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Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People, a novel by Israel Zangwill |
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Book 1. Children Of The Ghetto - Chapter 10. A Silent Family |
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_ BOOK I. CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO CHAPTER X. A SILENT FAMILY Sugarman the _Shadchan_ arrived one evening a few days before Purim at the tiny two-storied house in which Esther's teacher lived, with little Nehemiah tucked under his arm. Nehemiah wore shoes and short red socks. The rest of his legs was bare. Sugarman always carried him so as to demonstrate this fact. Sugarman himself was rigged out in a handsome manner, and the day not being holy, his blue bandanna peeped out from his left coat-tail, instead of being tied round his trouser band. "Good morning, marm," he said cheerfully. "Good morning, Sugarman," said Mrs. Hyams. She was a little careworn old woman of sixty with white hair. Had she been more pious her hair would never have turned gray. But Miriam had long since put her veto on her mother's black wig. Mrs. Hyams was a meek, weak person and submitted in silence to the outrage on her deepest instincts. Old Hyams was stronger, but not strong enough. He, too, was a silent person. "P'raps you're surprised," said Sugarman, "to get a call from me in my sealskin vest-coat. But de fact is, marm, I put it on to call on a lady. I only dropped in here on my vay." "Won't you take a chair?" said Mrs. Hyams. She spoke English painfully and slowly, having been schooled by Miriam. "No, I'm not tired. But I vill put Nechemyah down on one, if you permit. Dere! Sit still or I _potch_ you! P'raps you could lend me your corkscrew." "With pleasure," said Mrs. Hyams. "I dank you. You see my boy, Ebenezer, is _Barmitzvah_ next _Shabbos_ a veek, and I may not be passing again. You vill come?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Hyams hesitatingly. She was not certain whether Miriam considered Sugarman on their visiting list. "Don't say dat, I expect to open dirteen bottles of lemonade! You must come, you and Mr. Hyams and the whole family." "Thank you. I will tell Miriam and Daniel and my husband." "Dat's right. Nechemyah, don't dance on de good lady's chair. Did you hear, Mrs. Hyams, of Mrs. Jonas's luck?" "No." "I won her eleven pounds on the lotter_ee_." "How nice," said Mrs. Hyams, a little fluttered. "I would let you have half a ticket for two pounds." "I haven't the money." "Vell, dirty-six shillings! Dere! I have to pay dat myself." "I would if I could, but I can't." "But you can have an eighth for nine shillings." Mrs. Hyams shook her head hopelessly. "How is your son Daniel?" Sugarman asked. "Pretty well, thank you. How is your wife?" "Tank Gawd!" "And your Bessie?" "Tank Gawd! Is your Daniel in?" "Yes." "Tank Gawd! I mean, can I see him?" "It won't do any good." "No, not dat," said Sugarman. "I should like to ask him to de Confirmation myself." "Daniel!" called Mrs. Hyams. He came from the back yard in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, soap-suds drying on his arms. He was a pleasant-faced, flaxen-haired young fellow, the junior of Miriam by eighteen months. There was will in the lower part of the face and tenderness in the eyes. "Good morning, sir," said Sugarman. "My Ebenezer is _Barmitzvah_ next _Shabbos_ week; vill you do me the honor to drop in wid your moder and fader after _Shool_?" Daniel crimsoned suddenly. He had "No" on his lips, but suppressed it and ultimately articulated it in some polite periphrasis. His mother noticed the crimson. On a blonde face it tells. "Don't say dat," said Sugarman. "I expect to open dirteen bottles of lemonade. I have lent your good moder's corkscrew." "I shall be pleased to send Ebenezer a little present, but I can't come, I really can't. You must excuse me." Daniel turned away. "Vell," said Sugarman, anxious to assure him he bore no malice. "If you send a present I reckon it de same as if you come." "That's all right," said Daniel with strained heartiness. Sugarman tucked Nehemiah under his arm but lingered on the threshold. He did not know how to broach the subject. But the inspiration came. "Do you know I have summonsed Morris Kerlinski?" "No," said Daniel. "What for?" "He owes me dirty shillings. I found him a very fine maiden, but, now he is married, he says it was only worth a suvran. He offered it me but I vouldn't take it. A poor man he vas, too, and got ten pun from a marriage portion society." "Is it worth while bringing a scandal on the community for the sake of ten shillings? It will be in all the papers, and _Shadchan_ will be spelt shatcan, shodkin, shatkin, chodcan, shotgun, and goodness knows what else." "Yes, but it isn't ten shillings," said Sugarman. "It's dirty shillings." "But you say he offered you a sovereign." "So he did. He arranged for two pun ten. I took the suvran--but not in full payment." "You ought to settle it before the Beth-din," said Daniel vehemently, "or get some Jew to arbitrate. You make the Jews a laughing-stock. It is true all marriages depend on money," he added bitterly, "only it is the fashion of police court reporters to pretend the custom is limited to the Jews." "Vell, I did go to Reb Shemuel," said Sugarman "I dought he'd be the very man to arbitrate." "Why?" asked Daniel. "Vy? Hasn't he been a _Shadchan_ himself? From who else shall we look for sympaty?" "I see," said Daniel smiling a little. "And apparently you got none." "No," said Sugarman, growing wroth at the recollection. "He said ve are not in Poland." "Quite true." "Yes, but I gave him an answer he didn't like," said Sugarman. "I said, and ven ve are not in Poland mustn't