Debit and Credit Part 10

Thus the winter pa.s.sed away, and signs of spring penetrated even here.

The visitors no longer brought in snow-flakes, but left brown footmarks.

The brokers began to speak of the yellow blossoms of the olive, and at length Mr. Braun came in with a rose in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

A year was gone since Anton crossed the little lake with the fleet of swans behind him. The whole year through he had thought of that one day.

CHAPTER VIII.

Veitel Itzig still occupied the same sleeping-quarters as on the evening of his arrival. If, according to the a.s.sertions of the police, every man must have some home or other--and, according to popular opinion, our home be where our bed stands--Veitel was remarkably little at his home.

Whenever he could slip away from Ehrenthal's, he would wander about the streets, and watch for such youths as were likely to buy from or sell to him. He had always a few dollars to rattle in his pocket. He never addressed the rawest of schoolboys but as a grown-up man; he was a proficient in the art of bowing, could brighten up old bra.s.s and silver as good as new, was always ready to buy old black coats, and possessed the skill of giving them a degree of gloss which insured their selling again.

With every bargain that he made for Ehrenthal he combined one for himself, and soon won a reputation that excited the envy of gray-bearded fripperers. He did not confine his activity to any one department either, but became a horse-dealer's agent, the _employe_ of secret money-lenders--nay, a money-lender himself. Then he had the faculty of never getting tired, was all day on his feet, would run any length for a few pence, and never resented a harsh word. He allowed himself no other recreation than that of counting over his different transactions and their probable results. He lived upon next to nothing; a slice or two of bread abducted from Ehrenthal's kitchen would serve for his supper. Only once during the first year of his town life did he allow himself a gla.s.s of thin small beer, and that after a very profitable bargain.

He was always remarkably neat in his attire, considering it essential that a man of business should bear the aspect of a gentleman. In short, at the end of twelve months his six ducats had increased thirty fold.

He soon became indispensable in Mr. Ehrenthal's household. Nothing escaped him. He never forgot a face, and was as familiar with the daily state of the funds as any broker on 'Change. He still occupied the post of errand-boy, blacked Bernhard's boots, and dined in the kitchen; but it was plain that a stool in the office, which Ehrenthal kept for form's sake, would ultimately be his. This was the goal of his ambition--the paradise of his hopes. He soon saw that he only wanted three things to attain to it--a more grammatical knowledge of German, finer caligraphy, and an initiation into the mysteries of book-keeping, of which he as yet knew nothing.

Meanwhile, he had become a distinguished man in his caravanserai, one whom even Lobel Pinkus himself treated with respect. Veitel owed this to his own sharp-wittedness. Ever since his first arrival, the hollow sound of the wooden part.i.tion had a good deal excited him, and he had often vainly sought to explore the mystery. At last, one Sat.u.r.day evening, he pretended to be ill, and remained at home, when his host and the rest of the household had gone to the synagogue.

Having had the good fortune to widen a c.h.i.n.k in the part.i.tion, he beheld what delighted him in the extreme. A large dirty room, quite full of chests, coffers, and a chaos of desirable articles--old clothes, beds, piles of linen, stuffs, hangings, hardware-goods, etc. Aladdin at his first entrance into the magician's cave was hardly so enraptured as Itzig by his discovery, which he carefully kept to himself. Sometimes at night he heard a stir in the mysterious room; nay, once whispers reached him, some of them in the deep voice of Pinkus himself. One evening, too, coming home late, he saw boxes and bundles in a little carriage before the next house, all modestly covered up with white linen; and that very night two silent guests disappeared, and came back no more; from all of which Veitel concluded that his host was a commission agent, who had his reasons for carrying on business by night rather than by day.

It was as clear as possible. These goods were taken eastward, smuggled over the border, and spread all over Russia.

Veitel used his discovery judiciously, only giving such hints of it to Pinkus as to insure his most respectful behavior.

On one eventful day Veitel returned in thoughtful mood to his lodgings, and sat in the public room. He was pondering how best to get hold of some scribe who would initiate him into the mysteries of grammar and book-keeping for the smallest possible fee; nay, perhaps for a certain old black coat, which, owing to the peculiarity of its cut, he had never yet been able to dispose of. Happening to look up in the midst of his reflections, his eye fell on a stranger who held a pen in his hand, and conversed with a tradesman. It was plain that this man was no Jew. He was little and fat. He had a red turned-up nose, bushy gray hair, and he wore an old pair of spectacles, which had great difficulty in keeping on the nose aforesaid. Veitel remarked that he had on an unusually bad coat, and took snuff. It was plain that this man was a writer of some kind; so, as soon as he had seen him hand over a paper to the tradesman, and receive a small piece of money, Veitel approached, and began:

"I wished, sir, to ask you if you happened to know any one who could give lessons in writing and book-keeping to a man of my acquaintance?"

"And this man of your acquaintance is yourself?" said the little man.

"Why should I make a secret of it?" said Veitel. "Yes, it is I; but I am only a beginner, and able to give but little."

"He who gives little receives little, my dear fellow," said the elderly scribe, taking a pinch of snuff. "What is your name, and with whom are you placed?"

"My name is Veitel Itzig, and I am in Hirsch Ehrenthal's office."

The stranger grew attentive. "Ehrenthal," he said, "is a rich man, and a wise. I have had dealings with him in my time; he has a very fair knowledge of law. What fee are you willing to pay, provided a master could be found?"

