The Rise of David Levinsky (65 page)

At last I thought I saw my opportunity. It was an evening in April. According to the Jewish calendar it was the first Passover night, when Israel’s liberation from the bondage of Egypt is commemorated by a feast and a family reunion which form the greatest event in the domestic life of our people.

Two years before, when I was engaged to Fanny, I deeply regretted not being able to spend the great evening at her father’s table. This time I was an invited guest at the Tevkins’. They were not a religious family by any means. Tevkin had been a free-thinker since his early manhood, and his wife, the daughter of the Jewish Ingersoll, had been born and bred in an atmosphere of aggressive atheism. And so religious faith never had been known in their house. Of late years, however—that is, since Tevkin had espoused the cause of Zionism or nationalism—he had insisted on the Passover feast every year. He contended that to him it was not a religious ceremony, but merely a “national custom,” but about this his children were beginning to have their doubts. It seemed to them that the older their father grew the less sure he was of his free thought. They suspected that he was getting timid about it, fearful of the hereafter. As a rule, they saw only the humorous side of the change that was apparently coming over him, but sometimes they would awaken to the pathos of it.

As we all sat in the library, waiting to be called to the great feast, he delivered himself of a witticism at the expense of the prospective ceremony.

“You needn’t take his atheism seriously, Mr. Levinsky,” said Anna, the sound of my name on her lips sending a thrill of delight through me. “ ‘Way down at the bottom of his heart father is getting to be really religious, I’m afraid.” And, as though taking pity on him, she crossed over to where he sat and nestled up to him in a manner that put a choking sensation into my throat and filled me with an impulse to embrace them both.

At last the signal was given and we filed down into the dining-room. A long table, flanked by two rows of chairs, with a sofa, instead of the usual arm-chair, at its head, was set with bottles of wine, bottles of mead, wine-glasses, and little piles of matzos (thin, flat cakes of unleavened bread). The sofa was cushioned with two huge Russian pillows, inclosed in fresh white cases, for the master of the house to lean on, in commemoration of the freedom and ease which came to the Children of Israel upon their deliverance from Egypt. Placed on three covered matzos, within easy reach of the master, were a shank bone, an egg, some horseradish, salt water, and a mush made of nuts and wine. These were symbols, the shank bone being a memorial of the paschal lamb, and the egg of the other sacrifices brought during the festival in ancient times, while the horseradish and the salt water represented the bitter work that the Sons of Israel had to do for Pharaoh, and the mush the lime and mortar from which they made brick for him. A small book lay in front of each seat. That was the Story of the Deliverance, in the ancient Hebrew text, accompanied by an English translation.

Moissey, the uncompromising atheist and Internationalist, was demonstratively absent, much to the distress of his mother and resentment of his father. His Biblical-looking wife was at the table. So were Elsie and Emil. They were as uncompromising in their atheism as Moissey, but they had consented to attend the quaint supper to please their parents. As to Anna, Sasha, and George, each of them had his or her socialism “diluted” with some species of nationalism, so they were here as a matter of principle, their theory being that the Passover feast was one of the things that emphasized the unity of the Jews of all countries. But even they, and even Tevkin himself, treated it all partly as a joke. In the case of the poet, however, it was quite obvious that his levity was pretended. For all his jesting and frivolity, he looked nervous. I could almost see the memories of his childhood days which the scene evoked in his mind. I could feel the solemnity that swelled his heart. It appeared that this time he had decided to add to the ceremony certain features which he had foregone on the previous few Passover festivals he had observed. He was now bent upon having a Passover feast service precisely like the one he had seen his father conduct, not omitting even the white shroud which his father had worn on the occasion. As a consequence, several of these details were a novel sight to his children. A white shroud lay ready for him on his sofa, and as he slipped it on, with smiles and blushes, there was an outburst of mirth.

“Oh, daddy!” Anna shouted.

“Father looks like a Catholic priest,” said Emil.

“Don’t say that, Emil,” I rebuked him.

Fun was made of the big white pillows upon which Tevkin leaned, “king-like,” and of the piece of unleavened bread which he “hid” under them for Gracie to “steal.”

