The Grandchildren of the Ghetto Part 7

'But Gideon represents Whitechapel.'

'Certainly; as Sidney Graham says, he represents it very well. But he has made himself unpopular; his name has appeared in print as a guest at City banquets, where the food can't be _kosher_. He has alienated a goodly proportion of the Jewish vote.'

'Well?' said Mr. Goldsmith, still wonderingly.

'Now is the time to bid for his shoes. Raphael Leon is about to establish a new Jewish paper. I was mistaken about that young man. You remember my telling you I had heard he was eccentric, and despite his brilliant career a little touched on religious matters. I naturally supposed his case was like that of one or two other Jewish young men we know, and that he yearned for spirituality, and his remarks at table rather confirmed the impression. But he is worse than that--and I nearly put my foot in it--his craziness is on the score of orthodoxy. Fancy that!--a man who has been to Harrow and Oxford longing for a gaberdine and side-curls! Well, well, live and learn!

What a sad trial for his parents!'

She paused, musing.

'But, Rosetta, what has Raphael Leon to do with my getting into Parliament?'

'Don't be stupid, Henry! Haven't I explained to you that Leon is going to start an orthodox paper which will be circulated among your future const.i.tuents? It's extremely fortunate that we have always kept to our religion. We have a widespread reputation for orthodoxy. We are friends with Leon, and we can get Esther to write for the paper (I could see he was rather struck by her). Through this paper we can keep you and your orthodoxy constantly before the const.i.tuency. The poor people are quite fascinated by the idea of rich Jews like us keeping a strictly _kosher_ table, but the image of a Member of Parliament with phylacteries on his forehead will simply intoxicate them.'

She smiled herself at the image--the smile that always intoxicated Percy Saville.

'You're a wonderful woman, Rosetta,' said Henry, smiling in response with admiring affection and making his incisors more prominent. He drew her head down to him and kissed her lips.

She returned his kiss lingeringly, and they had a flash of that happiness which is born of mutual fidelity and trust.

'Can I do anything for you, mum, afore I go to bed?' said stout old Mary O'Reilly, appearing at the door.

Mary was a privileged person, unappalled even by the butler. Having no relatives, she never took a holiday, and never went out, except to chapel.

'No, Mary, thank you. The dinner was excellent. Good-night, and merry Christmas!'

'Same to you, mum'; and as the unconscious instrument of Henry Goldsmith's candidature turned away, the Christmas bells broke merrily upon the night. The peals fell upon the ears of Raphael Leon, still striding along, casting a gaunt shadow on the h.o.a.r-frosted pavement, but he marked them not: upon Addie, sitting by her bedroom mirror thinking of Sidney speeding to the Christmas dance; upon Esther, turning restlessly on the luxurious eider-down, oppressed by panoramic pictures of the martyrdom of her race. Lying between sleep and waking, especially when her brain had been excited, she had the faculty of seeing wonderful vivid visions, indistinguishable from realities. The martyrs who mounted the scaffold and the stake all had the face of Raphael.

'The mission of Israel' buzzed through her brain. Oh, the irony of history! Here was another life going to be wasted on an illusory dream. The figures of Raphael and her father suddenly came into grotesque juxtaposition. A bitter smile pa.s.sed across her face.

The Christmas bells rang on, proclaiming peace in the name of Him who came to bring a sword into the world.

'Surely,' she thought, 'the people of Christ has been the Christ of peoples.'

And then she sobbed meaninglessly in the darkness.

CHAPTER III

'THE FLAG OF JUDAH'

The call to edit the new Jewish paper seemed to Raphael the voice of Providence. It came just when he was hesitating about his future, divided between the attractions of the ministry, pure Hebrew scholars.h.i.+p, and philanthropy. The idea of a paper destroyed these conflicting claims by comprehending them all. A paper would be at once a pulpit, a medium for organising effective human service, and an incentive to serious study in the preparation of scholarly articles.

The paper was to be the property of the Co-operative Kosher Society, an a.s.sociation originally founded to supply unimpeachable Pa.s.sover cakes. It was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the Rabbinate itself imported its _Motsos_ from abroad. Successful in its first object, the Co-operative Kosher Society extended its operations to more perennial commodities, and sought to save Judaism from dubious cheese and b.u.t.ter, as well as to provide public baths for women in accordance with the precepts of Leviticus.

