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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 11. The Purim Ball |
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_ BOOK I. CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO CHAPTER XI. THE PURIM BALL Sam Levine duly returned for the Purim ball. Malka was away and so it was safe to arrive on the Sabbath. Sam and Leah called for Hannah in a cab, for the pavements were unfavorable to dancing shoes, and the three drove to the "Club," which was not a sixth of a mile off. "The Club" was the People's Palace of the Ghetto; but that it did not reach the bed-rock of the inhabitants was sufficiently evident from the fact that its language was English. The very lowest stratum was of secondary formation--the children of immigrants--while the highest touched the lower middle-class, on the mere fringes of the Ghetto. It was a happy place where young men and maidens met on equal terms and similar subscriptions, where billiards and flirtations and concerts and laughter and gay gossip were always on, and lemonade and cakes never off; a heaven where marriages were made, books borrowed and newspapers read. Muscular Judaism was well to the fore at "the Club," and entertainments were frequent. The middle classes of the community, overflowing with artistic instinct, supplied a phenomenal number of reciters, vocalists and instrumentalists ready to oblige, and the greatest favorites of the London footlights were pleased to come down, partly because they found such keenly appreciative audiences, and partly because they were so much mixed up with the race, both professionally and socially. There were serious lectures now and again, but few of the members took them seriously; they came to the Club not to improve their minds but to relax them. The Club was a blessing without disguise to the daughters of Judah, and certainly kept their brothers from harm. The ball-room, with its decorations of evergreens and winter blossoms, was a gay sight. Most of the dancers were in evening dress, and it would have been impossible to tell the ball from a Belgravian gathering, except by the preponderance of youth and beauty. Where could you match such a bevy of brunettes, where find such blondes? They were anything but lymphatic, these oriental blondes, if their eyes did not sparkle so intoxicatingly as those of the darker majority. The young men had carefully curled moustaches and ringlets oiled like the Assyrian bull, and figure-six noses, and studs glittering on their creamy shirt-fronts. How they did it on their wages was one of the many miracles of Jewish history. For socially and even in most cases financially they were only on the level of the Christian artisan. These young men in dress-coats were epitomes of one aspect of Jewish history. Not in every respect improvements on the "Sons of the Covenant," though; replacing the primitive manners and the piety of the foreign Jew by a veneer of cheap culture and a laxity of ceremonial observance. It was a merry party, almost like a family gathering, not merely because most of the dancers knew one another, but because "all Israel are brothers"--and sisters. They danced very buoyantly, not boisterously; the square dances symmetrically executed, every performer knowing his part; the waltzing full of rhythmic grace. When the music was popular they accompanied it on their voices. After supper their heels grew lighter, and the laughter and gossip louder, but never beyond the bounds of decorum. A few Dutch dancers tried to introduce the more gymnastic methods in vogue in their own clubs, where the kangaroo is dancing master, but the sentiment of the floor was against them. Hannah danced little, a voluntary wallflower, for she looked radiant in tussore silk, and there was an air of refinement about the slight, pretty girl that attracted the beaux of the Club. But she only gave a duty dance to Sam, and a waltz to Daniel Hyams, who had been brought by his sister, though he did not boast a swallow-tail to match her flowing draperies. Hannah caught a rather unamiable glance from pretty Bessie Sugarman, whom poor Daniel was trying hard not to see in the crush. "Is your sister engaged yet?" Hannah asked, for want of something to say. "You would know it if she was," said Daniel, looking so troubled that Hannah reproached herself for the meaningless remark. "How well she dances!" she made haste to say. "Not better than you," said Daniel, gallantly. "I see compliments are among the fancy goods you deal in. Do you reverse?" she added, as they came to an awkward corner. "Yes--but not my compliments," he said smiling. "Miriam taught me." "She makes me think of Miriam dancing by the Red Sea," she said, laughing at the incongruous idea. "She played a timbrel, though, didn't she?" he asked. "I confess I don't quite know what a timbrel is." "A sort of tambourine, I suppose," said Hannah merrily, "and she sang because the children of Israel were saved." They both laughed heartily, but when the waltz was over they returned to their individual gloom. Towards supper-time, in the middle of a square dance, Sam suddenly noticing Hannah's solitude, brought her a tall bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction and rushed back to the arms of the exacting Leah. "Excuse me, I am not dancing to-night," Hannah said coldly in reply to the stranger's demand for her programme. "Well, I'm not half sorry," he said, with a frank smile. "I had to ask you, you know. But I should feel quite out of place bumping such a lot of swells." There was something unusual about the words and the manner which impressed Hannah agreeably, in spite of herself. Her face relaxed a little as she said: "Why, haven't you been to one of these affairs before?" "Oh yes, six or seven years ago, but the place seems quite altered. They've rebuilt it, haven't they? Very few of us sported dress-coats here in the days before I went to the Cape. I only came back the other day and somebody gave me a ticket and so I've looked in for auld lang syne." An unsympathetic hearer would have detected a note of condescension in the last sentence. Hannah detected it, for the announcement that the young man had returned from the Cape froze all her nascent sympathy. She was turned to ice again. Hannah knew him well--the young man from the Cape. He was a higher and more disagreeable development of the young man in the dress-coat. He had put South African money in his purse--whether honestly or not, no one inquired--the fact remained he had put it in his purse. Sometimes the law confiscated it, pretending he had purchased diamonds illegally, or what not, but then the young man did _not_ return from the Cape. But, to do him justice, the secret of his success was less dishonesty than the opportunities for initiative energy in unexploited districts. Besides, not having to keep up appearances, he descended to menial occupations and toiled so long and terribly that he would probably have made just as much money at home, if he had had the courage. Be this as it may, there the money was, and, armed with it, the young man set sail literally for England, home and beauty, resuming his cast-off gentility with several extra layers of superciliousness. Pretty Jewesses, pranked in their prettiest clothes, hastened, metaphorically speaking, to the port to welcome the wanderer; for they knew it was from among them he would make his pick. There were several varieties of him--marked by financial ciphers--but whether he married in his old station or higher up the scale, he was always faithful to the sectarian tradition of the race, and this less from religious motives than from hereditary instinct. Like the young man in the dress-coat, he held the Christian girl to be cold of heart, and unsprightly of temperament. He laid it down that all Yiddishe girls possessed that warmth and _chic_ which, among Christians, were the birthright of a few actresses and music-hall artistes--themselves, probably, Jewesses! And on things theatrical this young man spoke as one having authority. Perhaps, though he was scarce conscious of it, at the bottom of his repulsion was the certainty that the Christian girl could not fry fish. She might be delightful for flirtation of all degrees, but had not been formed to make him permanently happy. Such was the conception which Hannah had formed for herself of the young man from the Cape. This latest specimen of the genus was prepossessing into the bargain. There was no denying he was well built, with a shapely head and a lovely moustache. Good looks alone were vouchers for insolence and conceit, but, backed by the aforesaid purse--! She turned her head away and stared at the evolutions of the "Lancers" with much interest. "They've got some pretty girls in that set," he observed admiringly. Evidently the young man did not intend to go away. Hannah felt very annoyed. "Yes," she said, sharply, "which would you like?" "I shouldn't care to make invidious distinctions," he replied with a little laugh. "Odious prig!" thought Hannah. "He actually doesn't see I'm sitting on him!" Aloud she said, "No? But you can't marry them all." "Why should I marry any?" he asked in the same light tone, though there was a shade of surprise in it. "Haven't you come back to England to get a wife? Most young men do, when they don't have one exported to them in Africa." He laughed with genuine enjoyment and strove to catch the answering gleam in her eyes, but she kept them averted. They were standing with their backs to the wall and he could only see the profile and note the graceful poise of the head upon the warm-colored neck that stood out against the white bodice. The frank ring of his laughter mixed with the merry jingle of the fifth figure-- "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to be an exception," he said. "You think nobody good enough, perhaps," she could not help saying. "Oh! Why should you think that?" "Perhaps you're married already." "Oh no, I'm not," he said earnestly. "You're not, either, are you?" "Me?" she asked; then, with a barely perceptible pause, she said, "Of course I am." The thought of posing as the married woman she theoretically was, flashed upon her suddenly and appealed irresistibly to her sense of fun. The recollection that the nature of the ring on her finger was concealed by her glove afforded her supplementary amusement. "Oh!" was