As he raised the first of the Four Cups of wine he said, solemnly, with an effort of shaking off all pretense of flippancy:

“Well, let us raise our glasses. Let us drink the First Cup.”

We all did so, and he added, “This is the Fourth of July of our unhappy people.”

After the glasses were drained and refilled he said: “Scenes like this bind us to the Jews of the whole world, and not only to those living, but to the past generations as well. This is no time for speaking of the Christian religion, but as I look at this wine an idea strikes me which I cannot help submitting: The Christians drink wine, imagining that it is the blood of Jesus. Well, the wine we are drinking to-night reminds me of the martyr blood of our massacred brethren of all ages.”

Anna gave me a merry wink. I felt myself one of the family. I was in the seventh heaven. She seemed to be particularly attentive to me this evening.

“I shall speak to her to-night,” I decided. “I sha’n’t wait another day.” And the fact that she was a nationalist and not an unqualified socialist, like Elsie, for instance, seemed to me a new source of encouragement.

I was in a quiver of blissful excitement.

The Four Questions are usually asked by the youngest son, but Emil, the Internationalist, could not be expected to take an active part in the ceremony, so Sasha, the Zionist, took his place. Sasha, however, did not read Hebrew, and old Tevkin had to be content with having the Four Questions read in English, the general answer to them being given by Tevkin and myself in Hebrew. It reminded me of an operatic performance in which the part of Faust, for instance, is sung in French, while that of Margarita is performed in some other language. We went on with the Story of the Deliverance. Tevkin made frequent pauses to explain and comment upon the text, often with a burst of oratory. Mrs. Tevkin and some of the children were obviously bored. Gracie pleaded hunger.

Finally the end of the first part of the story was reached and supper was served. It was a typical Passover supper, with matzo balls, and it was an excellent repast. Everybody was talkative and gay. I addressed some remarks to Anna, and she received them all cordially.

By way of attesting her recognition of Passover as a “national holiday” she was in festive array, wearing her newest dress, a garment of blue taffeta embroidered in old rose, with a crêpe collar of gray. It mellowed the glow of her healthful pink complexion. She was the most beautiful creature at the table, excluding neither her picturesque younger brother nor her majestic old mother. She shone. She flooded my soul with ecstasy.

Tevkin’s religion was Judaism, Zionism. Mine was Anna.

The second half of the story is usually read with less pomp and circumstance than the first, many a passage in it being often skipped altogether. So Tevkin dismissed us all, remaining alone at the table to chant the three final ballads, which he had characterized to his children as “charming bits of folk-lore.”

When Mrs. Tevkin, the children, and myself were mounting the stairs leading up from the dining-room, I was by Anna’s side, my nerves as taut as those of a soldier waiting for the command to charge. I charged sooner than I expected.

“Sasha asked the Four Questions,” I found myself saying. “There is one question which I should like to ask of you, Miss Tevkin.”

I said it so simply and at a moment so little suited to a proposal of marriage that the trend of my words was lost upon her.

“Something about Jewish nationalism?” she asked.

“About that and about something else.”

We were passing through the hallway now. When we entered the library I took her into a corner, and before we were seated I said:

“Well, my question has really nothing to do with nationalism. It’s quite another thing I want to ask of you. Don’t refuse me. Marry me. Make me happy.”

She listened like one stunned.

“I am terribly in love with you,” I added.

“Oh!” she then exclaimed. Her delicate pink skin became a fiery red. She looked down and shook her head with confused stiffness.

“I see you’re taken aback. Take a seat; get your bearings,” I said, lightly, pulling up a chair that stood near by, “and say,‘Yes.’ ”

“Why, that’s impossible!” she said, with an awkward smile, without seating herself. “ I need not tell you that I have long since changed my mind about you—”

“I am no more repellent, am I?” I jested.

“No. Not at all,” she returned, with another smile. “But what you say is quite another thing. I am very sorry, indeed.”

She made to move away from me, but I checked her.

