I developed a considerable passion for the Jewish theater. These young men were what is known on the East Side as "patriots," that is, devoted admirers of some actor or actress and members of his or her voluntary claque. Several of the other frequenters were also interested in the stage, or at least in the gossip of it; so that, on the whole, there was as much talk of plays and players as there was of cloaks and cloak-makers. Our shop discussions certainly never reached the heat that usually characterized our debates on things theatrical The most ardent of the "patriots" was a young contractor named Mindels. He attended nearly every performance in which his favorite actor had a part, selling dozens of tickets for his benefit performances and usually losing considerable sums on these sales, loading him with presents and often running his errands. I once saw Mindels in a violent quarrel with a man who had scoffed at his idol Mindels's younger brother, Jake, fascinated me by his appearance, and we became great chums. He was the handsomest fellow I ever had seen, with a fine head of dark-brown hair, classic features, and large, soft-blue eyes; too soft and too blue, perhaps. His was a manly face and figure, and his voice was a manly, a beautiful basso; but this masculine exterior contained an effeminate psychology. In my heart I pronounced him "a calf," and when I had discovered the English word "sissy," I thought that it just fitted him. Yet I adored him, and even looked up to him, all because of his good looks He was a Talmudist like myself, and we had much in common, also, regarding our dreams of the future "Oh, I am so glad I have met you," I once said to him "I am glad, too," he returned, flushing I found that he blushed rather too frequently, which confirmed my notion of him as a sissy. Like most handsome men, he bestowed a great deal of time on his personal appearance. He never uttered a foul word nor a harsh one. If he heard a cloak-maker tell an indecent story he would look down, smiling and blushing like a girl Formerly he had been employed in his brother's shop, while now he earned his living by soliciting and collecting for a life-insurance company CHAPTER lV JAKE MINDELS was a devotee of Madame Klesmer, the leading Jewish actress of that period, which, by the way, was practically the opening chapter in the interesting history of the Yiddish stage in America. Madame Klesmer was a tragedienne and a prima donna at once-a usual combination in those days One Friday evening we were in the gallery of her theater. The play was an "historical opera," and she was playing the part of a Biblical princess. It was the closing scene of an act. The whole company was on the stage, swaying sidewise and singing with the princess, her head in a halo of electric light in the center. Jake was feasting his large blue eyes on her. Presently he turned to me with the air of one confiding a secret. "Wouldn't you like to kiss her?" And, swinging around again, he resumed feasting his blue eyes on the princess. "I have seen prettier women than she," I replied "'S-sh! Let a fellow listen. She is a dear, all the same. You don't know a good thing when you see it, Levinsky." "Are you in love with her?" "'S-sh! Do let me listen." When the curtain fell he made me applaud her. There were several curtain-calls, during all of which he kept applauding her furiously, shouting the prima donna's name at the top of his voice and winking to me imploringly to do the same. When quiet had been restored at last I returned to the subject: "Are you in love with her?" "Sure," he answered, without blushing. "As if a fellow could help it. If she let me kiss her little finger I should be the happiest man in the world." "And if she let you kiss her cheek?" "I should go crazy." "And if she let you kiss her lips?" "What's the use asking idle questions?" "Would you like to kiss her neck?" "You ask me foolish questions." "You are in love with her," I declared, reflectively "I should say I was." It was a unique sort of love, for he wanted me also to be in love with her "If you are not in love with her you must have a heart of iron, or else your soul is dry as a raisin." With which he took to analyzing the prima donna's charms, going into raptures over her eyes, smile, gestures, manner of opening her mouth, and her swing and step as she walked over the stage "No, I don't care for her," I replied "You are a peculiar fellow." "If I did fall in love," I said, by way of meeting him halfway, "I should choose Mrs. Segalovitch. She is a thousand times prettier than Mrs. Klesmer." "Tut, tut!" Mrs. Segalovitch was certainly prettier than the prima donna, but she played unimportant parts, so the notion of one's falling in love with her seemed queer to Jake That night I had an endless chain of dreams, in every one of which Madame Klesmer was the central figure. When I awoke in the morning I fell in love with her, and was overjoyed When I saw Jake Mindels at dinner I said to him, with the air of one bringing glad news: "Do you know, I am in love with her?" "With whom? With Mrs. Segalovitch?" "Oh, pshaw! I had forgotten all about her. I mean Madame Kiesmer," I said, self-consciously Somehow, my love for the actress did not interfere with my longing thoughts of Matilda. I asked myself no questions And so we went on loving jointly, Jake and I, the companionship of our passion apparently stimulating our romance as companionship at a meal stimulates the appetite of the diners. Each of us seemed to be infatuated with Madame Klesmer. Yet the community of this feeling, far from arousing mutual jealousy in us, seemed to strengthen the ties of our friendship We would hum her songs in duet, recite her lines, compare notes on our dreams of happiness with her. One day we composed a love-letter to her, a long epistle full of Biblical and homespun poetry, which we copied jointly, his lines alternating with mine, and which we signed: "Your two lovelorn slaves whose hearts are panting for a look of your star-like eyes. Jacob and David." We mailed the letter without affixing any address The next evening we were in the theater, and when she appeared on the stage and shot a glance to the gallery Jake nudged me violently "But she does not know we are in the gallery," I argued. "She must think we are in the orchestra." "Hearts are good guessers." "Guessers nothing." " 'S-sh! Let's listen." Madame Klesmer was playing the part of a girl in a modern Russian town. She declaimed her lines, speaking like a prophetess in ancient Israel, and I liked it extremely. I was fully aware that it was unnatural for a girl in a modern Russian town to speak like a prophetess in ancient Israel, but that was just why I liked it. I thought it perfectly proper that people on the stage should not talk as they would off the stage. I thought that this unnatural speech of theirs was one of the principal things an audience paid for. The only actor who spoke like a human being was the comedian, and this, too, seemed to be perfectly proper, for a comedian was a fellow who did not take his art seriously, and so I thought that this natural talk of his was part of his fun-making. I thought it was something like a clown burlesquing the Old Testament by reading it, not in the ancient intonations of the synagogue, but in the plain, conversational accents of every-day life During the intermission, in the course of our talk about Madame Klesmer, Jake said: "Do you know, Levinsky, I don't think you really love her." "I love her as much as you, and more, too," I retorted "How much do you love her? Would you walk from New York to Philadelphia if she wanted you to do so?" "Why should she? What good would it do her?" "But suppose she does want it?" "How can I suppose such nonsense?" "Well, she might just want to see how much you love her." "A nice test, that." "Oh, well, she might just get that kind of notion. Women are liable to get any kind of notion, don't you know." "Well, if Madame Klesmer got that kind of notion I should tell her to walk to Philadelphia herself." "Then you don't love her." "I love her as much as you do, but if she took it into her head to make a fool of me I should send her to the eighty devils." He winced. "And you call that love, don't you?" he said, with a sneer in the corner of his pretty mouth. "As for me, I should walk to Boston, if she wanted me to." "Even if she did not promise to let you kiss her?" "Even if she did not." "And if she did?" "I should walk to Chicago." "And if she promised to be your mistress?" "Oh, what's the use talking that way?" he protested, blushing. "Aren't you shy! A regular bride-to-be, I declare." "Stop!" he said, coloring once again. It dawned upon me that he was probably chaste, and, searching his face with a mocking look, I said: "I bet you you are still innocent." "Leave me alone, please," he retorted, softly "I have hit it, then," I importuned him, with a great sense of my own superiority. "Do let me alone, will you?" "I just want you to tell me whether you are innocent or not." "It's none of your business." "Of course you are." "And if I am? Is it a disgrace?" "Who says it is?" I desisted. He became more attractive than ever to me Nevertheless, I made repeated attempts to deprave him. His chastity bothered me. The idea of breaking it down became an irresistible temptation. I would ridicule him for a sissy, appeal to him in the name of his health, beg him as one does for a personal favor, all in vain He spoke better English than I, with more ease, and in that pretty basso of his which I envied. He had never read Dickens or any other English author, but he was familiar with some subjects to which I was a stranger. He was well grounded in arithmetic, knew some geography, and now with a view of qualifying for the study of medicine, he was preparing, with the aid of a private teacher, for the Regents' examination in algebra, geometry, English composition, American and English history. I thought he did not study "deeply" enough, that he took more real interest in his collars and neckties, the shine of his shoes, or the hang of his trousers than he did in his algebra or history By his cleanliness and tidiness he reminded me of Naphtali, which, indeed, had something to do with my attachment for him. My relations toward him echoed with the feelings I used to have for the reticent, omniscient boy of Abner's Court, and with the hoarse, studious young Talmudist with whom I would "famish in company." He had neither Naphtali's brains nor his individuality, yet I looked up to him and was somewhat under his influence. I adopted many of the English phrases he was in the habit of using and tried to imitate his way of dressing. As a consequence, he would sometimes assume a patronizing tone with me, addressing me with a good-natured sneer which I liked in spite of myself We made a compact to speak nothing but English, and, to a considerable extent, we kept it CHAPTER V A FEW weeks of employment were succeeded by another period of enforced idleness. I took up arithmetic, but reading was still a great passion with me. My mornings and forenoons during that slack season were mostly spent over Dickens or Thackeray I now lived in a misshapen attic room which I rented of an Irish family in what was then a Gentile neighborhood. I had chosen that street for the English I had expected to hear around me. I had lived more than two months in that attic, and almost the only English I heard from my neighbors were the few words my landlady would say to me when I paid her my weekly rent. Yet, somehow, the place seemed helpful to me, as though its very atmosphere exuded a feeling for the language I was so eager to master. I made all sorts of advances to the Irish family, all sorts of efforts to get into social relations with them, all to no purpose. Finally, one evening I had a real conversation with one of my landlady's sons. My window gave me trouble and he came up to put it in working order for me. We talked of his work and of mine. I told him of my plans about going to college. He was interested and I thought him charmingly courteous and sociable. He remained about an hour and a half in my room. When he had departed I was in high spirits. I seemed to feel the progress my English had made in that hour and a half My bed was so placed that by lying prone, diagonally across it, my head toward the window and my feet suspended in the air, I would get excellent daylight. So this became my favorite posture when I read in the daytime. Thus, lying on my stomach, with a novel under my eyes and the dictionary by my side, I would devour scores of pages. In a few weeks, often reading literally day and night, I read through Nicholas Nickleby and Vanity Fair. Thackeray's masterpiece did not strike me as being in the same class with anything by Dickens. It seemed to me that anybody in command of bookish English ought to be able to turn out a work like Vanity Fair, where men and things were so simple and so natural that they impressed me like people and things I had known. Indeed, I had a lurking feeling that I, too, could do it, after a while at least. On the other hand, Nicholas Nickleby and Dombey and Son were so full of extraordinary characters, unexpected wit, outbursts of beautiful rhetoric, and other wonderful things, that their author appealed to me as something more than a human being. And yet deep down in my heart I enjoyed Thackeray more than I did Dickens, It was at the East Side branch of the Young Men's Hebrew Association that I obtained my books. It was a sort of university settlement in which educated men and women from up-town acted as "workers." The advice these would give me as to my reading, their kindly manner, their native English, and, last but not least, the flattering way in which they would speak of my intellectual aspirations, led me to spend many an hour in the place. The great thing was to hear these American-born people speak their native tongue and to have them hear me speak it. It was the same as in the case of the chat I had with the son of my Irish landlady. Every time I had occasion to spend five or ten minutes in their company I would seem to be conscious of a perceptible improvement in my English Some days I would be so carried away by my reading that I never opened my arithmetic. At other times I would drift into an arithmetical mood and sit up all night doing problems When I happened to be in raptures over some book I would pester Jake with lengthy accounts of it, dwelling on the chapters I had read last and trying to force my exaltation upon him. As a rule, he was bored, but sometimes he would become interested in the plot or in some romantic scene. One evening, as we were discussing love in general, I said: "Love is the greatest thing in the world." "Sure it is," he answered. "But if you love and are not loved in return it is nothing but agony." "Even then it is sweet," I rejoined, reflectively, the image of Matilda before me. "How can pain be sweet?" "But it can." "If you were really in love with Madame Klesmer you wouldn't think so "I love her as much as you do." "You are always saying you do, but you don't." "Yes, I do." And suddenly lapsing into a confidential tone, I questioned him: "By the way, Jake, is this the first time you have ever been in love?" "Why?" "I just want to know. Is it?" "What difference does it make? Have you ever been in love before?" "What difference does that make? If you answer my question I shall answer yours." "Well, then, I have never been in love before." "And I have." He was intensely interested, and I confided my love story in him, which served to strengthen our friendship still further. When I concluded my narrative he said, thoughtfully: "Of course you don't love Madame Klesmer. I tell you what, Levinsky, you are still in love with Matilda." I made no answer "Anyhow, you don't love Madame Klesmer." This time he said it without reproach. Once I was in love with somebody else I was excused. The next "season" came around. I was a full-fledged helper now, and, according to the customary arrangement, I received thirty per cent. of what Joe received for my work. This brought me from twenty to twenty-five dollars a week, quite an overwhelming sum, according to my then standard of income and expenditures. I saved about fifteen dollars a week. I shall never forget the day when my capital reached the round figure of one hundred dollars. I was in a flutter. When I looked at the passers-by in the street I would say to myself, "These people have no idea that I am worth a hundred dollars." Another thing I was ever conscious of was the fact that I had earned the hundred dollars by my work. There was a touch of solemnity in my mood, as though I had performed some feat of valor or rendered some great service to the community. I was impelled to convey this feeling to Jake, but when I attempted to put it into words it was somehow lost in a haze and what I said was something quite prosaic "Guess how much I have in the savings-bank?" I began "I haven't any idea. How much?" "Just one hundred." "Really?" "Honest. But, then, what does it amount to, after all? Of course, it is pleasant to feel that you have a trade and that you know how to keep a dollar, don't you know." So far from endearing me to the cloak trade, as might have been expected, the hundred dollars killed at one stroke all the interest I had taken in it. It lent reality to my vision of college. Cloak-making was now nothing but a temporary round of dreary toil, an unavoidable stepping-stone to loftier occupations Another year and I should be a fully developed mechanic, working on my own hook--that is, as the immediate employee of some manufacturer or contractor. "I shall soon be earning forty or fifty dollars a week," I would muse. "At that rate I shall save up plenty of money in much less time than I expected. I shall spend as little as possible and study as hard as possible." The Regents' examinations were not exacting in those days. I could have prepared to qualify for admission to a school of medicine, law, or civil engineering in a very short time. But I aimed higher. I knew that many of the professional men on the East Side, and, indeed, everywhere else in the United States, were people of doubtful intellectual equipment, while I was ambitious to be a cultured man "in the European way." There was an odd confusion of ideas in my mind. On the one hand, I had a notion that to "become an American" was the only tangible form of becoming a man of culture (for did not I regard the most refined and learned European as a "greenhorn"?); on the other hand, the impression was deep in me that American education was a cheap machine-made product CHAPTER VI COLLEGE! The sound was forever buzzing in my ear. The seven letters were forever floating before my eyes. They were a magic group, a magic whisper. Matilda was to hear of me as a college man. What would she say? "What do you want City College for?" Jake would argue. "Why not take up medicine at once?" "Once I am to be an educated man I want to be the genuine article," I would reply Every bit of new knowledge I acquired aroused my enthusiasm. I was in a continuous turmoil of exultation My plan of campaign was to keep working until I had saved up six hundred dollars, by which time I was to be eligible to admission to the junior class of the College of the City of New York, commonly known as City College, where tuition is free. The six hundred dollars was to last me two years--that is, till graduation, when I might take up medicine, engineering, or law. During the height of the cloak season I might find it possible to replenish my funds by an occasional few days at the sewing-machine, or else it ought not to be difficult to support myself by joining the army of private instructors who taught English to our workingmen at their homes The image of the modest college building was constantly before me. More than once I went a considerable distance out of my way to pass the corner of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street, where that edifice stood. I would pause and gaze at its red, ivy-clad walls, mysterious high windows, humble spires; I would stand watching the students on the campus and around the great doors, and go my way, with a heart full of reverence, envy, and hope, with a heart full of quiet ecstasy It was not merely a place in which I was to fit myself for the battle of life, nor merely one in which I was going to acquire knowledge. It was a symbol of spiritual promotion as well. University-bred people were the real nobility of the world. A college diploma was a certificate of moral as well as intellectual aristocracy My old religion had gradually fallen to pieces, and if its place was taken by something else, if there was something that appealed to the better man in me, to what was purest in my thoughts and most sacred in my emotions, that something was the red, church-like structure on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street It was the synagogue of my new life. Nor is this merely a figure of speech: the building really appealed to me as a temple, as a House of Sanctity, as we call the ancient Temple of Jerusalem. At least that was the term I would fondly apply to it, years later, in my retrospective broodings upon the first few years of my life in America I was impatiently awaiting the advent of the slack season, and when it came at last I applied myself exclusively to the study of subjects required for admission to college. To accelerate matters I engaged, as my instructor in mathematics and geography, the son of our tough-looking presser. I paid him twenty-five cents an hour. My geography lessons were rapidly dispelling the haze that had enshrouded the universe from me. I beheld the globe hanging in space, a vast independent world and yet a mere speck among countless myriads of other worlds. Its rotations were so vivid in my mind that I seemed to hear it hum as it spun round and round its axis. The phenomena producing day and night and the four seasons were as real to me as the things that took place in my restaurant. The earth was being disclosed to my mental vision as a whole and in detail. Order was coming out of chaos. Continents, seas, islands, mountains, rivers, countries, were defining themselves out of a misty jumble of meaningless names. Light was breaking all around me. Life was becoming clearer. I was broadening out. I was overborne by a sense of my growing perspicacity My keenest pleasure was to do geometrical problems, preferably such as contained puzzles in construction. On one occasion I sat up all night and far into the following day over a riddle of this kind. It was about 2 o'clock when I dressed and went to lunch, which was also my breakfast. The problem was still unsolved. I hurried back home as soon as I had finished my meal, went at the problem again, and did not let go until it surrendered. Odd as it may seem, I found a certain kind of similarity between the lure of these purely mental exercises and the appeal of music. In both cases I was piqued and harassed by a personified mystery. If a tune ran in my mind it would appear as though somebody, I knew not who, was saying something, I knew not what. What was he saying? Who was he? What had happened to him? Was he reciting some grievance, bemoaning some loss, or threatening vengeance? What was he nagging me about? Questions such as these would keep pecking at my heart, and this pain, this excruciating curiosity, I would call keen enjoyment In like manner every difficult mathematical problem seemed to shelter some unknown fellow who took pleasure in teasing me and daring me to find him. It was the same mischievous fellow, in fact, who used to laugh in my face when I had a difficult bit of Talmud to unravel "Why, geometry is even deeper than Talmud," I once exclaimed to Jake "Do you think so?" he answered, indifferently "I think an interesting geometrical problem is more delicious than the best piece of meat." "Why don't you live on problems, then? Why spend money on dinners?" "Smart boy, aren't you?" "Is doing problems as sweet as being in love?" he demanded, with sheepish earnestness "You are in love with Madame Klesmer. You ought to know." He made no answer On the day when I began these studies I had thirty-six dollars besides the hundred which I kept in the savings-bank. Of this I was now spending, including tuition fees, less than six dollars a week. Every time I changed a dollar my heart literally sank within me. Finally, when my cash was all gone, I borrowed some money of Joe, my "rabbi" at the art of cloak-making. Breaking the round sum total of my savings-bank account was out of the question. Joe advanced me money more than cheerfully. He was glad to have me in his debt as a pledge of my continuing to work for him. His motive was obvious, and yet I went on borrowing of him rather than draw upon my bank account One day it crossed my mind that it would be a handsome thing if I looked up Gitelson and paid him the ten dollars I owed him. It was sweet to picture myself telling him how much his ten dollars had done and was going to do for me. I was impatient to call on him, and so I borrowed ten dollars of Joe and betook myself to the factory where I had visited Gitelson several times before. As he was a sample-maker, his work knew no seasons. When I called at that factory I found that he had given up his job there, that he had married and established a small custom-tailor shop somewhere up-town, nobody seemed to know where. Joe had not even heard of his marriage. Meanwhile, my enthusiasm for paying him his debt was gone, and I was rather glad that I had not found him It was the middle of July. The great "winter season" was developing. I felt perfectly competent to make a whole garment unaided. It was doubtful, however, whether I should be readily accepted as an independent mechanic in the shop where I was employed now and where one was in the habit of regarding me as a mere apprentice. So I was determined to seek employment elsewhere. Joe was suspicious. Not that I betrayed my plans in any way. He took them for granted. And so he visited me every day, on all sorts of pretexts, dined me and wined me (if the phrase may be applied to a soda-water dinner), and watched my every step Finally I wearied of it all, and one afternoon, as we were seated in the restaurant, I picked a quarrel with him "I don't want your dinners," I burst out, "and I don't want to be watched by you as if I were a recruit in the Russian army and you were my 'little uncle.' I'll pay you what I owe you and leave me alone." "As if I were uneasy about those few dollars!" he said, ingratiatingly "I know you are not. That's just it." He took fire. "What am I after, then? You think I get rich on your work, don't you?" Our altercation waxed violent. At one point he was about to lapse into a conciliatory tone again, but his dignity prevailed "I would not keep you if you begged me," he declared. "I hate to deal with an ingrate. But I want my money at once." "I shall pay it to you when work begins." "No, sirrah. I want it at once." An ugly scene followed. He seized me by my coat lapels and threatened to have me arrested. Finally the restaurant-keeper and Gussie, the homely finisher girl whom we all respected, made peace between us, and things were arranged more or less amicably I obtained employment in an "inside" place, a factory owned by twin brothers named Manheimer I was in high feather. My sense of advancement and independence reminded me of the days when I had just been graduated from the Talmudic Academy and went on studying as an "independent scholar." I had not, however, begun to work in my new place when a general strike of the trade was declared CHAPTER VII THE Cloak-makers' Union had been a weak, insignificant organization, but at the call for a general strike it suddenly burst into life. There was a great rush for membership cards. Everybody seemed to be enthusiastic, full of fight. To me, however, the strike was a sheer calamity. I laid it all to my own hard luck. It seemed as though the trouble had been devised for the express purpose of preventing me from being promoted to full pay; for the express purpose of upsetting my financial