Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch Part 1

Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch.

by Ulrich Frank.

SIMON EICHELKATZ

SEPTEMBER 9, 1900.

To-day I was called to attend an old man who lives at the Flour Market, almost opposite the "New" Synagogue. The messenger told me I could not possibly miss the house, because the steps leading up to the old man's rooms were built on the outside; and this is in peculiar contrast to the modern architecture prevailing in the city. In fact, I do not know whether another house so curiously constructed is to be seen anywhere else in the place. And so I found it without much questioning. At any rate, I knew of the New Synagogue. I have never entered it, yet a soft, secret wave of religious feeling creeps over me each time I pa.s.s it, and that happens frequently. The synagogue lies on the road to the extensive factory quarter built up by one of the large manufacturers for his employees. My professional duties often take me there.

The synagogue!--I always look at the simple structure, devoid of ornament, with mixed feelings of veneration and awe. I hold tradition in high regard. After all it counts for something that a man is the offspring of a pious race, which cherishes learning and _Yichus_. How does the Hebrew word happen to come to me? The synagogue keeps its grip on what belongs to it--and on me, too! Yet I should not be able to pray within its walls--although it was in such a place as this synagogue that my father taught the word of G.o.d.

In fact, is it possible for us moderns still to pray? And then those remarkable Hebrew words, unintelligible to most of us now--_Ovinu Malkenu!_ The Church has converted them into the Lord's Prayer, the most fervent of its prayers. _Ovinu Malkenu!_ I see myself a little chap standing next to my father. How surcharged these words with belief and faith and hope when spoken by him: _Ovinu Malkenu chosvenu be-Sefer Parnossoh ve-Chalkoloh_--"Give us this day our daily bread!"

Synagogue and church! Hebrew or German or Latin? The shrill call of the Shofar, or the soft sense-enslaving tones of the organ? I believe modern man can pray only in the dumb speech of the heart.

It seems to me, if I were all alone in a synagogue, a devout mood would come over me; I would pray there. In Florence this happened to me once.

It was very early in the morning; I was alone in a small church on the other side of the Arno, Santa Maria del Carmine, whose frescoes, painted by Masaccio, declare the joy and jubilation of man over his beauty and greatness. But, I remember, the words were Hebrew that sprang up in my heart, even if they did not pa.s.s my lips. So the dumb language of the soul has its familiar tones, its words endeared by a.s.sociation.

Truth compels me to admit that it was Simon Eichelkatz who prompted me to put these thoughts of mine down in writing.

My patient at the Flour Market! When I climbed the steep stairway, thoroughly scoured and strewn with white sand, I little suspected I should soon stand in the presence of one of the most interesting persons it had ever been my good fortune to meet. The stairway led directly into the kitchen. A long, lank individual received me there, and on my asking for Herr Eichelkatz, he answered testily: "I guess he's in the floored room." At the moment I could not imagine what he meant. Then I noticed that the flooring of the kitchen was only of cement, and I realized that he meant to convey that the room in which the patient waited had a wooden flooring.

"Will you lead me there?" I asked politely.

"Lead!" with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. "Why should I lead?

It's right here. They must be led. These new-fashioned people must be led. Can't they walk by themselves?" At these not very friendly words, he pushed a door open and bawled in: "The doctor is here--the Herr Kreisphysikus. I should lead him to you, Reb Shimme. By himself he would never find you. Reb Shimme, should I drive him in with the white or the black horse? It's too far for him, Reb Shimme, the new-fashioned people want to be led; they want to be announced by a vally. Whether they come to a king or to Reb Shimme Eichelkatz, it's all the same, they must be announced."

All this was accompanied by scornful chuckles; and he looked at me angrily, quite taken aback, when I pushed him aside with a sweep of my arm just as he cried out again: "Herr Kenig, the doctor is here!"

I stood in the middle of the room, the "floored" room, and, verily, I stood in the presence of a kingly man, I stood before Simon Eichelkatz.

