Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 37

The beggar caught it neatly. "Herr Landlord," said he, "another gla.s.s of your excellent whisky!" And, raising it to his lips when it came, "Brother, here's to our partners.h.i.+p."

"What, none for me?" cried Maimon, crestfallen.

"Not till you had begged for it," chuckled the _Schnorrer_. "You have had your first lesson. Herr Landlord, yet another gla.s.s of your excellent whisky!"

And so the philosopher, whose brain was always twisting and turning the universe and taking it to pieces, started wandering about Germany with the beggar whose thoughts were bounded by his paunch. They exploited but a small area, and with smaller success than either had antic.i.p.ated. Though now and then they were flush, there was never a regular meal; and too often they had to make s.h.i.+ft with mouldly bread and water, and to lie on stale straw, and even on the bare earth.

"You don't curse enough," the beggar often protested.

"But why should one curse a man who refuses one's request?" the philosopher would persist. "Besides, he is embittered thereby, and only the more likely to refuse."

"Cork your philosophy, curse you!" the beggar would cry. "How often am I to explain to you that cursing terrifies people."

"Not at all," Maimon would mutter, terrified.

"No? What is Religion, but Fear?"

"False religion, if you will. But true religion, as Maimonides says, is the attainment of perfection through the knowledge of G.o.d and the imitation of His actions."

Nevertheless, when they begged together, Maimon produced an inarticulate whine that would do either for a plea or a curse. When he begged alone, all the glib formulae he had learnt from the _Schnorrer_ dried up on his tongue. But his silence pleaded more pitifully than his speech. For he was barefooted and almost naked. Yet amid all these untoward conditions his mind kept up its interminable twisting and turning of the universe; that acute a.n.a.lysis for which centuries of over-subtlety had prepared the Polish Jew's brain, and which was now for the first time applied scientifically to the actual world instead of fantastically to the Bible. And it was perhaps when he was lying on the bare earth that the riddle of existence--twinkling so defiantly in the stars--tortured him most keenly.

Thus pa.s.sed half a year. Maimon had not learnt to beg, nor had the beggar acquired the rudiments of morality. How often the philosopher longed for his old friend Lapidoth--the grave-digger's son-in-law--to talk things over with, instead of this carnal vagabond. They had been poverty-stricken enough, those two, but oh! how differently they had taken the position. He remembered how merrily Lapidoth had pinned his dropped-off sleeve to the back of his coat, crying, "Don't I look like a _Schlachziz_ (n.o.bleman)?" and how he in return had vaunted the superiority of his gaping shoes: "They don't squeeze at the toes." How they had played the cynic, he and the grave-digger's son-in-law, turning up with remorseless spade the hollow bones of human virtue! As convincedly as synagogue-elders sought during fatal epidemics for the secret sins of the congregation, so had they two striven to uncover the secret sinfulness of self-deceived righteousness.

"Bad self-a.n.a.lysis is the foundation of contentment," Lapidoth had summed it up one day, as they lounged on the town-wall.

To which Maimon: "Then, friend, why are we so content to censure others? Let us be fair and pa.s.s judgment on ourselves. But the contemplative life we lead is merely the result of indolence, which we gloss over by reflections on the vanity of all things. We are content with our rags. Why? Because we are too lazy to earn better. We reproach the unscholarly as futile people addicted to the pleasures of sense. Why? Because, not being const.i.tuted like you and me, they live differently. Where is our superiority, when we merely follow our inclination as they follow theirs? Only in the fact that we confess this truth to ourselves, while they profess to act, not to satisfy their particular desires, but for the general utility."

"Friend," Lapidoth had replied, deeply moved, "you are perfectly right. If we cannot now mend our faults, we will not deceive ourselves about them, but at least keep the way open for amendment."

So they had encouraged each other to clearer vision and n.o.bler living.

And from such companions.h.i.+p to have fallen to a _Schnorrer's_! Oh, it was unendurable.

But he endured it till harvest-time came round, bringing with it the sacred season of New Year and Atonement, and the long chilly nights.