calculations in connection with my college plans. Everybody was saying that prices were outrageously low, that the manufacturers were taking advantage of the weakness of the union, and that they must be brought to terms. All this was lost upon me. The question of prices did not interest me, because the wages I was going to receive were by far the highest I had ever been paid. But the main thing was that I looked upon the whole business of making cloaks as a temporary occupation. My mind was full of my books and my college dreams. All I wanted was to start the "season" as soon as possible, to save up the expected sum, and to reach the next period of freedom from physical toil, when I should be able to spend day and night on my studies again. But going to work as a strike-breaker was out of the question. A new kind of Public Opinion had suddenly sprung up among the cloak-makers: a man who did not belong to the union was a traitor, worse than an apostate, worse than the worst of criminals And so, feeling like a school-boy in Antomir when he is made to furnish the very rod with which he is to be chastised, I went to the headquarters of the union, paid my initiation fee, and became a member. It was on a Friday afternoon. The secretaries of the organization were seated at a long table in the basement of a meeting-room building on Rivington Street. The basement and the street outside were swarming with cloak-makers. A number of mass meetings had been arranged to take place in several halls, with well-known Socialists for speakers, but I had not even the curiosity to attend them. When some of my shopmates reproached me for my indifference I said, sullenly: "I've joined the union. What more do you want?" One of them, a Talmudist like myself, spoke of capital and labor, of the injustice of the existing economic order. He had recently, through the strike, been converted to Socialism. He made a fiery appeal to me. He spoke with the exaltation of a new proselyte. But his words fell on deaf ears. I had no mind for anything but my college studies "Do you think it right that millions of people should toil and live in misery so that a number of idlers might roll in luxury?" he pleaded "I haven't made the world, nor can I mend it," was my retort The manufacturers yielded almost every point. The "season" began with a rush My pay-envelope for the first week contained thirty-two dollars and some cents. I knew the union price, of course, and I had figured out the sum before I received it, yet when I beheld the two figures on the envelope the blood surged to my head. Thirty-two dollars! Why, that meant sixty-four rubles! I was tempted to write Naphtali about it The next week brought me an even fatter envelope. I worked sixteen hours a day. Reading and studying had to be suspcnded till October. I lived on five dollars a week. My savings, and with them my sense of my own importance in the world, grew apace. As there was no time to go to the savings-bank, I had to carry what I deemed a great sum on my person (in a money-belt that I had improvised for the purpose). This was a constant source of anxiety as well as of joy. No matter how absorbed I might have been in my work or in thought, the consciousness of having that wad of paper money with me was never wholly absent from my mind. It loomed as a badge of omnipotence. I felt in the presence of Luck, which was a living spirit, a goddess. I was mostly grave. The frivolities of the other men in the factory seemed so fatuous, so revolting. A great sense of security and self-confidence swelled my heart. When I walked through the American streets I would feel at home in them, far more so than I had ever felt before. At the same time danger was constantly hovering about me-the danger of the street crowds seizing that magic wad from me. The image of the college building loomed as a bride-elect of mine. But that, somehow, did not seem to have anything to do with my money-belt, as though I expected to go to college without encroaching upon my savings--a case of eating the cake and having it The cloak-makers were so busy they had no time to attend meetings, and being little accustomed to method and discipline, they suffered their organization to melt away. By the time the "season" came to a close the union was scarcely stronger than it had been before the strike. As there was no work now, and no prices to fix, one did not miss its protection The number of men employed in the trade in those years did not exceed seven thousand. The industry was still in its infancy I resumed my studies with a passion amounting to a frenzy. I would lay in a supply of coarse rye bread, cheese, and salmon to last me two or even three days, and never leave my lair during that length of time. I dined at the Delancey Street restaurant every third or fourth day, and did not go to the theater unless Jake was particularly insistent. But then I religiously attended Felix Adler's ethical-culture lectures, at Chickering Hall, on Sunday mornings. I valued them for their English rather than for anything else, but their spirit, reinforced by the effect of organ music and the general atmosphere of the place, would send my soul soaring. These gatherings and my prospective alma mater appealed to me as being of the same order of things, of the same world of refined ways, new thoughts, noble interests If I came across a street faker and he spoke with a foreign accent I would pass on; if, however, his English struck me as that of a "real American," I would pause and listen to his "lecture," sometimes for more than an hour. People who were born to speak English were superior beings. Even among fallen women I would seek those who were real Americans CHAPTER VIII I WAS reading Pendennis. The prospect of returning to work was a hideous vision. The high wages in store for me had lost their magnetism. I often wondered whether I might not be able to secure some pupils in English or Hebrew, and drop cloak-making at once. I dreamed of enlisting the interest of a certain Maecenas, a German-American Jew who financed many a struggling college student of the Ghetto. Thoughts of a "college match" would flash through my mind--that is, of becoming engaged to some girl who earned good wages and was willing to support me through college. This form of matrimonial arrangement, which has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, is not uncommon among our immigrants. Alliances of this sort naturally tend to widen the intellectual chasm between the two parties to the contract, and often result in some of the tragedies or comedies that fill the swift-flowing life of American Ghettos. But the ambition to be the wife of a doctor, lawyer, or dentist is too strong in some of our working-girls to be quenched by the dangers involved One of the young women I had in mind was Gussie, the cloak-finisher mentioned above, who saved for a marriage portion too energetically to make a marriage. She was a good girl, and no fool, either, and I thought to myself that she would make me a good wife, even if she was plain and had a washed-out appearance and was none too young. I was too passionately in love with my prospective alma mater to care whether I could love my fiancée or not "I have a fellow for you," I said to Gussie, under the guise of pleasantry, meeting her in the street one day. "Something fine." "Who is it--yourself?" she asked, quickly "You have guessed it right." "Have I? Then tell your fellow to go to all the black devils." "Why?" "Because." "If I could go to college--" "You want me to pay your bills, do you?" "Wouldn't you like to be the wife of a doctor? You would take rides in my carriage--" "You mean the other way around: you would ride in my carnage and I should have to start a breach-of-promise case against 'Dr. Levinsky.' You'll have to look for a bigger fool than I," she concluded, with a smile It was an attractive smile, full of good nature and common sense. A smile of this kind often makes a homely face pretty. Gussie's did not. The light it shed only served to publish her ugliness. But I did not care. The infatuation I had brought with me from Antomir had not yet completely faded out, anyhow. And so I harbored vague thoughts that some day, when I saw fit to press my suit, Gussie might yield I was getting impatient. The idea of having to go back to work became more hateful to me every day. I was in despair. Finally I decided to consider my career as a cloak-maker closed; to cut my expenses to the veriest minimum, to live on my savings, look for some source of income that would not interfere with my studies, take the college examination as soon as I was ready for it, and let the future take care of itself In the heart of the Jewish neighborhood I found an attic for half of what I was paying the Irish family. Moreover, it was a neighborhood where everything was cheaper than in any other part of New York, the only one in which it was possible for a man to have a "room" to himself and live on four dollars a week. So I moved to that attic, a step for which, as I now think of it, I cannot but be thankful to fate, for it brought me in touch with a quaint, simple man who is my warm friend to this day, perhaps the dearest friend I have had in America The house was a rickety, two-story frame structure, the smallest and oldest-looking on the block. Its ground floor was used as a tailoring shop by the landlord himself, a white-headed giant of a man whom I cannot recall otherwise than as smiling wistfully and sighing. His name was Esrah Nodelman. His wife, who was a dwarf beside him, ruled him with an iron hand Mrs. Nodelman gave me breakfasts, and I soon felt like one of the family. She was a veritable chatter-box, her great topic of conversation being her son Meyer, upon whom she doted, and his American-born wife, whose name she scarcely ever uttered without a malediction. She told me how she, Meyer's mother, her sister, and a niece had turned out their pockets and pawned their jewelry to help Meyer start in business as a clothing-manufacturer "He's now worth a hundred thousand dollars--may no evil eye hit him," she said. "He's a good fellow, a lump of gold. If God had given him a better wife (may the plague carry off the one he has) he would be all right. She has a meat-ball for a face, the face of a murderess. She always was a murderess, but since Meyer became a manufacturer there is no talking to her at all. The airs she is giving herself! And all because she was born in America, the frog that she is." I soon made Meyer's acquaintance. He was a dark man of forty, with Oriental sadness in his eyes. To lend his face capitalistic dignity he had recently grown a pair of side-whiskers, but one day, a week or two after I met him, he saw a circus poster of "Jo Jo, the human dog," and then he hastened to discard them "I don't want to look like a man-dog," he explained, gaily, to his mother, who was unpleasantly surprised by the change. "Man-dog nothing," she protested, addressing herself to me. "He was as handsome as gold in those whiskers. He looked like a regular monarch in them." And then to him: "I suppose it was that treasure of a wife you have who told you to have them taken off. It's a lucky thing she does not order you to have your foolish head taken off." "You better shut up, mamma," he said, sternly. And she did He called to see his parents quite frequently, sometimes with some of his children, but never with his wife, at least not while I lived there. Crassly illiterate save for his ability to read some Hebrew, without knowing the meaning of the words, he enjoyed a considerable degree of native intellectual alertness, and in his crude, untutored way was a thinker One evening he took to quizzing me on my plans, partly in Yiddish and partly in broken English, which he uttered with a strong Cockney accent, a relic of the several years he had spent in London. "And what will you do after you finish (he pronounced it "fiendish") college?" he inquired, with a touch of derision "I shall take up some higher things," I rejoined, reluctantly "And what do you call 'higher things'?" he pursued in his quizzical, browbeating way. "Are you going to be a philosopher?" "Yes, I shall be a doctor of philosophy," I answered, frostily "What's that? You want to be both a doctor and a philosopher? But you know the saying, 'Many trades--few blessings.'" "I am not going to be a doctor and a philosopher, but a doctor of philosophy," I said, with a sneer "And how much will you make?" "Oh, let him alone, Meyer," his mother intervened. "He is an educated fellow, and he doesn't care for money at all." "Doesn't care for money, eh?" the younger Nodelman jeered "Do you think money is really everything?" I shot back. "One might be able to find a thing or two which could not be bought with it." "Not even at Ridley's," [note] he jested, but he was manifestly beginning to resent my attitude and to take our passage at arms rather seriously "Not even at Ridley's. You can't get brains there, can you?" "Well, I never learned to write, but I have a learned fellow in my office. He's chuck full of learning and that sort of thing. Yet who is working for whom--I for him or he for me? So much for education--for the stuff that's in a man's head. And now let's take charity--the stuff that's in a man's heart. I don't care what you say, but of what use is a good heart unless he has some jinglers [note] to go with it? You can't shove your hand into your heart and pull out a few dollars for a poor friend, can you? You can help him out of your pocket, though--that is, provided it is not empty." My bewigged little landlady was feasting her eyes on her son Meyer went on with his argument: "What is a man without capital? Nothing! Nobody cares for him. He is like a beast. A beast can't talk, and he can't. 'Money talks,' as the Americans say." His words and manner put me in a socialist mood. He was hateful to me. I listened in morose silence. He felt piqued, and he wilted. The ginger went out of his voice. My taciturnity continued, until, gradually, he edged over to my side of the controversy, taking up the cudgels for education and spiritual excellence with the same force with which he had a short while ago tried to set forth their futility "Of course it's nice to be educated," he said. "A man without writing is just like a deaf mute. What's the difference? The man who can't write has speech in his mouth, but he is dumb with his fingers, while the deaf mute he can't talk with his mouth, but he can do so with his fingers. Both should be pitied. I do like education. Of course I do. Don't I send my boy to college? I am an ignorant boor myself, because my father was poor, but my children shall have all the wisdom they can pile in. We Jews have too many enemies in the world. Everybody is ready to shed our blood. So where would we be if many of our people were not among the wisest of the wise? Why, they would just crush us like so many flies. When I see an educated Jew I say to myself, 'That's it!'" When he heard of my ambition to give lessons he said: "I tell you what. I'll be your first pupil. I mean it." he added, seriously. My heart gave a leap. "Very well. I'll try my best," I replied "Mind you, I don't want to be a philosopher. I just want you to fix me up in reading, writing, and figuring a little bit. That's all. You don't think it's too late, do you?" "Too late!" I chuckled, hysterically. "Why?" "I can sign or indorse a check, and, thank God, for a good few dollars, too--but when it comes to fixing in the stuffing, there is trouble. I know how to write the figures, but not the words. I can write almost any number. If I was worth all the money I can put down in figures I should be richer than Vanderbilt." To insure secrecy I was to give him his lessons in my attic room "I don't want my kids to know their pa is learning like a little boy, don't you know," he explained. "American kids have not much respect for their fathers, anyhow." As a preliminary to his initial lesson Nodelman offered to show me what he could do. When I brought pen and ink and some paper he cleared his throat, screwed up a solemn mien, and took hold of the pen. In trying to shake off some of the ink he sent splashes all over the table. At last he proceeded to write his name. He handled the pen as he would a pitchfork. It was quite a laborious proceeding, and his first attempt was a fizzle, for he reached the end of the paper before he finished the "in" in Nodelman. He tried again, and this time he was successful, but it was three minutes before the task was completed. It left him panting and wiping his ink-stained fingers on his hair "A man who has to work as hard as that over his signature has no business to be seen among decent people," he said, with sincere disgust. "I ought to be a horse-driver, not a manufacturer." So speaking, he submitted his signature for my inspection, without, however, letting go of the sheet "Tell me how rotten it is," he said, bashfully When I protested that it was not "rotten" at all he grunted something to the effect that once I was to instruct him he would expect to pay me, not for empty compliments, but for the truth. At this he lighted a match and applied it to the sheet of paper containing his signature "A signature is no joke," he explained, as he watched it burn. "Put a few words and some figures on top of it and it is a note, as good as cash. When a fellow is a beggar he has nothing to fear, but when he is in business he had better be careful." When he asked me how much I was going to charge him and I said twenty-five cents an hour, he smiled "I'll pay you more than that. You just try your best for me, will you?" At the end of the first week he handed me two dollars for three lessons I was the happiest man in New York that day. If I had had to choose between earning ten dollars a week in tuition fees and a hundred dollars as wages or profits I should, without the slightest hesitation, have decided in favor of the ten dollars, and now, behold! that coveted source of income seemed nearer at hand than I had dared forecast. Once a start had been made, I might expect to procure other pupils, even if they could not afford to pay so lavish a price as two dollars for three lessons But alas! My happiness was not to last long. I was giving Nodelman his fifth lesson. We were spelling out some syllables in a First Reader. Presently he grew absent-minded and then, suddenly pushing the school-book from him, said: "Too late! Too late! Those black little dots won't get through my forehead. It has grown too hard for them, I suppose." I attempted to reassure him, but in vain When the next cloak season came I slunk back to work. I felt degraded. But I earned high wages and my good spirits soon returned. I firmly made up my mind, come what might, to take the college-entrance examination the very next fall. I expected to have four hundred dollars by then, but I was determined to enter college even if I had much less. "I sha'n't starve," I said to myself. "And, if I don't get enough to eat, hunger is nothing new to me." The very firmness of my purpose was a source of encouragement and joy [note: Ridley's]: A well-known department store in those days [note: jingler]: Coin, money BOOK VIII THE DESTRUCTION OF MY TEMPLE CHAPTER I AN unimportant accident, a mere trifle, suddenly gave a new turn to the trend of events changing the character of my whole life. It was the middle of April. The spring season was over, but Manheimer Brothers, the firm by which I was employed, had received heavy duplicate orders for silk coats, and, considering the time of the year, we were unusually busy. One day, at the lunch hour, as I was opening a small bottle of milk, the bottle slipped out of my hand and its contents were spilled over the floor and some silk coats Jeff Manheimer, one of the twins, happened to be near me at the moment, and a disagreeable scene followed. But first a word or two about Jeff Manheimer He was the "inside man" of the firm, having charge of the mechanical end of the business as well as of the offices. He was of German parentage, but of American birth. Bald-headed as a melon and with a tendency to corpulence, he had the back of a man of forty-five and the front of a man of twenty-five. He was a vivacious fellow, one of those who are indefatigable in abortive attempts at being witty, one of his favorite puns being that we "Russians were not rushin' at all," that we were a "slow lot." Altogether he treated us as an inferior race, often lecturing us upon our lack of manners I detested him When he saw me drop the bottle of milk he flew into a rage "Eh!" he shouted, "did you think this was a kitchen? Can't you take better care of things?" As he saw me crouching and wiping the floor and the coats with my handkerchief he added: "You might as well take those coats home. The price will be charged against you. That 'll make you remember that this is not a barn, but a factory. Where were you brought up? Among Indians?" Some of my shopmates tittered obsequiously, which encouraged Manheimer to further sarcasm. "Why, he doesn't even know how to handle a bottle of milk. Did you ever see such a lobster?" At this there was an explosion of merriment. "A lobster!" one of the tailors repeated, relishingly I could have murdered him as well as Manheimer. My head was swimming. I was about to say something insulting to my employer, to get up and leave the place demonstratively. But I said to myself that I should soon be through with this kind of life for good, and I held myself in leash. Two or three minutes later I sat at a machine, eating my milkless lunch. I was trying to forget the incident, trying to think of something else, but in vain. Manheimer's derision, especially the word "lobster," was ringing in my ear. He passed out of the shop, but ten or fifteen minutes later he came back, and as I saw him walk down the aisle I became breathless with hate. The word "lobster" was buzzing in my brain amid vague, helpless visions of revenge Presently my eye fell upon Ansel Chaikin, the designer, and a strange thought flashed upon me. He was a Russian, like myself. He was an ignorant tailor, as illiterate as Meyer Nodelman, but a born artist in his line. It was largely to his skill that the firm, which was doing exceedingly well, owed the beginning of its success. It was the common talk among the "hands" of the factory that his Americanized copies of French models had found special favor with the buyer of a certain large department store and that this alone gave the house a considerable volume of business. Jeff Manheimer, who superintended the work, was a commonplace man, with more method and system than taste or initiative. Chaikin was the heart and the actual master of the establishment. Yet all this really wonderful designer received was forty-five dollars a week. He knew his value, and he saw that the two brothers were rapidly getting rich, but he was a quiet man, unaggressive and unassuming, and very likely he had not the courage to ask for a raise As I now looked at him, with my heart full of rancor for Manheimer, I exclaimed to myself, "What a fool!" He appeared to me in a new light, as the willing victim of downright robbery. It seemed obvious that the Manheimers could not do without him, that he was in a position to dictate terms to them, even to make them accept him as a third partner. And once the matter had presented itself to me in that light it somehow began to vex me. It got on my nerves, as though it were an affair of my own. I complimented myself upon my keen sense of justice, but in reality this was my name for my disgust with Chaikin's passivity and for the annoyance and the burning ill-will which the rapid ascent of the firm aroused in me. I begrudged them--or, rather, Jeff--the money they were making through his efficiency "The idiot!" I soliloquized. "He ought to start on his own hook with some smart business man for a partner. Let Jeff try to do without that 'lobster' of a Russian." The idea took a peculiar hold upon my imagination. I could not look at Ansel Chaikin, or think of him, without picturing him leaving the Manheimers in a lurch and becoming a fatal competitor of theirs. I beheld their downfall. I gloated over it But Chaikin lacked gumption and enterprise. What he needed was an able partner, some man of brains and force. And so, unbeknown to Chaikin, the notion was shaping itself in my mind of becoming his manufacturing partner. thought of Meyer Nodelman's humble beginnings and of the three hundred-odd dollars I had in my savings-bank whispered encouragement into my ear. I had heard of people who went into manufacturing with even less than that sum. Moreover, it was reasonable to expect that Chaikin had laid up some money of his own. Our precarious life among unfriendly nations has made a thrifty people of us, and for a man like Chaikin forty-five dollars a week, every week in the year, meant superabundance The Manheimers were relegated to the background. It was no longer a mere matter of punishing Jeff. It was a much greater thing. I visioned myself a rich man, of course, but that was merely a detail. What really hypnotized me was the venture of the thing. It was a great, daring game of life I tried to reconcile this new dream of mine with my college projects. I was again performing the trick of eating the cake and having it. I would picture myself building up a great cloak business and somehow contriving, at the same time, to go to college The new scheme was scarcely ever absent from my mind. I would ponder it over my work and during my meals. It would visit me in my sleep in a thousand grotesque forms. Chaikin became the center of the universe. I was continually eying him, listening for his voice, scrutinizing his look, his gestures, his clothes He was an insignificant-looking man of thirty-two, with almost a cadaverous face and a very prominent Adam's apple. He was not a prepossessing man by any means, but his bluish eyes had a charming look, of boy-like dreaminess, and his smile was even more child-like than his look. He was dressed with scrupulous neatness and rather pretentiously, as behooved his occupation, but all this would scarcely have prevented one from telling him for a tailor from some poor town in Russia Now and then my project struck me as absurd. For Chaikin was in the foremost ranks of a trade in which I was one of the ruck. Should he conceive the notion of going into business on his own account, he would have no difficulty in forming a partnership with considerable capital. Why, then, should he take heed of a piteous schemer of my caliber? But a few minutes later I would see the matter in another light CHAPTER II ONE Sunday morning in the latter part of May I betook myself to a certain block of new tenement-houses in the neighborhood of East 110th Street and Central Park, then the new quarter of the more prosperous Russian Jews. Chaikin had recently moved into one of these houses, and it was to call on him that I had made my way from down-town. I found him in the dining-room, playing on an accordion, while his wife, who had answered my knock at the door, was busy in the kitchen He scarcely knew me. To pave the way to the object of my visit I began by inquiring about designing lessons. As teaching was not in his line, we soon passed to other topics related to the cloak trade. I found him a poor talker and a very uninteresting companion. He answered mostly in monosyllables, or with mute gestures, often accompanied by his child-like grin or by a perplexed stare of his bluish eyes Gradually I gave the conversation a more personal turn. When, somewhat flushed, I finally hinted at my plan, he shrank with an air of confusion At this juncture his wife made her appearance, followed by her eight-year-old boy. Chaikin looked relieved "I hear you are talking business," she said, summarily taking possession of the situation. "What is it all about?" Completely taken aback by her domineering manner, I sought escape in embarrassed banter. "You have scared me so," I said, "I can't speak. I'll tell you everything. That's just what brings me here. Only let me first catch my breath and take a look at your stalwart little man of a boy." Her grave face relaxed into an