CHAPTER XXIV.
VLADIMIR FINDS HIS CAUSE.
The next morning, as Clara walked along Kasimir Street, she saw VolodiaVigdoroff, her cousin, talking and laughing exuberantly to two elderlymen in front of the flashy window of a drug store. One of his listenerswore a military uniform. It was Dr. Lipnitzky (Jewish physicians had notyet been proscribed from the Russian army)--a grey-haired,smooth-shaven, pudgy little man with three medals across his breast. Itwas at the Turkish war that he had won these decorations. Clara couldnever look at him without feeling a taste of sickness in her mouth likethe one she had felt one day shortly after the war, when she was sick inbed and the little doctor, bending over, shouted to her to open hermouth wider. The best physician in town, he was the terror of hisuneducated co-religionists. When a Jewish housewife paid him his fee incopper instead of silver, or neglected to wrap it up in paper, he wouldmake an ugly scene, asking the poor woman at the top of his voice whenshe and others like her would learn to live like human beings.Sometimes, when a family failed to pay him altogether, pleading poverty,he would call them a lot of prevaricating knaves with a snug littlehoard in the old woman's stocking, and carry off a copper pan or brasscandlestick. In every case of this sort, however, the pan or the brasscandlestick was sure to come back, sometimes with a ruble or two intothe bargain.
The other man to whom Vigdoroff was speaking was Paul Zundel, themusical autocrat of the province. He was as small of stature and asirascible as Dr. Lipnitzky--a grey-haired dandy with a Mexicancomplexion and a pair of long black side whiskers tipped with white. Hewas a graduate of a German conservatory and spoke several languages withilliterate fluency.
They were both bachelors and both were frequent visitors at thegovernor's house, where they were liked as much for the money theyusually lost in cards (although in other houses they were known as sharpplayers) as for their professional services. They spent large sums onthe education of Jewish children and were particularly interested in thespread of modern culture among their people. In other words, theyadvocated and worked for the assimilation of their people with the"deep-rooted" population. When a Talmud boy was ambitious to give up hisdivine studies for "Gentile books" and his old-fashioned garb for agymnasium uniform, the two eccentric bachelors were his two stars ofhope.
Vigdoroff overtook Clara as she turned the next corner. They had not metsince the night when they quarrelled in front of Boyko's court.
"I didn't see you until I happened to turn round," he said.
"He is trying to prove that he is not afraid of being seen in mycompany," she thought to herself, as she said aloud: "I saw you talkingto Dr. Lipnitzky and Zundel."
They walked in silence a few steps. Then he uttered with a smile:
"Have you taken a vow to give us a wide berth?"
"Not at all."
"Father and mother are always at me for it. They think I am to blame foryour sudden estrangement."
"Nobody is to blame, and there is no estrangement. Why use such words?"
"Is it only a matter of words? They are accustomed to look upon you andme as brother and sister. Do you deny that our roads have parted?"
"If they have, then, what need is there of writing at the bottom of thepicture: 'This is a lion?'" she asked testily. "If it's a lion it's alion."
"Would it be better to shut one's eyes to the truth? As for me, commonordinary mortal that I am, I try to call a spade a spade."
He spoke with venom, but it was all perfunctory and they were both awareof it. Then he described, with exaggerated ardour, the successesachieved by the Pupils' Aid Society in which he was now activelyinterested.
Since their talk on the bench in front of Boyko's Court he had beenlonging for some humanitarian cause, for one unassociated with thehazards of the revolutionary movement. He would prove to Clara that hewas no inferior creature. Her taunt that he had seized upon the Jewishquestion, in the course of their debate, merely as a drowning man seizesat a straw, and the implication that no phase of the problem of humansuffering made the slightest appeal to him had left a cruel sting in hisheart. Since then his thoughts had often turned upon the Jewishquestion, until he found his "cause" in the dissemination of Russianculture among his people. Formerly he had been contented with being"assimilated" himself. Now he was going to dedicate his best energies tothe work of lessening that distance between Jew and Gentile, which was,so he argued, the source of all the woes of his race. As good luck wouldhave it, there was such a thing as difference of opinion. "It is notanxiety about my 'precious skin,'" he would picture himself saying toClara, "that keeps me from reading underground prints. Did I believe inthem I should do as you do. But if you think I live for myself only youdon't know me. I have another cause, one to which my convictions call meand to which I am going to give all that is in me."
"And you?" he asked. "Still planting a paradise on earth?"