And then he began to feel tremors of religion and cold.

As they crouched together in outhouses, the beggar snoozing placidly in a stout blouse, the philosopher s.h.i.+vering in tatters, Maimon saw his degradation more lucidly than ever. They had now turned their steps towards Poland, every day bringing Maimon nearer to the redeeming influence of early memories, and it was when sleeping in the Jewish poorhouse at Posen--the master of which eked out his livelihood honorably as a jobbing tailor--that Maimon at length found strength to resolve on a breach. He would throw himself before the synagogue door, and either die there or be relieved. When his companion awoke and began to plan out the day's campaign, "No, I dissolve the partners.h.i.+p," said he firmly.

"But how are you going to live, you good-for-nothing?" asked his astonished comrade, "you who cannot even beg."

"G.o.d will help," Maimon said stolidly.

"G.o.d help you!" said the beggar.

Maimon went off to the school-room. The master was away, and a noisy rabble of boys ceased their games or their studies to question the tatterdemalion, and to make fun of his Lithuanian accent--his _s_'s for _sh_'s. Nothing abashed, the philosopher made inquiries after an old friend of his who, he fortunately recollected, had gone to Posen as the Chief Rabbi's secretary. The news that the Chief Rabbi had proceeded to another appointment, taking with him his secretary, reduced him to despair. A gleam of hope broke when he learnt that the secretary's boy had been left behind in Posen with Dr. Hirsch Janow, the new Chief Rabbi.

And in the event this boy brought salvation. He informed Dr. Hirsch Janow that a great scholar and a pious man was accidentally fallen into miserable straits; and lo! in a trice the good-hearted man had sent for Maimon, sounded his scholars.h.i.+p and found it plumbless, approved of his desire to celebrate the sacred festivals in Posen, given him all the money in his pockets--the indurated beggar accepted it without a blush--invited him to dine with him every Sabbath, and sent the boy with him to procure him "a respectable lodging."

As he left the house that afternoon, Maimon could not help overhearing the high-pitched reproaches of the Rabbitzin (Rabbi's wife).

"There! You've again wasted my housekeeping money on sc.u.m and riff-raff. We shall never get clear of debt."

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" said the Rabbi gently. "If he hears you, you will wound the feelings of a great scholar. The money was given to me to distribute."

"That story has a beard," snapped the Rabbitzin.

"He is a great saint," the boy told Maimon on the way. "He fasts every day of the week till nightfall, and eats no meat save on Sabbath. His salary is small, but everybody loves him far and wide; he is named 'the keen scholar.'" Maimon agreed with the general verdict. The gentle emaciated saint had touched old springs of religious feeling, and brought tears of more than grat.i.tude to his eyes.

His soul for a moment felt the appeal of that inner world created by Israel's heart, that beautiful world of tenderest love and sternest law, wherein The-Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He (who has chosen Israel to preach holiness among the peoples), mystically enswathed with praying-shawl and phylacteries, prays to Himself, "May it be My will that My pity overcome My wrath."

And what was his surprise at finding himself installed, not in some mean garret, but in the study of one of the leading Jews of the town.

The climax was reached when he handed some coppers to the housewife, and asked her to get him some gruel for supper.

"Nay, nay," said the housewife, smiling. "The Chief Rabbi has not recommended us to sell you gruel. My husband and my son are both scholars, and so long as you choose to tarry at Posen they will be delighted if you will honor our table."

Maimon could scarcely believe his ears; but the evidence of a sumptuous supper was irrefusable. And after that he was conducted to a clean bed! O the luxurious ache of stretching one's broken limbs on melting feathers! the nestling ecstasy of dainty-smelling sheets after half a year of outhouses!

It was the supreme felicity of his life. To wallow in such a wave of happiness had never been his before, was never to be his again.

Shallow pates might prate, he told himself, but what pleasure of the intellect could ever equal that of the senses? Could it possibly pleasure him as much even to fulfil his early Maimonidean ideal--the attainment of Perfection? Perpending which problem, the philosopher fell deliciously asleep.

