Other Things Being Equal Part 31

"Nothing; but to Ruth, much. That is part of the bar-sinister between you. Possibly your sense of refinement has never been offended in my family; but there are many families, people we visit and love, who, though possessing all the substrata of goodness, have never been moved to cast off the surface thorns that would p.r.i.c.k your good taste as sharply as any physical pain. This, of course, is not because they are Jews, but because they lack refining influences in their surroundings.

We look for and excuse these signs; many Christians take them as the inevitable marks of the race, and without looking further, conclude that a cultured Jew is an impossibility."

"Mr. Levice, I am but an atom in the Christian world, and you who number so many of them among your friends should not make such sweeping a.s.sertions. The world is narrow-minded; individuals are broader."

"True; but I speak of the majority, who decide the vote, and by whom my child would be, without doubt, ostracized. This only by your people; by ours it would be worse,--for she will have raised a terrible barrier by renouncing her religion."

"I shall never renounce my religion, Father."

"Such a marriage would mean only that to the world; and so you would be cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they rightfully belong to where they are not wanted."

"Sir," interrupted Kemp, "allow me to show you wherein such a state of affairs would, if it should happen, be of no consequence. The friends we care for and who care for us will not drop off if we remain unchanged.

Because I love your daughter and she loves me, and because we both desire our love to be honored in the sight of G.o.d and man, wherein have we erred? We shall still remain the same man and woman."

"Unhappily the world would not think so."

"Then let them hold to their bigoted opinion; it is valueless, and having each other, we can dispense with them."

"You speak in the heat of pa.s.sion; and at such a time it would be impossible to make you understand the honeymoon of life is made up of more than two, and a third being inimical can make it wretched. The knowledge that people we respect hold aloof from us is bitter."

"But such knowledge," interrupted Ruth's sweet voice, "would be robbed of all bitterness when surrounded and hedged in by all that we love."

Her father looked in surprise at the brave face raised so earnestly to his.

"Very well," he responded; "count the world as nothing. You have just said, my Ruth, that you would not renounce your religion. How could that be when you have a Christian husband who would not renounce his?"

"I should hope he would not; I should have little respect for any man who would give up his sacred convictions because I have come into his life. As for my religion, I am a Jewess, and will die one. My G.o.d is fixed and unalterable; he is one and indivisible; to divide his divinity would be to deny his omnipotence. As to forms, you, Father, have bred in me a contempt for all but a few. Sat.u.r.day will always be my Sabbath, no matter what convention would make me do. We have decided that writing or sewing or pleasuring, since it hurts no one, is no more a sin on that day than on another; to sit with idle hands and gossip or slander is more so. But on that day my heart always holds its Sabbath; this is the force of custom. Any day would do as well if we were used to it,--for who can tell which was the first and which the seventh counting from creation? On our New Year I should still feel that a holy cycle of time had pa.s.sed; but I live only according to one record of time, and my New Year falls always on the 1st of January. Atonement is a sacred day to me; I could not desecrate it. Our services are magnificently beautiful, and I should feel like a culprit if debarred from their holiness. As to fasting, you and I have agreed that any physical punishment that keeps our thoughts one moment from G.o.d, and puts them on the feast that is to come, is mere sham and pretence. After these, Father, wherein does our religion show itself?"

"Surely," he replied with some bitterness, "we hold few Jewish rites.

Well, and so you think you can keep these up? And you, Dr. Kemp?"

Dr. Kemp had been listening attentively while Ruth spoke. His eyes kindled brightly as he answered,--

"Why should she not? If all her orisons have made her as beautiful, body and soul, as she is to me, what is to prevent her from so continuing?

And if my wife would permit me to go with her upon her holidays to your beautiful Temple, no one would listen more reverently than I. Loving her, what she finds wors.h.i.+pful could find nothing but respect in me."

Plainly Mr. Levice had forgotten the wellspring that was to enrich their lives; but he perceived that some impregnable armor encased them that made every shot of his harmless.

"I can understand," he ventured, "that no gentleman with self-respect would, at least outwardly, show disrespect for any person's religion.

You, Doctor, might even come to regard with awe a faith that has withstood everything and has never yet been sneered at, however its followers have been persecuted. Many of its minor forms are slowly dying out and will soon be remembered only historically; this history belongs to every one."

"Certainly. Let us, however, stick to the point in question. You are a man who has absorbed the essence of his religion, and cast off most of its unnecessary externals. You have done the same for my--for your daughter. This distinguishes you. If I were to say the characteristic has never been unbeautiful in my eyes, I should be excusing what needs no excuse. Now, sir, I, in turn, am a Christian broadly speaking; more formally, a Unitarian. Our faiths are not widely divergent. We are both liberal; otherwise marriage between us might be a grave experiment. As to forms, for me they are a show, but for many they are a necessity,--a sort of moral backbone without which they might fall. Sunday is to me a day of rest if my patients do not need me. I enjoy hearing a good sermon by any n.o.ble, broad-minded man, and go to church not only for that, but for the pleasure of having my spiritual tendencies given a gentle stirring up. There is one holiday that I keep and love to keep; that is Christmas."