"I do not know what should be given," said Veitel.

"Then I will tell you," said he of the spectacles. "I might or might not give you instructions myself; but first I must know more about you. If I were to do so, in consideration of your being but poor, and a beginner, as you say, and also of having myself a little spare time on hand, I should only ask fifty dollars."

"Fifty dollars!" cried Veitel, in horror, sinking down on a stool, and repeating mechanically, "fifty dollars!"

"If you think that too much," said he of the spectacles, sharply, "know that I am not going to deal with a greenhorn; secondly, that I never gave my a.s.sistance for so little before; and, thirdly, that I should never think of teasing myself with you if I had not a fancy to spend a few weeks here."

"Fifty dollars!" cried Itzig; "why, I had thought it would not cost more than three or four, and a waistcoat and a pair of boots, and"--for Veitel saw that a storm was coming, and that the hat on the table was much dilapidated--"a hat almost as good as new."

"Go, you fool!" said the old man, "and look out for a parish schoolmaster."

"Then," said Itzig, "you are not a writing-master?"

"No, you great donkey," muttered the stranger; then, in a soliloquy, "Who could have supposed that Ehrenthal would keep such a b.o.o.by as this?

He takes me for a writing-master!"

"Who are you, then?"

"One with whom you have nothing to do," was the curt reply, and the little man rose and betook himself to the loft, while Veitel went off to ask Pinkus, as unconcernedly as he could, the name and calling of the new guest.

"Don't you know him?" said Pinkus, with an ironical smile; "take care you don't know him to your cost. Ask him his name; he knows it better than I do."

"If you will put no confidence in me, I will in you," said Veitel, and told him the whole conversation.

"So he would have given you instruction?" said Pinkus, shaking his head in amazement; "fifty dollars is a large sum; but many a man would give a hundred times as much to know what he does. Not that I care what you learn, or from whom."

Veitel went to his lair in greater perplexity than ever. Soon came Pinkus with a slight supper for the stranger, to whom he manifested a remarkable degree of sociability.

He now called him out on the balcony, and after a short talk in the dark, of which Veitel guessed himself the subject, re-entered the room, saying,

"This gentleman wishes to spend a few weeks here in private; therefore, even if questioned, you will not mention it."

"I don't even know who the gentleman is," said Veitel; "how could I tell any one that he is living here?"

"You may trust this young man," observed Pinkus to the stranger, and then wished the two good-night.

The man in spectacles sat down to his supper, every now and then casting such a glance at Veitel as an old raven might do at an unfledged chicken, who had innocently ventured within his reach.

Meanwhile, the thought darted across Itzig's mind that this mysterious person might be one of the chosen few--a possessor of the infallible receipt by which a poor man could become rich. Veitel knew now that there was no magic in this, that the receipt consisted in being more cunning than the rest of the world, and that this cunning was not without its serious consequences to its possessor; nay, it seemed to him as though to acquire it were to make a compact with Satan himself. His hand trembled, his pale face glowed, but his desire for more certain knowledge on the subject prevailed; and he told the stranger that, having heard that there was an art of always buying and selling to the best advantage, and so of making a fortune, he wished to ask whether it was that art that he (the stranger) could impart if he chose.

The old man pushed his plate away, and looked at him with amazement.

"Either," said he, "you are a great dolt, or the best actor I have ever seen."

"No; I am only a dolt, but I wish to become clever," was the reply.

"A singular fellow," said the other, adjusting his spectacles so as to see him better. After a long examination, he went on: "What you, my lad, call an art, is only a knowledge of law, and the wisdom to turn it to one's own profit. He who is up to this can not fail to be a great man, for he will never be hanged." At which he laughed in a way that made a painful impression even upon Itzig.

"This art," he went on, "is not easily acquired, my boy. It takes much practice, a good head, prompt decision, and, above all, what the knowing call 'character.'" At which he laughed again.

Veitel felt that a crisis in his life had come. He fumbled for his worn-out pocket-book, and held it for a moment in his trembling hand.

During that moment, all manner of conflicting thoughts flashed like lightning through his mind. He thought of his worthy mother's tearful farewell, and how she had said, "Veitel, this is a wicked world; gain thy bread honestly." He saw his old father on his death-bed, with his white head drooping over his emaciated frame. He thought, too, of his fifty dollars gathered together so laboriously--of the insults he had had to bear for their sake--the threatened blows. At that thought he threw his pocket-book on the table, and cried, "Here is the money!" but he knew, at the same time, that he was committing sin, and an invisible weight settled on his heart.

A few hours later, the lamp had burned low, but still Veitel sat with mouth open, eyes fixed, and face flushed, listening to the old man, who was speaking about what most people would vote a tiresome subject--promissory notes.

Later still, the light was gone out; and the stranger, having emptied his bottle of brandy, was asleep on his straw bed, but still Veitel sat and wrote in fancy on the dark walls fraudulent bonds and receipts, while the sweat ran down from his brow; then he opened the balcony door, and, leaning on the railing, saw the water rush by like a mighty stream of ink. Again he traced bonds on the shadows of the opposite walls, and wrote receipts on the surface of the stream. The shadows fled, the water ran away; but his soul had contracted, in that dark night, a debt to be one day required with compound interest.