But these ideals were not so easy to achieve, and so gradually the idea of a paper to preach them to a G.o.dless age formed itself. The members of the Society met in Aaron Schlesinger's back office to consider them. Schlesinger was a cigar-merchant, and the discussions of the Society were invariably obscured by gratuitous smoke.

Schlesinger's junior partner, Lewis De Haan, who also had a separate business as a surveyor, was the soul of the Society, and talked a great deal. He was a stalwart old man, with a fine imagination and figure, boundless optimism, a big biceps, a long venerable white beard, a keen sense of humour, and a versatility which enabled him to turn from the price of real estate to the elucidation of a Talmudical difficulty, and from the consignment of cigars to the organisation of apostolic movements. Among the leading spirits were our old friends Karlkammer the red-haired zealot, Sugarman the Shadchan, and Guedalyah the Greengrocer, together with Gradkoski the scholar, fancy-goods merchant, and man of the world. A furniture-dealer, who was always failing, was also an important personage; while Ebenezer Sugarman, a young man who had once translated a romance from the Dutch, acted as secretary. Melchitzedek Pinchas invariably turned up at the meetings, and smoked Schlesinger's cigars. He was not a member; he had not qualified himself by taking ten pound shares (far from fully paid up), but n.o.body liked to eject him, and no hint less strong than a physical would have moved the poet.

All the members of the council of the Co-operative Kosher Society spoke English volubly, and more or less grammatically, but none had sufficient confidence in the others to propose one of them for editor, though it is possible that none would have shrunk from having a shot.

Diffidence is not a mark of the Jew. The claims of Ebenezer Sugarman and of Melchitzedek Pinchas were put forth most vehemently by Ebenezer and Melchitzedek respectively, and their mutual accusations of incompetence enlivened Mr. Schlesinger's back office.

'He ain't able to spell the commonest English words,' said Ebenezer, with a contemptuous guffaw that sounded like the croak of a raven.

The young litterateur, the sumptuousness of whose _Bar-mitzvah_ party was still a memory with his father, had lank black hair, with a long nose that supported blue spectacles.

'What does he know of the Holy Tongue?' croaked Melchitzedek witheringly, adding in a confidential whisper to the cigar-merchant, 'I and you, Schlesinger, are the only two men in England who can write the Holy Tongue grammatically.'

The little poet was as insinuative and volcanic (by turns) as ever.

His beard was, however, better trimmed, and his complexion healthier, and he looked younger than ten years ago. His clothes were quite spruce. For several years he had travelled about the Continent, mainly at Raphael's expense. He said his ideas came better in touring and at a distance from the unappreciative English Jewry. It was a pity, for with his linguistic genius his English would have been immaculate by this time. As it was, there was a considerable improvement in his writing, if not so much in his accent.

'What do I know of the Holy Tongue!' repeated Ebenezer scornfully.

'Hold yours!'

The committee laughed, but Schlesinger, who was a serious man, said:

'Business, gentlemen, business!'

'Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of _Metatoron's Flames_,' said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly gra.s.shopper. 'You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski, vith his vite tie and his princely income.'

De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet, and tucked him up in the coal-scuttle.

'Yah!' croaked Ebenezer. 'Here's a fine editor. Ho! ho! ho!'

'We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet,'

said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

'I don't see why I should be sacrificed to _'im_. There ain't a man in England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so.

Look at the success of my book, _The Old Burgomaster_, the best Dutch novel ever written. The _St. Pancras Press_ said it reminded them of Lord Lytton--it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one each if you like. And, then, it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too. Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father. You give me this paper to manage, and I'll make your fortunes for you in a twelvemonth; I will, as sure as I stand here.'

Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in resistance of De Haan's brawny hairy hand, which was pressed against his nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda-water expelling its cork.

'You Man-of-the-Earth,' he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle, 'you are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position created by Heaven for me, in this disgraceful country vhere genius starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourself vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper? And vas I not born to be a Redacteur, a editor, as you call it?

Into the paper I vill pour all the fires of my song.'

'Yes, burn it up,' croaked Ebenezer.

'I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I vill be Elijah, and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism.'

He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistband, and readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

'Here, take another cigar, Pinchas,' he said, pa.s.sing Schlesinger's private box as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he admired as a poet, though he could not take him seriously as a man.

The discussion proceeded; the furniture-dealer's counsel was followed.