She smiled.
"Well, as for me, I content myself with working on such a humblebeginning as a little bridge across the gap between Jew and Gentile."
He consciously led the way past a Gentile of enormous bulk, who stood inthe doorway of a furrier's shop. It was Rasgadayeff, the landlord of theVigdoroffs' residence, he himself occupying the inner building on thesame courtyard. He was a wealthy merchant with the figure of a barreland arms that looked as though they had been hung up to dry, animpetuous Great-Russian, illiterate and good-hearted, shrewd in makingmoney, but with no sense of its value when it came to spending it. Everyother week he went off on a hideous spree, and then, besides smashingcostly mirrors, which is the classical sport of the drunkenGreat-Russian merchant, he would indulge in such pastimes as offering aprize to every ten-year-old boy who would drain a tumbler of vodka,setting fire to live horses or wrecking the furniture in his own house.On such days his wife often sought shelter with the Vigdoroffs for fearof being beaten to death. Until a few years ago he had stood at the headof the fur trade. Since then a Jewish dealer, who went off on nosprees, had been a formidable competitor to him. Rasgadayeff now hatedJews in general as he had never done before. The Vigdoroffs were anexception. He was sincerely fond of the whole family, and entrusted theold man with some of his most important business secrets.
"Our humblest regards to Clara Rodionovna!" he said, with gay suavity,taking off his hat. "As also to Vladimir Alexandrovich!"
They returned the salute, and were about to pass on, but he checkedthem.
"A rose of a girl, I tell you that," he went on, addressing himself toVladimir, while he looked at the girl with rather offensive admiration."Young men are fools nowadays. If I were one of them I should take nochances with a lassie like that. A plum, a bouquet, a song-bird of amademoiselle. I should propose and get her and waste no time, or--one,two, three, and the lovey-dovey may be snapped up by some other fellow."
Clara, who was accustomed to this sort of pleasantry from him, scarcelyheard what he said. She was smilingly making ready to bow herself away,when her cousin asked of the Great-Russian:
"And how is her Illustriousness? Have you seen her lately?"
"She was here yesterday. Quite stuck on you, Vladimir Alexandrovich.Sends humblest regards. 'When is your learned young friend going tocall,' she says. You have a sage of a cousin, Clara Rodionovna, an eagleof a fellow, a cabinet minister!"
"All right," Vladimir returned, with an amused smile, yet reddening withsatisfaction.
Clara remarked to herself that her cousin was flaunting his successeswith Gentiles before her. When they resumed their walk she inquiredreluctantly:
"Who is 'her Illustriousness'?"
"Oh, that's that lame tramp of a woman, Princess Chertogoff," herejoined, with gestures of contempt and amusement, yet inwardly tinglingwith vanity at his acquaintance with her impecunious "Illustriousness."The wealthy Great-Russian was a large holder of Princess Chertogoff'spromissory notes, and it was at his house where Vladimir had met her onseveral occasions. The lame noblewoman knew that Rasgadayeff was fond ofthe Vigdoroffs. When she saw the
young man last she had, by way ofcurrying favour with her creditor, asked the educated son of his"favourite Jew" to call on her whenever he was in the mood for it, andto "let her hear what was going on among wise men and authors."
Vladimir and Clara passed on. He spoke of Rasgadayeff's latest escapadesand Clara listened with little bursts of merriment, but their voices didnot ring true. Presently they exchanged greetings with Ginsburg, thenotorious money-lender of Miroslav, a small, red-headed man withcrumpled cheeks and big bulging eyes.
"Here is another treat for you!" Vladimir said, in high spirits."Another specimen of moral perfection. Some gigantic hand must havegrabbed him by the head, squeezing it like a paper ball till the eyesstarted from their sockets, and then thrown him into a waste basket.That's the way he looks." She smiled awkwardly.
He then called her attention to two bewigged old women, both of themapparently deaf, who were talking into each other's ear, and then to thepicturesque figure of a dumpy little shoemaker with a new,carefully-shined pair of topboots in his hand. Clara had never beeninterested in things of this sort, but this time, in her eagerness toget away, added to a growing sense of awkwardness, his observationsliterally grated on her nerves. At last, when they reached a crossing,she stopped, putting out her hand.
"Somebody is waiting for me," she said. "Remember me to uncle and aunt,will you?"
"I will. Won't you look in at all?" As she turned to take the sidestreet, he added: "Our roads do part, then."