involuntary smile What struck me most in her was the startling resemblance she bore to her husband. The two looked like brother and sister rather than like husband and wife "You must be relatives," I observed, for something pleasant to say, and put my foot in it "Not at all," she replied, with a frown To win back her good graces I proceeded to examine Maxie, her boy, in spelling. The stratagem had the desired effect We got down to business again. When she heard my plan she paused to survey me. I felt a sinking at the heart. I interpreted her searching look as saying, "The nerve this snoozer has!" But I was mistaken. Her pinched, sallow face grew tense with excitement, and she said, with coy eagerness: "How can we tell if your plan amounts to anything? If you gave us an idea of how much you could put up--" "It would not require a million," I hazarded "A million! Who talks of millions! Still, it would take a good deal of capital to start a factory that should be something like." "There'll be no trouble about money," I parried, fighting shy of the more imposing term "capital," which made my paltry three hundred still paltrier "There is money and money," she answered, with furtive glances at me. "A nickel is also money." "I am not speaking of nickels, of course." "I should say not. It's a matter of many thousands of dollars." I was dumfounded, but instantly rallied. "Of course," I assented. "At the same time it depends on many things." "Still, you ought to give us some idea how much you could put in. Is it--is it, say, fifteen thousand?" That she should not deem it unnatural for a young man of my station to be able to raise a sum of this size was partly due to her utter lack of experience and partly to an impression prevalent among people of her class that "nothing is impossible in the land of Columbus." I pretended to grow thoughtful, with an effect of making computations. I even produced a piece of paper and a pencil and indulged in some sham figuring. At last I said: "Well, I can't as yet tell you exactly how much. As I have said, it depends on certain things, but it'll be all right. Besides, money is really not the most important part in a scheme of this kind. A man of brains and a hustler will make a lot of money, while a fool will lose a lot. There are others who want to go into business with me. Only I know Mr. Chaikin is an honest man, and that's what I value more than anything else. I hate to take up with people of whom I can't be sure, don't you know--" "You forget the main thing," she could not forbear to break in. "Mr. Chaikin is the best designer in New York." "Everybody knows that," I conceded, deeming it best to flatter her vanity. "That's just what makes it ridiculous that he should work for others, make other people rich instead of trying to do something for himself. I have some plans by which the two of us--Mr. Chaikin taking charge of the manufacturing and I of the business outside--would do wonders. We would simply do wonders. There is another fine designer who is anxious to form a partnership with me, but I said to myself, 'I must first see if I could not get Mr. Chaikin interested.'" Mrs. Chaikin tried to guess who that other designer was, but I pleaded, mysteriously, certain circumstances that placed the seal of discretion on my lips "I won't tell anybody," she assured me, in a flutter of curiosity "I know you won't, but I can't. Honest." "But, I tell you, I won't say a word to anybody. Strike me dumb if I do!" "I can't, Mrs. Chaikin," I besought her "Don't bother," her husband put in, good-naturedly. "A woman will be a woman." I went on to describe the "wonders" that the firm of Chaikin & Levinsky would do. Mrs. Chaikin's eyes glittered. I held her spellbound. Her husband, who had hitherto been a passive listener, as if the matter under discussion was one in which he was not concerned, began to show signs of interest. It was the longest and most eloquent speech I had ever had occasion to deliver. It seemed to carry conviction Children often act as a barometer of their mother's moods. So when I had finished and little Maxie slipped up close to me and tactily invited me to fondle him I knew that I had made a favorable impression on his mother I was detained for dinner. I played with Maxie, gave him problems in arithmetic, went into ecstasies over his "cuteness." I had a feeling that the way to Mrs. Chaikin's heart was through Maxie, but I took good care not to over-play my part We are all actors, more or less. The question is only what our aim is, and whether we are capable of a "convincing personation." At the time I conceived my financial scheme I knew enough of human motive to be aware of this CHAPTER III IT was a sultry, sweltering July afternoon in May, one of those escapades of the New York climate when the population finds itself in the grip of midsummer discomforts without having had time to get seasoned to them. I went into the Park. I had come away from the Chaikins' under the impression that if I could raise two or three thousand dollars I might be able, by means of perseverance and diplomacy, to achieve my purpose. But I might as well have set myself to raise two or three millions I thought of Meyer Nodelman, of Mr. Even and his wealthy son-in-law, of Maximum Max. But the idea of approaching them with my venture could not be taken seriously. The images of Gitelson and of Gussie crossed my mind almost simultaneously. I rejected them both. Gitelson and I might, perhaps, start manufacturing on a small scale, leaving Chaikin out. But Chaikin was the very soul of my project. Without him there was no life to it. Besides, where was he, Gitelson? Was it worth while hunting for him? As for Gussie, the notion of marrying her for her money seemed a joke, even if she were better-looking and younger. That her dower was anywhere near three thousand dollars was exceedingly doubtful. However, the image of her washed-out face would not leave my mind. Her hoarding might amount to over one thousand, and in my despair the sum was tempting. "She is a good girl, the best of all I know," I defended myself before the "Good Spirit" in me. "Also she is a most sensible girl. Just the kind of wife a business man needs." In addition I urged the time-honored theory that a homely wife is less likely to flirt with other men and to neglect her duties than a good-looking one. I took the car down-town and made my way to Gussie's lodgings that very afternoon. I did so before I had made up my mind that I was prepared to marry her. "I'll call on her, anyhow," I decided. "Then we shall see. There can be no harm in speaking to her." I was impelled by the adventure of it more than by anything else In spite of the unbearable heat, I almost felt sure that I should find her at home. Going out of a Sunday required presentable clothes, which she did not possess. She was saving for her dower with her usual intensity I was not mistaken. I found her on the stoop in a crowd of women and children "I must speak to you, Gussie," I said, as she descended to the sidewalk to meet me. "Let's go somewhere. I have something very important I want to say to you." "Is it again something about your studying to be a smart man at my expense?" she asked, rather good-naturedly "No, no. Not at all. It's something altogether different, Gussie." The nervous emphasis with which I said it piqued her interest. Without going up-stairs for her hat she took me to the Grand Street dock, not many blocks away. The best spots were already engaged, but we found one that suited our purpose better than the water edge would have done. It was a secluded nook where I could give the rein to my eloquence I told her of my talk with the Chaikins, omitting names, but inventing details and bits of "local color" calculated to appeal to my listener's imagination and business sense. She followed my story with an air of stiff aloofness, but this only added fuel to the fervor with which I depicted the opportunity before me "So you have thrown that college of yours out of your mind, haven't you?" she said in a dry, non-committal way I felt the color mounting to my face. "Well, not entirely," I answered "Not entirely?" "I mean--Well, anyhow, what do they do at college? They read books. Can't I read them at home? One can find time for everything." Returning to my new project, I said: "It's a great chance, Gussie. It would be an awful thing if I had to let it slip out of my hand." That what I wanted was her dower (with herself as an unavoidable appendage) went without saying. It was implied, as a matter of course "How much would your great designer want you to invest?" she asked, with an air of one guided by mere curiosity, and with a touch of irony to boot "A couple of thousand dollars might do, I suppose." "A couple of thousand!" she said, lukewarmly. "Tell your great designer he is riding too high a horse." "Still, in order to start a decent business--" I said, throwing a covert glance at her "Cloak-factories have been started with a good deal less," she snapped back "On Division Street, perhaps." "And what do you fellows expect to do--start on Broadway?" "Well, it takes some money to get started even on Division Street." "Not two thousand. It has been done for a good deal less." "I know; but still--I am sure a fellow must have some money "It depends on what you call 'some.'" It was the same kind of fencing contest as that which I had had with Mrs. Chaikin. I was sounding Gussie's purse as the designer's wife had mine. Finally she took me in hand for a severe cross-examination. She was obviously interested. I contradicted myself in some minor points, but, upon the whole, I stood the test well "If it is all as you say," she finally declared, "there seems to be something in it." "Gussie " I said, tremulously, "there is a great chance for us--" "Wait," she interrupted me, suddenly bethinking herself of a new point. "If he is as great a designer as you say he is, and he works for a big firm, how is it, then, that he can't find a partner with big money?" "He could, any number of them, but he has confidence in me. He says he would much rather start with me on two thousand than with somebody else on twenty. He thinks I should make an excellent business man, and that between the two of us we should make a great success of it. Money is nothing--so he says--money can be made, but with a fool of an outside man even more than twenty thousand dollars might go up in smoke." "That's so," Gussie assented, musingly. There was a pause "Well, Gussie?" I mustered courage to demand "You don't want me to give you an answer right off, do you? Things like that are not decided in a hurry." We went on to discuss the project and some indifferent topics. It was rapidly growing dark and cool. Looming through the thickening dusk, somewhat diagonally across the dock from us, was the figure of a young fellow with his head reclining on the shoulder of a young woman. A little further off and nearer to the water I could discern a white shirt-waist in the embrace of a dark coat. A song made itself heard. It was "After the Ball is Over," one of the sentimental songs of that day. "Tara-ra-boom-de-aye" followed, a tune usually full of joyous snap and go, but now performed in a subdued, brooding tempo, tinged with sadness. It rang in a girlish soprano, the rest of the crowd listening silently. By this time the gloom was so dense that the majority of us could not see the singer, which enhanced the mystery of her melody and the charm of her young voice. Presently other voices joined in, all in the same meditative, somewhat doleful rhythm. Gayer strains would have sounded sacrilegiously out of tune with the darkling glint of the river, with the mysterious splash of its waves against the bobbing bulkheads of the pier, with the starry enchantment of the passing ferry-boats, with the love-enraptured solemnity of the spring night. I had not the heart even to think of business, much less to talk it. We fell silent, both of us, listening to the singing. Poor Gussie! She was not a pretty girl, and she did not interest me in the least. Yet at this moment I was drawn to her. The brooding, plaintive tones which resounded around us had a bewitching effect on me. It filled me with yearning; it filled me with love. Gussie was a woman to me now. My hand sought hers. It was an honest proffer of endearment, for my soul was praying for communion with hers She withdrew her hand. "This should not be done in a hurry, either," she explained, pensively "Gussie! Dear Gussie!" I said, sincerely, though not unaware of the temporary nature of my feeling "Don't!" she implored me There was something in her plea which seemed to say: "You know you don't care for me. It's my money that has brought you here. Alas! It is not my lot to be loved for my own sake." Her unspoken words broke my heart "Gussie! I swear to you you're dear to me. Can't you believe me?" The singing night was too much for her. She yielded to my arms. Urged on by the chill air, we clung together in a delirium of love-making. There were passionate embraces and kisses. I felt that her thin, dried-up lips were not to my taste, but I went on kissing them with unfeigned fervor. The singing echoed dolefully. We remained in that secluded nook until the growing chill woke us from our trance. I took her home. When we reached a tiny square jammed with express-wagons we paused to kiss once more, and when we found ourselves in front of her stoop, which was now deserted, the vigorous hand-clasp with which I took my leave was symbolic of another kiss. I went away without discovering the size of her hoard. I was to call on her the next evening. As I trudged along through the swarming streets on my way home the predominant feeling in my heart was one of physical distaste. Poor thing! I felt that marrying her was out of the question Nevertheless, the next evening I went to see her as arranged. I found her out. Her landlady handed me a letter. It was in Yiddish: Mr. Levinsky [it read], I do not write this myself, for I cannot write, and I do not want you to think that I want to make believe that I can. A man is writing it for me for ten cents. I am telling him the words and he is writing just as I tell him. It was all a mistake. You know what I mean. I don't care to marry you. You are too smart for me and too young, too. I am afraid of you. I am a simple girl and you are educated. I must look for my equal. If I married you, both of us would be sorry for it. Excuse me, and I wish you well. Please don't come to see me any more GUSSIE The message left me with a feeling of shame, sadness, and commiseration. During that evening and the forenoon of the following day I was badly out of spirits There was nothing to do at the shop, yet I went there just to see Chaikin, so as to keep up his interest in my scheme. He was glad to see me. He had a message from his wife, who wanted me to call in the evening. Gussie's letter was blotted out of my memory. I was once more absorbed in my project I spent the evening at the designer's house. Mrs. Chaikin made new attempts at worming out the size of my fortune and, in addition, something concerning its origin "Is it an inheritance?" she queried. "An inheritance? Why, would you like me to get one?" I said, playfully, as though talking to a child She could not help laughing. "Well, then, is it from a rich brother or a sister, or is it your own money?" she pursued, falling in with the facetious tone that I was affecting "Any kind of money you wish, Mrs. Chaikin. But, seriously, there will be no trouble about cash. The main point is that I want to go into manufacturing and that I should prefer to have Mr. Chaikin for my partner. There is plenty of money in cloaks, and I am bent upon making heaps, great heaps, of it--for Mr. Chaikin and myself. Really, isn't it maddening to think that he should be making other people rich, while all he gets is a miserable few dollars a week? It's simply outrageous." So speaking, I worked Mrs. Chaikin up to a high sense of the absurdity of the thing. I was rapidly gaining ground with her And so, pending that mysterious something to which I was often alluding as the source of my prospective fortune, I became a frequent visitor at her house. Sometimes she would invite me to supper; once or twice we spent Sunday together. As for little Maxie, he invariably hailed me with joy. I was actually fond of him, and I was glad of it CHAPTER IV THE time I speak of, the late '80's and the early '90's, is connected with an important and interesting chapter in the history of the American cloak business. Hitherto in the control of German Jews, it was now beginning to pass into the hands of their Russian co-religionists, the change being effected under peculiar conditions that were destined to lead to a stupendous development of the industry. If the average American woman is to-day dressed infinitely better than she was a quarter of a century ago, and if she is now easily the best-dressed average woman in the world, the fact is due, in a large measure, to the change I refer to The transition was inevitable. While the manufacturers were German Jews, their contractors, tailors, and machine operators were Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Russia or Austrian Galicia. Although the former were of a superior commercial civilization, it was, after all, a case of Greek meeting Greek, and the circumstances were such that just because they represented a superior commercial civilization they were doomed to be beaten The German manufacturers were the pioneers of the industry in America. It was a new industry, in fact, scarcely twenty years old. Formerly, and as late as the '70's, women's cloaks and jackets were little known in the United States. Shawls were worn by the masses. What few cloaks were seen on women of means and fashion were imported from Germany. But the demand grew. So, gradually, some German-American merchants and an American shawl firm bethought themselves of manufacturing these garments at home. The industry progressed, the new-born great Russian immigration--a child of the massacres of 1881 and 1882--bringing the needed army of tailors for it. There was big money in the cloak business, and it would have been unnatural if some of these tailors had not, sooner or later, begun to think of going into business on their own hook. At first it was a hard struggle. The American business world was slow to appreciate the commercial possibilities which these new-comers represented, but it learned them in course of time It was at the beginning of this transition period that my scheme was born in my mind. Schemes of that kind were in the air Meyer Nodelman, the son of my landlady, had not the remotest inkling of my plans, yet I had consulted him about them more than once. Of course, it was all done in a purely abstract way. Like the majority of our people, he was a talkative man so I would try to keep him talking shop. By a system of seemingly casual questioning I would pump him on sundry details of the clothing business, on the differences and similarities between it and the cloak trade, and, more especially, on how one started on a very small capital He bragged and blustered, but oftentimes he would be carried away by the sentimental side of his past struggles. Then he would unburden himself of a great deal of unvarnished history. On such occasions I would obtain from him a veritable treasure of information and suggestions. Some of the generalizations of this homespun and quaint thinker, too, were interesting. Talking of credit, for example, he once said: "When a fellow is a beginner it's a good thing if he has a credit face." I thought it was some sort of commercial term he was using, and when I asked him what it meant he said: "Why, some people are just born with the kind of face that makes the woolen merchant or the bank president trust them. They are not more honest than some other fellows. Indeed, some of them are plain pickpockets, but they have a credit face, so you have got to trust them. You just can't help it." "And if they don't pay?" "But they do. They get credit from somebody else and pay the jobber or the banker. Then they get more credit from these people and pay the other fellows. People of this kind can do a big business without a cent of capital. In Russia a fellow who pays his bills is called an honest man, but America is miles ahead of Russia. Here you can be the best pay in the world and yet be a crook. You wouldn't say that every man who breathes God's air is honest, would you? Well, paying your bills in America is like breathing. If you don't, you are dead." Chaikin, too, often let fall, in his hesitating, monosyllabic way, some observation which I considered of value. Of the purely commercial side of the industry he knew next to nothing, but then he could tell me a thing or two concerning the psychology of popular taste, the forces operating behind the scenes of fashion, the methods employed by small firms in stealing styles from larger ones, and other tricks of the trade. At last I resolved to act. It was the height of the season for winter orders, and I decided to take time by the forelock One day when I called at the designer's, and Mrs. Chaikin asked me for news (alluding to the thousands I was supposed to be expecting), I said: "Well, I have rented a shop." "Rented a shop?" "That's what I did. It's no use missing the season. If a fellow wants to do something, there is nothing for it but to go to work and do it, else he is doomed to be a slave all his life." When I added that the shop was on Division Street her face fell "But what difference does it make where it is?" I argued, with studied vehemence. "It's only a place to make samples in--for a start." "Mr. Chaikin is not going into a wee bit of a business like that. No, sir." In the course of our many discussions it had often happened that after overruling me with great finality she would end by yielding to my point of view. I hoped this would be the case in the present instance "Don't be so hasty, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, with a smile. "Wait till you know a little more about the arrangement." And dropping into the Talmudic singsong, which usually comes back to me when my words assume an argumentative character, I proceeded "In the first place, I don't want Mr. Chaikin to leave the Manheimers--not yet. All I want him to do is to attend to our shop evenings. Don't be uneasy: the Manheimers won't get wind of it. Leave that to me. Well, all I want is some samples to go around the stores with. The rest will come easy. We'll make things hum. See if we don't. When we have orders and get really started we'll move out of Division Street. Of course we will. But would it not be foolish to open up on a large scale and have Mr. Chaikin give up his job before we have accomplished anything? I think it would. Indeed, it's my money that's going to be invested. Do you blame me for being careful, at the beginning at least? I neither want Mr. Chaikin to risk his job nor myself to risk big money." "But you haven't even told me how much you can put in," she blurted out, excitedly. "As much as will be necessary. But what's the use dumping a big lot at once? Many a big business has failed, while firms who start in a modest way have worked themselves up. Why should Mr. Chaikin begin by risking his position? Why? Why?" The long and short of it was that Mrs. Chaikin became enthusiastic for my Division Street shop, and the next day her husband took two hours off to accompany me to a nondescript woolen-store on Hester Street, where we bought fifty dollars' worth of material The rent for the shop was thirty dollars a month. One month's rent for two sewing-machines was two dollars. A large second-hand table for designing and cutting and some old chairs cost me twelve dollars more, leaving me a balance of over two hundred dollars Before I went to rent the premises for our prospective shop I had withdrawn my money from the savings-bank and deposited it in a small bank where I opened a check account "Once I am to play the part of a manufacturer it would not do to pay bills in cash," I reflected. "I must pay in checks, and do so like one to the manner born." At this the magic word "credit" loomed in letters of gold before me. I was aware of the fascination of check-books, so, being armed with one, I expected to be able to buy things, in some cases, at least, without having to pay for them at once. Besides, my bank might be induced to grant me a loan. Then, too, one might issue a check before one had the amount and thereby gain a day's time. There seemed to be a world of possibilities in the long, narrow book in my breast pocket. I was ever conscious of its presence. I have a vivid recollection of the elation with which I drew and issued my first check (in payment of thirty dollars, the first month's rent for our prospective cloak-factory). Humanity seemed to have become divided into two distinct classes--those who paid their obligations in cash and those who paid them in checks. I still have that first check-book of mine CHAPTER V CHAIKIN made up half a dozen sample garments. I took them to the department store to which the Manheimer Brothers catered, but the buyer of the cloak department would not so much as let me untie my bundle. He was a middle-aged man (women buyers were rare in those days), an Irish-American of commanding figure. After sweeping me with a glance of cold curiosity, he waved me aside. My Russian name and my appearance were evidently against me. I tried the other department stores --with the same result. The larger business world of the city had not yet learned to take the Russian Jew seriously as a factor in advanced commerce. The buyer of the cloak department in the last store I visited was an American Jew, a fair-complexioned little fellow, all aglitter with neatness. At first he took an amused interest in me. When I had unpacked my goods and was about to show him one of Chaikin's jackets he checked me "Suppose we gave you an order for five hundred," he said, with a smile; "five hundred jackets to be delivered at a certain date." "I would deliver it," I answered, boldly. "Why not?" "I don't know why. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. How can we be sure you would?" Before I had time to answer he asked me how long I had been in the country. When I told him, he complimented me on my English. I was sure it meant business. I was thrilled "Have you got a shop?" he further questioned. "How many hands do you employ?" "Seventy-five." He sized me up. "Where is your place?" "On Division Street." "Well, well! What is your rating?" I did not know what he meant. So, for an answer, I made a new attempt to submit the contents of my bundle for his inspection. At this he made a gesture of disgust and withdrew. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead I had heard of the existence of small department stores in various sections of the city, so I went in search of them I found myself in the vicinity of the City College. As I passed that corner I studiously looked away. I felt like a convert Jew passing a synagogue It was a warm day. My pack seemed to grow heavier with every block I walked, and so did my heart. I was perspiring freely; my collar wilted. All of which did anything but make me look as "a man who paid his bills in checks." At last, walking up Third Avenue I came across a place where there was quite a large display of jackets in the windows. Upon my opening the door and announcing my mission, two jaunty young fellows invited me in with elaborate courtesy, almost with anxiety. My heart leaped for joy. I fell to opening my bundle. The two young men inspected every jacket, went into ecstasies over each of them, and then asked me all sorts of irrelevant questions until it dawned upon me that I was being made game of. It appeared that the father of the two young men, the proprietor of the store, manufactured his own goods, for wholesale as well as for retail trade I received much better treatment in a store on Avenue B, but my goods proved too high for that neighborhood. As if to atone for this, the proprietor of this store, a kindly Galician Jew, gave me a list of the minor department stores I was looking for, and some valuable suggestions in addition My dinner that day consisted of two ring-shaped rolls which I bought in a Jewish grocery-store and which I ate on a bench in Tompkins Square The day passed most discouragingly. It was about 7 o'clock when, disheartened to the point of despair, I dragged my wearied limbs in the direction of my "factory." When I got there I found my partner waiting for me--not alone, but in the company of his wife "Well?" she shrieked, jumping to meet me "Splendid!" I replied, with enthusiasm. "It looks even better than I expected. I could have got good orders at once, but a fellow must not be too hasty. You have got to look around first--find out who is who, you know." Mrs. Chaikin looked crestfallen. "So you did not get any orders at all?" "What's your hurry?" her husband said, pleadingly. "Levinsky is right. You can't sell goods unless you know who you deal with." The following two days were as barren of results as the first. Mrs. Chaikin had lost all confidence in the venture. She was becoming rather hard to handle "I don't want Ansel to bother any more," she said, peevishly. "You know what the Americans say, 'Time is money.' Pay Ansel for his work and let us be 'friends at a distance.'" "Very well," I said, and, producing my check-book, I asked, "How much is it?" The sight of my check-book acted like a charm. The situation suddenly assumed brighter colors in Mrs. Cbaikin's eyes "Look at him! He thought I really meant it," she grinned, sheepishly Every night I would go to bed sick at heart and with my mind half made up to drop it all, only to wake in the morning more resolute and hopeful than ever. Hopeful and defiant. It was as though somebody--the whole world--were jeering at my brazen-faced, piteous efforts, and I was bound to make good, "just for spite." I learned of the existence of "purchasing offices" where the buyers of several department stores, from so many cities, made their headquarters in New York. Also, I discovered that in order to keep track of the arrivals of these buyers I must follow a daily paper called Hotel Reporter (the ordinary newspapers did not furnish information of this character in those days). A man who manufactured neckties in the same ramshackle building in which I hoped to manufacture cloaks volunteered to let me look at his Reporter every day. This man was naturally inclined to be neighborly, but I had found that an occasional quotation or two from the Talmud was particularly helpful in obtaining a small favor from him I knocked about among the purchasing offices with bulldog tenacity, but during the first few days my efforts in this direction were as futile as in the case of the New York stores. Meanwhile, time was pressing. So far as out-of-town buyers were concerned, the "winter season" was drawing to a close. All I could see were some belated stragglers. One of these was a man from the Middle West, a stout, fleshy American with quick, nervous movements which contradicted his well-fed, languid-looking face He shot a few glances at my samples, just to get rid of me, but he liked the designs, and I could see that he found my prices tempting "How soon will you be able to deliver five hundred?" he snarled "In three weeks." "Very well--go ahead!" And speaking in his jerky, impatient way, he went on to specify how many cloaks he wanted of each kind I left him with my heart divided between unutterable triumph and black despair. Five hundred cloaks! How would I raise the money for so much raw material? It almost looked like another practical joke By this time I was more than sure that the Chaikins had a considerable little pile, but to turn to them for funds was impossible. It would have let my cat out of the bag. I sought credit at Claflin's and at half a dozen smaller places, but all in vain. I could not help thinking of Nodelman's "credit face." Ah, if that kind of a face had fallen to my lot! But it had not, it seemed. It looked as if there were no hope for me Finally I took the necktie man into my confidence, the result being that he unburdened himself of his own financial straits to me One afternoon I was moping around some of the side-streets off lower Broadway in quest of some new place where I might try to beg for credit, when I noticed the small sign-board of a commission merchant. Upon entering the place I found a fine-looking elderly American dictating something to a stenographer. When the man had heard my plea be looked me over from head to foot. I felt like a prisoner facing the jury which is about to announce its verdict At last he said: "Well, you look pretty reliable. I guess I'll trust you the goods for thirty days." It was all I could do to restrain myself from invoking benedictions on his head and kissing his hands as my mother would have done under similar circumstances "So I do have a 'credit face'!" I exclaimed to myself, gleefully When I found myself in the street again I looked at my reflection in store windows, scanning my "credit face." The Chaikins took it for granted that I had paid for the goods on the spot Things brightened up at our "factory." I ordered an additional sewing-machine of the instalment agent and hired two operators--poor fellows who were willing to work fourteen or fifteen hours a day for twelve dollars a week. (The union had again been revived, but it was weak, and my employees did not belong to it.) As for myself, I toiled at my machine literally day and night, snatching two or three hours' sleep at dawn, with some bundles of cut goods or half-finished cloaks for a bed. Chaikin spent every night, from 7 to 2, with me, cutting the goods and doing the better part of the other work. Mrs. Chaikin, too, lent a hand. Leaving Maxie in the care of her mother, she would spend several hours a day in the factory, finishing the cloaks The five hundred cloaks were shipped on time. I was bursting with consciousness of the fact that I was a manufacturer--that a big firm out West (a firm of Gentiles, mind you!) was recognizing my claim to the title. I was American enough to be alive to the special glamour of the words, "out West." Goods in our line of business usually sold "for cash," which meant ten days. Ten days more, then, and I should receive a big check from that firm. That would enable me to start new operations. Accordingly, I went out to look for more orders Whether my first success had put new confidence in me, or whether my past experiences had somewhat rounded off my rough edges and enabled me to speak to business people in a more effective manner than I could have done before, the proprietor of a small department store on upper Third Avenue let me show him my samples. My prices made an impression on him. My cloaks were five dollars apiece lower than he was in the habit of paying. He looked askance at me, as though my figures seemed too good to be true, until I found it the best policy to tell him the unembellished truth. "The big manufacturers of whom you buy have big office expenses," I explained. "They make a lot of fuss, and you've got to pay for it. My principle is not to make fuss at the retailer's expense. Our office costs us very, very little. We are plain people. But that isn't all. Your big manufacturer pays for union labor, so he takes it out of you. Now, we don't bother about these things. We get the best work done for the lowest wages. The big men in the business wouldn't even know where hands of this kind could be got. We do." I took my departure with an order for three hundred cloaks, expecting to begin work on them as soon as I received that check "from out West." Things seemed to be coming my way. As I sat in an Elevated train going down-town I figured the profits on the two orders and pictured other orders coming in. I beheld our little factory crowded with machines, I heard their bewitching whir-r, whir-r. Chaikin would have to leave the Manheimers, of course In the afternoon of the sixth day, when I called at one of the purchasing offices I have mentioned, I received the information that the firm whose check I was awaiting so impatiently had failed! CHAPTER VI THE failure of the Western firm seemed to nave nipped my commercial career in the bud. The large order I had received from its representative was apparently to be the death as well as the birth of my glory. In my despair, I tried to make a virtue of necessity. I was telling myself that it served me right; that I had had no business to abandon my intellectual pursuits. I was inclined to behold something like the hand of Providence in the bankruptcy of that firm. At the same time I was casting about in my mind for some way of raising new money with which to pay the kindly commission merchant, get a new bill of goods from him, and fill my new order. When I explained the matter to Mrs. Chaikin she was on the brink of a fainting spell "You're a liar and a thief!" she shrieked. "There never was a Western firm in the world. It's all a lie. You sold the goods for cash." Her husband knew something about firms and credit, so I had no difficulty in substantiating my assertion to him "It's only a matter of days when I shall get the big check that is coming to me," I assured them. I went on to spin a long yarn, to which she listened with jeers and outbursts of uncomplimentary Yiddish One day I mustered courage and called on Mrs. Chaikin. I did so on an afternoon when her husband was sure to be at work, because I had a lurking feeling that, being alone with me, she would be easier to deal with When she saw me she gasped. "What, you?" she said. "You have the nerve to come up here?" "Come, come, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, earnestly. "Please be seated and let us talk it all over in a business-like manner. With your sense, and especially with your sense for business. you will understand me." "Please don't flatter me," she demurred, sternly But I knew that nothing appealed to her vanity so much as being thought a clever business woman, and I protested: "Flatter you! In the first place, it is a well-known fact that women have more sense than men. In the second place, it is the talk of every cloak-shop that Mr. Chaikin owes his high position to you as much as to his own ability. Everybody, everybody says so." I talked of "unforeseen difficulties," of a "well-known landlord" whose big check I was expecting every day; I composed a story about that landlord's father-in-law agreed with Mrs. Chaikin that it had been a mistake on my part to trust the buyer of that Western firm the goods without first consulting her; and the upshot was that she made me stay to supper and that pending the arrival of Chaikin I took Maxie to the Park The father-in-law of my story was Mr. Even, of course. I had portrayed him vividly as coming to my rescue in my present predicament, so vividly, indeed, that my own fib haunted me the next day. The result was that in the evening I made myself as presentable as I could, and repaired to the synagogue where he spent much of his time reading Talmud I had not visited the place since that memorable day, my first day in America. I recognized it at once. I was thrilled. The four-odd years seemed twenty-four Mr. Even was not there, but he soon came in. He had aged considerably. He was beginning to look somewhat decrepit. His dignity was tinged with the sadness of old age "Good evening, Mr. Even. Do you know me?" I began He scanned me closely, but failed to recognize me "I am David Levinsky, the 'green one' you befriended four and a half years ago. Don't you remember me, Mr. Even? It was in this very place where I had the good fortune to make your acquaintance. I'm the son of the woman who was killed by Gentiles, in Antomir," I added, mournfully "Oh yes, indeed!" he said, with a wistful smile, somewhat abashed. He took snuff, looked me over once more, and, as if his memory had been brightened by the snuff, he burst out: "Lord of the World! You are that young man! Why, I confess I scarcely recognize you. Of course I remember it all. Why, of course I remember you. Well, well! How have you been getting along in America?" "Can't complain. Not at all. You remember that evening? After you provided me with a complete outfit, like a father fixing up his son for his wedding-day, and you gave me five dollars into the bargain, you told me not to call on you again until I was well established in life. Do you remember that?" "Of course I do," he answered, with a beaming glance at two old Talmudists who sat at their books close by "Well, here I am. I am running a cloak-factory." He began to question me about my affairs with sad curiosity. I said that business was "good, too good, in fact," so that it required somewhat more capital than I possessed. I soon realized, however, that he did not care for me now. My Americanized self did not make the favorable impression that I had made four and a half years before, when he gave me my first American hair-cut I inquired after his daughter and his son-in-law, but my hint that the latter might perhaps be willing to indorse a note for me evoked an impatient grunt "My son-in-law! Why, you don't even know him!" he retorted, with a suspicious look at me I turned it off with a joke and asked about the hen-pecked man. Mr. Even had not seen him for four years. The other Talmudists present had never even known him. A man with extremely long black side-locks who spoke with a Galician accent became interested. After Mr. Even went to his wonted seat at the east wall, where he took up a book, this man said to me, with a sigh: "Oh, it is not the old home. Over there people go to the same synagogue all their lives, while here one is constantly on the move. They call it a city. Pshaw! It is a market-place, a bazar, an inn, not a city! People are together for a day and then, behold! they have flown apart. Where to? Nobody knows. I don't know what has become of you and you don't know what has become of me." "That's why there is no real friendship here," I chimed in, heartily. "That's why one feels so friendless, so lonely." My shop, of course, shut down, and I roamed about the streets a good deal. I was restless. I continually felt nonplussed, ashamed to look myself in the face, as it were. One forenoon I found myself walking in the direction of Twenty-third Street and Lexington Avenue. The college building was now a source of consolation. Indeed, what was money beside the halo of higher education? I paused in front of the building. There were several students on the campus, all Jewish boys. I accosted one of them. I spoke to him enviously, and left the place thrilling with a determination to drop all thought of business, to take the entrance examination, and be a college student at last. I was almost grateful to that Western firm for going into bankruptcy And yet, even while I was tingling with this feeling, a voice exclaimed in my heart, "Ah, if that Western firm had not failed!" The debt I owed the American commission merchant agonized me without let-up. I couldn't help thinking of my "credit face." To disappoint him, of all men, seemed to be the most brutal thing I had ever done. I imagined myself obtaining just enough money to pay him; but, as I did so, I could not resist the temptation of extending the sum so as to go on manufacturing cloaks. I was incessantly cudgeling my brains for some "angel" who would come to my financial rescue The spell of my college aspirations was broken once for all. My Temple was destroyed. Nothing was left of it but vague yearnings and something like a feeling of compunction which will assert itself, sometimes, to this day The Talmud tells us how the destruction of Jerusalem and the great Temple was caused by a hen and a rooster. The destruction of my American Temple was caused by a bottle of milk The physical edifice still stands, though the college has long since moved to a much larger and more imposing building or group of buildings. I find the humble old structure on Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street the more dignified and the more fascinating of the two. To me it is a sacred spot. It is the sepulcher of my dearest ambitions, a monument to my noblest enthusiasm in America BOOK IX DORA CHAPTER I "HOW about it?" Mrs. Chaikin said to me, ominously "About what? What do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?" "Oh, you know what I mean. It is no use playing the fool and trying to make a fool of me." The conversation was held in our deserted shop on an afternoon. The three sewing-machines, the cutting-table, and the pressing-table looked desolate. She spoke in an undertone, almost in a whisper, lest the secret of her husband's relations with me should leak out and reach his employers. She had been guarding that secret all along, but now, that our undertaking had apparently collapsed, she was particularly uneasy about it "I don't believe that store in the West has failed at all. In fact, I know it has not. Somebody told me all about it." This was her method of cross-examining me. I read her a clipping containing the news of the bankruptcy, but as she could not read it herself, she only sneered. I reasoned with her, I pleaded, I swore; but she kept sneering or nodding her head mournfully "I don't believe you. I don't believe you," she finally said, shutting her eyes with a gesture of despair and exhaustion. "Do I believe a dog when it barks? Neither do I believe you. I curse the day when I first met you. It was the black year that brought you to us." She fell to wringing her hands and moaning: "Woe is me! Woe is me!" Finally she tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs. In my despair I longed for somebody to whom I could unbosom myself. I thought of Meyer Nodelman. A self-made man and one who had begun manufacturing almost penniless like myself, he seemed to be just the man I needed. A thought glimmered through my mind, "And who knows but he may come to my rescue I was going to call at his warehouse, but upon second thought I realized that the seat of his cold self-interest would scarcely be a favorable setting for the interview and that I must try to entrap him in the humanizing atmosphere of his mother's home for the purpose The next time I saw him at his mother's I took him up to my little attic and laid my tribulations before him. I told him the whole story, almost without embellishments, omitting nothing but Chaikin's name "Is it all true?" he interrupted me at one point I swore that it was, and went on. At the end I offered to prove it all to his satisfaction "You don't need to prove it to me," he replied. "What do I care?" Then, suddenly, casting off his reserve, he blurted out: "Look here, young fellow! If you think I am going to lend you money you are only wasting time, for I am not." "And why not?" I asked, boldly, with studied dignity "Why not! You better tell me why yes," he chuckled. "You have a lot of spunk. That you certainly have, and you ought to make a good business man, but I won't loan you money, for all that." "Weren't you once hard up yourself, Mr. Nodelman? You have made a success of it, and now it would only be right that you should help another fellow get up in the world. You won't lose a cent by it, either. I take an oath on it." "You can't have an oath cashed in a bank, can you?" "Why did that commission merchant take a chance? If a Gentile is willing to help a Jew, and one whom he had never seen before, you should not hesitate, either." "Well, there is no use talking about it," was his final decision The following day I received a letter from him, inviting me to his office His warehouse occupied a vast loft on a little street off Broadway. Arrived there, I had to pass several men, all in their shirt-sleeves, who were attacking mountains of cloth with long, narrow knives. One of these directed me to a remote window, in front of which I presently found Nodelman lecturing a man who wore a tape-measure around his neck Nodelman kept me waiting, without offering me a scat, a good half-hour. He was in his shirt-sleeves, like the others, yet he looked far more dignified than I had ever seen him look before. It was as though the environment of his little kingdom had made another man of him Finally, he left the man with the tape-measure and silently led me into his little private office, a narrow strip of partitioned-off space at the other end of the loft When we were seated and the partition door was shut he said, with grave mien, "Well," and fell silent again I gazed at him patiently "Well," he repeated, "I have thought it over." And again he paused. At last he burst out: "I do want to help you, young fellow. You didn't expect it, did you? I do want to help you. And do you know why? Because otherwise you won't pay that Gentile and I don't want a good-hearted Gentile to think that Jews are a bad lot. That's number one. Number two is this: If you think Meyer Nodelman is a hog, you don't know Meyer Nodelman. Number three: I rather liked the way you talked yesterday. I said to myself, said I: 'An educated fellow who can talk like that will be all right. He ought to be given a lift, for most educated people are damn fools.' Well, I'll tell you what I am willing to do for you. I'll get you the goods for that order of yours, not for thirty days, but for sixty. What do you think of that? Now is Nodelman a hog or is he not? But that's as far as I am willing to go. I can only get you the goods for that Third Avenue order. See? But that won't be enough to help you out of your scrape, not enough for you to pay that good Gentile on time." He engaged in some mental arithmetic by means of which he reached the conclusion that I should need an additional four hundred dollars, and he wound up by an ultimatum: he would not furnish me the goods until I had produced that amount "Look here, young fellow," he added; "since you were smart enough to get that Gentile and Meyer Nodelman to help you out, it ought not to be a hard job for you to get a third fellow to take an interest in you. Do you remember what I told you about those credit faces? I think you have got one." "I have an honest heart, too," I said, with a smile "Your heart I can't get into, so I don't know. See? Maybe there is a rogue hiding there and maybe there isn't. But your face and your talk certainly are all right. They ought to be able to get you some more cash. And if they don't, then they don't deserve that I should help you out, either. See?" He chuckled in appreciation of his own syllogism "It's a nice piece of Talmud reasoning," I complimented him, with an enthusiastic laugh. "But, seriously, Mr. Nodelman, I shall pay you every cent. You run absolutely no risk." I pleaded with him to grant me the accommodation unconditionally. I tried to convince him that I should contrive to do without the additional cash. But he was obdurate, and at last I took my leave "Wait a moment! What's your hurry? Are you afraid you'll be a couple of minutes longer becoming a millionaire? There is something I want to ask you." "What is it, Mr. Nodelman?" "How about your studying to be a doctor-philosopher?" he asked, archly "Oh, well, one can attend to business and find time for books, too," I answered I came away in a new transport of expectations and in a new agony of despair at once. On the whole, however, my spirits were greatly buoyed up. Encouraged by the result of taking Nodelman into my confidence, I decided to try a similar heart-to-heart talk on Max Margolis, better known to the reader as Maximum Max. He had some money. I had seen very little of him in the past two years, having stumbled upon him in the street but two or three times. But upon each of these occasions he had stopped me and inquired about my affairs with genuine interest. He was fond of me. I had no doubt about it. And he was so good-natured. Our last chance meeting antedated my new venture by at least six months, and he was not likely to have any knowledge of it. I felt that he would be sincerely glad to hear of it and I hoped that he would be inclined to help me launch it. Anyhow, he seemed to be my last resort, and I was determined to make my appeal to him as effective as I knew how As he had always seen me shabbily clad, I decided to overwhelm him with a new suit of clothes. I needed one, at any rate After some seeking and inquiring, I found him in a Bowery furniture-store, one of the several places from which he supplied his instalment customers. It was about 10 o'clock in the morning "There is something I want to consult you about, Max," I said. "Something awfully important to me. You're the only man I know who could advise me and in whom I can confide," I added, with an implication of great intimacy and affection. "It's a business scheme, Max. I have a chance to make lots of money." The conversation was held in a dusky passage of the labyrinthine store, a narrow lane running between two barricades of furniture "What is that? A business scheme?" he asked, in a preoccupied tone of voice and straining his eyes to look me over. "You are dressed up, I see. Quite prosperous, aren't you?" As we emerged into the glare of the Bowery he scrutinized my suit once again. I quailed. I now felt that to have come in such a screamingly new suit was a fatal mistake. I cursed myself for an idiot of a smart Aleck. But he spoke to me with his usual cordiality and my spirits rose again. However, he seemed to be busy, and so I asked him to set an hour when he could see me at leisure. We made an appointment for 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I was to meet him at the same furniture-store; but upon second thought, and with another glance at my new clothes, he said, jovially: "Why, you are rigged out like a regular monarch! It is quite an honor to invite you to the house. Come up, will you? And, as I won't have to go out to meet you, you can make it 2 o'clock, or half past." CHAPTER II MAX occupied the top floor of an old private house on Henry Street, a small "railroad" apartment of two large, bright rooms--a living-room and a kitchen--with two small, dark bedrooms between them. The ceiling was low and the air somewhat tainted with the odor of mold and dampness. I found Max in the general living-room, which was also a dining-room, a fat boy of three on his lap and a slender, pale girl of eight on a chair close by. His wife, a slender young woman with a fine white complexion and serious black eyes, was clearing away the lunch things "Mrs. Margolis, Mr. Levinsky," he introduced us. "Plainly speaking, this is my wifey and this is a friend of mine." As she was leaving the room for the kitchen he called after her, "Dvorah! Dora! make some tea, will you?" She craned her neck and gave him a look of resentment. "It's a good thing you are telling me that," she said. "Otherwise I shouldn't know what I have got to do, should I?" When she had disappeared he explained to me that he variously addressed her by the Yiddish or English form of her name "We are plain Yiddish folk," he generalized, good-humoredly A few minutes later, as Mrs. Margolis placed a glass of Russian tea before me, he drew her to him and pinched her white cheek "What do you think of my wifey, Levinsky?" She smiled--a grave, deprecating smile--and took to pottering about the house "And what do you think of these little customers?" he went on. "Lucy, examine mamma in spelling. Quick! Dora, be a good girl, sit down and let Levinsky see how educated you are." ("Educated" he said in English, with the accent on the "a.") "What do you want?" his wife protested, softly. "Mr. Levinsky wants to see you on business, and here you are bothering him with all sorts of nonsense "Never mind his business. It won't run away. Sit down, I say. It won't take long." She yielded. Casting bashful side-glances at nobody in particular, she seated herself opposite Lucy "Well?" she said, with a little laugh I thought her eyes looked too serious, almost angry. "Insane people have eyes of this kind," I said to myself. I also made a mental note of her clear, fresh, delicate complexion. Otherwise she did not interest me in the least, and I mutely prayed Heaven to take her out of the room "How do you spell 'great'?" the little girl demanded "G-r-e-a-t--great," her mother answered, with a smile "Book?" "B-o-o-k--book. Oh, give