Late, very late, the next morning he dragged himself from his snug coc.o.o.n, and called, in response to a summons, upon his benefactor.

"Well, and how do you like your lodging?" said the gentle Rabbi.

Maimon burst into tears. "I have slept in a bed!" he sobbed, "I have slept in a bed!"

Two days later, clad--out of the Rabbitzin's housekeeping money--in full rabbinical vestments, with clean linen beneath, the metamorphosed Maimon, cheerful of countenance, and G.o.dly of mien, presented himself at the poorhouse, where the tailor and his wife, as well as his whilom mate--all of them acquainted with his good fortune--expected him with impatience. The sight of him transported them. The poor mother took her babe in her arms, and with tears in her eyes begged the Rabbi's blessings; the beggar besought his forgiveness for his rough treatment, and asked for an alms.

Maimon gave the little one his blessing, and the _Schnorrer_ all he had in his pocket, and went back deeply affected.

Meantime his fame had spread: all the scholars of the town came to see and chop theology with this ill.u.s.trious travelling Rabbi. He became a tutor in a wealthy family: his learning was accounted superhuman, and he himself almost divine. A doubt he expressed as to the healthiness of a consumptive-looking child brought him at her death the honors of a prophet. Disavowal was useless: a new prophet had arisen in Israel.

And so two happy years pa.s.sed--honorably enough, unless the philosopher's forgetfulness of his family be counted against him. But little by little his restless brain and body began to weary of these superst.i.tious surroundings.

It began to leak out that he was a heretic: his rare appearances in the synagogue were noted; daring sayings of his were darkly whispered; Persecution looked to its weapons.

Maimon's recklessness was whetted in its turn. At the entrance to the Common Hall in Posen there had been, from time immemorial, a stag-horn fixed into the wall, and an equally immemorial belief among the Jews that whoso touched it died on the spot. A score of stories in proof were hurled at the scoffing Maimon. And so, pa.s.sing the stag-horn one day, he cried to his companions: "You Posen fools, do you think that any one who touches this horn dies on the spot? See, I dare to touch it."

Their eyes, dilating with horror, followed his sacrilegious hand. They awaited the thud of his body. Maimon walked on, smiling.

What had he proved to them? Only that he was a hateful heretic, a profaner of sanctuaries.

The wounded fanaticism that now shadowed him with its hatred provoked him to answering excesses. The remnant of religion that clung, despite himself, to his soul, irritated him. Would not further culture rid him of the incubus? His dream of Berlin revived. True, bigotry barked there too, but culture went on its serene course. The fame and influence of Mendelssohn had grown steadily, and it was now at its apogee, for Lessing had written _Nathan Der Weise_, and in the tempest that followed its production, and despite the ban placed on the play and its author in both Catholic and Protestant countries, the most fanatical Christian foes of the bold freelance could not cry that the character was impossible.

For there--in the very metropolis--lived the Sage himself, the David to the dramatist's Jonathan, the member of the Coffee-House of the Learned, the friend of Prince Lippe-Schaumberg, the King's own Protected Jew, in every line of whose countenance Lavater kept insisting the unprejudiced phrenologist might read the soul of Socrates.

And he, Maimon, no less blessed with genius, what had he been doing, to slumber so long on these soft beds of superst.i.tion and barbarism, deaf to that early call of Truth, that youthful dream of Knowledge?

Yes, he would go back to Berlin, he would shake off the clinging mists of the Ghetto, he would be the pioneer of his people's emanc.i.p.ation.

His employers had remained throughout staunch admirers of his intellect. But despite every protest he bade them farewell, and purchasing a seat on the Frankfort post with his scanty savings set out for Berlin. No mendicity committees lay in wait for the prosperous pa.s.senger, and as the coach pa.s.sed through the Rosenthaler gate, the brave sound of the horn seemed to Maimon at once a flourish of triumph over Berlin and of defiance to superst.i.tion and ignorance.