Children of the Ghetto Part 63

"I do. Why should we not have our own country?"

"It would be too chaotic! Fancy all the Ghettos of the world amalgamating. Everybody would want to be amba.s.sador at Paris, as the old joke says."

"It would be a problem for the statesmen among us. Dissenters, Churchmen, Atheists, Slum Savages, Clodhoppers, Philosophers, Aristocrats--make up Protestant England. It is the popular ignorance of the fact that Jews are as diverse as Protestants that makes such novels as we were discussing at dinner harmful."

"But is the author to blame for that? He does not claim to present the whole truth but a facet. English society lionized Thackeray for his pictures of it. Good heavens! Do Jews suppose they alone are free from the sn.o.bbery, hypocrisy and vulgarity that have shadowed every society that has ever existed?"

"In no work of art can the spectator be left out of account," he urged.

"In a world full of smouldering prejudices a sc.r.a.p of paper may start the bonfire. English society can afford to laugh where Jewish society must weep. That is why our papers are always so effusively grateful for Christian compliments. You see it is quite true that the author paints not the Jews but bad Jews, but, in the absence of paintings of good Jews, bad Jews are taken as identical with Jews."

"Oh, then you agree with the others about the book?" she said in a disappointed tone.

"I haven't read it; I am speaking generally. Have you?"

"Yes."

"And what did you think of it? I don't remember your expressing an opinion at table."

She pondered an instant.

"I thought highly of it and agreed with every word of it." She paused.

He looked expectantly into the dark intense face. He saw it was charged with further speech.

"Till I met you," she concluded abruptly.

A wave of emotion pa.s.sed over his face.

"You don't mean that?" he murmured.

"Yes, I do. You have shown me new lights."

"I thought I was speaking plat.i.tudes," he said simply. "It would be nearer the truth to say you have given _me_ new lights."

The little face flushed with pleasure; the dark skin shining, the eyes sparkling. Esther looked quite pretty.

"How is that possible?" she said. "You have read and thought twice as much as I."

"Then you must be indeed poorly off," he said, smiling. "But I am really glad we met. I have been asked to edit a new Jewish paper, and our talk has made me see more clearly the lines on which it must be run, if it is to do any good. I am awfully indebted to you."

"A new Jewish paper?" she said, deeply interested. "We have so many already. What is its _raison d'etre_?"

"To convert you," he said smiling, but with a ring of seriousness in the words.

"Isn't that like a steam-hammer cracking a nut or Hoti burning down his house to roast a pig? And suppose I refuse to take in the new Jewish paper? Will it suspend publication?" He laughed.

"What's this about a new Jewish paper?" said Mrs. Goldsmith, suddenly appearing in front of them with her large genial smile. "Is that what you two have been plotting? I noticed you've laid your heads together all the evening. Ah well, birds of a feather flock together. Do you know my little Esther took the scholarship for logic at London? I wanted her to proceed to the M.A. at once, but the doctor said she must have a rest." She laid her hand affectionately on the girl's hair.

Esther looked embarra.s.sed.

"And so she is still a Bachelor," said Raphael, smiling but evidently impressed.

"Yes, but not for long I hope," returned Mrs. Goldsmith. "Come, darling, everybody's dying to hear one of your little songs."

"The dying is premature," said Esther. "You know I only sing for my own amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Sing for mine, then," pleaded Raphael.

"To make you laugh?" queried Esther. "I know you'll laugh at the way I play the accompaniment. One's fingers have to be used to it from childhood--"

Her eyes finished the sentence, "and you know what mine was."

The look seemed to seal their secret sympathy.

She went to the piano and sang in a thin but trained soprano. The song was a ballad with a quaint air full of sadness and heartbreak. To Raphael, who had never heard the psalmic wails of "The Sons of the Covenant" or the Polish ditties of f.a.n.n.y Belcovitch, it seemed also full of originality. He wished to lose himself in the sweet melancholy, but Mrs. Goldsmith, who had taken Esther's seat at his side, would not let him.

"Her own composition--words and music," she whispered. "I wanted her to publish it, but she is so shy and retiring. Who would think she was the child of a pauper emigrant, a rough jewel one has picked up and polished? If you really are going to start a new Jewish paper, she might be of use to you. And then there is Miss Cissy Levine--you have read her novels, of course? Sweetly pretty! Do you know, I think we are badly in want of a new paper, and you are the only man in the community who could give it us. We want educating, we poor people, we know so little of our faith and our literature."

"I am so glad you feel the want of it," whispered Raphael, forgetting Esther in his pleasure at finding a soul yearning for the light.

"Intensely. I suppose it will be advanced?"

Raphael looked at her a moment a little bewildered.

"No, it will be orthodox. It is the orthodox party that supplies the funds."

A flash of light leaped into Mrs. Goldsmith's eyes.

"I am so glad it is not as I feared." she said. "The rival party has. .h.i.therto monopolized the press, and I was afraid that like most of our young men of talent you would give it that tendency. Now at last we poor orthodox will have a voice. It will be written in English?"

"As far as I can," he said, smiling.

"No, you know what I mean. I thought the majority of the orthodox couldn't read English and that they have their jargon papers. Will you be able to get a circulation?"

"There are thousands of families in the East End now among whom English is read if not written. The evening papers sell as well there as anywhere else in London."

"Bravo!" murmured Mrs. Goldsmith, clapping her hands.

Esther had finished her song. Raphael awoke to the remembrance of her.

But she did not come to him again, sitting down instead on a lounge near the piano, where Sidney bantered Addie with his most paradoxical persiflage.

Raphael looked at her. Her expression was abstracted, her eyes had an inward look. He hoped her headache had not got worse. She did not look at all pretty now. She seemed a frail little creature with a sad thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry company. Poor little thing! He felt as if he had known her for years.

She seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. He doubted even his own capacity to commune with her inmost soul. He wished he could be of service to her, could do anything for her that might lighten her gloom and turn her morbid thoughts in healthier directions.

The butler brought in some claret negus. It was the break-up signal.

Raphael drank his negus with a pleasant sense of arming himself against the cold air. He wanted to walk home smoking his pipe, which he always carried in his overcoat. He clasped Esther's hand with a cordial smile of farewell.

"We shall meet again soon, I trust," he said.

"I hope so," said Esther; "put me down as a subscriber to that paper."