ve keep _none_ of our religion?" His tone changed from indignation to insinuation. "Vy vill you not let me get _you_ a vife, Mr. Hyams? I have several extra fine maidens in my eye. Come now, don't look so angry. How much commission vill you give me if I find you a maiden vid a hundred pound?" "The maiden!" thundered Daniel. Then it dawned upon him that he had said a humorous thing and he laughed. There was merriment as well as mysticism in Daniel's blue eyes. But Sugarman went away, down-hearted. Love is blind, and even marriage-brokers may be myopic. Most people not concerned knew that Daniel Hyams was "sweet on" Sugarman's Bessie. And it was so. Daniel loved Bessie, and Bessie loved Daniel. Only Bessie did not speak because she was a woman and Daniel did not speak because he was a man. They were a quiet family--the Hyamses. They all bore their crosses in a silence unbroken even at home. Miriam herself, the least reticent, did not give the impression that she could not have husbands for the winking. Her demands were so high--that was all. Daniel was proud of her and her position and her cleverness and was confident she would marry as well as she dressed. He did not expect her to contribute towards the expenses of the household--though she did--for he felt he had broad shoulders. He bore his father and mother on those shoulders, semi-invalids both. In the bold bad years of shameless poverty, Hyams had been a wandering metropolitan glazier, but this open degradation became intolerable as Miriam's prospects improved. It was partly for her sake that Daniel ultimately supported his parents in idleness and refrained from speaking to Bessie. For he was only an employe in a fancy-goods warehouse, and on forty-five shillings a week you cannot keep up two respectable establishments. Bessie was a bonnie girl and could not in the nature of things be long uncaught. There was a certain night on which Daniel did not sleep--hardly a white night as our French neighbors say; a tear-stained night rather. In the morning he was resolved to deny himself Bessie. Peace would be his instead. If it did not come immediately he knew it was on the way. For once before he had struggled and been so rewarded. That was in his eighteenth year when he awoke to the glories of free thought, and knew himself a victim to the Moloch of the Sabbath, to which fathers sacrifice their children. The proprietor of the fancy goods was a Jew, and moreover closed on Saturdays. But for this anachronism of keeping Saturday holy when you had Sunday also to laze on, Daniel felt a hundred higher careers would have been open to him. Later, when free thought waned (it was after Daniel had met Bessie), although he never returned to his father's narrowness, he found the abhorred Sabbath sanctifying his life. It made life a conscious voluntary sacrifice to an ideal, and the reward was a touch of consecration once a week. Daniel could not have described these things, nor did he speak of them, which was a pity. Once and once only in the ferment of free thought he had uncorked his soul, and it had run over with much froth, and thenceforward old Mendel Hyams and Beenah, his wife, opposed more furrowed foreheads to a world too strong for them. If Daniel had taken back his words and told them he was happier for the ruin they had made of his prospects, their gait might not have been so listless. But he was a silent man. "You will go to Sugarman's, mother," he said now. "You and father. Don't mind that I'm not going. I have another appointment for the afternoon." It was a superfluous lie for so silent a man. "He doesn't like to be seen with us," Beenah Hyams thought. But she was silent. "He has never forgiven my putting him to the fancy goods," thought Mendel Hyams when told. But he was silent. It was of no good discussing it with his wife. Those two had rather halved their joys than their sorrows. They had been married forty years and had never had an intimate moment. Their marriage had been a matter of contract. Forty years ago, in Poland, Mendel Hyams had awoke one morning to find a face he had never seen before on the pillow beside his. Not even on the wedding-day had he been allowed a glimpse of his bride's countenance. That was the custom of the country and the time. Beenah bore her husband four children, of whom the elder two died; but the marriage did not beget affection, often the inverse offspring of such unions. Beenah was a dutiful housewife and Mendel Hyams supported her faithfully so long as his children would let him. Love never flew out of the window for he was never in the house. They did not talk to each other much. Beenah did the housework unaided by the sprig of a servant who was engaged to satisfy the neighbors. In his enforced idleness Mendel fell back on his religion, almost a profession in itself. They were a silent couple. At sixty there is not much chance of a forty year old silence being broken on this side of the grave. So far as his personal happiness was concerned, Mendel had only one hope left in the world--to die in Jerusalem. His feeling for Jerusalem was unique. All the hunted Jew in him combined with all the battered man to transfigure Zion with the splendor of sacred dreams and girdle it with the rainbows that are builded of bitter tears. And with it all a dread that if he were buried elsewhere, when the last trump sounded he would have to roll under the earth and under the sea to Jerusalem, the rendezvous of resurrection. Every year at the Passover table he gave his hope voice: "Next year in Jerusalem." In her deepest soul Miriam echoed this wish of his. She felt she could like him better at a distance. Beenah Hyams had only one hope left in the world--to die. _ |
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