SEPTEMBER 16.

What is it that draws me to this old man? I am almost glad he needs my care as a physician. Remarkable egotism this on my part; but fortunately the sickness is not serious; a slight indisposition, such as often comes in old age. My patient is well on in the seventies, and is really wonderfully fresh and vigorous. A sudden spell of faintness induced his servant to send for me--the wrathful, snarling servant who received me with so little grace on my first visit. Now I am used to Feiwel Silbermann's quirks and sallies. I know his intentions are not bad; and then his great merit in my eyes is his rare fidelity to Simon Eichelkatz. After I had finished examining the patient on my first visit, Feiwel crept after me, caught hold of me as I stood on the lowest step, and anxiously inquired:

"What is the matter with Reb Shimme? Is he, G.o.d forbid, really sick?

He's never been this way before. I've known him--may he long be spared--these twenty years, but as he was to-day--"

Feiwel tried to take my hand. "I must scold, _nebbich_. That's what he's used to. And if I were suddenly to come along with fine manners, he might think, _Chas ve-Sholem_, it was all over with him. Now, I ask you, Herr Kreisphysikusleben, if a man always scolds and means well, isn't that as good as if a man speaks softly and is false? A treacherous dog doesn't bark. Praised be G.o.d, Reb Shimme knows what he's got in me.

Twenty years I've been with him, since Madame Eichelkatz died. His only son is professor at the University in Berlin. A _Meshummed_, Herr Doktor. Baptized," he added, his voice growing hoa.r.s.e. "Since the gracious Madame Eichelkatz died, we live here, at the Flour Market. And he never saw his son again, Herr Doktor. But now, if he should, G.o.d forbid, get sick--he's an old man--I don't know what I should do."

Ah! So Simon Eichelkatz has a skeleton in his closet, not an every-day skeleton, either. I should not have suspected it from what I saw of the gentle, gay-spirited old man. As to Feiwel, I set his worries at rest. I told him the illness was not serious, a mere weakness, not unusual in a man of Simon Eichelkatz's age, and it would pa.s.s without serious consequences. Feiwel gave me a look of such devout grat.i.tude that I was touched. "Of course," I said, "you must be watchful, and must take good care of him, because at his age every symptom must be taken into account."

"What, symtohn he has?" Feiwel asked, anxious again. "Can symtohn become dangerous? Is it a very bad trouble? Symtohn!" He repeated the word several times. "I've heard of people's getting heart disease, or kidney trouble, may I be forgiven for my sins, or rheumatiz, but to get symtohn!"

I explained the meaning of the word to him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Praised be G.o.d, if it's nothing more than that--I'll look out for the symtohns, you can be sure of that, Herr Kreisphysikusleben."

"I'll come again to-morrow to find out how Herr Eichelkatz is doing," I said, "and I hope it won't be necessary to let Herr Professor Eichelkatz know--"

At that moment it occurred to me I had never heard of a university professor of that name.

"He isn't called Eichelkatz at all," Feiwel whispered with spite in his voice. "If a man can have himself baptized, he can throw his father's name away, too. Why not? What should a man be named Eichelkatz for if he's a professor? If he's a professor, it's better for him _evadde_ to be named Eichner--such a name!"

Eichner! Professor Friedrich Eichner, the most powerful of modern thinkers, the philosopher of world-wide renown, a son of Simon Eichelkatz!

SEPTEMBER 22.

I see the New Synagogue now every day. It was dedicated over forty years ago, but it is still called "New." They had a rabbi come from Berlin to dedicate it, and that after their own rabbi had worked for ten long years to make the building possible, after he had gone to great pains to sc.r.a.pe the money together, after his ardent appeals had succeeded in warming his people up to the undertaking, after he had removed all the difficulties presented by the authorities--after he had brought things so far, his congregation found it in their hearts to humiliate him at the crowning point of his achievement, they found it in their hearts to set him aside at the dedication in favor of another.