Her appointment was with Orlovsky. She had not attended the gatheringsof the Circle at his house for a considerable time. He conjectured thatshe was engaged in some revolutionary undertaking of importance. He hadmissed her so abjectly that he had finally decided to avow his love.This was what he had made the appointment for. When she came, however,he cowed before her rich complexion and intelligent eyes and talked ofthe affairs of the Circle. A similar attempt at a love declaration wasmade that evening by Elkin, with similar results. By way of opening theconversation he indulged in a series of virulent taunts upon her longabsence and the great revolutionary secrets that he said were written onher face, after which his efforts to turn the conversation into romanticchannels proved futile. He came away agonised with jealousy. He wasjealous of the girl and he was jealous of the mysterious conspiracy inwhich she seemed to be engaged and into which he, her revolutionarysponsor, had not been initiated.
* * * * *
As to Vigdoroff, he was seized with a desire to avail himself ofPrincess Chertogoff's invitation, not merely to gratify his personalambition, but also, so he assured himself, as part of his "cause." Onhis way thither he paused once or twice in front of shop windows toascertain whether his face was not strikingly Semitic. "Not offensivelyso, anyhow," he concluded before a mirror at the entrance to a furniturestore. The mirror reflected a well-made, athletic-looking young man onecould have told for a college man through a veil. The picturesqueirregularity of his features, somewhat flat in the middle of the face,drew an image of culture, of intellectual interest. He felt on hismettle. He would make a favourable impression, and that impression wasto be another step across the distance not only between Gentile societyand himself, but between all Jews and all Gentiles. His visit to thenoblewoman was a mission. He was in an exalted mood.
At the house of Princess Chertogoff he found a cavalry officer and anofficer of the imperial guards. He was received with patronisingurbanity. The hostess introduced the two young officers as her sons,come from St. Petersburg to take a glimpse at their old mother, andVigdoroff as "one of the brilliant young intellects of our town." Thiswas her excuse before her sons for having invited a Jew to the house andVigdoroff was not unaware of it. The cavalryman's face was round andstern, while his brother's was oblong and smiling. When they were drunk,which happened quite often, their faces would swap expressions. It waschiefly owing to their expensive escapades that their mother's fortunehad passed into the coffers of usurers. The two uniformed men leftalmost immediately, pleading a pressing engagement.
The welcome Vladimir found at this house was one extended by a patronessof the fine arts to a devotee of letters. It was not long beforeVigdoroff found himself fully launched on a favourite subject. Russia'ssupremacy in modern literature and her false modesty became clearer tohim with every new work of fiction that came from the foreign masters.The best models of the German, French or English novel were tainted withartificiality. Russia alone produced stories that were absolutely freefrom powder and rouge. He dwelt on Zola's _L'Assommoir_ and Daudet's_Nabob_, both of which had appeared a short time before, and each ofwhich was looked upon as its author's masterpiece. He saw that hishostess neither understood nor cared for these things; that he wasmaking a fool of himself; yet, being too ill at ease to stop, he wentsliding down hill. He spoke by heart as it were, the sound of his ownvoice increasing his embarrassment.
The princess was listening with an air of pompous assent, barelyfollowing the general drift of his talk. Her majestic crutches terrifiedhim.
A man servant brought in a silver samovar and a tray of Little-Russiancookies. As Vigdoroff took up his glass of tea the princess said:
"I did not know you were so much of a Russian patriot. Quite an unusualthing in an educated young man these days. I certainly agree with youthat Turgeneff is a good writer. He is perfectly charming."
Later on she asked, with lazy curiosity and in her pampered enunciation:
"Do you really think our novelists greater than the great writers ofFrance?"
"I certainly do."
"That's interesting," she said, preparing to get rid of him.
"You see, the average Russian represents a remarkable duality. He issimple-hearted and frank, like a child, yet he is possessed of anintuitive sense of human nature that would be considered marvellous ina sage. In addition, he is the most soulful fellow in the world, and toturn his soul inside out, to himself as well as to others, is one of hisruling passions. That accounts for the inimitable naturalness and theardent human interest of our literature. Whether Russia knows how toconstruct machinery or not, she certainly knows how to write."
"You do love Russia, and literature, too"--yawning demonstratively. "Ihad an idea Hebrews were only interested in money matters." She smiled,an embarrassed smile in which there was as much malice as apology, anddismissed him quite unceremoniously.