me some harder words." "Laughter." "L-a-u-g-h-t-e-r--laughter." "Is that correct?" Margolis turned to me, all beaming. "I wish I could do as much. And nobody has taught her, either. She has learned it all by herself. Little Lucy is the only teacher she ever had. But she will soon be ahead of her. Won't she, Lucy?" "I'm afraid I am ahead of her already," Mrs. Margolis said, gaily, yet flushed with excitement "You are not!" Lucy protested, with a good-natured pout "Shut up, bad girl you," her mother retorted, again with a bashful side-glance "Is that the way you talk to your mamma?" Max intervened. "I'll tell your teacher." I was on pins and needles to be alone with him and to get down to the object of my visit Finally he said, brusquely: "Well, we have had enough of that. Leave us alone, Dora. Go to the parlor and take the kids along." She obeyed When he heard of my venture he was interested. He often interrupted me with boisterous expressions of admiration for my subterfuges as well as for the plan as a whole. With all his boisterousness, however, there was an air of caution about him, as if he scented danger. When I finally said that all depended upon my raising four hundred dollars his face clouded "I see, I see," he murmured, with sudden estrangement. "I see. I see." "Don't lose courage," I said to myself. "Nodelman was exactly like that at first. Go right ahead." I portrayed my business prospects in the most alluring colors and gave Max to understand that if "somebody" advanced me the four hundred dollars he would be sure to get it back in thirty days plus any interest he might name "It would be terrible if I had to let it all go to pieces on account of such a thing," I concluded There was a moment of very awkward silence. It was broken by Max "It's really too bad. What are you going to do about it?" he said. "Where can you get such a 'somebody'?" "I don't know. That's why I came to consult you. I thought you might suggest some way. It would be a pity if I had to give it all up on account of four hundred dollars." "Indeed it would. It would be terrible. Still, four hundred dollars is not four hundred cents. I wish I were a rich man. I should lend it to you at once. You know I should." "I should pay you every cent of it, Max." "You say it as if I had money. You know I have not." What I did know was that he had, and he knew that I did He took to analyzing the situation and offering me advice. Why not go to that kindly Gentile, the commission merchant, make a clean breast of it, and obtain an extension of time? Why not apply to some money-lender? Why not make a vigorous appeal to Nodelman? He seemed to be an obliging fellow, so if I pressed him a little harder he might give me the cash as well as the goods I was impelled to retort that advice was cheap, and he apparently read my thoughts Presently he said, with genuine ardor: "I tell you what, Levinsky. Why not try to get your old landlady to open her stocking? From what you have told me, she ought not to be a hard nut to crack if you only go about it in the right way. This suggestion made a certain appeal to me, but I would not betray it. I continued resentfully silent "You just try her, Levinsky. She'll let you have the four hundred dollars, or half of it, at least." "And if she does, her son will refuse to get me the goods," I remarked, with a sneer. "Nonsense. If you know how to handle her, she will realize that she must keep her mouth shut until after she gets the money back." "Oh, what's the use?" I said, impatiently. "I must get the cash at once, or all is lost." Again he spoke of money-lenders. He went into details about one of them and offered to ascertain his address for me. He evidently felt awkward about his part in the matter and eager to atone for it in some way "Why should a usurer trust me?" I said, rising to go "Wait. What's your hurry? If that money-lender hears your story, he may trust you. He is a peculiar fellow, don't you know. When he takes a fancy to a man he is willing to take a chance on him. Of course, the interest would be rather high." He paused abruptly, wrinkled his forehead with an effect of pondering some new scheme, and said: "Wait. I think I have a better plan. I'll see if I can't get you the money without a money-lender." With this he sprang to his feet and had his wife bring him his coat and hat. "I'll be back in less than half an hour," he said. "Dvorah dear, give Levinsky some more tea, will you? I am going out for a few minutes. Don't let him be downhearted." Then, shaking a finger of warning at me, he said, playfully, "Only take care that you don't fall in love with her!" And he was gone "It's all play-acting," I thought. "He just wants me to believe he is trying to do something for me." But, of course, I was not altogether devoid of hope that I was mistaken and that he was making a sincere effort to raise a loan for me Mrs. Margolis went into the kitchen immediately her husband departed. Presently she came back, carrying a glass of tea on a saucer. She placed it before me with an embarrassed side-glance, brought some cookies, and seated herself at the far end of the table. I uttered some complimentary trivialities about the children When a man finds himself alone with a woman who is neither his wife nor a close relative, both feel awkward. It is as though they heard a whisper, "There is nobody to watch the two of you." Still, confused as I was, I was fully aware of her tempting complexion and found her angry black eyes strangely interesting. Upon the whole, however, I do not think she made any appeal to me save by virtue of the fact that she was a woman and that we were alone. I was tense with the consciousness of that fact, and everything about her disturbed me. She wore a navy-blue summer wrapper and I noticed the way it set off the soft whiteness of her neck. I remarked to myself that she looked younger than her husband, that she must be about twenty-eight or thirty, perhaps. My glances apparently caused her painful embarrassment. Finally she got up again, making a pretense of bustling about the room. It seemed to me that when she was on her feet she looked younger than when she was seated I asked the boy his name, and he answered in lugubrious, but distinct, accents: "Daniel Margolis." "He speaks like a grown person," I said "She used to speak like that, too, when she was of his age," my hostess replied, with a glance in the direction of her daughter "Did you?" I said to Lucy The little girl grinned coyly "Why don't you answer the gentleman's question?" her mother rebuked her, in English. "It's Mr. Levinsky, a friend of papa's." Lucy gave me a long stare and lost all interest in me. "Don't you like me at all? Not even a little bit?" I pleaded She soon unbent and took to plying me with questions. Where did I live? Was I a "customer peddler "like her papa? How long had I been in America? (A question which a child of the East Side hears as often as it does queries about the weather.) "Can you spell?" "No," I answered. "Not at all?" "Not at all!" "Shame! But my papa can't spell, neither." "Shut up, you bad girl you!" her mother broke in with a laugh. "Vere you lea'n such nasty things? By your mamma? The gentleman will think by your mamma." She delivered her a little lecture in English, taking pains to produce the "th" and the American "r," though her were "v's." She urged me not to let the tea get cold. As I took hold of the tall, thin, cylindrical glass I noted that it was scrupulously clean and that its contents had a good clear color. I threw a glance around the room and I saw that it was well kept and tidy Mrs. Margolis took a seat again. Lucy, with part of a cooky in her mouth, stepped over to her and seated herself on her lap, throwing her arm around her. She struck me as the very image of her mother. Presently, however, I discovered that she resembled her father quite as closely. It seemed as though the one likeness lay on the surface of her face, while the other loomed up from underneath, as the reflection of a face does from under the surface of water. Lucy soon wearied of her mother and walked over to my side. I put her on my lap. She would not let me pat her, but she did not mind sitting on my knees. "Are you a good speller?" I asked "I c'n spell all the words we get at school," she answered, sagely "How do you spell 'colonel'?" "We never got it at school. But you can't spell it, either." "How do you know I can't? Maybe I can. Well, let us take an easier word. How do you spell 'because'?" She spelled it correctly, her mother joining in playfully. I gave them other words, addressing myself to both, and they made a race of it, each trying to head off or outshout the other. At first Mrs. Margolis did so with feigned gaiety, but her face soon set into a grave look and glowed with excitement At last I asked them to spell "coefficient." "We never got it at school," Lucy demurred "I don't know what it means," said Mrs. Margolis, with a shrug of her shoulders. "It means something in mathematics, in high figuring," I explained in Yiddish Mrs. Margolis shrugged her shoulders once more I asked Lucy to try me in spelling. She did and I acquitted myself so well that she exclaimed: "Oh, you liar you! Why did you say you didn't know how to spell?" Once more her mother took her to task for her manners "Is that the vay to talk to a gentleman? Shame! Vere you lea'n up to be such a pig? Not by your mamma!" When Max came back Lucy hastened to inform him that I could spell "awful good." To which he replied in Yiddish that he knew I was a smart fellow, that I could read and write "everything," and that I had studied to go to college and "to be a doctor, a lawyer, or anything." His wife looked me over with bashful side-glances. "Really?" she said Max told me a lame story about his errand and promised to let me know the "final result." It was clearer than ever to me that he was making a fool of me CHAPTER III WHEN I hear a new melody and it makes an appeal to me its effect usually lasts only as long as I hear it, but it is almost sure to reassert itself later on. I scarcely ever think of it during the first two, three, or four days, but then, all of a sudden, it will pop up in my brain and haunt me a few days in succession, humming itself and nagging me like a living thing. This was precisely what happened to me with regard to Mrs. Margolis. During the first two days after I left her house I never gave her a thought, but on the third her shy side-glances suddenly loomed up in my mind and would not leave it. Just her black, serious eyes and those shy looks of theirs gleaming out of a white, strikingly interesting complexion. Her face in general was a mere blur in my memory I was incessantly racking my brain over my affairs. I was so low-spirited and worried that I was unconscious of the food I ate or of the streets through which I passed, yet her manner of darting embarrassed glances out of the corner of her eye and her complexion were never absent from my mind. I felt like seeing her once more. However, the prospect of calling at her house was now anything but alluring. I could almost see the annoyed air with which her husband would receive me I sought out two usurers and begged each of them to grant me the loan, but they unyieldingly insisted on more substantial security than the bare story or my venture. I made other efforts to raise the money. I approached several people, including the proprietor of the little music-store. All to no purpose One afternoon, eight or ten days after my call at the Margolises', when I came to my "factory" I found under the door a closed envelope bearing the name of that Western firm. It contained a typewritten letter and a check in full payment of my bill. Also a circular explaining that the firm had been reorganized with plenty of capital, and naming as one of its new directors a man who, from the tone of the circular, seemed to be of high standing in the financial world My head was in a whirl. The desolate-looking sewing-machines of my deserted shop seemed to have suddenly brightened up. I looked at the check again and again. The figure on it literally staggered me. It seemed to be part of a fairy tale I rushed over to Nodelman's office, but found him gone for the day. The next thing on my program was to carry the glad news to the Chaikins and to discuss plans for the immediate future with my partner. But Chaikin never came home before 7. So I first dropped in on the Margolises to flash my check in Max's face and, incidentally, to see his wife I found him playing with his fat boy "Hello, Max! I have good news!" I shouted, excitedly. Which actually meant: "Don't be uneasy, Max. I am not going to ask you for a loan again." When he had examined the check he said, sheepishly: "Now you are all right. Why, something told me all along that you would get it." His wife came in, apparently from the kitchen. She returned my "Good evening" with free and easy amiability, without any shyness or side-glances, and disappeared again. I felt annoyed. I was tempted to call after her to come back and let me take a good look at her "Say, Levinsky, you must have thought I would not trust you for the four hundred dollars," Max said. "May I have four hundred days of distress if I have a cent. What few dollars I do have is buried in the business. So help me, God! Let a few of my customers stop paying and I would have to go begging. It's the real truth I am telling you. Honest." "I know, I know," I said, awkwardly. "Well, it was as if the check had dropped from heaven. Thank God! Now I can begin to do things." I went over the main facts of my venture, this time with a touch of bluster. And he listened with far readier attention and more genuine interest than he had done on the previous occasion. We discussed my plans and my prospects. At one point, when I referred to the Western check, he asked to see it again, just for curiosity's sake, and as I watched him look it over I could almost see the change that it was producing in his attitude toward me. I do not know to what extent he had previously believed my story, if at all. One thing was clear: the magic check now made it all real to him. As he handed me back the strip of paper he gave me a look that seemed to say: "So you are a manufacturer, you whom I have always known as a miserable ragamuffin." Mrs. Margolis reappeared. Her husband told her of my great check and she returned some trivialities. As we thus chatted, I made a mental note of the fascinating feminine texture of her flesh He made me stay to supper. It was a cheery repast. As though to make amends for his failure to respond when I knocked at his door, Max overwhelmed me with attention We were eating cold sorrel soup, prepared in the old Ghetto way, with cream, bits of boiled egg, cucumber, and scallions "How do you like it?" he asked "Delicious! And the genuine article, too." "'The genuine article'!" he mocked me. "What's the use praising it when you eat it like a bird? What's the matter with you? Are you bashful? Fire away, old man!" Then to his wife: "Why do you keep quiet, Dvorah? Why don't you tell him to eat like a man and not like a bird?" "Maybe he doesn't care for my cooking," she jested, demurely "Why, why," I replied. "The sorrel soup is fit for a king." "You mean for a president," Max corrected me. "We are in America, not in Europe." "How do you know the President of the United States would care for a plate of cold sorrel soup?" "And how do you know a king would?" "If you care for it, I am satisfied," the hostess said to me "I certainly do. I haven't eaten anything like it since I left home," I replied "Feed him well, Dvorah. Now is your chance. He will soon be a millionaire, don't you know. Then he won't bother about calling on poor people like us." "But I have said the sorrel soup is fit for a king, and a king has many millions," I rejoined. "I shall always be glad to come, provided Lucy and Dannie have no objection." "You remember their names, don't you?" Mrs. Margolis said, beamingly. "You certainly have a good memory." "Who else should have one?" her husband chimed in. "I have told you he was going to study to be a doctor or a lawyer. Lucy, did you hear what uncle said? If you let him in he will come to see us even when he is worth a million. What do you say? Will you let him in?" Lucy grinned childishly Max did most of the talking. He entertained me with stories of some curious weddings which he said had recently been celebrated in his dance-halls, and, as usual, it was not easy to draw a line of demarkation between fact and fiction. Of one bridegroom, who had agreed to the marriage under threats of violence from the girl's father, he said: "You should have seen the fellow! He looked like a man going to the electric chair. They were afraid he might bolt, so the bride's father and brother, big, strapping fellows both, stuck to him like two detectives. 'You had better not make monkey business,' they said to him. 'If you don't want a wedding, you'll have a funeral.' That's exactly what they said to him. I was standing close to them and I heard it with my own ears. May I not live till to-morrow if I did not." Mrs. Margolis looked down shamefacedly. She certainly was not unaware of her husband's failing, and she obviously took anything but pride in it. As I glanced at her face at this moment it struck me as a singularly truthful face. "Those eyes of hers do not express anger, but integrity," I said to myself. And the more I looked at her, watched her gestures, and listened to her voice, the stronger grew my impression that she was a senous-minded, ingenuous woman, incapable of playing a part. Her mannerisms were mostly her version of manners, and those that were not were frankly affected, as it were The meal over and the dishes washed, Mrs. Margolis caused Lucy to bring her school reader and began to read it aloud, Lucy or I correcting her pronunciation where it was faulty. She was frankly parading her intellectual achievements before me, and I could see that she took them quite seriously. She was very sensitive about the mistakes she made. She accepted our corrections, Lucy's and mine, with great earnestness, often with a gesture of annoyance and mortification at the failure of her memory When I bade them good night Max said, heartily, in English, "Call again, Levinsky." And he added, in a mixture of English and Yiddish, "Don't be a stranger, even if you are a manufacturer." "Call again," his wife echoed, affably "Call again!" shouted Dannie, in his funereal voice I left with the comfortable feeling of having spent an hour or two in a house where I was sincerely welcome "It's a good thing to have real friends," I soliloquized in a transport of good spirits, on my way to the Elevated station. "Now I sha'n't feel all alone in the world. There is at least one house where I can call and feel at home." I beheld Mrs. Margolis's face and her slender figure and I was conscious of a remote desire to see her again I was in high feather. While the Elevated train was carrying me up-town I visioned an avalanche of new orders for my shop and a spacious factory full of machines and men. I saw myself building up a great business. An ugly thought flashed through my mind: Why be saddled with a partner? Why not get rid of Chaikin? I belittled the part which his samples had played in my successful start, and it seemed to be a cruel injustice to myself to share my fortune with a man who had no more brains than a cat. But I instantly saw the other side of the situation: It was Chaikin's models that had made the Manheimers what they were, and if I clung to him until he could afford to let me announce him as my partner the very news of it would be a tremendous boost for my factory. And then I had a real qualm of compunction for having entertained that thought even for a single moment. My heart warmed to Chaikin and his family. "I shall be faithful to them," I vowed inwardly. "They have been so good to me. We must be absolutely devoted to each other. Their house, too, will be like a home to me. Oh, it is so sweet to have friends, real friends." It was close upon io o'clock when I reached the Chaikins' flat in Harlem. I had barely closed the door behind me when I whipped out the check, and, dangling it before Mrs. Chaikin, I said, radiantly: "Good evening. Guess what it is!" "The check you expected from your uncle or cousin or whatever he is to you. Is it?" she conjectured "No. It's something far better," I replied. "It's a check from the Western company, and for the full amount, too." And, although I was fairly on the road to atheism, I exclaimed, with a thrill of genuine pity, "Oh, God has been good to us, Mrs. Chaikin!" I let her see the figures, which she could scarcely make out. Then her husband took a look at the check. He did know something about figures, so he read the sum out aloud Instead of hailing it with joy, as I had expected her to do, she said to me, glumly: "And how do we know that you did not receive more?" "But that was the bill," her husband put in "I am not asking you, am I?" she disciplined him "But it is the amount on the bill," I said, with a smile "And how do we know that it is?" she demanded. "It's you who write the bills, and it's you who get the checks. What do we know?" "Mrs. Chaikin! Mrs. Chaikin!" I remonstrated. "Why should you be so suspicious? Can't you see that I am the most devoted friend you people ever had? God has blessed us; we are making a success of our business so we must be devoted to one another, while here you imagine all kinds of nonsense." "A woman will be a woman," Chaikin muttered, with his sheepish smile The unfeigned ardor of my plea produced an impression on Mrs. Chaikin. Still, she insisted upon receiving her husband's share of the profits at once in spot cash. I argued again "Why, of course you are going to get your share of the profits," I said, genially. "Of course you are. Only we must first pay for the goods of those five hundred coats and for some other things. Mustn't we? Then, too, there is that other order to fill. We need more goods and cash for wages and rent and other expenses. "But you said you were going to get it all yourself, and now you want us to pay for it. You think you are smart, don't you?" Her husband opened his mouth, but she waved it shut before she had any idea what he wanted to say "Anybody could fool you," she said. "'When a fool goes shopping there is rejoicing among the shopkeepers.'" With our joint efforts we finally managed to placate her, however, and the next evening our shop was the scene of feverish activity CHAPTER IV I FILLED my Third Avenue order and went on soliciting other business. The season was waning, but I obtained a number of small orders and laid foundations for future sales. Our capital was growing apace, but we often lacked working cash After I paid the debt I owed Meyer Nodelman I obtained other favors from him. He took a sponsorial interest in my business and often offered me the benefit of his commercial experience in the form of maxims "Don't bite off more than you can chew, Levinsky," he would tell me. "Finding it easy to get people to trust you is not enough. You must also find it easy to pay them." Some of his other rules were: "Be pleasant with the man you deal with, even if he knows you don't mean it. He likes it, anyway." "Take it from me, Levinsky: honesty is the best policy. There is only one line of business in which dishonesty pays: the burglar business, provided the burglar does not get caught. If I thought lying could help my business, I should lie day and night. But I have learned that it hurts far more than it helps. Be sure that the other fellow believes what you say. If you have his confidence you have him by the throat." It was not always easy to comply with Meyer's tenets, however. The inadequacy of my working capital often forced me to have recourse to subterfuges that could not exactly be called honorable. One day, when we had some bills to meet two days before I could expect to obtain the cash, I made out and signed checks, but inclosed each of them in the wrong envelope--this supposed act of inadvertence gaining me the needed two days of grace. On another occasion I sent out a number of checks without my signature, which presumably I had forgotten to affix. There were instances when I was so hard pressed for funds that the fate of our factory hinged on seventy-five or a hundred dollars. In one of these crises I bought two gold watches on the instalment plan, for the express and sole purpose of pawning them for fifty dollars. I bought the watches of two men who did not know each other, and returned them as soon as I could spare the cash to redeem them, forfeiting the several weekly payments which I had made on the pretended purchases. There were instances, too, when I had to borrow of my employees a few dollars with which to buy cotton. Needless to say that all this happened in the early stages of my experience as a manufacturer. I have long since been above and beyond such methods. Indeed, business honor and business dignity are often a luxury in which only those in the front ranks of success can indulge. But then there are features of the game in which the small man is apt to be more honorable and less cruel than the financial magnate I was continually consulting Max on my affairs. Not that I needed his advice or expected to act upon it. These confidential talks seemed to promote our intimacy and to enhance the security of the welcome I found in his house. A great immigrant city like New York or Chicago is full of men and women who are alone amid a welter of human life. For these nothing has a greater glamour than a family in whose house they might be made to feel at home. I was one of these desolate souls. I still missed my mother. The anniversary of her death was still a feast of longing agony and spiritual bliss to me. I scarcely ever visited the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir these days, but on that great day I was sure to be there. Forgetful of my atheism, I would place a huge candle for her soul, attend all the three services, without omitting a line, and recite the prayer for the dead with sobs in my heart. I had craved some family who would show me warm friendship. The Margolises were such a family (Meyer Nodelman never invited me to his house). They were a godsend to me Max was essentially a hospitable man, and really fond of me. As for his wife, who received me with the same hearty welcome as he, her liking for me was primarily based, as she once put it herself in the presence of her husband, upon my intellectual qualifications "It's good to have educated people come to the house," she remarked. "It's good for the children and for everybody else." "I knew she would like you," Max said to me. "She would give her head for education. Only better look out, you two. See that you don't fall in love with each other. Ha, ha!" Sometimes there were other visitors in the house--some of Max's friends, his and her fellow-townspeople, her relatives, or some neighbor. Dora's great friend was a stout woman with flaxen hair and fishy eyes, named Sadie, or Mrs. Shornik, whose little girl, Beckie, was a classmate of Lucy's, the acquaintance and devoted intimacy of the two mothers having originated in the intimacy of the two school-girls. Sadie lived several blocks from the Margolises, but she absolutely never let a day pass without calling on her, if it were only for just time enough to kiss her. She was infatuated with Dora, and Beckie was infatuated with Lucy "They just couldn't live without one another," Max said, after introducing me to Sadie and explaining the situation "Suppose Lucy and Beckie had not happened to be in the same school," I jested, addressing myself to the two women. "What would you have done then?" "This shows that we have a good God in heaven," Sadie returned, radiantly. "He put the children in the same school so that we might meet." "'A providential match,'" I observed. "May it last for many, many years," Sadie returned, devoutly "Say, women!" Max shouted, "you have been more than five minutes without kissing. What's the matter with you?" At this, Sadie, with mock defiance, walked up to Mrs. Margolis, threw her