Against the Current Part 6

"This is the refuge of criminals and while it is not a safe one as far as the law is concerned, it is a good salve for one's conscience. At sixteen I went on the road, ostensibly looking for work, but I was looking at life. I discovered that the Germans, whom my father had told me to hate, had been taught by their fathers to hate me. Patriotism is an artificial virtue.

"At Bamberg I was thrown into jail, and a common woman was arrested with me. When I came out of jail she was waiting for me. She gave me a pocketbook with five marks in it. She had stolen it--for me. I did not take it and I did not go with her. She wept and tore her hair; she said she loved me.

"A harlot who sells herself for money to many men is no worse than the woman who sells herself to one man.

"I did not go with her because I could not match her devotion. After all, there is something in love; it sobered me.

"I went to work with a Jewish baker. He did not get drunk and he did not beat his wife; when he looked at her his face beamed and he was kind to her always. She was sick and he carried her to her bed as if she were a baby--her body was shrivelled. It wasn't l.u.s.t he felt, perhaps it was pity. He told me she had been sick since their only child was born.

Miriam was sixteen years of age and pity does not last sixteen years. It must have been something better than pity.

"Miriam was growing into womanhood. It seemed that every day I saw her she grew lovelier. Yet I never thought about her body; it was her mind.

She taught me how to read German--she opened the doors of a new world to me. We read many good books together. She told me to go to the theatre.

I saw Romeo and Juliet.

"It was not Miriam's mind after all--it was something else. I know it was not her body--I desired something more. I loved her.

"I spoke to her father--he told me that I could not marry her for I was a Christian. I went to the rabbi. I wanted to be a Jew so I could marry her.

"It is hard to get into Judaism. I wonder whether it is hard to get out?

"A little drop of water makes a man a Christian no matter what he was.

The Jews want blood.

"I was willing to give it but the baker journeymen heard about it and I was called before the guild. They drowned my love with beer. They awakened the beast within me. I became like my father--'_Bestia Sum._'

"In the year 1865 war broke out and I, as an Austrian subject, was sent across the border. I was drafted into the army and taught how to kill the Prussians. That was all I seemed good for, and I did it as fast as the Prussians would let me. They had better guns and were sober; they had generals, we had the Hapsburghs.

"The Hapsburghs said, 'Let them come in,' and the generals came. Then the Hapsburghs said: 'We'll drive them out,' but they didn't. This was our last stand and we capitulated. I have stayed here ever since.

"I have capitulated to the Germans, to force and to reason. I shall never capitulate to the priest and to the church."

But he did.

XV

THE AMERICANS

The town was looking up indeed; progress, that ceaseless traveller, who seems to skip continents and countries while appearing in remote towns or villages, came to us out of the same land from which had come coal-oil lamps, sewing-machines and the three-quarters of a man.

One day there alighted from the omnibus a man and his family, consisting of his wife, two sons and one daughter. When the man had shaken his cramped body into shape, he began to abuse the driver of the omnibus, the town and the country; while with a mighty oath composed of the hottest words taken from various tongues, he declared that he would send the omnibus to the sc.r.a.p heap, the owner of that wretched vehicle to the poorhouse, and the driver to jail. Thinking over it now in my maturer years, I realize that they richly deserved his anathemas, although at that time, in common with our townsfolk, I thought the man presumptuous in criticizing this ark of ours, with its leather-covered body and the mud-bespattered lettering which declared in three languages that it was an omnibus and that it connected our town with the far-away railroad, which it reached in time to catch the mixed train for Vienna. It did not set forth that it rarely arrived at Hodowin in time, which meant a wearisome wait of many hours in an ill-smelling waiting-room; nor did it tell of the terrors of the journey, of the driver who made it uncomfortable for the pa.s.sengers by asking them to alight and push, unless he got a generous "_Trinkgeld_," and it certainly never told or could tell of the rapacious owner, who exercised all his powers as a monopolist over a defenseless public.

The strangers were expensively attired. From the man's shirt bosom flashed the first diamond I ever remembered seeing, and the woman had similar glittering stones in her ears. I was at once attracted by the boys, who, contrary to custom, jumped through the window of the omnibus to the ground without the aid of the foot-rest. This seemed to me a dangerous performance; but when the girl followed her brothers in the same fashion, all the onlookers including myself were shocked. My hungry brain or soul or whatever a boy may call the self, scented in these newcomers unusual mortals, and I was not disappointed.

The family came from an American city not many hundreds of miles from where I am now writing. The father had left there, ostensibly on account of the rigours of the climate, but when visiting the town myself in later years, I found that his leaving was not a matter of climate but of police record. The family planned to remain until the father's health was restored; which meant until a new and less rigorous administration should come into power where his misdeeds had been perpetrated.