all he said. "I didn't catch your name exactly." "I didn't catch yours," she replied evasively. "David Brandon," he said readily. "It's a pretty name," she said, turning smilingly to him. The infinite possibilities of making fun of him latent in the joke quite warmed her towards him. "How unfortunate for me I have destroyed my chance of getting it." It was the first time she had smiled, and he liked the play of light round the curves of her mouth, amid the shadows of the soft dark skin, in the black depths of the eyes. "How unfortunate for me!" he said, smiling in return. "Oh yes, of course!" she said with a little toss of her head. "There is no danger in saying that now." "I wouldn't care if there was." "It is easy to smooth down the serpent when the fangs are drawn," she laughed back. "What an extraordinary comparison!" he exclaimed. "But where are all the people going? It isn't all over, I hope." "Why, what do you want to stay for? You're not dancing." "That is the reason. Unless I dance with you." "And then you would want to go?" she flashed with mock resentment. "I see you're too sharp for me," he said lugubriously. "Roughing it among the Boers makes a fellow a bit dull in compliments." "Dull indeed!" said Hannah, drawing herself up with great seriousness. "I think you're more complimentary than you have a right to be to a married woman." His face fell. "Oh, I didn't mean anything," he said apologetically. "So I thought," retorted Hannah. The poor fellow grew more red and confused than ever. Hannah felt quite sympathetic with him now, so pleased was she at the humiliated condition to which she had brought the young man from the Cape. "Well, I'll say good-bye," he said awkwardly. "I suppose I mustn't ask to take you down to supper. I dare say your husband will want that privilege." "I dare say," replied Hannah smiling. "Although husbands do not always appreciate their privileges." "I shall be glad if yours doesn't," he burst forth. "Thank you for your good wishes for my domestic happiness," she said severely. "Oh, why will you misconstrue everything I say?" he pleaded. "You must think me an awful _Schlemihl_, putting my foot into it so often. Anyhow I hope I shall meet you again somewhere." "The world is very small," she reminded him. "I wish I knew your husband," he said ruefully. "Why?" said Hannah, innocently. "Because I could call on him," he replied, smiling. "Well, you do know him," she could not help saying. "Do I? Who is it? I don't think I do," he exclaimed. "Well, considering he introduced you to me!" "Sam!" cried David startled. "Yes." "But--" said David, half incredulously, half in surprise. He certainly had never credited Sam with the wisdom to select or the merit to deserve a wife like this. "But what?" asked Hannah with charming _naivete_. "He said--I--I--at least I think he said--I--I--understood that he introduced me to Miss Solomon, as his intended wife." Solomon was the name of Malka's first husband, and so of Leah. "Quite right," said Hannah simply. "Then--what--how?" he stammered. "She _was_ his intended wife," explained Hannah as if she were telling the most natural thing in the world. "Before he married me, you know." "I--I beg your pardon if I seemed to doubt you. I really thought you were joking." "Why, what made you think so?" "Well," he blurted out. "He didn't mention he was married, and seeing him dancing with her the whole time--" "I suppose he thinks he owes her some attention," said Hannah indifferently. "By way of compensation probably. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he takes her down to supper instead of me." "There he is, struggling towards the buffet. Yes, he has her on his arm." "You speak as if she were his phylacteries," said Hannah, smiling. "It would be a pity to disturb them. So, if you like, you can have me on your arm, as you put it." The young man's face lit up with pleasure, the keener that it was unexpected. "I am very glad to have such phylacteries on my arm, as you put it," he responded. "I fancy I should be a good deal _froomer_ if my phylacteries were like that." "What, aren't you _frooms_?" she said, as they joined the hungry procession in which she noted Bessie Sugarman on the arm of Daniel Hyams. "No, I'm a regular wrong'un," he replied. "As for phylacteries, I almost forget how to lay them." "That _is_ bad," she admitted, though he could not ascertain her own point of view from the tone. "Well, everybody else is just as bad," he said cheerfully. "All the old piety seems to be breaking down. It's Purim, but how many of us have been to hear the--the what do you call it?