arms around her, and gave her a luscious smack on the lips "Bravo! And now you, kids!" Max commanded With a merry chuckle the two little girls flew into each other's arms and kissed. Lucy had dark hair like Dora's, and Beckie flaxen hair like Sadie's, so when their heads were close together they were an amusing reduced copy of their mothers as these had looked embracing and kissing a minute before Max often dropped in to see me at my factory, and when I was not busy we would talk of my cloaks, of his instalment business, or of women. Women were his great topic of conversation, as usual. But then these talks of his no longer found a ready listener in me. Now, that I knew his wife, they jarred on me. A decided change had come over me in this respect. I remember it vividly. It was as if his lewd discourses desecrated her name and thereby offended me. It may be interesting to note, however, that he never took up this kind of topics when we were in his house, not even when his wife was out Sometimes I would have supper at his house. More often, however--usually on Monday, when Max seldom went to the dance-halls--I would come after supper and spend the rest of the evening there. Sometimes the Shorniks would drop in--Sadie, her husband, and Beckie. Ben Shornik and Max would play a game of pinochle, while I, who never cared for cards, would chat with the women or entertain them by entertaining the children. Ben--as I came into the habit of calling him--was a spare little man with an extremely high forehead. He was an insurance-collector and only one degree less illiterate than Max; but because he had the "forehead of a learned man," and because it was his business to go from house to house with a long, thick book under his arm, he affected longish hair, flowing black neckties, and a certain pomposity of manner. One of his ways of being tremendously American was to snap his fingers ferociously and to say, "I don't care a continental!" or, "One, two, three, and there you are!" The latter exclamation he would be continually murmuring to himself when he was absorbed in pinochle CHAPTER V ONE evening, when the Shorniks and I were at Max's house, and Max and Ben were having their game of pinochle, the conversation between the women and myself turned upon Dora's efforts to obtain education through her little daughter. Encouraged by Sadie and myself, Dora let herself loose and told us much of Lucy's history, or, rather, of her own history as Lucy's mother. In her crude, lumbering way and with flushed cheeks she talked with profound frankness and quaint introspective insight, in the manner of one touching upon things that are enshined in innermost recesses of one's soul She depicted the thrills of joyous surprise with which she had watched Lucy, in her infancy, master the beginnings of speech. Sometimes her delight would be accompanied by something akin to fright. There had been moments when it all seemed unreal and weird "The little thing seemed to be a stranger to me," she said. "Or else, she did not seem to be a human being at all." The next moment she would recognize her, as it were, and then she would kiss and yearn over her in a mad rush of passion The day when she took Lucy to school--about two years before--was one of the greatest days in Dora's life. She would then watch her learn to associate written signs with spoken words as she had once watched her learn to speak. But that was not all. She became jealous of the child. She herself had never been taught to read even Hebrew or Yiddish, much less a Gentile language, while here, lo and behold! her little girl possessed a Gentile book and was learning to read it. She was getting education, her child, just like the daughter of the landlord of the house in Russia in which Dora had grown up "C-a-t--cat," Lucy would spell out. "R-a-t--rat. M-a-t--mat." And poor Dora would watch the performance with mixed joy and envy and exclamations like: "What do you think of that snip of a thing! Did you ever?" Lucy's school-reader achievements stirred a novel feeling of rivalry in Dora's breast. When the little girl could spell half a dozen English words she hated herself for her inferiority to her "The idea of that kitten getting ahead of me! Why, it worried the life out of me!" she said. "You may think it foolish, but I couldn't help it. I kept saying to myself, 'She'll grow up and be an educated American lady and she'll be ashamed to walk in the street with me.' Don't we see things like that? People will beggar themselves to send their children to college, only to be treated as fools and greenhorns by them. I call that terrible. Don't you? Well, I am not going to let my child treat me like that. Not I. I should commit suicide first. I want my child to respect me, not to look down on me. If she reads a book she is to bear in mind that her mother is no ignorant slouch of a greenhorn, either." A next-door neighbor, a woman who could read English, would help Lucy with her spelling lesson of an evening. This seemed to have established special relations between the child and that woman from which Dora was excluded She made up her mind to learn to read. If Lucy could manage it, she, her mother, could. So she caused the child to teach her to spell out words in her First Reader. At first she pretended to treat it as a joke, but inwardly she took it seriously from the very outset, and later, under the intoxicating effect of the progress she was achieving, these studies became the great passion of her life. Whenever Lucy recited some new lines, learned at school, she would not rest until she, too, had learned them by heart. Here are two "pieces" which she proudly recited to us: "The snow is white, The sky is blue, The sun is bright, And so are you." "Our ears were made to hear, Our tongues were made to talk, Our eyes were made to see, Our feet were made to walk." Her voice, as she declaimed the lines, attracted Lucy's attention, so she sent her and Beckie into the kitchen "She doesn't know what a treasure she is to me," she said to us. Then, after she finished the two verses, she remarked, wistfully, "Well, my own life is lost, but she shall be educated." "Why? Why should you talk like that, Dora?" Sadie protested, her fishy eyes full of tragedy. "Why, you are only beginning to live." "Of course she is," I chimed in. "Well," Dora rejoined, "anyhow, I am afraid I love her too much. Sometimes it seems to me I am going crazy over her. I love Dannie, too, of course. When he happens to hurt a finger or to hit his dear little head against something I can't sleep. Is he not my flesh and blood like Lucy? Still, Lucy is different." She paused and then rose from her seat, saying, with a smile: "Wait. I am going to show you something." She went into the kitchen and came back, holding a tooth-brush in either hand. "Guess what it is." "Two tooth-brushes," I answered, with perplexed gaiety "Aren't you smart! I know they are not shoe-brushes, but what kind of tooth-brushes? How did I come by them? That's the question. Did I use a tooth-brush in my mother's house?" She then told me how Lucy, coming from school one day, had announced an order from the teacher that every girl in the class must bring a tooth-brush the next morning Sadie nodded confirmation "Of course, I went to work and bought, not one brush, but two," Dora pursued. "I am as good as Lucy, am I not? If she is worth twelve cents, I am. And if she is American lady enough to use a tooth-brush, I am." Lucy is not a usual name on the East Side. It was, in fact, the principal of the school who had recommended it, at Dora's solicitation. The little girl had hitherto been called Lizzie, the commonplace East Side version of Leah, her Hebrew name. Dora never liked it. It did not sound American enough, for there were Lizzies or Lizas in Europe, too. Any "greenhorn" might bear such a name. So she called on Lizzie's principal and asked her to suggest some "nicer name" for her daughter "I want a real American one," she said The principal submitted half a dozen names beginning with "L," and the result was that Lizzie became Lucy Dora went over every spelling lesson with the child. It was so sweet to be helpful to her in this way. Lucy, on her part, had to reciprocate by hearing her mother spell the same words, and often they would have a spelling-match. All of which, as I could see, had invested Lucy with the fascination of a spiritual companion The child had not been at school many weeks when she began to show signs of estrangement from her mother-tongue. Her Yiddish was rapidly becoming clogged with queer-sounding "r's" and with quaintly twisted idioms. Yiddish words came less and less readily to her tongue, and the tendency to replace them with their English equivalents grew in persistence. Dora would taunt her on her "Gentile Yiddish," yet she took real pride in it. Finally, Lucy abandoned her native tongue altogether. She still understood her parents, of course, but she now invariably addressed them or answered their Yiddish questions in English. As a result, Dora would make efforts to speak to her in the language that had become the child's natural means of expression. It was a sorry attempt at first; but she was not one to give up without a hard struggle. She went at it with great tenacity, listening intently to Lucy's English and trying to repeat words and phrases after her. And so, with the child's assistance, conscious or unconscious, she kept adding to her practical acquaintance with the language, until by the end of Lucy's first school year she spoke it with considerable fluency Dora tried her hand at writing, but little Lucy proved a poor penmanship-teacher, and she was forced to confine herself to reading. She forged ahead of her, reading pages which Lucy's class had not yet reached. To take Lucy to school was one of the keen joys of Dora's existence. Very often they would fall in with Lucy's bosom friend "Good morning, Lucy." "Good morning, Beckie." As she described the smiling, childishly lady-like way in which the little girls exchanged their greetings and then intertwined their little arms as they proceeded on their way together, Sadie's fishy eyes filled with tears "Oh, how sweet it is to be a mother!" Dora said "I should say it was," her chum and follower echoed, wiping her tears and laughing at once There was a curious element of superstition in Dora's attitude toward her little girl. She had taken it into her head that Lucy had been playing the part of a mascot in her life "I was a bag of bones until she was born," she said. "Why, people who are put into the grave look better than I did. But my birdie darling came, and, well, if I don't look like a monkey now, I have her to thank. It was after her birth that I began to pick up." She had formed the theory that the child was born to go to school for her mother's sake as well as her own--a little angel sent down from heaven to act as a messenger of light to her Her story made a strong impression on me. "Max is not worthy of her," I reflected. I wondered whether she was fully aware what manner of man he was CHAPTER VI SOMETIMES we would go to the Jewish theater together, Max, Dora, and I, the children being left at Sadie's house. Once, when Max's lodge had a benefit performance and he had had some tickets for sale, we made up a party of five: the two couples and myself. On that occasion I met Jake Mindels at the playhouse. He was now studying medicine at the University Medical College, and it was a considerable time since I had last seen him. To tell the truth, I had avoided meeting him. I hated to stand confessed before him as a traitor to my dreams of a college education, and I begrudged him his medical books. I took Max and Dora to see an American play. He did not understand much of what he saw and was bored to death. As for her, she took in scarcely more than did her husband, though she understood many of the words she heard, but then she reverently followed the good manners of the "real Americans" on the stage, and the sound of their "educated" English seemed to inspire her with mixed awe and envy Once, on a Monday evening, when I called on the Margolises, I found Max out. Dora seemed to be ill at ease in my company, and I did not stay long. It seemed natural to fear that Max, who gave so much attention to the relations between the sexes, should view visits of this kind with misgivings. His playful warnings that we should beware of falling in love with each other seemed to be always in the air, and on that evening when he was away and we found ourselves alone I seemed to hear their echo more distinctly than ever. It had a disquieting effect on me, that echo, and I decided never to call unless Max was sure to be at home. I enjoyed their hospitality too much to hazard it rashly. Moreover, Max and Dora lived in peace and I was the last man in the world to wish to disturb it To my surprise, however, he did not seem to be jealous of me in the least. Quite the contrary. He encouraged my familiarities with her, so much so that I soon drifted into the habit of addressing her as Dora The better I knew her the greater was the respect with which she inspired me. I thought her an unusual woman, and I looked up to her It became a most natural thing that I should propose myself as a boarder. Thousands of families like the Margolises kept boarders to lighten the burden of rent-day The project had been trailing in my mind for some time and, I must confess, the fact that Max stayed out till the small hours four or five nights a week had something to do with it "You would be alone with her," Satan often whispered. Still, there was nothing definitely reprehensible in this reflection. It was the prospect of often being decorously alone with a woman who inspired me with respect and interested me more and more keenly that tempted me. Vaguely, however, I had a feeling that I was on the road to falling in love with her One evening, as I complained of my restaurant meals and of certain inconveniences of my lodgings, Max said: "Nothing like being married, Levinsky. Take my advice and get you a nice little wifey. One like mine, for instance." "Like yours! The trouble is that there is only one such, and you have captured her." "Don't worry," Dora broke in. "There are plenty of others, and better ones, too." "I have a scheme," I said, seriously. "Why shouldn't you people let me board with you?" Natural as the suggestion was, it took them by surprise. For a second or two Max gazed at his wife with a perplexed air. Then he said: "That would not he a bad idea. Would it, Dora?" "I don't know, I am sure," she answered, with a shrug and an embarrassed smile. "We have never kept boarders." "You will try to keep one now, then," I urged "If there were room in the house, I should be glad. Upon my health and strength I should." "Oh, you can make room," I said. "Of course you can," Max put in, warming to the plan somewhat. "He could have the children's bedroom, and they could sleep in this room." She held to her veto "Oh, you don't know what an obstinate thing she is," Max said. "Let her say that white is black, and black it must be, even if the world turned upside down." "What do you want of me?" she protested. "Levinsky may think I really don't care to have him. Let us move to a larger apartment and I'll be but too glad to give him a room." The upshot was a compromise. For the present I was to content myself with having my luncheons and dinners or suppers at their house, Dora charging me cost price "Get him to move to one of those new houses with modern improvements," she said to me, earnestly; "to an apartment of five light rooms, and I shall give you a room at once. The rent would come cheaper than it is now. But Max would rather pay more and have the children grow in these damp rooms than budge." "Don't bother me. By and by we shall move out of here. All in due time. Don't bother. Meanwhile see that your dinners and suppers are all right. Levinsky thinks you a good cook. Don't disappoint him, then. Don't run away with the idea it's on your own account he wants to board with us. It is on account of your cooking. That's all. Isn't it, Levinsky?" "It's a good thing to know that I am not a bad cook, at least," she returned "But how about the profits you are going to make on him? I'll deduct them from your weekly allowance, you know," he chaffed her "Oh no. I am just going to save them and buy a house on Fifth Avenue." "You ought to allow me ten per cent. for cash," I said. "She does not want cash," Max replied. "Your note is good enough." I had been taking my meals with them a little over a month when they moved into a new apartment, with me as their roomer and boarder. The apartment was on the third floor of a corner house on Clinton Street, one of a row of what was then a new type of tenement buildings. It consisted of five rooms and bath, all perfectly light, and it had a tiny private corridor or vestibule, a dumb-waiter, an enameled bath-tub, electric and gas light, and an electric door-bell. There was a rush for these apartments and Dora paid a deposit on the first month's rent before the builder was quite through with his work. My room opened into the vestibule, its window looking out upon a side-street. The rent for the whole apartment was thirty-two dollars, my board being five and a half dollars a week, which was supposed to include a monthly rental of six dollars for my room The Shorniks moved into the same house CHAPTER VII MY growing interest in Dora burst into flame all at once, as it were. It happened at a moment which is distinctly fixed in my mind. At least I distinctly remember the moment when I became conscious of it It was on an afternoon, four days after the Margolises had taken possession of the new place. The family was fully established in it, while I had just moved in. I had seen my room, furniture and all, several times before, but I had never seen it absolutely ready for my occupancy as I did now. It was by far the brightest, airiest, best-furnished, and neatest room that I had ever had all to myself. Everything in it, from the wall-paper to the little wash-stand, was invitingly new. I can still smell its grateful odor of freshness. When I was left to myself in it for the first time and I shut its door the room appealed to me as a compartment in the nest of a family of which I was a member. My lonely soul had a sense of home and domestic comfort that all but overpowered me. The sight of the new quilt and of the fresh white pillow, coupled with the knowledge that it was Dora whose fingers had prepared it all for me, sent a glow of delight through my heart Dora's name was whispering itself in my mind. I paused at the window, an enchanted man A few minutes later, when I re-entered the living-room, where she was counting some freshly ironed napkins, her face seemed to have acquired a new meaning. I felt that a great change had come in my attitude toward her "Well, is everything all right?" she inquired "First rate," I answered, in a voice that sounded unnatural to myself Max was fussing with the rug in the parlor. The children were gamboling from room to room, testing the faucets, the dumb-waiter "Get avey from there!" Dora shouted. "You'll hurt yourself. Max, tell Lucy not to touch the dumb-vaiter, vill you?" "Children! Children! What's a madder vitch you?" he called out from the parlor, in English, with a perfunctory snarl. Presently he came into the living-room. "Well, are you satisfied with your new palace?" he addressed me in Yiddish. And for the hundredth time he proceeded to make jokes at the various modern "improvements," at the abundance of light, and at my new rank of "real boarder." It is one of the old and deep-rooted customs of the Ghetto towns of Europe for a young couple to live with the parents of the bride for a year or two after the wedding. So Max gaily dubbed me his "boarding son-in-law "Try to behave, boarding son-in-law," he bantered me. "If you don't your mother-in-law will starve you." The pleasantry grated on me Dora's ambition to learn to read and spell English was a passion, and the little girl played a more important part in the efforts she made in this direction than Dora was willing to admit. Lucy would tell her the meaning of new words as she had heard it at school, but it often happened that the official definition she quoted was incomprehensible to both. This was apt to irritate Dora or even lead to a disagreeable scene If I happened to be around I would explain things to her, but she seemed to accept my explanations with a grain of salt. She bowed before my intellectual status in a general way, but since she had good reason to doubt the quality of my English enunciation, she doubted my Yiddish interpretations as well. Indeed, she doubted everything that did not bear the indorsement of Lucy's school. Whatever came from that sacred source was "real Yankee"; everything else was "greenhorn." If she failed to grasp some of the things that Lucy brought back from school, she would blame it on the child. "Oh, you didn't understand what your teacher said," she would scold her. "You must have twisted it all up, you stupid." One afternoon, when business was slow and there did not seem to be anything to preclude my staying at home and breathing the air that Dora breathed, I witnessed a painful scene between them. It was soon after Lucy returned from school. Her mother wanted her to go over her last reading-lesson with her, and the child would not do so, pleading a desire to call on Beckie "Stay where you are and open your reader," Dora commanded Lucy obeyed, whimperingly. "Read!" "I want to go to Beckie." "Read, I say." And she slapped her hand "Don't," I remonstrated. "Let the poor child go enjoy herself." But it only spoiled matters "Read!" she went on, with grim composure, hitting her on the shoulder "I don't want to! I want to go down-stairs," Lucy sobbed, defiantly "Read!" And once more she hit her. My heart went out to the child, but I dared not intercede again Dora did not relent until Lucy yielded, sobbingly I left the room in disgust. The scene preyed upon my mind all that afternoon. I remained in my room until supper-time. Then I found Dora taciturn and downcast and I noticed that she treated Lucy with exceptional, though undemonstrative, tenderness "Must have given her a licking," Max explained to me, with a wink I kept my counsel She beat her quite often, sometimes violently, each scene of this kind being followed by hours of bitter remorse on her part. Her devotion to her children was above that of the average mother. Lucy had been going to school for over two years, yet she missed her every morning as though she were away to another city; and when the little girl came back, Dora's face would brighten, as if a flood of new sunshine had burst into the house. On one occasion there was a quarrel between mother and daughter over the result of a spelling-match between them which I had umpired and which Lucy had won. Dora took her defeat so hard that she was dejected all that evening I have said that despite her passionate devotion to Lucy she was jealous of her. She was jealous not only of the school education she was receiving, but also of her American birth She was feverishly ambitious to bring up her children in the "real American syle," and the realization of her helplessness in this direction caused her many a pang of despair. She was thirstily seeking for information on the subject of table manners, and whatever knowledge she possessed of it she would practise, and make Lucy practise, with amusing pomp and circumstance. "Don't reach out for the herring, Lucy!" she would say, sternly. "How many times must I tell you about it? What do you say?" "Pass me the herring, mamma, please." "Not 'mamma.'" "Pass me the herring, mother, please." The herring is passed with what Dora regards as a lady-like gesture "Thank you, ma'am," says Lucy "There is another way," Dora might add in a case of this kind. "Instead of saying, 'Pass me the herring or the butter,' you can say--What is it, Lucy?" "May I trouble you for the herring, mother?" I asked her to keep track of my table etiquette, too, and she did. Whenever I made a break she would correct my error solemnly, or with a burst of merriment, or with a scandalized air, as if she had caught me in the act of committing a felony. This was her revenge for my general intellectual superiority, which she could not help admitting and envying "You just let her teach you and she will make a man of you," Max would say to me. Sometimes, when I mispronounced an English word with which she happened to be familiar, or uttered an English phrase in my Talmudic singsong, she would mock me gloatingly. On one such occasion I felt the sting of her triumph so keenly that I hastened to lower her crest by pointing out that she had said "nice" where "nicely" was in order "What do you mean?" she asked, perplexedly My reply was an ostentatious discourse on adjectives 2 and adverbs, something which I knew to be utterly beyond her depth. It had the intended effect. She listened to my explanation stupidly, and when I had finished she said, with resignation: "I don't understand what you say. I wish I had time to go to evening school, at least, as you did. I haven't any idea of these things. Lucy will be educated for both of us, for herself and for her poor mamma. If my mother had understood as much as I do it would have been different." She uttered a sigh, fell silent, and then resumed: "But I can't complain of my mother, either. She was a diamond of a woman, and she was wise as daylight. But Russia is not America. No, I can't complain of my parents. My father was a poor man, but ask Max or some of our fellow-townspeople and they will tell you what a fine name he had." She was talkative and somewhat boastful like the average woman of her class, but there was about her an elusive effect of reserve and earnestness that kept me at a distance from her. Moreover, the tireless assiduity and precision which she brought to her housework and, above all, the grim passion of her intellectual struggles created an atmosphere of physical and spiritual tidiness about her that inspired me with something like reverence. Living in that atmosphere seemed to be making a better man of me Attempting a lark with her, as I had done with Mrs. Dienstog and Mrs. Levinsky, my first two landladies in New York, was out of the question. Needless to explain that this respectful distance did not prevent my eyes and ears from feasting upon her luxurious complexion, her clear, honest voice, and all else that made me feel both happy and forlorn in her company. Nor would she, aware as she undoubtedly was of the meaning of my look or smile, hesitate to respond to them by some legitimate bit of coquetry. In short, we often held converse in that language of smiles, glances, blushes, pauses, gestures, which is the gesture language of sex across the barrier of decorum. These speechless flirtations cost me many an hour which I should have otherwise spent at my shop or soliciting trade. When away from the magnetic force of her presence I would attend to business with unabated intensity. Her image visited my brain often, but it did not disturb me. Rather, it was the image of some customer or creditor or of some new style of jacket or cloak that would interfere with my peace of mind. My brain was full of prices, bills, notes, checks, fabrics, color effects, "lines." Not infrequently, while walking in the street or sitting in a street-car, I would catch myself describing some of those garment lines in the air. And yet, through all these preoccupations I seemed to be constantly aware that something unusual had happened to me, giving a novel tinge to my being; that I was a changed man CHAPTER VIII MAX saw nothing. His wife was a very womanly woman with a splendid, almost a gorgeous snow-white womanly complexion, and I was a young man in whom, according to his own dictum, women ought to be interested; yet he never seemed to feel anything like apprehension about us. This man who plumed himself upon his knowledge of women and love and who actually had a great deal of insight in these matters, this man, I say, was absolutely blind to his wife's power over me. He suspected every