He got into the street with his face on fire. It was as if he had beensubjected to some brutal physical indignities. "'I didn't know you wereso much of a Russian patriot,'" he recalled in his agony. "Of course,I'm only a Jew, not a Russian. It makes no difference how many centuriesmy people have lived and suffered here. And I, idiot that I am, make adisplay of my love for Gogol, Turgeneff, Dostoyevski, as if I, 'a mereJew,' had a right to them! She must have thought it was all affectation,Jewish cunning. As if a Jew could care for anything but 'money matters.'The idea of one of my race caring for books, and for Gentile books,too!"
He was as innocent of the world of money as was Clara's father. As tothe great Russian writers, they were not merely favourite authors withhim. They were saints, apostles, of a religion of which he was a ferventdevotee. This, in fact, was the real "cause" which he had mutely servedfor the past six or seven years. Their images, the swing and rhythm oftheir sentences, the flavour of their style, the odour of the pages ashe had first read them--all this was a sanctuary to him. Yet he hadalways felt as if he had no right to this devotion, as if he were anintruder. This was the unspoken tragedy of his life.
Since a boy of ten, when he entered the gymnasium, he had been cryingout to Russia, his country, to recognise a child in him--not astep-child merely. And just because he was looked upon as a step-childhe loved his native land even more passionately than did hisfellow-countrymen of Slavic blood.
* * * * *
Alexander, or Sender, Vigdoroff, Vladimir's father, was known among hisco-religionists as Sender the Arbitrator. His chief source of income waspetition-writing a
nd sundry legal business, but the Jews of Miroslavoften submitted their differences to him. These he settled by the forceof an imperturbable and magnetic disposition rather than through anyspecial gift of judgment and insight. He was full of anecdotes andinaggressive humour. It was said of him that people who came to hishouse obdurate and bitter "melted like wax" in his sunny presence. As arule, indeed, it was the contending parties themselves who then found away to an amicable solution of the point at issue, but the credit for itwas invariably given to Sender the Arbitrator, and his reputation forwisdom brought him some Gentile patrons in addition to his Jewishclientele. His iron safe always contained large sums in cash orvaluables entrusted to him by others. When a young couple were engagedto be married the girl's marriage-portion was usually deposited withSender the Arbitrator. When security was agreed upon in connection withsome contract the sum was placed in the hands of Sender the Arbitrator.
His stalwart figure, blond, curling locks and toothless smile; hisfrilled shirt-front, everlasting brown frock-coat and huge meerschaumcigar-holder--all this was as familiar to the Jews of Miroslav as thepublic buildings of their town. The business of petition-writing wasgradually passing into the hands of younger and better educated men,graduated lawyers regularly admitted to the bar, and his income wasdwindling. "I could arbitrate any misunderstanding under the sun exceptthe one between Luck and myself," he used to say, smiling toothlessly.Still, he made a comfortable income, and money was spent freely not onlyon his household but on all sorts of hangers-on. Vladimir's educationcost him more than his means warranted. Besides keeping him at thegymnasium and then at the university he had hired him private teachersof French, German and music. "There are a thousand Gentiles to everyJew," was one of his sayings. "That's why every Jew should possess asmuch intelligence as a thousand Gentiles. Else we shall be crushed." Hewas something like a connecting link between the old world and the new.He had a large library, mostly made up of German and Hebrew books. Hishouse was the haunt of "men of wisdom," that is, people who wrote orthought upon modern topics in the language of Isaiah and Jeremiah,free-thinkers whose source of inspiration were atheistic ideas expoundedin the Holy Tongue; yet on Saturday nights his neighbours would gatherin his drawing room to discuss foreign politics and to chant psalms inthe dark. He had the head of an agnostic and the heart of an orthodoxJew.
It was late in the afternoon when Vladimir reached home. His father wasin the library, which was also his office, conversing with hiscopyist--a dapper little man whom his employer described as "an artisticpenman and an artistic fool." The windows were open. The room wasfilled with twilight and with warm air that seemed to be growing softerand more genial every minute.
"Is that you, Volodia?" the old man asked.
Volodia only nodded. It was easy to see that he was dejected. His fatherbecame interested and dismissed the clerk.
"Anything the matter, Volodia?" he asked.
"Nothing is the matter." An answer of this sort usually indicated thatthe young man was burning to unbosom himself of something or other andthat he needed some coaxing to do so. Intellectually the mutualrelations of father and son were of a rather peculiar nature. Eachlooked up to the other and courted his approbation without the otherbeing aware of it. Their discussions often had the character of anepigram-match.