--the _Megillah_ read? There is actually a minister here to-night bare-headed. And how many of us are going to wash our hands before supper or _bensh_ afterwards, I should like to know. Why, it's as much as can be expected if the food's _kosher_, and there's no ham sandwiches on the dishes. Lord! how my old dad, God rest his soul, would have been horrified by such a party as this!" "Yes, it's wonderful how ashamed Jews are of their religion outside a synagogue!" said Hannah musingly. "_My_ father, if he were here, would put on his hat after supper and _bensh_, though there wasn't another man in the room to follow his example." "And I should admire him for it," said David, earnestly, "though I admit I shouldn't follow his example myself. I suppose he's one of the old school." "He is Reb Shemuel," said Hannah, with dignity. "Oh, indeed!" he exclaimed, not without surprise, "I know him well. He used to bless me when I was a boy, and it used to cost him a halfpenny a time. Such a jolly fellow!" "I'm so glad you think so," said Hannah flushing with pleasure. "Of course I do. Does he still have all those _Greeners_ coming to ask him questions?" "Oh, yes. Their piety is just the same as ever." "They're poor," observed David. "It's always those poorest in worldly goods who are richest in religion." "Well, isn't that a compensation?" returned Hannah, with a little sigh. "But from my father's point of view, the truth is rather that those who have most pecuniary difficulties have most religious difficulties." "Ah, I suppose they come to your father as much to solve the first as the second." "Father is very good," she said simply. They had by this time obtained something to eat, and for a minute or so the dialogue became merely dietary. "Do you know," he said in the course of the meal, "I feel I ought not to have told you what a wicked person I am? I put my foot into it there, too." "No, why?" "Because you are Reb Shemuel's daughter." "Oh, what nonsense! I like to hear people speak their minds. Besides, you mustn't fancy I'm as _froom_ as my father." "I don't fancy that. Not quite," he laughed. "I know there's some blessed old law or other by which women haven't got the same chance of distinguishing themselves that way as men. I have a vague recollection of saying a prayer thanking God for not having made me a woman." "Ah, that must have been a long time ago," she said slyly. "Yes, when I was a boy," he admitted. Then the oddity of the premature thanksgiving struck them both and they laughed. "You've got a different form provided for you, haven't you?" he said. "Yes, I have to thank God for having made me according to His will." "You don't seem satisfied for all that," he said, struck by something in the way she said it. "How can a woman be satisfied?" she asked, looking up frankly. "She has no voice in her destinies. She must shut her eyes and open her mouth and swallow what it pleases God to send her." "All right, shut your eyes," he said, and putting his hand over them he gave her a titbit and restored the conversation to a more flippant level. "You mustn't do that," she said. "Suppose my husband were to see you." "Oh, bother!" he said. "I don't know why it is, but I don't seem to realize you're a married woman." "Am I playing the part so badly as all that?" "Is it a part?" he cried eagerly. She shook her head. His face fell again. She could hardly fail to note the change. "No, it's a stern reality," she said. "I wish it wasn't." It seemed a bold confession, but it was easy to understand. Sam had been an old school-fellow of his, and David had not thought highly of him. He was silent a moment. "Are you not happy?" he said gently. "Not in my marriage." "Sam must be a regular brute!" he cried indignantly. "He doesn't know how to treat you. He ought to have his head punched the way he's going on with that fat thing in red." "Oh, don't run her down," said Hannah, struggling to repress her emotions, which were not purely of laughter. "She's my dearest friend." "They always are," said David oracularly. "But how came you to marry him?" "Accident," she said indifferently. "Accident!" he repeated, open-eyed. "Ah, well, it doesn't matter," said Hannah, meditatively conveying a spoonful of trifle to her mouth. "I shall be divorced from him to-morrow. Be careful! You nearly broke that plate." David stared at her, open-mouthed. "Going to be divorced from him to-morrow?" "Yes, is there anything odd about it?" "Oh," he said, after staring at her impassive face for a full minute. "Now I'm sure you've been making fun of me all along." "My dear Mr. Brandon, why will you persist in making me out a liar?" He was forced to apologize again and became such a model of perplexity and embarrassment that Hannah's gravity broke down at last and her merry peal of laughter mingled with the clatter of plates and the hubbub of voices. "I must take pity on you and enlighten you," she said, "but promise me it shall go no further. It's only our own little circle that knows about it and I don't want to be the laughing-stock of the Lane." "Of course I will promise," he said eagerly. She kept his curiosity on the _qui vive_ to amuse herself a little longer, but ended by telling him all, amid frequent exclamations of surprise. "Well, I never!" he said when it was over. "Fancy a religion in which only two per cent. of the people who profess it have ever heard of its laws. I suppose we're so mixed up with the English, that it never occurs to us we've got marriage laws of our own--like the Scotch. Anyhow I'm real glad and I congratulate you." "On what?" "On not being really married to Sam." "Well, you're a nice friend of his, I must say. I don't congratulate myself, I can tell you." "You don't?" he said in a disappointed tone. She shook her head