The Rise of David Levinsky Part 47

The book in my hands was the first volume of Herbert Spencer's Sociology. My interest in this author and in Darwin was of recent origin. It had been born of my hatred for the Cloak-makers' Union, in fact. This is how I came to discover the existence of the two great names and to develop a pa.s.sion for the ideas with which they are identified

In my virulent criticism of the leaders of the union I had often characterized them as so many good-for-nothings, jealous of those who had succeeded in business by their superior brains, industry, and efficiency.

One day I found a long editorial in my newspaper, an answer to a letter from a socialist. The editorial derived its inspiration from the theory of the Struggle for Existence and the Survival of the Fittest. Unlike many of the other editorials I had read, it breathed conviction. It was obviously a work of love. When the central idea of the argument came home to me I was in a turmoil of surprise and elation. "Why, that's just what I have been saying all these days!" I exclaimed in my heart. "The able fellows succeed, and the misfits fail. Then the misfits begrudge those who accomplish things." I almost felt as though Darwin and Spencer had plagiarized a discovery of mine. Then, as I visualized the Struggle for Existence, I recalled Meyer Nodelman's parable of chickens fighting for food, and it seemed to me that, between the two of us, Nodelman and I had hit upon the whole Darwinian doctrine.

Later, however, when I dipped into Social Statics, I was over-borne by the wondrous novelty of the thing and by a sense of my own futility, ignorance, and cheapness. I felt at the gates of a great world of knowledge whose existence I had not even suspected. I had to read the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man, and then Spencer again. I sat up nights reading these books.

Apart from the purely intellectual intoxication they gave me, they flattered my vanity as one of the "fittest." It was as though all the wonders of learning, ac.u.men, ingenuity, and a.s.siduity displayed in these works had been intended, among other purposes, to establish my t.i.tle as one of the victors of Existence

A working-man, and every one else who was poor, was an object of contempt to me--a misfit, a weakling, a failure, one of the ruck.

CHAPTER XV

IT was August. In normal times this would have been the beginning of the great "winter season" in our trade. As it was, the deadlock continued. The stubbornness of the men, far from showing signs of wilting under the strain of so many weeks of enforced idleness and suffering, seemed to be gathering strength, while our own people, the manufacturers, were frankly weakening.

The danger of having the great season pa.s.s without one being able to fill a single order overcame the fighting blood of the most pugnacious among them.

One was confronted with the risk of losing one's best customers.

The trade threatened to pa.s.s from New York to Philadelphia and Chicago. If you called the attention of a manufacturer to the unyielding courage of the workmen, the reply invariably was, first, that it was all mere bravado; and, second, that, anyhow, the poor devils had nothing to lose, while the manufacturers had their investments to lose

The press supported the strikers. It did so, not because they were working-people, but because they were East-Siders. Their district was the great field of activity for the American University Settlement worker and fashionable slummer. The East Side was a place upon which one descended in quest of esoteric types and "local color," as well as for purposes of philanthropy and "uplift"

work. To spend an evening in some East Side cafe was regarded as something like spending a few hours at the Louvre so much so that one such cafe, in the depth of East Houston Street, was making a fortune by purveying expensive wine dinners to people from up-town who came there ostensibly to see "how the other half lived," but who only saw one another eat and drink in freedom from the restraint of manners. Accordingly, to show sympathy for East Side strikers was within the bounds of the highest propriety. It was as "correct" as belonging to the Episcopal Church. And so public opinion was wholly on the side of the Cloak-makers' Union. This hastened the end. We succ.u.mbed. A settlement was patched up. We were beaten.

But even this did not appease the men. They repudiated the agreement between their organization and ours, branding it as a trap, and the strike was continued. Then the manufacturers yielded completely, acceding to every demand of the union

I became busy. I continued to curse the union, but at the bottom of my heart I wished it well, for the vigor with which it enforced its increased wage scale in all larger factories gave me greater advantages than ever. I was still able to get men who were willing to trick the organization. Every Friday afternoon these men received pay-envelopes which bore figures in strict conformity with the union's schedule, but the contents of which were considerably below the sum marked outside. Subsequently this proved to be a risky practice to pursue, for the walking delegates were wide awake and apt to examine the envelopes as the operatives were emerging from the shop.

Accordingly, I adopted another system: the men would receive the union pay in full, but on the following Monday each of them would pay me back the difference between the official and the actual wage. The usual practice was for the employee to put the few dollars into his little wage-book, which he would then place on my desk for the ostensible purpose of having his account verified

By thus cheating the union I could now undersell the bigger manufacturers more easily than I had been able to do previous to the lockout and strike. I had more orders than I could fill. Money was coming in in floods

The lockout and the absolute triumph of the union was practically the making of me

I saw much less of Dora than I had done during the five months of the lockout, and our happiness when we managed to be left alone was all the keener for it. Our best time for a te-a-t?te were the hours between 10 and 12 on the evenings, when Max was sure to be away at his dancing-schools, but then it often happened that those were among my busiest hours at the shop.