Have honor and justice come back to you? Have the years left their traces upon you, O ye, whom I love, my brethren in faith? Forty years!

New generations have blossomed since those days when pride and false ambition brought sorrow to a n.o.ble spirit, and sought to deprive him of the fruits of his labor, blessed and pleasing to the Lord. Another was permitted to take his place and consecrate the work he had called into being. On the day of his greatest glory they poured gall into his soul, filled his heart with bitterness. But he forgave!

Gradually I am learning all sorts of stories about the congregation.

Simon Eichelkatz tells them to me when I visit him, and that happens almost daily. It is now one of my favorite recreations to hunt up this old man, this wise old man; for what he says in that easy, simple way of his always awakens new thoughts in me. He little suspects the abundance, the wealth of ideas that arise and take form in his mind. They all well forth so unconsciously, the most profound and the most exalted. One day a granite rock of Kantian philosophy towers up before me; the next day the trumpet tones of a Nietzsche reveille sound in my ears. And this feeble old man, who gives utterance to these deep thoughts, never read any other book than the book of life, life in a small town remote from the bustle of the world, life in a Jewish community, with its intellectual backwardness and provincial peculiarities. The _Khille_, it is true, with its concentric circles, its conservatism, its solidarity, its self-sufficiency, was rich soil to foster individuality and develop reserve strength. Nothing is wasted there, nothing consumed too quickly in those communities thrown back upon themselves, leading, forced to lead, a life apart from the rest of the world. How much that is of import to the world has gone forth from such communities! When the seed had grown strong and healthy in its native soil, and was then transplanted to fresh soil, how it blossomed forth, fruit-bearing, fructifying!

Now it seems to me as though Professor Friedrich Eichner could not possibly have been of other parentage. The son, the heir of Simon Eichelkatz! With amazement, with rapture we listened to his lectures, to which students from all the other departments also crowded; and when the world-philosophies he unfolded loomed before our eyes in gigantic proportions, a feeling came over us of shuddering awe and admiration.

Who was this man? A radical, an iconoclast. And now, out of the mouth of an old man, I hear ideas, conceptions, truths that might have laid the foundations for the philosophy of the other, the younger, man. Not that the relation between them was that of teacher and pupil; for Professor Friedrich Eichner knew nothing of his father's wisdom, and the father knew nothing of his son's philosophic systems. The father does not mention his son--he probably is ignorant of his son's life, of his son's importance to science. Only once he referred to him, recently, in telling me about the "New" Synagogue. Sunk in thought he said:

"The first _Bar-Mitzvah_ that took place there was my son's. I still remember the speech our _Rav_ delivered then--about the love of parents and fidelity to those who lead us in our youth--Herr Kreisphysikus, our Rav was a fine, sensible man, but he did not understand just what a child should be. The child should grow away from us, above us, larger, stronger, and higher--and we mustn't ask anything of him, and we mustn't say to him, 'Come and stay here with me, where it is cramped and stuffy for want of air--enough air for an old man, but too little for you. And you shall not be my child, not a child, a filly, that neighs for the stable where its father and mother roll on the straw like animals. You must keep on growing--you must be a man, not a child.'"

Simon Eichelkatz--Friedrich Eichner!

My heart is tender, and I love my dear mother, whom a kindly fate has preserved for me unto this day; and I bless and honor the memory of my dead father. My opinion about filial and parental relations is entirely different from Simon Eichelkatz's; but it seemed to me as though I were listening to a chapter of Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Never did this name sound in your ears, Simon Eichelkatz. You never left the Khille, and for twenty years you have been living alone with your bodyguard, Feiwel Silbermann. But your son has written great works concerning the Zarathustra doctrine.

SEPTEMBER 24.