silently. "Why not?" he inquired anxiously. "Well, to tell the truth, this forced marriage was my only chance of getting a husband who wasn't pious. Don't look so puzzled. I wasn't shocked at your wickedness--you mustn't be at mine. You know there's such a lot of religion in our house that I thought if I ever did get married I'd like a change." "Ha! ha! ha! So you're as the rest of us. Well, it's plucky of you to admit it." "Don't see it. My living doesn't depend on religion, thank Heaven. Father's a saint, I know, but he swallows everything he sees in his books just as he swallows everything mother and I put before him in his plate--and in spite of it all--" She was about to mention Levi's shortcomings but checked herself in time. She had no right to unveil anybody's soul but her own and she didn't know why she was doing that. "But you don't mean to say your father would forbid you to marry a man you cared for, just because he wasn't _froom_?" "I'm sure he would." "But that would be cruel." "He wouldn't think so. He'd think he was saving my soul, and you must remember he can't imagine any one who has been taught to see its beauty not loving the yoke of the Law. He's the best father in the world--but when religion's concerned, the best-hearted of mankind are liable to become hard as stone. You don't know my father as I do. But apart from that, I wouldn't marry a man, myself, who might hurt my father's position. I should have to keep a _kosher_ house or look how people would talk!" "And wouldn't you if you had your own way?" "I don't know what I would do. It's so impossible, the idea of my having my own way. I think I should probably go in for a change, I'm so tired--so tired of this eternal ceremony. Always washing up plates and dishes. I dare say it's all for our good, but I _am_ so tired." "Oh, I don't see much difficulty about _Koshers_. I always eat _kosher_ meat myself when I can get it, providing it's not so beastly tough as it has a knack of being. Of course it's absurd to expect a man to go without meat when he's travelling up country, just because it hasn't been killed with a knife instead of a pole-axe. Besides, don't we know well enough that the folks who are most particular about those sort of things don't mind swindling and setting their houses on fire and all manner of abominations? I wouldn't be a Christian for the world, but I should like to see a little more common-sense introduced into our religion; it ought to be more up to date. If ever I marry, I should like my wife to be a girl who wouldn't want to keep anything but the higher parts of Judaism. Not out of laziness, mind you, but out of conviction." David stopped suddenly, surprised at his own sentiments, which he learned for the first time. However vaguely they might have been simmering in his brain, he could not honestly accuse himself of having ever bestowed any reflection on "the higher parts of Judaism" or even on the religious convictions apart from the racial aspects of his future wife. Could it be that Hannah's earnestness was infecting him? "Oh, then you _would_ marry a Jewess!" said Hannah. "Oh, of course," he said in astonishment. Then as he looked at her pretty, earnest face the amusing recollection that she _was_ married already came over him with a sort of shock, not wholly comical. There was a minute of silence, each pursuing a separate train of thought. Then David wound up, as if there had been no break, with an elliptical, "wouldn't you?" Hannah shrugged her shoulders and elevated her eyebrows in a gesture that lacked her usual grace. "Not if I had only to please myself," she added. "Oh, come! Don't say that," he said anxiously. "I don't believe mixed marriages are a success. Really, I don't. Besides, look at the scandal!" Again she shrugged her shoulders, defiantly this time. "I don't suppose I shall ever get married," she said. "I never could marry a man father would approve of, so that a Christian would be no worse than an educated Jew." David did not quite grasp the sentence; he was trying to, when Sam and Leah passed them. Sam winked in a friendly if not very refined manner. "I see you two are getting on all right." he said. "Good gracious!" said Hannah, starting up with a blush. "Everybody's going back. They _will_ think us greedy. What a pair of fools we are to have got into such serious conversation at a ball." "Was it serious?" said David with a retrospective air. "Well, I never enjoyed a conversation so much in my life." "You mean the supper," Hannah said lightly. "Well, both. It's your fault that we don't behave more appropriately." "How do you mean?" "You won't dance." "Do you want to?" "Rather." "I thought you were afraid of all the swells." "Supper has given me courage." "Oh, very well if you want to, that's to say if you really can waltz." "Try me, only you must allow for my being out of practice. I didn't get many dances at the Cape, I can tell you." "The Cape!" Hannah heard the words without making her usual grimace. She put her hand lightly on his shoulder, he encircled her waist with his arm and they surrendered themselves to the intoxication of the slow, voluptuous music. _ |
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