“That does not discourage me,” I said. “I’ll just go on loving you and waiting for a favorable answer. You are still unjust to me. You don’t know me well enough. Anyhow, I can’t give you up. I won’t give you up.” (“That’s it,” I thought. “I am speaking like a man of firm purpose.”) “I am resolved to win you.”

“Oh, that’s entirely out of the question,” she said, with a gesture of impatience and finality. And, bursting into tears of child-like indignation, she added: “Father assured me you would never hint at such a thing—never. If you mean to persist, then—”

The sentence was left eloquently unfinished. She turned away, walked over to her mother and took a seat by her side, like a little girl mutely seeking her mamma’s protection.

The room seemed to be in a whirl. I felt the cold perspiration break out on my forehead. I was conscious of Mrs. Tevkin’s and Elsie’s glances. I was sick at heart. Anna’s bitter resentment was a black surprise to me. I had a crushing sense of final defeat.

BOOK XIV

EPISODES OF A LONELY LIFE

I
T was a severe blow. It caused me indescribable suffering.

It would not have been unnatural to attribute my fiasco to my age. Had I been ten years younger, Anna’s attitude toward me might have been different. But this point of view I loathed to accept. Instead, I put the blame on Anna’s environment. “I was in the ‘enemy’s country’ there,” I would muse. “The atmosphere around her was against me.”

I hated the socialists with a novel venom.

Finally I pulled myself together. Then it was that I discovered the real condition of my affairs. I had gone into those speculations far deeper than I could afford. There were indications that made me seriously uneasy. Things were even worse than Bender imagined. Ruin stared me in the face. I was panic-stricken.

One day I had the head of a large woolen concern lunch with me in a private dining-room of a well-known hotel. He was dignifiedly steel-gray and he had the appearance of a college professor or successful physician rather than of a business man. He liked me. I had long been one of his most important customers and I had always sought to build up a good record with him. For example: other cloak-manufacturers would exact allowances for merchandise that proved to have some imperfection. I never do so. It is the rule of my house never to put in a claim for such things. In the majority of cases the goods can be cut so as to avoid any loss of material, and if it cannot, I will sustain the small loss rather than incur the mill’s disfavor. In the long run it pays. And so this cloth merchant was well disposed toward me. He had done me some favors before. He addressed me as Dave. (There was a note of condescension as well as of admiration in this “Dave” of his. It implied that I was a shrewd fellow and an excellent customer, singularly successful and reliable, but that I was his inferior, all the same—a Jew, a social pariah. At the bottom of my heart I considered myself his superior, finding an amusing discrepancy between his professorial face and the crudity of his intellectual interests; but he was a Gentile, and an American, and a much wealthier man than I, so I looked up to him.)

To make my appeal as effective as possible I initiated him into the human side of my troubles. I told him of my unfortunate courtship as well as of the real-estate ventures into which it had led me.

He was interested and moved, and, as he had confidence in me, he granted my request at once.

“It’s all right, Dave,” he said, slapping my back, a queer look in his eye. “You can always count on me. Only throw that girl out of your mind.”

I grasped his hand silently. I wanted to say something, but the words stuck in my throat.

He helped me out of my difficulties and I devoted myself to the cloak business with fresh energy. The agonies of my love for Anna were more persistent than those I had suffered after I moved out of Dora’s house. But, somehow, instead of interfering with my business activities, these agonies stimulated them. I was like the victim of a toothache who seeks relief in hard work. I toiled day and night, entering into the minutest detail of the business and performing duties that were ordinarily left to some inferior employee.

Business was good. Things went humming. Bender, who now had an interest in my factory, was happy.

Some time later the same woolen man who had come to my assistance did me another good turn, one that brought me a rich harvest of profits. A certain weave was in great vogue that season, the demand far exceeding the output, and it so happened that the mill of the man with the professorial face was one of the very few that produced that fabric. So he let me have a much larger supply of it than any other cloak-manufacturer in the country was able to obtain. My business then took a great leap, while my overhead expenses remained the same. My net profits exceeded two hundred thousand dollars that year.