Originally he had been in the whiskey distilling business, which in Hungary, by its nature, encouraged roving and lawlessness. Both these qualities carried him to the United States, where evidently he had prospered but not reformed, and he was now back from where he started.

The children had English names: Henry, Arthur and Maud. The girl's name sounded very strange when p.r.o.nounced by those of us who did not know anything of the mysteries of the English language.

The boys were soon the terror of the town and the surrounding villages.

They belied their Jewish ancestry both in their looks and their behaviour and broke through all barriers of race and cla.s.s, proving a leavening influence for good or ill, according to the views held, to the boyhood of their generation.

To run races or to play ball were unknown pleasures, especially to the sedate Jewish lads. To play Indian, plan semi-serious hold-ups, to go about with bows and arrows and a self-conscious swagger--these were virtues or vices so new that the whole region seemed to be turned topsyturvy, and everybody but myself heaved a sigh of relief when the strangers were gone. From these boys I learned a few English phrases, the first being contained in the cla.s.sic lines of "Yankee Doodle." Many a puzzling thought I gave to those euphonious words "doodle" and "macaroni," whose meaning could not be translated to me, even by the boys, who could repeat the whole song forward and backward. Above all I bless their memory for having brought into my life Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales," which they owned in a large, ill.u.s.trated, German edition. That ozone from free airs stirred my whole system and seemed to purify me of all inborn fears and littleness. I felt the glow of camp-fires, the joy of the chase, the hardships of adventure, the fierceness of battles and battle-cries. I cast off, as if by magic, the burdens imposed upon me by race and faith, and became a pioneer in an untracked wilderness; I drew the first plow-share over my prairie farm and defended my blockhouse against the redskins; yes, even the fear of guns was taken from me, for I went with those American boys (carrying a borrowed gun, which was against the law) and killed a cat. With steady hand, I pulled the trigger while one of the lads held the ancient weapon. Then we proceeded to scalp the animal and did it, I suppose, Indian fashion. The height of surprises to our Jewish community came, when the younger of the boys climbed a May-pole without apparent effort, after the Gentile lads had failed. How I trembled and triumphed for him, as the tree swayed with him at its graceful top; how proud I felt as he waved the ribbon he had taken from the goal, and when he reached earth again he seemed to have redeemed me from the reproach against my race; for the peasants said: "See what this Jewish boy did!" "How skillful he is and how brave!" I basked for a long time in the radiance of his triumph.

The father's influence on the adult male population was not quite as revolutionary or as wholesome. He had many tales to tell of far-away America, and in increasing numbers the younger men would gather with him at the inn, listening to his stories while he drew them into a friendly game of cards. To this day, in a small and reckless circle, the game of poker survives, although I suppose it is changed by its environment. By his convivial ways he also attracted the sporting element among the young Magyars who, like most mortals, lose their race prejudice in social excesses. If there was anything in the calendar of vices which was new and promised new sensations, the American visitor taught it to them, and they were apt pupils. No doubt it was this good fellowship which introduced him into our national politics. As he made his debut in the first election for Parliament which I witnessed, and no doubt the first in which American methods played an important part, it is worth describing.

At that time there were two parties in Hungary; the Government party and the Opposition. It was a foregone conclusion that the Government candidate would be elected: First, because the Government wanted him elected; second, because it completely controlled the machinery of the election. I doubt that any of the voters knew the difference between their parties, or if they cared to know. The Government prepared for a peaceful election. Tri-coloured flags, which pledged the peasants who had a right to franchise, were fastened to the straw-thatched roofs of the whole district and apparently nothing remained but the formality of counting the votes on election day. Suddenly there appeared, in ever-increasing numbers, the flags of the Opposition. Young stump speakers climbed upon fences sheltering images of the saints, or even upon their shoulders, and harangued the crowd. The inns were full of voters who drank palenka, which flowed as freely as water. Torchlight processions were formed and I owe my first sight of fireworks to this same exciting season, the stirring events of which linger so plainly in my memory. At last the Government party awoke to the fact that it would not have the usual "walk-away," and when election day came, soldiers, both cavalry and infantry, marched into town. It was a fairly safe a.s.surance that the _election_ would go the right way, no matter which way the _votes_ went. The town square was divided into halves by the infantry, and the whole surrounded by Hungarian Hussars whose gay uniforms dazzled the eyes.

In larger and larger numbers the peasants arrived, coming in groups, carrying their party banners. Long before they reached the town they had been befuddled by liquor to the degree that they were not afraid of infantry or cavalry, and boldly declaring their party, entered the left half of the square. The Government side, it is true, had in it the gentle folk;--well-to-do merchants and landowners, and although their votes counted for more than the peasants', their numbers were few. The Opposition's side of the square was fairly bulging from its ever-increasing human ma.s.s, so that the soldiers had a hard time to keep it within bounds. Each voter had to pa.s.s through the voting booth and, much to the chagrin of the Government party, the Opposition had appointed watchers, who surrounded the ballot box. When night came, the Opposition candidate was declared elected in spite of various subterfuges of the Government party. It was a hideous and sleepless night in the town, for nearly everybody was drunk, and the police took especial delight in beating the peasants with the b.u.t.ts of their guns.

