"So you might, dear," said Addie boldly, and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity.
"Ah, well, I think it'll be quite enough if you change your name," he said, smiling back.
"It's just as easy for me to change it to Abrahams as to Graham," she said with charming obstinacy.
He contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. Then he looked up at the sky-the brilliant color harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence.
"I'll tell you what I will do. Ill join the Asmoneans. There! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices. But you must make a concession to mine. You know how I hate the Jewish canvassing of engagements. Let us keep ours entirely entre nous a fortnight-so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. I wonder why you're so conventional," he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. "You had the advantage of Esther-of Miss Ansell's society."
"Call her Esther if you like; I don't mind," said Addie.
"I wonder Esther didn't convert you," he went on musingly. "But I suppose you had Raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. And so you really don't know what's become of her?"
"Nothing beyond what I wrote to you. Mrs. Goldsmith discovered she had written the nasty book, and sent her packing. I have never liked to broach the subject myself to Mrs. Goldsmith, knowing how unpleasant it must be to her. Raphael's version is that Esther went away of her own accord; but I can't see what grounds he has for judging."
"I would rather trust Raphael's version," said Sidney, with an adumbration of a wink in his left eyelid. "But didn't you look for her?"
"Where? If she's in London, she's swallowed up. If she's gone to another place, it's still more difficult to find her."
"There's the Agony Column!"
"If Esther wanted us to know her address, what can prevent her sending it?" asked Addie, with dignity.
"I'd find her soon enough, if I wanted to," murmured Sidney.
"Yes; but I'm not sure we want to. After all, she cannot be so nice as I thought. She certainly behaved very ungratefully to Mrs. Goldsmith. You see what becomes of wild opinions."
"Addie! Addie!" said Sidney reproachfully, "how can you be so conventional?"
"I'm not conventional!" protested Addie, provoked at last. "I always liked Esther very much. Even now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have her for a bridesmaid. But I can't help feeling she deceived us all."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sidney warmly. "An author has a right to be anonymous. Don't you think I'd paint anonymously if I dared? Only, if I didn't put my name to my things no one would buy them. That's another of the advantages of my profession. Once make your name as an artist, and you can get a colossal income by giving up art."
"It was a vulgar book!" persisted Addie, sticking to the point.
"Fiddlesticks! It was an artistic book-bungled."
"Oh, well!" said Addie, as the tears welled from her eyes, "if you're so fond of unconventional girls, you'd better marry them."
"I would," said Sidney, "but for the absurd restriction against polygamy."
Addie got up with an indignant jerk. "You think I'm a child to be played with!"
She turned her back upon him. His face changed instantly; he stood still a moment, admiring the magnificent pose. Then he recaptured her reluctant hand.
"Don't be jealous already, Addie," he said. "It's a healthy sign of affection, is a storm-cloud, but don't you think it's just a wee, tiny, weeny bit too previous?"
A pressure of the hand accompanied each of the little adjectives. Addie sat down again, feeling deliriously happy. She seemed to be lapped in a great drowsy ecstasy of bliss.
The sunset was fading into sombre grays before Sidney broke the silence; then his train of thought revealed itself.
"If you're so down on Esther, I wonder how you can put up with me! How is it?"
Addie did not hear the question.
"You think I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy," he insisted. "Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?"
"I'm sure tea must be over long ago," said Addie anxiously.
"Answer me," said Sidney inexorably.
"Don't bother. Aren't they cooeying for us?"
"Answer me."
"I do believe that was a water-rat. Look! the water is still eddying."
"I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy. Isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?"
"You are there, too," she breathed at last, and then Sidney forgot her beauty for an instant, and lost himself in unaccustomed humility. It seemed passing wonderful to him-that he should be the deity of such a spotless shrine. Could any man deserve the trust of this celestial soul?
Suddenly the thought that he had not told her about Miss Hannibal after all, gave him a chilling shock. But he rallied quickly. Was it really worth while to trouble the clear depths of her spirit with his turbid past? No; wiser to inhale the odor of the rose at her bosom, sweeter to surrender himself to the intoxicating perfume of her personality, to the magic of a moment that must fade like the sunset, already grown gray.
So Addie never knew.
CHAPTER XV. FROM SOUL TO SOUL.
On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. He was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies of The Flag of Judah in the matter of news, his organization for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little Sampson. Fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of the Flag into mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the opposition paper.
The arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison.
"Ah, Strelitski!" cried Raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. "What an age it is since I've seen you!" He shook the black-gloved hand of the fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden recollection. "I suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion class?" he said; "but I have been so busy. My conscience has kept up a dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. You're such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the sensation, and even I can't understand why one submits to this undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one to. But I suppose it's human nature." He puffed at his pipe in humorous sadness.
"I suppose it is," said Strelitski wearily.
"But of course I'll come. You know that, my dear fellow. When my conscience was noisy, the advocatus diaboli used to silence it by saying, 'Oh, Strelitski'll take it for granted.' You can never catch the advocatus diaboli asleep," concluded Raphael, laughing.
"No," assented Strelitski. But he did not laugh.
"Oh!" said Raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing long. "Perhaps the prize-distribution is over?"
Strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really occurred to Raphael that he might have missed the great event. But before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an event that made "copy," and little Sampson would have arranged with him as to the reporting thereof.
"No; it's Sunday week. But I didn't come to talk about my religion class at all," he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. "I came to ask if you know anything about Miss Ansell."
Raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly;
"How should I know anything about Miss Ansell?"
"I thought you would," said Strelitski, without much disappointment in his tone.
"Why?"
"Wasn't she your art-critic?"
"Who told you that?"
"Oh!" said Raphael.
"I thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as I was passing, I thought I'd drop in and inquire. Hasn't anything been heard of her? Where is she? Perhaps one could help her."
"I'm sorry, I really know nothing, nothing at all," said Raphael gravely. "I wish I did. Is there any particular reason why you want to know?"
As he spoke, a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into his head. He had been looking the whole time at Strelitski's face with his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. Now, as in a sudden flash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. The eyes were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there was a streak or two of gray easily visible against the intense sable. What change had come over him? Why this new-born interest in Esther? Raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with distress at Strelitski's discomposure.
"No; I don't know that there is any particular reason why I want to know," answered his friend slowly. "She was a member of my congregation. I always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge that she was the author of that sensational novel. I think it was cruel of Mrs. Henry Goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the effervescence of genius."
"Who told you Mrs. Henry Goldsmith turned her adrift?" asked Raphael hotly.
"Mrs. Henry Goldsmith," said Strelitski with a slight accent of wonder.
"Then it's a lie!" Raphael exclaimed, thrusting out his arms in intense agitation. "A mean, cowardly lie! I shall never go to see that woman again, unless it is to let her know what I think of her."
"Ah, then you do know something about Miss Ansell?" said Strelitski, with growing surprise. Raphael in a rage was a new experience. There were those who asserted that anger was not among his gifts.
"Nothing about her life since she left Mrs. Goldsmith; but I saw her before, and she told me it was her intention to cut herself adrift. Nobody knew about her authorship of the book; nobody would have known to this day if she had not chosen to reveal it."
The minister was trembling.
"She cut herself adrift?" he repeated interrogatively. "But why?"
"I will tell you," said Raphael in low tones. "I don't think it will be betraying her confidence to say that she found her position of dependence extremely irksome; it seemed to cripple her soul. Now I see what Mrs. Goldsmith is. I can understand better what life in her society meant for a girl like that."
"And what has become of her?" asked the Russian. His face was agitated, the lips were almost white.
"I do not know," said Raphael, almost in a whisper, his voice failing in a sudden upwelling of tumultuous feeling. The ever-whirling wheel of journalism-that modern realization of the labor of Sisyphus-had carried him round without giving him even time to remember that time was flying. Day had slipped into week and week into month, without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken.
"She is quite alone in the world, poor thing!" he said after a pause. "She must be earning her own living, somehow. By journalism, perhaps. But she prefers to live her own life. I am afraid it will be a hard one." His voice trembled again. The minister's breast, too, was laboring with emotion that checked his speech, but after a moment utterance came to him-a strange choked utterance, almost blasphemous from those clerical lips.
"By God!" he gasped. "That little girl!"
He turned his back upon his friend and covered his face with his hands, and Raphael saw his shoulders quivering. Then his own vision grew dim. Conjecture, resentment, wonder, self-reproach, were lost in a new and absorbing sense of the pathos of the poor girl's position.
Presently the minister turned round, showing a face that made no pretence of calm.