man and every woman under the sun, yet he was the least jealous of men so far as his wife was concerned, though he loved and was proud of her. From time to time he would chaff Dora and myself on the danger of our falling in love with each other, but that was never more than a joke and, at any rate, I heard it from him far less often than that other joke of his--about my being his and Dora's son-in-law "Look out, mother-in-law," he would say to her. "If you don't treat your son-in-law right you'll lose him." I have said that he was proud of her. One evening, while she stood on a chair struggling with a recalcitrant window-shade, he drew my attention to her efforts admiringly "Look at her!" he said under his breath. "Another woman would make her husband do it. Not she. I can't kick. She is not a lazy slob, is she?" "Certainly not," I asserted We watched her take the shade down, wind up the spring, fit the pins back into their sockets, and then test the flap. It was in good working order now "No, she is not a slob," he repeated, exultantly. "And she is not a gossiping sort, either. She just minds her own business." At this point Dora came over to the table where we sat. "Move along!" he said, gaily. "Don't disturb us. I am telling Levinsky what a bad girl you are. Run along." She gave us a shy side-glance like those that had carried the first germ of disquiet into my soul, and moved away "No, she is no slob, thank God," he resumed. He boasted of her tidiness and of the way she had picked up her English and learned to read and spell, with little Lucy for her teacher. He depicted the tenacity and unflagging ardor with which she had carried on her mental pursuits ever since Lucy began to go to school. "Once she makes up her mind to do something she will stick to it, even if the world went under. That's the kind of woman she is. And she is no mean, foxy thing, either. When she says something you may be sure she means it, if I do say so. You ought to know her by this time. Have you ever heard her say things that are not so? Or have you heard her talk about the neighbors as other women-folk will do? Have you, now? Just tell me," he pressed me "Of course I have not," I answered, awkwardly. "There are not many women like her." "I know there are not. And, well, if she is not devoted tc her hubby, I don't know who is," he added, sheepishly CHAPTER IX IT was during this period that I received my first baptism of dismay as patron of a high-class restaurant. The occasion was a lunch to which I had invited a buyer from Philadelphia. The word "buyer" had a bewitching sound for me, inspiring me with awe and enthusiasm at once. The word "king" certainly did not mean so much to me. The august person to whom I was doing homage on the occasion in question was a man named Charles M. Eaton, a full-blooded Anglo-Saxon of New England origin, with a huge round forehead and small, blue, extremely genial eyes. He was a large, fair-complexioned man, and the way his kindly little eyes looked from under his hemispherical forehead, like two swallows viewing the world from under the eaves of a roof, gave him a striking appearance. The immense restaurant, with its high, frescoed ceiling, the dazzling whiteness of its rows and rows of table-cloths, the crowd of well-dressed customers, the glint and rattle of knives and forks, the subdued tones of the orchestra, and the imposing black-and-white figures of the waiters struck terror into my Antomir heart. The bill of fare was, of course, Chinese to me, though I made a pretense of reading it. The words swam before me. My inside pocket contained sufficient money to foot the most extravagant bill our lordly waiter was likely to present, but I was in constant dread lest my treasure disappear in some mysterious way; so, from time to time, I felt my breast to ascertain whether it was still there The worst part of it all was that I had not the least idea what I was to say or do. The occasion seemed to call for a sort of table manners which were beyond the resources not only of a poor novice like myself, but also of a trained specialist like Dora Finally my instinct of self-preservation whispered in my ear, "Make a clean breast of it." And so, dropping the bill of fare with an air of mock despair, I said, jovially: "I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what to do, Mr. Eaton. It's no use bluffing. I have never been in such a fine restaurant in my life. I am scared to death, Mr. Eaton. Take pity." The Philadelphian, who was a slow-spoken, slow-witted, though shrewd, man, was perplexed at first "I see," he said, coloring, and looking confusedly at me. The next minute he seemed to realize the situation and to enjoy it, too, but even then he was apparently embarrassed. I cracked another joke or two at my own expense, until finally he burst into a hearty laugh and cheerfully agreed to act as master of ceremonies. Not only did he do the ordering, explaining things to me when the waiter was not around, but he also showed me how to use my napkin, how to eat the soup, the fish, the meat, what to do with the finger-bowl, and so forth and so on, to the minutest detail "I am afraid one lesson won't be enough," I said. "You must give me another chance." "With pleasure," he replied. "Only the next 'lesson' will be on me." And then he had to tell me what "on me" meant He took a fancy to me and that meant orders, not only from him, but also from some people of his acquaintance, buyers from other towns I sought to dress like a genteel American, my favorite color for clothes and hats being (and still is) dark brown. It became my dark hair well, I thought. The difference between taste and vulgar ostentation was coming slowly, but surely, I hope. I remember the passionate efforts I made to learn to tie a four-in-hand cravat, then a recent invention. I was forever watching and striving to imitate the dress and the ways of the well-bred American merchants with whom I was, or trying to be, thrown. All this, I felt, was an essential element in achieving business success; but the ambition to act and look like a gentleman grew in me quite apart from these motives Now, Dora seemed to notice these things in me, and to like them. So I would parade my newly acquired manners before her as I did my neckties or my English vocabulary After that lecture I gave her on adverbs she no longer called my English in question. To be educated and an "American lady" had, thanks to Lucy's influence, become the great passion of her life. It almost amounted to an obsession. She thought me educated and a good deal of an American, so she looked up to me and would listen to my harangues reverently CHAPTER X ONE Saturday evening she said to me: "Lord! you are so educated. I wish I had a head like yours." "Why, you have an excellent head, Dora," I replied. "You have no reason to complain." She sighed "I wish I had not gone into business," I resumed I had already told her, more than once, in fact, how I had heen about to enter college when an accident had led me astray; so I now referred to those events, dwelling regretfully upon the sudden change I had made in my life plans "It was the devil that put it in my head to become a manufacturer," I said, bitterly, yet with relish in the "manufacturer." "Well, one can be a manufacturer and educated man at the same time," she consoled me "Of course. That's exactly what I always say," I returned, joyously. "Still, I wish I had stuck to my original plan. There was a lady in Antomir who advised me to prepare for college. She was always speaking to me about it." It was about 10 o'clock. Max was away to his dancing-schools. The children were asleep. We were alone in the living-room I expected her to ask who that Antomir lady was, but she did not, so I went on speaking of Matilda of my own accord. I sketched her as an "aristocratic" young woman, the daughter of one of the leading families in town, accomplished, clever, pretty, and "modern." "It was she, in fact, who got me the money for my trip to America," I said, lowering my voice, as one will when a conversation assumes an intimate character "Was it?" Dora said, also in a low voice "Yes. It is a long story. It is nearly five years since I left home, but I still think of it a good deal. Sometimes I feel as if my heart would snap unless I had somebody to tell about it." This was my way of drawing Dora into a flirtation, my first attempt in that direction, though in my heart I had been making love to her for weeks I told her the story of my acquaintance with Matilda. She listened with non-committal interest, with an amused, patronizing glimmer of a smile "You did not fall in love with her, did you?" she quizzed me as she might Lucy "That's the worst part of it," I said, gravely "Is it?" she asked, still gaily, but with frank interest now I recounted the episode at length. To put it in plain English, I was using my affair with Matilda (or shall I say her affair with me?) as a basis for an adventure with Dora. At first I took pains to gloss over those details in which I had cut an undignified figure, but I soon dropped all embellishments. The episode stood out so bold in my memory. its appeal to my imagination was so poignant, that I found an intoxicating satisfaction in conveying the facts as faithfully as I knew how. To be telling a complete, unvarnished truth is in itself a pleasure. It is as though there were a special sense of truth and sincerity in our make-up (just as there is a sense of musical harmony, for example), and the gratification of it were a source of delight. Nor was this my only motive for telling Dora all. I had long since realized that the disdain and mockery with which Matilda handled me had been but a cloak for her interest in my person. So when I was relating to Dora the scenes of my ignominy I felt that the piquant circumstances surrounding them were not unfavorable to me Anyhow, I was having a singularly intimate talk with Dora and she was listening with the profoundest interest, all the little tricks she employed to disguise it notwithstanding In depicting the scene of the memorable night when Matilda came to talk to me at my bedside I emphasized the fact that she had called me a ninny "I did not know what she meant," I said. Dora tittered, looking at the floor shamefacedly. "The nasty thing!" she said "What do you mean?" I inquired, dishonestly "I mean just what I say. She is a nasty thing, that grand lady of yours." And she added another word--the East Side name for a woman of the streets--that gave me a shock "Don't call her that," I entreated. "Please don't. You are mistaken about her. I assure you she is a highly respectable lady. She has a heart of gold," I added, irrelevantly "Well, well! You are still in love with her, aren't you?" I was tempted to say: "No. It is you I now love." But I merely said, dolefully: "No. Not any more." She contemplated me amusedly and broke into a soft laugh The next time we were alone in the house I came back to it. I added some details. I found a lascivious interest in dwelling on our passionate kisses, Matilda's and mine. Also, it gave me morbid pleasure to have her behold me at Matilda's feet, lovelorn, disdained, crushed, yet coveted, kissed, triumphant Dora listened intently. She strove to keep up an amused air, as though listening to some childish nonsense, but the look of her eye, tense or flinching, and the warm color that often overspread her cheeks, betrayed her CHAPTER XI WE talked about my first love-affair for weeks. She asked me many questions ahout Matilda, mostly with that pretended air of amused curiosity. Every time I had something good to say about Matilda she would assail her brutally The fact that Dora never referred to my story in the presence of her husband was a tacit confession that we had a secret from him. Outwardly it meant that the secret was mine, not hers; that she had nothing to do with it; but then there was another secret--the fact that she was my sole confidante in a matter of this nature--and this secret was ours in common On one occasion, in the course of one of these confabs of ours, she said, with ill-concealed malice: "Do you really think she cared for you? Not that much," marking off the tip of her little finger "Why should you say that? Why should you hurt my feelings?" I protested "It still hurts your feelings, then, does it? There is a faithful lover for you! But what would you have me say? That she loved you as much as you loved her?" At this Dora jerked her head backward, with a laugh that rang so charmingly false and so virulent that I was impelled both to slap her face and to kiss it "But tell me," she said, with a sudden affectation of sedate curiosity, "was she really so beautiful?" "I never said she was 'so beautiful,' did I? You are far more beautiful than she." "Oh, stop joking, please! Can't you answer seriously?" "I really mean it." "Mean what?" "That you are prettier than Matilda." "Is that the way you are faithful to her?" "Oh, that was five years ago. Now there is somebody else I am faithful to." She was silent. Her cheeks glowed "Why don't you ask who that somebody is?" "Because I don't care. What do I care? And please don't talk like that. I mean what I say. You must promise me never to talk like that," she said, gravely During the following few days Dora firmly barred all more or less intimate conversation. She treated me with her usual friendly familiarity, but there was something new in her demeanor, something that seemed to say, "I don't deny that I enjoy our talks, but that's all the more reason why you must behave yourself." The story of my childhood seemed legitimate enough, so she let me tell her bits of it, and before she was aware of it she was following my childish love-affair with the daughter of one of my despotic school-teachers, my struggles with Satan, and my early dreams of marriage. Gradually she let me draw her out concerning her own past. One evening, while Lucy was playing school-teacher, with Dannie for the class, Dora told me of an episode connected with her betrothal to Max "Was that a love match?" I asked, with a casual air, when she had finished She winced. "What difference does it make?" she said, with an annoyed look. "We were engaged as most couples are engaged. Much I knew of the love business in those days." "You speak as though you married when you were a mere baby. You certainly knew how you felt toward him." "I don't think I felt anything," she answered "Still," I insisted, "you said to yourself, 'This man is going to be my husband; he will kiss me, embrace me.' How did you feel then?" "You want to know too much, Levinsky," she said, coloring. "You know the saying, 'If you know too much you get old too quick.' Well, I don't think I gave him any thought at all. I was too busy thinking of the wedding and of the pretty dress they were making for me. Besides. I was so rattled and so shy. Much I understood. I was not quite nineteen." It called to my mind that in the excitement following my mother's death I was so overwhelmed by the attentions showered on me that it was a day or two before I realized the magnitude of my calamity "Anyhow, you certainly knew that marriage is the most serious thing in life," I persisted "Oh, I don't think I knew much of anything." "And after the wedding?" "After the wedding I knew that I was a married woman and must be contented," she parried "But this is not love," I pressed her "Oh, let us not talk of these things, pray! Don't ask me questions like that," she said in a low, entreating voice. "It isn't right." "I don't know if it is right or wrong," I replied, also in a low voice. "All I do know is that I am interested in everything that ever happened to you Silence fell. She was the first to break it. She tried to talk of trivialities. I scarcely listened. She broke off again "Dora!" I said, amorously. "My heart is so full." "Don't," she whispered, with a gesture of pained supplication. "Talk of something else, pray." "I can't. I can't talk of anything else. Nor think of anything else, either." "You mustn't, you mustn't, you mustn't," she said, with sudden vehemence, though still with a beseeching ring in her voice. "I won't let you. May I not live to see my children again if I will. Do you hear, Levinsky? Do you hear? Do you hear? I want you to understand it. Be a man. Have a heart, Levinsky. You must behave yourself. If you don't you'll have to move. There can't be any other way about it. If you are a real friend of mine, not an enemy, you must behave yourself." She spoke with deep, solemn earnestness, somewhat in the singsong of a woman reading the Yiddish Commentary on the Five Books of Moses or wailing over a grave. She went on: "Why should you vex me? You are a respectable man. You don't want to do what is wrong. You don't want to make me miserable, do you? So be good, Levinsky. I beg of you. I beg of you. Be good. Be good. Be good. Let us never have another talk like this. Do you promise?" I was silent "Do you promise, Levinsky? You must. You must. Do you promise me never to come back to this kind of talk?" "I do," I said, like a guilty school-boy She was terribly in earnest. She almost broke my heart. I could not thwart her will She was in love with me Days passed. There was no lack of unspoken tenderness between us. That she was tremulously glad to see me every time I came home was quite obvious, but she bore herself in such a manner that I never ventured to allude to my feeling, much less to touch her hand or sit close to her. "It is as well that I should not," I often said to myself. "Am I not happy as it is? Is it not bliss enough to have a home--her home? It would be too awful to forfeit it." I registered a vow to live up to the promise she had exacted from me, but I knew that I would break it She was in love with me. She had an iron will, but I hoped that this, too, would soon be broken. There were moments when I would work myself up to an exalted, religious kind of mood over it. "I should be a vile creature if I interfered with the peace of this house," I would exhort myself, passionately. "Max has been a warm friend to me. Oh, I will be good." Dora talked less than usual. She, too, seemed to be a changed person. She was particularly taciturn when we happened to be alone in the house, and then it would be difficult for us to look each other in the face. Such tête-à-têtes occurred once or twice a week, quite late in the evening. I was very busy at the shop and I could never leave it before 10, 11, or even 12, except on Sabbath eve (Friday night), when it was closed. On those evenings when Max stayed out very late I usually found her alone in the little dining-room, sewing, mending, or--more often--poring over Lucy's school reader or story-book After exchanging a few perfunctory sentences with her, each of us aware of the other's embarrassment, I would take a seat a considerable distance from her and take up a newspaper or clipping from one, while she went on with her work or reading. Lucy had begun to take juvenile books out of the circulating library of the Educational Alliance, so her mother would read them also. The words were all short and simple and Dora had not much difficulty in deciphering their meaning. Anyhow, she now never sought my assistance for her reading. I can still see her seated at the table, a considerable distance from me, moving her head from word to word and from line to line, and silently working her lips, as though muttering an incantation. I would do her all sorts of little services (though she never asked for any), all silently, softly, as if performing a religious rite I have said that on such occasions I would read my newspaper or some clipping from it. In truth I read little else in those days. Editorials of the daily press interested me as much as the most sensational news, and if some of the more important leading articles in my paper had to be left unread on the day of their publication I would clip them and glance them over at the next leisure moment, sometimes days later The financial column was followed by me with a sense of being a member of a caste for which it was especially intended, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. At first the jargon of that column made me feel as though I had never learned any English at all. But I was making headway in this jargon, too, and when I struck a recondite sentence I would cut the few lines out and put them in my pocket, on the chance of coming across somebody who could interpret them for me. Often, too, I would clip and put away a paragraph containing some curious piece of information or a bit of English that was an addition to my knowledge of the language. My inside pocket was always full of all sorts of clippings CHAPTER XII I was about this time that I found myself confronted with an unexpected source of anxiety in my business affairs. There were several circumstances that made it possible for a financial midget like myself to outbid the lions of the cloak-and-suit industry. Now, however, a new circumstance arose which threatened to rob me of my chief advantage and to undermine the very foundation of my future The rent of my loft, which was in the slums, was, comparatively speaking, a mere trifle, while my overhead expense amounted to scarcely anything at all. I did my own bookkeeping, and a thirteen-year-old girl, American-born, school-bred, and bright, whose bewigged mother was one of my finishers, took care of the shop while I was out, helped me with my mail, and sewed on buttons between-whiles--all for four dollars a week. Another finisher, a young widow, saved me the expense of a figure woman. To which should be added that I did business on a profit margin far beneath the consideration of the well-known firms. All this, however, does not include the most important of all the items that gave me an advantage over the princes of the trade. That was cheap labor Three of my men were excellent tailors. They could have easily procured employment in some of the largest factories, where they would have been paid at least twice as much as I paid them. They were bewhiskered, elderly people, strictly orthodox and extremely old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work on Saturdays there, while in my place one could work on Sunday instead of Saturday My pressers were of the same class as my tailors. As for my operators, who were younger fellows and had adopted American ways, my shop had other attractions for them. For example, my operations were limited to a very small number of styles, and, as theirs was piece-work, it meant greater earnings. While the employee of a Broadway firm (or of one of its contractors) was engaged on a large variety of garments, being continually shifted from one kind of work to another, a man working for me would be taken up with the same style for many days in succession, thus developing a much higher rate of speed and a fatter pay-envelope Altogether, I always contrived to procure the cheapest labor obtainable, although this, as we have seen, by no means implied that my "hands" were inferior mechanics. The sum and substance of it all was that I could afford to sell a garment for less than what was its cost of production in the best-known cloak-houses My business was making headway when the Cloak and Suit Makers' Union sprang into life again, with the usual rush and commotion, but with unusual portents of strength and stability. It seemed as if this time it had come to stay. My budding little establishment was too small, in fact, to be in immediate danger. It was one of a scattered number of insignificant places which the union found it difficult to control. Still, cheap labor being my chief excuse for being, the organization caused me no end of worry "Just when a fellow is beginning to make a living all sorts of black dreams will come along and trip him up," I complained to Meyer Nodelman, bitterly. "A bunch of good-for-nothings, too lazy to work, will stir up trouble, and there you are." "Oh, it won't last long," Meyer Nodelman consoled me. "Don't be excited, anyhow. Business does not always go like grease, you know. You must be ready for trouble too." He told me of his own experiences with unions and he drifted into a philosophic view of the matter. "You and I want to make as much money as possible, don't we?" he said. "Well, the working-men want the same. Can you blame them? We are fighting them and they are fighting us. The world is not a wedding-feast, Levinsky. It is a big barn-yard full of chickens and they are scratching one another, and scrambling over one another. Why? Because there are little heaps of grain in the yard and each chicken wants to get as much of it as possible. So let us try our best. But why be mad at the other chickens? Scratch away, Levinsky, but what's the use being excited?" He gave a chuckle, and I could not help smiling, but at heart I was bored and wretched. The big manufacturers could afford to pay union wages, yet they were fighting tooth and nail, and I certainly could not afford to pay high wages. If I had to, I should have to get out of business. Officially mine had become a union shop, yet my men continued to work on non-union terms. They made considerably more money by working for non-union wages than they would in the places that were under stringent union supervision. They could work any number of hours in my shop, and that was what my piece-workers wanted. To toil from sunrise till long after sunset was what every tailor was accustomed to in Antomir, for instance. Only over there one received a paltry few shillings at the end of the week. while I paid my men many dollars So far, then, I had been successful in eluding the vigilance of the walking delegates and my shop was in full blast from 5 in the morning to midnight, whereas in the genuine union shops the regular workday was restricted to ten hours, and overtime to three, which, coupled with the especial advantage accruing from a limited number of styles handled, made my shop a desirable place to my "hands." A storm broke. All cloak-manufacturers formed a coalition and locked out their union men. A bitter struggle ensued. As it was rich in quaint "human-nature" material, the newspapers bestowed a good deal of space upon it I made a pretense of joining in the lockout, my men clandestinely continuing to work for me. More than that, my working force was trebled, for, besides filling my own orders, I did some of the work of a well-known firm which found it much more difficult to procure non-union labor than I did. What was a great calamity to the trade in general seemed to be a source of overwhelming prosperity to me. But the golden windfall did not last long. The agitation and the picketing activities of the union, aided by the Arbeiter Zeitung, a Yiddish socialist weekly, were spreading a spell of enthusiasm (or fear) to which my men gradually succumbed. My best operator, a young fellow who exercised much influence over his shopmates and who had hitherto been genuinely devoted to me, became an ardent convert to union principles and led all my operatives out of the shop. I organized a shop elsewhere, but it was soon discovered Somebody must have reported to the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung that at one time I had been a member of the union myself, for that weekly published a scurrilous paragraph, branding me as a traitor I read the paragraph with mixed rage and pain, and yet the sight of my name in print flattered my vanity, and when the heat of my fury subsided I became conscious of a sneaking feeling of gratitude to the socialist editor for printing the attack on me. For, behold! the same organ assailed the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Rothschilds, and by calling me "a fleecer of labor" it placed me in their class. I felt in good company. I felt, too, that while there were people by whom "fleecers" were cursed, there were many others who held them in high esteem, and that even those who cursed them had a secret envy for them, hoping some day to be fleecers of labor like them The only thing in that paragraph that galled me was the appellation of "cockroach manufacturer" by which it referred to me. I was going to parade the "quip" before Max and