Yet the men sang and shouted, the successful candidate appeared and made a rousing speech and it was long after daylight when the last reveller was silenced and the town sank into its normal stupor.

Ever since, the Opposition candidate has been in the Hungarian Parliament and it is a pleasure to relate that, on the whole, he has been one of its ablest and most honest members, occupying many positions of trust and prominence, visiting the United States on a mission of peace and received as an honoured guest at the White House. He does not know, however, that he owes his first election to a Jew who learned his earliest lessons in the game of politics in a certain town in the Middle West of the United States; a town famous for its brand of whiskey and its corrupt city government.

The daughter of the American, three years my senior, took the place of the miller's daughter in my heart, and I think I loved her more than I loved Martha; for I was at the edge of a new life which came to me so early as to nearly overwhelm me by its force and power. While Maud was something of a "tomboy," she could think seriously, and to her I owe my first glimpse of d.i.c.kens. She had a copy of "Dombey and Son" in German and I devoured it in a few days, shedding countless tears over it. With her I discussed my own problems of religion and race which overshadowed everything else in my life.

Her romantic vein was manifested when she inveigled me into going with her to visit the witch to have our fortunes told.

I was still mortally afraid of the old woman, for she was the typical witch, bent double, leaning on a staff, and ugly, with her face seamed by deep and curiously shaped wrinkles. She owned two ferocious black cats that were to me the personification of evil spirits. She lived in an isolated house by the creek and to reach it one had to pa.s.s a clump of ill-shaped willow trees, which fitted well into the gruesome atmosphere.

With fear and trembling I followed my American guide, for superst.i.tion is much more universal and more deep-seated than race characteristics. I felt like running away when we were in the circle of the willows, for in those crooked, gnarled, forked tree-tops, the witch was supposed to work her evil deeds. Maud drew me after her and we pa.s.sed over the threshold, in doing which I stepped on one of the cats, thereby receiving a nervous shock from which it took me long to recover.

A fish-oil lamp filled the room with its vile odour, and when our eyes penetrated the semi-darkness, we saw the witch on top of the bake-oven.

With many awful groans, she let herself down to the ground, and after receiving her fee, which the reckless American girl had made unusually generous, she proceeded to shuffle a greasy deck of cards; then laid them on the dirty floor to discover what fate had in store for us.

Like all fortunes that are told to sentimental young women, and romantically inclined youths, the prophecy culminated in marriage. The cards told that I would travel very far and marry a rich young woman.

Maud was to marry a poor man but was promised that happiness in love which is better than gold.

The prophecy had a marvellously stimulating effect on us both; we lost all fear, and a strange new feeling began to manifest itself, as we walked hand in hand into the oncoming night. When I reached home I dreamed my first dream about the future and the far-away land to which I was to travel. That of course would be America and the rich young bride would be Maud.

Our peasants used to say that dreams of marriage bring misfortune, and misfortune came apace. Suddenly Maud's father recovered his health and the family prepared to return to the large and luxurious home that had been so often described to me, from the big, sweeping lawn to the public school where Jews and Gentiles mingled, and from books and games to pop-corn and tomato salad, which latter seemed to me rather barbaric luxuries. I was tragically unhappy and so gloomy that I threw myself on the bed, and mother, fearing illness, sent for the doctor. He felt my pulse, looked into my throat, prescribed some harmless pellets and left me to my gnawing agony which grew greater and greater as the hour for the departure of the omnibuses drew near. Now we had to speak of these in the plural; for the American visitor had financed a new omnibus, with cushioned seats and a regular door.

The bells on this new omnibus were twice as big as that on the old one, but they sounded funereal to me that morning. I meant to stay in bed and cover my head with a pillow, that I might see and hear nothing; I even hoped that I might die of suffocation; but as the bells drew nearer, the love of life--and the love of love gripped me. Leaving my bed, I dressed quickly, and before mother could prevent me I was running after the omnibus at breakneck speed. It had a fair start but I knew that at the Oresco Hill it would begin the slow climb upwards and I could catch it.

Breathlessly I reached it after a run of miles. I jumped onto the step and when Maud saw me her face flushed from pleasure or anger, I cared not which. I clung to the door and looked piteously at her, begging her to take me to America. Her father and mother laughed at me and the boys laughed too; but she came close to me while the vehicle swayed from side to side, and kissed my cheek, saying: "Good-bye; remember the prophecy." Then I lost my hold and slid to the ground.

For a long, long time the kiss burned upon my cheek; for it was not like the kiss of the miller's daughter.

XVI