"That was bravely done," he said brokenly. "To cut herself adrift! She will not sink; strength will be given her even as she gives others strength. If I could only see her and tell her! But she never liked me; she always distrusted me. I was a hollow windbag in her eyes-a thing of shams and cant-she shuddered to look at me. Was it not so? You are a friend of hers, you know what she felt."
"I don't think it was you she disliked," said Raphael in wondering pity. "Only your office."
"Then, by God, she was right!" cried the Russian hoarsely. "It was this-this that made me the target of her scorn." He tore off his white tie madly as he spoke, threw it on the ground, and trampled upon it. "She and I were kindred in suffering; I read it in her eyes, averted as they were at the sight of this accursed thing! You stare at me-you think I have gone mad. Leon, you are not as other men. Can you not guess that this damnable white tie has been choking the life and manhood out of me? But it is over now. Take your pen, Leon, as you are my friend, and write what I shall dictate."
Silenced by the stress of a great soul, half dazed by the strange, unexpected revelation, Raphael seated himself, took his pen, and wrote:
"We understand that the Rev. Joseph Strelitski has resigned his position in the Kensington Synagogue."
Not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm his soul.
"But you will not do this?" he said, looking up almost incredulously at the popular minister.
"I will; the position has become impossible. Leon, do you not understand? I am not what I was when I took it. I have lived, and life is change. Stagnation is death. Surely you can understand, for you, too, have changed. Cannot I read between the lines of your leaders?"
"Cannot you read in them?" said Raphael with a wan smile. "I have modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but I have disguised none."
"Not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought."
"Perhaps I do not listen to it," said Raphael, half to himself. "But you-whatever your change-you have not lost faith in primaries?"
"No; not in what I consider such."
"Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good? You are loved, venerated."
Strelitski placed his palms over his ears.
"Don't! don't!" he cried. "Don't you be the advocatus diaboli! Do you think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times? Do you think I have not tried every kind of opiate? No, no, be silent if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am I not weak enough already? Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper. Saturday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday-in six days I shall change a hundred times. Swear to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended. Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel it."
"But-" began Raphael.
Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.
"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "Leon, listen to me," he said, turning round suddenly. "Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the Shulcan Aruch (a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres." He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. "How can Judaism-and it alone-escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent-which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive-while they kill Judaism."
"Oh, I can't quite admit that," said Raphael. "I admit that
scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism Purified-and your own sermons are doing something to purify it-orthodoxy-"
"Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words," interrupted Strelitski vehemently. "Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern."
"But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. Ceremony is the casket of religion."
"More often its coffin," said Strelitski drily. "Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a rigor mortis. It is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and Pharisees. All cast-iron laws and dogmas do. Not that I share the Christian sneer at Jewish legalism. Add the Statute Book to the New Testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the Christian. No; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy. The Mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it."
"That is just the flaw of the modern world, to keep life and religion apart," protested Raphael; "to have one set of principles for week-days and another for Sundays; to grind the inexorable mechanism of supply and demand on pagan principles, and make it up out of the poor-box."
Strelitski shook his head.
"We must make broad our platform, not our phylacteries. It is because I am with you in admiring the Rabbis that I would undo much of their work. Theirs was a wonderful statesmanship, and they built wiser than they knew; just as the patient labors of the superstitious zealots who counted every letter of the Law preserved the text unimpaired for the benefit of modern scholarship. The Rabbis constructed a casket, if you will, which kept the jewel safe, though at the cost of concealing its lustre. But the hour has come now to wear the jewel on our breasts before all the world. The Rabbis worked for their time-we must work for ours. Judaism was before the Rabbis. Scientific criticism shows its thoughts widening with the process of the suns-even as its God, Yahweh, broadened from a local patriotic Deity to the ineffable Name. For Judaism was worked out from within-Abraham asked, 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'-the thunders of Sinai were but the righteous indignation of the developed moral consciousness. In every age our great men have modified and developed Judaism. Why should it not be trimmed into concordance with the culture of the time? Especially when the alternative is death. Yes, death! We babble about petty minutiae of ritual while Judaism is dying! We are like the crew of a sinking ship, holy-stoning the deck instead of being at the pumps. No, I must speak out; I cannot go on salving my conscience by unsigned letters to the press. Away with all this anonymous apostleship!"
Children of the Ghetto Page 55