When Volodia had told his father of his experience at the house of thelame princess, the old man said:
"I see you are quite excited over it. As for me, that pennilessspendthrift reminds me of the pig that mistook the nobleman's backyardfor the interior of his mansion. The backyard was all the pig had seenof the place, and money-lenders are the only kind of Jews that lamedrone has ever had an occasion to know. That she should mistake ahandful of usurers for the whole Jewish people is the most natural thingin the world."
"Oh, but they are all like that, father. Unfortunately the Jewish peopleare just the opposite of women in this respect. Women have a knack offlaunting all that is prepossessing and of concealing that which isunattractive in them. If the Gentiles see none but the worst Jews thereare we have ourselves to blame."
"But they don't care to see any other Jews. As a rule, the good Jew hasno money to lend. They have no use for him. More than half of ourpeople are hard-working mechanics on the verge of starvation. Do youexpect an ornament like your Princess Chertogoff and her precious sonsto make _their_ acquaintance? Of the rest the great majority arestarving tradesmen, teachers, Talmudists, dreamers. Would you have aGentile reprobate go to these for a loan?"
Vladimir sat silent awhile, gazing through the open window at thethickening dusk. Then he said, listlessly at first, but gathering ardourfrom the relish he took in his own point:
"You are as unjust to the good Gentiles as they are to the good Jews.What is needed is more understanding between the two. If the dreamersand scholars you refer to could speak Russian and looked lessantediluvian than they do the prejudice that every Jew is a money-lenderwould gradually disappear. As it is, Jew and Gentile are like two applesthat come in mutual contact at a point where they are both rotten."
"The Jewish apple was originally sound, Volodia. It's throughassociation with their Gentile neighbours that they have beendemoralised--at the point of contact; our faults are theirs; our virtuesare our own."
"Oh, this is a very one-sided view to take of it, father," Volodiarejoined, resentfully. What he coveted was consolation, not an attack oneverything that he held dear, that was the soul of his best years andambitions. His father's light-hearted derision of the entire Russianpeople irritated him. "If some Jews become demoralised through contactwith Gentile knaves, other Jews are uplifted, ennobled, sanctified bycoming under the influence of the great Russian thinkers, poets, friendsof the people," he went on, emphasising his words with something like afeeling of spite. "Yours is an extremely one-sided view to take,father."
The elder Vigdoroff was cowed. He felt himself convicted ofnarrow-mindedness, of retrogression, of fogyism, and by way ofdisproving the charge he put up a defence that was disguised in the formof an attack. Vladimir replied bitterly, venting his misery on hisfather. The two found themselves on the verge of one of those feudswhich sometimes divided them for days without either having the courageto take the first step toward a reconciliation, but their discussion wasbroken by the appearance of a servant carrying a lamp. She was followedby Vladimir's mother, a mountain of shapeless, trembling flesh with atorpid, wide-eyed look. In the yellow light the family likeness betweenfather and son came pleasingly into view. Only the face of the one had atouch of oriental quaintness in it, while the other's was at oncemellowed and intensified by the tinge of modern culture. Clara's motherwas a sister of the elder Vigdoroff, but she resembled him onlyslightly. The girl's features suggested her uncle far more than they didher mother.
"Never mind the lamp," the Arbitrator said somewhat irately.
"Never mind the lamp!" his wife said, fixing her torpid eyes on him."Are you crazy? Don't mind him"--to the servant girl. The servant girlset the lamp down on the table and withdrew, her big fleshy mistresstaking a seat by her son's side.
"Go about your business," her husband said, good-naturedly. "You aredisturbing our discussion. I was just getting started when you came inand spoiled the job. Go. There may be some beggar-woman waiting for youin the kitchen."
She made a mocking gesture without stirring, and her husband resumed hisargument.
She was one of a very small number of Jewish women who attended divineservice on week-days. She was the game of every woman pedlar and beggarin town, with whom she usually communed when her husband was out. Whennot thus occupied, buying useless bargains or listening to some poorwoman's tale of woe, she would spend much of her time in her big easychair, dozing over a portly psalter. Her husband was perpetuallyquizzing her on her piety and her surreptitious bargains. On Fridays,when beggars came in troops for their pennies, the Arbitrator wouldsometimes divert himself by encouraging some of them to fall into linemore than once.
The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia Page 25