The members of the Jewish community here are beginning to look upon me as a queer sort of person. In a measure, it is the duty of a new physician of the Jewish belief to a.s.sociate with the "gentry" among his co-religionists. That is what is expected of me; and certainly I ought long ago to have left my card at the doors of the Jewish families that are well-to-do, and, as they think, aristocratic and cultivated. On my desk lies a long, imposing list of persons of consequence, and it is my firm intention to pay them my respects; my predecessor urgently recommended me to do so. "You will get into things most quickly," he said, "if you make your way among the well-to-do Jewish families. The community has a reputation from of old for setting great store by culture and refinement; and what better for you in a small out-of-the-way place than a stimulus now and then in the form of a visit to some pleasant home? The evenings are long; you can't forever be playing Skat." I certainly can't, because I know precious little about the game--and so the cultivated Jewish families are my future here. For the present I have found something else, which gives me more than I can expect from the stimulus of would-be aesthetic Jewish wives and maidens.

I dearly love my fellow-Jews. But my love for them must not blind me to their weaknesses, and among their weaknesses I count an a.s.sumption of culture, a pseudo-refinement of the intellect, which has taken increasing hold upon the daughters of our race. How often I was disagreeably impressed by them in Berlin when they spoke about anything and everything, with that half-culture which produces the feeling that they are not concerned with knowledge, but with the effect to be created by their apparent "information" upon all subjects. What don't they know!

What don't they want to know! How often I was tempted to say to one or another of them: "The learning of many things does not cultivate the mind; learn to believe and to think." And must I repeat the same experience here? I am uneasy; my predecessor sentimentalized too much about the "educated" Jewesses. Some of them, he unluckily told me, had been "finished off" in prominent educational inst.i.tutions in foreign countries. I know all that, and I'm afraid of it, this finishing-off process of the ladies' seminaries! But probably there will be nothing else for me to do. If the winter evenings here are really so long and dreary, I may not be able to resist the torment of hearing young lips, soft and rosy for kissing, put the question to me: "What do you think of Nietzsche's 'Beyond evil and good,'" or "Do you think the painters of the Quatrocento and the Secessionists have anything in common?" How that hurts! Almost a physical pain! At all events it has often spoilt my taste for kissing soft, rosy lips.

If I would seek wisdom, if I would drink at the source of life, here, in this place, I shall not go to youth, but to old age.

I spent some time again with Simon Eichelkatz this afternoon. Outside it was raining and storming. A raw, grey day of autumn, the first this year. Up to this time the weather has been good. Over the small, quiet room a something brooded, something contemplative, genial, spiritual.

Half dream-like, half meditative. Like the dying away of a great melody. I wondered if Simon Eichelkatz had ever heard of _Stimmungen_. I longed to put the question to him. "Tell me, Reb Shimme" (that is how I call him now), "when you are here all by yourself, in this great silence, do you ever have a feeling as if--as if--how should I say?--as if you were a part of your surroundings, as if everything that is about you helped along to give form to certain ideas in your mind?"

I had to smile as I put the question. "Now say _milieu_," I scoffed at myself; and yet I never before felt the significance of the word so strongly as in that moment. The old man looked at me as though he wanted to find the meaning of the incomprehensible question in my face. His gaze, still clear and keen, rested on me thoughtfully, then pa.s.sed quickly through the room, as though this would bring him enlightenment upon the relevancy of my question. Finally, he said slowly, as though he were formulating his thoughts only with difficulty:

"I hear the silence about me--is that what you mean, Herr Doktor? I hear the silence, and so I am not alone. My soul is not deaf, and everything about me speaks to me. And the table has a language, and the chair on which I sit, and my pipe, Herr Doktor, my long pipe, it talks a good deal--and the _Kiddush_ cup here, and the spice-box--I wonder what they have lived through and have to tell about--and when the sun shines outside and peeps through the window, it's one thing, and when it rains like to-day, it's another." He rested his head on his hand. "But the silence is never dead--it lives as I live."

Friedrich Eichner's form rose before me, as it looked several years ago, when I heard him in his lecture room speak on Zarathustra's "still hour."