Sometimes I would s.n.a.t.c.h half an hour from my work in the middle of a busy day to surprise her with my caresses. If a week pa.s.sed without my doing so she would punish me with mute scenes of jealousy, of which none but she and I were aware. She would avoid looking at me, and I would press my hand to my heart and raise a pleading gaze at her, which said: "I couldn't get away, dearest. Honest, I couldn't."

One evening I bought her some roses. As I carried them home I was thrilled as much by the fact that I, David of Abner's Court, was taking flowers to a lady as I was by visioning the moment when I should hand them to Dora. When I came home and put my offering into her hand she was in a flurry of delight over it, but she was scared to death lest it should betray our secret. After giving way to bursts of admiration for the flowers and myself, and smelling her fill, and covering me with kisses, she burned the bouquet in the stove and forbade me to use this method of showing her attention again

"Your dear eyes are the best flowers you can bring me," she said

Her love burned with a steady flame, bright and even. It manifested itself in a thousand little things which she did for the double purpose of ministering to my comfort and keeping me in mind of herself. I felt it in the taste of the coffee I drank, in the quality of my cup and saucer, in the painstaking darning on my socks, in the frequency with which my room was swept, my towel changed, my books dusted

"Did you notice the new soap-dish on your wash-stand?" she asked me, one morning. "Do you deserve it? Do you know how often I am in your room every day? Just guess."

"A million times a day."

"To you it's a joke. But if you loved as I do you would not be up to joking."

"Very well, I'll cry." And I personated a boy crying. "Don't. It breaks my heart," she said, earnestly. "I can't see you crying even for fun." She kissed my eyes. "No, really, I go to your room twenty times a day, perhaps.

When I am there it seems to me that I am nearer to you. I kiss the pillow on which you sleep. I pat the blanket, the pitcher, every book of yours--everything your dear little hands touch. I want you to know it. I want you to know how I love you. I knew that love was sweet, but I never knew that it was so sweet. Oh, my loved one!"

She would pour out all sorts of endearments on me, some of them rather of a fantastic nature, but "my loved one" became her favorite appellation, while I found special relish in calling her "my bride" or "bridie mine."

I can almost feel her white fingers as they played with my abundant dark hair or rested on my shoulders while she looked into my eyes and murmured, yearningly: "My loved one! My loved one! My loved one!"

The set of my shoulders was a special object of her admiration.

She would shake them tenderly, call me monkey, and ask me if I realized how much she loved me and if I deserved it all, bad boy that I was

She held me in check with an iron hand. Whenever my caresses threatened to overstep the bounds of what she termed "respectable love" she would stop them. With clouded eyes she would slap my hand and then kiss it, saying: "Be a gentleman, Levinsky. Be a gentleman. Can't you be a gentleman?"

"Oh, you don't love me," I would grunt

"I don't? I don't? I wish you would love me half as much," with a sigh. "If you did you would not behave the way you do. That's all your love amounts to--behaving like that. All men are hogs, after all." With which she would take to lecturing me and pouring out her infatuated heart in that solemn singsong of hers, which somewhat bored me

If she thought my kisses unduly pa.s.sionate and the amorous look of my eye dangerous she would move away from me

"Don't be angry at me, sweetheart," she would say, cooingly

"I am not angry, but you don't love me."

"Why should you hurt my feelings like that? Why should you shed my blood? Am I not yours, heart and soul? Am I not ready to cut myself to pieces to please you? Why should you torture me?"

"What are you afraid of? He won't know any more than he does now," I once urged.

She blushed, looking at the floor. After a minute's silence she said, dolefully: "It isn't so much on account of that as on account of the children. How could I look Lucy in the face?"

Her eyes grew humid. My heart went out to her.

"I understand. You are right," I yielded

The scene repeated itself not many days after. It occurred again and again at almost regular intervals. She fought bravely

Many months pa.s.sed, and still she was able "to look Lucy in the face."

At first, for a period of six or seven weeks, my moral conduct outside the house was immaculate. Then I renewed my excursions to certain streets. I made rather frequent calls at the apartment of a handsome Hungarian woman who called herself Cleo. Once, in a frenzy, I tried to imagine that she was Dora, and then I experienced qualms of abject compunction and self-loathing

Sometimes Lucy would arouse my jealous rancor, as a living barrier between her mother and myself. But she was really dear to me. I revered Dora for her fort.i.tude, and Lucy appealed to me as the embodiment of her mother's saintliness

I would watch Lucy. She was an interesting study. Her manner of speaking, her giggle, her childish little affectations seemed to grow more American every day. She was like a little foreigner in the house

Dora was watching and studying her with a feeling akin to despair, I thought. It was as though she was pursuing the little girl, with outstretched arms, vainly trying to overtake her

CHAPTER XVI