"And I honor you for it; but loving this day of days, looking for sympathy for it from all you meet, how will it be when in your own home the wife whom you love above all others stands coldly by and watches your feelings with no answering sympathy? Will this not breed dissension, if not in words, at least in spirit? Will you not feel the want and resent it?"

Dr. Kemp was silent. The question was a telling one and required thought; therefore he was surprised when Ruth answered for him. Her quiet voice carried no sense of hysteric emotion, but one of grave grace.

She addressed her father; each had refrained from appealing to the other. The situation in the light of their new, great love was strained and unnatural.

"I should endeavor that he should feel no lack," she said; "for so far as Christmas is concerned, I am a Christian also."

"I do not understand." Her father's lips were dry, his voice husky.

"Ever since I have been able to judge," explained the girl, quietly, "Christ has been to me the loveliest and one of the best men that ever lived. You yourself, Father, admire and reverence his life."

"Yes?" His eyes were half closed as if in pain; he motioned to her to continue.

"And so, in our study, he was never anything but what was great and good. Later, when I had read his 'Sermon on the Mount,' I grew to see that what he preached was beautiful. It did not change my religion; it made me no less a Jewess in the true sense, but helped me to gentleness.

To me he became the embodiment of Love in the highest,--Love perfect, but warm and human; human Love so glorious that it needs no divinity to augment its power over us. He was G.o.d's attestation, G.o.d's symbol of what Man might be. As a teacher of brotherly love, he is sublime. So I may call myself a christian, though I spell it with a small letter. It is right that such a man's birthday should be remembered with love; it shows what a sweet power his name is, when, as that time approaches, everybody seems to love everybody better. Feeling so, would it be wrong for me to partic.i.p.ate in my husband's actions on that day?"

She received no answer. She looked only at her father with loving earnestness, and the look of adoration Kemp bent upon her was quite lost.

"Would this be wrong, Father?" she urged.

He straightened himself in his chair as if under a load. His dark, sallow face seemed to have grown worn and more haggard.

"I have always imagined myself just and liberal in opinion," he responded; "I have sought to make you so. I never thought you could leap thus far. It were better had I left you to your mother. Wrong? No; you would be but giving your real feelings expression. But such an expression would grieve--Pardon; I am to consider your happiness." He seemed to swallow something, and hastily continued: "While we are still on this subject, are you aware, my child, that you could not be married by a Jewish rabbi?"

She started perceptibly.

"I should love to be married by Doctor C----." As she p.r.o.nounced the grand old rabbi's name, a tone of reverential love accompanied it.

"I know. But you would have to take a justice as a subst.i.tute."

"A Unitarian minister would be breaking no law in uniting us, and I think would not object to do so; that is, of course, if you had no objection." The doctor looked at him questioningly. Levice answered by turning to Ruth. She pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead.

"Do you think," she asked, "that after a ceremony had been performed, Dr. C---- would bless us? As a friend, would he have to refuse?"

"He would be openly sanctioning a marriage which according to the rabbinical law is no marriage at all. Do you think he would do this, notwithstanding his friends.h.i.+p for you?" returned her father. They both looked at him intently.

"Ah, well," she answered, throwing back her head, a half-smile coming to her pale lips, "it is but a sentiment, and I could forego it, I suppose.

One must give up little things sometimes for great."

"Yes; and this would be but the first. My children, there is something radically wrong when we have to overlook and excuse so much before marriage. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;' and why should we add trouble to days already burdened before they come?"

"We should find all this no trouble," said Kemp; "and what is to trouble us after? We have now the wherewithal for our happiness; what, in G.o.d's name, do you ask for more?"

"As I have said, Dr. Kemp, we are an earnest people. Marriage is a step not entered into lightly. Divorce, for this reason, is seldom heard of with us, and for this reason we have few unhappy marriages. We know beforehand what we have to expect from every quarter. No question I have put would be necessary with a Jew. His ways are ours, and, with few exceptions, a woman has nothing but happiness to expect from him. How am I sure of this with you? In a moment of anger this difference of faith may be flung in each other's teeth, and what then?"

"You mean you cannot trust me."

The quiet, forceful words were accompanied by no sign of emotion. His deep eyes rested as respectfully as ever upon the old gentleman's face.

But the attack was a hard one upon Levice. A vein on his temple sprang into blue prominence as he quickly considered his answer.

"I trust you, sir, as one gentleman would trust another in any undertaking; but I have not the same knowledge of what to expect from you as I should have from any Jew who would ask for my daughter's hand."

"I understand that," admitted the other; "but a few minutes ago you imputed a possibility to me that would be an impossibility to any gentleman. You may have heard of such happenings among some, but an event of that kind would be as removed from us as the meeting of the poles. Everything depends on the parties concerned."

"Besides, Father," added Ruth, her sweet voice full with feeling, "when one loves greatly, one is great through love. Can true married love ever be divided and sink to this?"