Dora, but thought better of it. The notion of Dora hearing me called "cockroach" made me squirm But Max somehow got wind of the paragraph, and one evening as I came home for supper he said, good-naturedly: "You got a spanking, didn't you? I have seen what they say in the Arbeiter Zeitung about you." "Oh. to the eighty black years with them!" I answered, blushing, and hastened to switch the conversation to the lockout and strike in general. "Oh, we'll get all the men we want," I said. "It's only a matter of time. We'll teach these scoundrels a lesson they'll never forget." "If only you manufacturers stick together." "You bet we will. We can wait. We are in no hurry. We can wait till those tramps come begging for a job," I said. For the benefit of Dora I added a little disquisition on the opportunities America offered to every man who had brains and industry, and on the grudge which men like myself were apt to arouse in lazy fellows. "Those union leaders have neither brains nor a desire to work. That's why they can't work themselves up," I said. "Yes, and that's why they begrudge those who can. All those scoundrels are able to do is to hatch trouble." I spoke as if I had been a capitalist of the higher altitudes and of long standing. That some of the big cloak firms had promised to back me with funds to keep me from yielding to the union I never mentioned CHAPTER XIII MY shop being practically closed, I was at home most of the time, not only in the evening, but many a forenoon or afternoon as well. Dora and I would hold interminable conversations. Our love was never alluded to. A relationship on new terms seemed to have been established between us. It was as if she were saying: "Now, isn't this better? Why can't we go on like this forever?" Sometimes I would watch her read with Lucy. Or else I would take up a newspaper or a book and sit reading it at the same table. Dora was making rapid headway in her studies. It was July and Lucy was free from school, so she would let her spend many an hour in the street, but she caused her to spend a good deal of time with her, too. If she did not read with her she would talk or listen to her. I often wondered whether it was for fear of being too much thrown into my company that she would make the child stay indoors. At all events, her readings, spelling contests, or talks with Lucy bore perceptible fruit. Her English seemed to be improving every day, so much so that we gradually came to use a good deal of that language even when we were alone in the house; even when every word we said had an echo of intimacy with which the tongue we were learning to speak seemed to be out of accord One evening mother and daughter sat at the open parlor window. While I was reclining in an easy-chair at the other end of the room Lucy was narrating something and Dora was listening, apparently with rapt attention. I watched their profiles. Finally I said: "She must be telling you something important, considering the interest you are taking in it." "Everything she says is important to me," Dora answered "What has she been telling you?" "Oh, about her girls, about their brothers and their baseball games, about lots of things," she said, with a far-away tone in her voice. "I want to know everything about her. Everything. I wish I could get right into her. I wish I could be a child like her. Oh, why can't a person be born over again?" Her longing ejaculation had perhaps more to do with her feelings for me than with her feelings for her child. Anyhow, what she said about her being interested in everything that Lucy had to say was true. And, whether she listened to the child's prattle or not, it always seemed to me as though she absorbed every English word Lucy uttered and every American gesture she made. The American school-girl radiated a subtle influence, a spiritual ozone, which her mother breathed in greedily "My own life is lost, but she shall be educated"-- these words dropped from her lips quite often. On one occasion they came from her with a modification that lent them unusual meaning. It was on a Friday evening. Max was out, as usual, and the children were asleep. "My own life is lost, but Lucy shall be happy," she said "Why?" I said, feelingly. "Why should you think yourself lost? I can't bear it, Dora." She made no answer. I attempted to renew the conversation, but without avail. She answered in melancholy monosyllables and my voice had a constrained note At last I burst out, in our native tongue: "Why do you torture me, Dora? Why don't you let me talk and pour my heart out?" "'S-sh! You mustn't," she said, peremptorily, also in Yiddish. "You'll get me in trouble if you do. It'll be the ruin of me and of the children, too. You mustn't." "But you say your life is lost," I retorted, coming up close to the chair on which she sat. "Do you think it's easy for me to hear it? Do you think my heart is made of iron?" "'S-sh! You know everything without my speaking," she said, slowly rising and drawing back. "You know well enough that I am not happy. Can't you rest until you have heard me say so again and again? Must you drink my blood? All right, then. Go ahead. Here. I am unhappy, I am unhappy, I am unhappy. Max is a good husband to me. I can't complain. And we get along well, too. And I shall be true to him. May I choke right here, may darkness come upon me, if I ever cease to be a faithful wife to him. But you know that my heart has never been happy. Lucy will be happy and that will be my happiness, too. She shall go to college and be an educated American lady, and, if God lets me live, I shall see to it that she doesn't marry unless she meets the choice of her heart. She must be happy. She must make up for her mother's lost life, too. If my mother had understood things as I do, I, too, should have been happy. But she was an old-fashioned woman and she would have me marry in the old-fashioned way, as she herself had married: without laying her eyes on her 'predestined one' until the morning after the wedding." She laughed bitterly. "Of course I did see Max before the wedding, but it made no difference. I obeyed my mother, peace upon her soul. I thought love-marriages were something which none but educated girls could dream of. My mother--peace upon her soul--told me to throw all fancies out of my mind, that I was a simple girl and must get married without fuss. And I did. In this country people have dlfferent notions. But I am already married and a mother. All I can do now is to see to it that Lucy shall be both educated and happy, and, well, I beg of you, I beg of you, I beg of you, Levinsky, never let me talk of these things again. They must be locked up in my heart and the key must be thrown into the river, Levinsky. It cannot be otherwise, Levinsky. Do you hear?" CHAPTER XIV THE situation could not last. One morning about three weeks subsequent to the above conversation Max left town for a day. One of his debtors, a dancing-master, had disappeared without settling his account and Max had recently discovered that he was running a dance-hall and meeting-rooms in New Haven; so he went there to see what he could do toward collecting his bill. His absence for a whole day was nothing new, and yet the house seemed to have assumed a novel appearance that morning. When, after breakfast, Lucy ran out into the street I felt as though Dora and I were alone for the first time, and from her constraint I could see that she was experiencing a similar feeling. I hung around the house awkwardly. She was trying to keep herself busy. Finally I said: "I think I'll be going. Maybe there is some news about the lockout." I rose to go to the little corridor for my hat, but on my way thither, as I came abreast of her, I paused, and with amorous mien I drew her to me. She made but a perfunctory attempt at resistance, and when I kissed her she responded, our lips clinging together hungrily. It all seemed to have happened in a most natural way. When our lips parted at last her cheeks were deeply flushed and her eyes looked filmed "Dearest," I whispered "I must go out," she said, shrinking back, her embarrassed gaze on the floor. "I have some marketing to do." "Don't. Don't go away from me, Dora. Please don't," I said in Yiddish, with the least bit of authority. "I love thee. I love thee, Dora," I raved, for the first time addressing her in the familiar pronoun "You ought not to speak to me like that," she said, limply, with frank happiness in her voice. "It's terrible. What has got into me?" I strained her to me once again, and again we abandoned ourselves to a transport of kisses and hugs "Dost thou love me, Dora? Tell me. I want to hear it from thine own lips." She slowly drew me to her bosom and clasped me with all her might. That was her answer to my question. Then, with a hurried parting kiss on my forehead, she said: "Go. Attend to business, dearest." As I walked through the street I was all but shouting to myself: "Dora has kissed me! Dora dear is mine!" My heart was dancing with joy over my conquest of her, and at the same time I felt that I was almost ready to lay down my life for her. It was a blend of animal selfishness and spiritual sublimity. I really loved her I attended to my affairs (that is, to some of the affairs of the Manufacturers' Organization) that day; but while thus engaged I was ever tremulously conscious of my happiness, ever in an uplifted state of mind. I was bubbling over with a desire to be good to somebody, to everybody--except, of course, the Cloak-makers' Union. My membership in the Manufacturers' Association flattered my vanity inordinately, and I always danced attendance upon the other members, the German Jews, the big men of the trade; now, however, I ran their errands with an alacrity that was not mere servility I was constantly aware of the fact that this was my second love-affair, as if it were something to be proud of. My love for Matilda was remote as a piece of art, while my passion for Dora was a flaming reality. "Matilda only tortured me," I said to myself, without malice. "She treated me as she would a dog, whereas Dora is an angel. I would jump into fire for her. Dora dear! Sweetheart mine!" I had not the patience to wait until evening. I ran in to see her in the middle of the day She flung herself at me and we embraced and kissed as if we had been separated for years. Then, holding me by both hands, she gave me a long look full of pensive bliss and clasped me to her bosom again. When she had calmed down she smoothed my hair, adjusted my necktie, told me she did not like it and offered to get me one more becoming "Do you love me? Do you really?" she asked, with deep earnestness "I do, I do. Dora mine, I am crazy for you," I replied. "Now I know what real love means." She sighed, and after a pause her grave, strained mien broke into a smile "So all you told me about Matilda was a lie, was it?" she said, roguishly. "There is no such person in the world, is there?" "Don't talk about her, pray. You don't understand me. I never was happy before. Never in my life." "Never at all?" she questioned me, earnestly "Never, Dora dearest. Anyhow, let bygones be bygones. All I know is that I love you, that I am going crazy for you. Oh, I do love you." "And nobody else?" "And nobody else." "And you are not lying?" "Lying? Why should you talk like that, dearest?" "Why, have you forgotten Matilda so soon?" "Do you call that soon? It's more than five years." "But you told me that you had been in love with her a considerable time after you came to this country. Will you forget me so soon, too?" I squirmed, I writhed. "Don't be tormenting me, dearest," I implored, my voice quavering with impatience. "I love thee and nobody else." She fell into a muse. Then she said, with a far-away look in her eyes: "I don't know where this will land me. It seems as if a great misfortune had befallen me. But I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Come what may. I can't help it. At last I know what it means to be happy. I have been dreaming of it all my life. Now I know what it is like, and I am willing to suffer for it. Yes, I am willing to suffer for you, Levinsky." She spoke with profound, even-voiced earnestness, with peculiar solemnity, as though chanting a prayer. I was somewhat bored. Presently she paused, and, changing her tone, she asked. "Matilda talked to you of education. She wanted you to be an educated man, did she? Yes, but what did she do for you? She drank your blood, the leech, and when she got tired of it she dropped you. A woman like that ought to be torn to pieces. May every bit of the suffering she caused you come back to her a thousandfold. May her blood be shed as she shed yours." Suddenly she checked herself and said: "But, no, I am not going to curse her. I don't want you to think badly of her. Your love must be sacred, Levinsky. If you ever go back on me and love somebody else, don't let her curse me. Don't let anybody say a cross word about me." Max came home after midnight and I did not see him until the next evening. When we met at supper (Dora was out at that moment) I had to make an effort to meet his eye. But he did not seem to notice anything out of the usual, and my awkwardness soon wore off Nor, indeed, was there any change in my feelings toward him. I had expected that he would now be hateful to me. He was not. He was absolutely the same man as he had always been, except, perhaps, that I vaguely felt like a thief in his presence. Only I hated to think of Dora while I looked at him Presently Dora made her appearance. My embarrassment returned, more acute than ever. The consciousness of her confusion and, above all, the consciousness of the three of us being together, was insupportable. It was a terrible repast, though Max was absolutely unaware of anything unnatural in our demeanor. I retired to my room soon after supper I had a what-not half filled with books, so I drew a volume from it. I found it difficult to get my mind on it. My thoughts were circling round Dora and Max, round my precarious happiness, round the novelty of carrying on a romantic conspiracy with a married woman. Dora was so dear to me. I seemed to be vibrating with devotion to her. Regardless of the fact that she was somebody else's wife and a mother of two children, my love impressed me as something sacred. I seemed to accept the general rule that a wife-stealer is a despicable creature, a thief, a vile, immoral wretch. But now, that I was not facing Max, that rule, somehow, did not apply to my relations with Dora. Simultaneously with this feeling I had another one which excused my conduct on the theory that everybody was at the bottom of his heart likewise ready to set that rule at defiance and to make a mistress of his friend's wife, provided it could be done with absolute secrecy and safety. Max in my place would certainly not have scrupled to act as I did. But then I hated to think of him in this connection. I would brush all thoughts of him aside as I would a vicious fly. I was too selfish to endure the pain even of a moment's compunction. I treated myself as a doting mother does a wayward son The book in my hands was the first volume of Herbert Spencer's Sociology. My interest in this author and in Darwin was of recent origin. It had been born of my hatred for the Cloak-makers' Union, in fact. This is how I came to discover the existence of the two great names and to develop a passion for the ideas with which they are identified In my virulent criticism of the leaders of the union I had often characterized them as so many good-for-nothings, jealous of those who had succeeded in business by their superior brains, industry, and efficiency. One day I found a long editorial in my newspaper, an answer to a letter from a socialist. The editorial derived its inspiration from the theory of the Struggle for Existence and the Survival of the Fittest. Unlike many of the other editorials I had read, it breathed conviction. It was obviously a work of love. When the central idea of the argument came home to me I was in a turmoil of surprise and elation. "Why, that's just what I have been saying all these days!" I exclaimed in my heart. "The able fellows succeed, and the misfits fail. Then the misfits begrudge those who accomplish things." I almost felt as though Darwin and Spencer had plagiarized a discovery of mine. Then, as I visualized the Struggle for Existence, I recalled Meyer Nodelman's parable of chickens fighting for food, and it seemed to me that, between the two of us, Nodelman and I had hit upon the whole Darwinian doctrine. Later, however, when I dipped into Social Statics, I was over-borne by the wondrous novelty of the thing and by a sense of my own futility, ignorance, and cheapness. I felt at the gates of a great world of knowledge whose existence I had not even suspected. I had to read the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man, and then Spencer again. I sat up nights reading these books. Apart from the purely intellectual intoxication they gave me, they flattered my vanity as one of the "fittest." It was as though all the wonders of learning, acumen, ingenuity, and assiduity displayed in these works had been intended, among other purposes, to establish my title as one of the victors of Existence A working-man, and every one else who was poor, was an object of contempt to me--a misfit, a weakling, a failure, one of the ruck CHAPTER XV IT was August. In normal times this would have been the beginning of the great "winter season" in our trade. As it was, the deadlock continued. The stubbornness of the men, far from showing signs of wilting under the strain of so many weeks of enforced idleness and suffering, seemed to be gathering strength, while our own people, the manufacturers, were frankly weakening. The danger of having the great season pass without one being able to fill a single order overcame the fighting blood of the most pugnacious among them. One was confronted with the risk of losing one's best customers. The trade threatened to pass from New York to Philadelphia and Chicago. If you called the attention of a manufacturer to the unyielding courage of the workmen, the reply invariably was, first, that it was all mere bravado; and, second, that, anyhow, the poor devils had nothing to lose, while the manufacturers had their investments to lose The press supported the strikers. It did so, not because they were working-people, but because they were East-Siders. Their district was the great field of activity for the American University Settlement worker and fashionable slummer. The East Side was a place upon which one descended in quest of esoteric types and "local color," as well as for purposes of philanthropy and "uplift" work. To spend an evening in some East Side café was regarded as something like spending a few hours at the Louvre so much so that one such café, in the depth of East Houston Street, was making a fortune by purveying expensive wine dinners to people from up-town who came there ostensibly to see "how the other half lived," but who only saw one another eat and drink in freedom from the restraint of manners. Accordingly, to show sympathy for East Side strikers was within the bounds of the highest propriety. It was as "correct" as belonging to the Episcopal Church. And so public opinion was wholly on the side of the Cloak-makers' Union. This hastened the end. We succumbed. A settlement was patched up. We were beaten. But even this did not appease the men. They repudiated the agreement between their organization and ours, branding it as a trap, and the strike was continued. Then the manufacturers yielded completely, acceding to every demand of the union I became busy. I continued to curse the union, but at the bottom of my heart I wished it well, for the vigor with which it enforced its increased wage scale in all larger factories gave me greater advantages than ever. I was still able to get men who were willing to trick the organization. Every Friday afternoon these men received pay-envelopes which bore figures in strict conformity with the union's schedule, but the contents of which were considerably below the sum marked outside. Subsequently this proved to be a risky practice to pursue, for the walking delegates were wide awake and apt to examine the envelopes as the operatives were emerging from the shop. Accordingly, I adopted another system: the men would receive the union pay in full, but on the following Monday each of them would pay me back the difference between the official and the actual wage. The usual practice was for the employee to put the few dollars into his little wage-book, which he would then place on my desk for the ostensible purpose of having his account verified By thus cheating the union I could now undersell the bigger manufacturers more easily than I had been able to do previous to the lockout and strike. I had more orders than I could fill. Money was coming in in floods The lockout and the absolute triumph of the union was practically the making of me I saw much less of Dora than I had done during the five months of the lockout, and our happiness when we managed to be left alone was all the keener for it. Our best time for a tê-à-tˆte were the hours between 10 and 12 on the evenings, when Max was sure to be away at his dancing-schools, but then it often happened that those were among my busiest hours at the shop. Sometimes I would snatch half an hour from my work in the middle of a busy day to surprise her with my caresses. If a week passed without my doing so she would punish me with mute scenes of jealousy, of which none but she and I were aware. She would avoid looking at me, and I would press my hand to my heart and raise a pleading gaze at her, which said: "I couldn't get away, dearest. Honest, I couldn't." One evening I bought her some roses. As I carried them home I was thrilled as much by the fact that I, David of Abner's Court, was taking flowers to a lady as I was by visioning the moment when I should hand them to Dora. When I came home and put my offering into her hand she was in a flurry of delight over it, but she was scared to death lest it should betray our secret. After giving way to bursts of admiration for the flowers and myself, and smelling her fill, and covering me with kisses, she burned the bouquet in the stove and forbade me to use this method of showing her attention again "Your dear eyes are the best flowers you can bring me," she said Her love burned with a steady flame, bright and even. It manifested itself in a thousand little things which she did for the double purpose of ministering to my comfort and keeping me in mind of herself. I felt it in the taste of the coffee I drank, in the quality of my cup and saucer, in the painstaking darning on my socks, in the frequency with which my room was swept, my towel changed, my books dusted "Did you notice the new soap-dish on your wash-stand?" she asked me, one morning. "Do you deserve it? Do you know how often I am in your room every day? Just guess." "A million times a day." "To you it's a joke. But if you loved as I do you would not be up to joking." "Very well, I'll cry." And I personated a boy crying. "Don't. It breaks my heart," she said, earnestly. "I can't see you crying even for fun." She kissed my eyes. "No, really, I go to your room twenty times a day, perhaps. When I am there it seems to me that I am nearer to you. I kiss the pillow on which you sleep. I pat the blanket, the pitcher, every book of yours--everything your dear little hands touch. I want you to know it. I want you to know how I love you. I knew that love was sweet, but I never knew that it was so sweet. Oh, my loved one!" She would pour out all sorts of endearments on me, some of them rather of a fantastic nature, but "my loved one" became her favorite appellation, while I found special relish in calling her "my bride" or "bridie mine." I can almost feel her white fingers as they played with my abundant dark hair or rested on my shoulders while she looked into my eyes and murmured, yearningly: "My loved one! My loved one! My loved one!" The set of my shoulders was a special object of her admiration. She would shake them tenderly, call me monkey, and ask me if I realized how much she loved me and if I deserved it all, bad boy that I was She held me in check with an iron hand. Whenever my caresses threatened to overstep the bounds of what she termed "respectable love" she would stop them. With clouded eyes she would slap my hand and then kiss it, saying: "Be a gentleman, Levinsky. Be a gentleman. Can't you be a gentleman?" "Oh, you don't love me," I would grunt "I don't? I don't? I wish you would love me half as much," with a sigh. "If you did you would not behave the way you do. That's all your love amounts to--behaving like that. All men are hogs, after all." With which she would take to lecturing me and pouring out her infatuated heart in that solemn singsong of hers, which somewhat bored me If she thought my kisses unduly passionate and the amorous look of my eye dangerous she would move away from me "Don't be angry at me, sweetheart," she would say, cooingly "I am not angry, but you don't love me." "Why should you hurt my feelings like that? Why should you shed my blood? Am I not yours, heart and soul? Am I not ready to cut myself to pieces to please you? Why should you torture me?" "What are you afraid of? He won't know any more than he does now," I once urged. She blushed, looking at the floor. After a minute's silence she said, dolefully: "It isn't so much on account of that as on account of the children. How could I look Lucy in the face?" Her eyes grew humid. My heart went out to her. "I understand. You are right," I yielded The scene repeated itself not many days after. It occurred again and again at almost regular intervals. She fought bravely Many months passed, and still she was able "to look Lucy in the face." At first, for a period of six or seven weeks, my moral conduct outside the house was immaculate. Then I renewed my excursions to certain streets. I made rather frequent calls at the apartment of a handsome Hungarian woman who called herself Cleo. Once, in a frenzy, I tried to imagine that she was Dora, and then I experienced qualms of abject compunction and self-loathing Sometimes Lucy would arouse my jealous rancor, as a living barrier between her mother and myself. But she was really dear to me. I revered Dora for her fortitude, and Lucy appealed to me as the embodiment of her mother's saintliness I would watch Lucy. She was an interesting study. Her manner of speaking, her giggle, her childish little affectations seemed to grow more American every day. She was like a little foreigner in the house Dora was watching and studying her with a feeling akin to despair, I thought. It was as though she was pursuing the little girl, with outstretched arms, vainly trying to overtake her CHAPTER XVI I WAS rapidly advancing on the road to financial triumphs. I was planning to move my business to larger quarters, in the same modest neighborhood. Mrs. Chaikin, my partner's wife, failed to realize the situation, however. She could not forgive me the false representations I had made to her regarding my assets "And where is the treasure you were expecting?" she would twit me. "You never tell a lie, do you? You simply don't know how to do it. Poor thing!" When we were in the midst of an avalanche of lucrative orders promising a brilliant winter season she took it into her head to withdraw her husband from the firm, in which he was a silent partner. Her decision was apparently based on the extreme efforts she had once seen me making to raise five hundred dollars. As a matter of fact, this was due to the rapidity of our growth. I lacked capital. But then my credit was growing, too, and altogether things were in a most encouraging condition "What is the use worrying along like that?" she said. "You deceived me from the start. You made me believe you had a lot of money, while you were really a beggar. Yes, you are a beggar, and a beggar you are bound to stay. A beggar and a swindler--that's what you are. You have fooled me long enough. You can't fool me any longer. So there!" Her husband was still employed by the German firm, atten