The Rise of David Levinsky Part 76

CHAPTER VII

WHEN I got home and my business rea.s.serted its mult.i.tudinous demands on my attention, the Catskill incident seemed to be fading into the character of a pa.s.sing summer-resort episode, but I was mistaken; the pang it left in my heart persisted

A fortnight after my return to the city I forced myself to take a trip to Tannersville. f.a.n.n.y came to meet me at the train. As we kissed it was borne in upon me that I was irretrievably estranged from her. I tried to play my part, with poor success

"Are you worried, Dave? What's the matter with you?" f.a.n.n.y demanded again and again.

Her "What's the matter with you?" jarred on me

I offered her sundry excuses, but I did not even take pains to make them ring true

Finally she had a cry and I kissed her tears away. While doing so I worked myself into a mild fit of love, but my lips had scarcely released hers when it was again clear to me that she was not going to be my wife

Our engagement was broken shortly after the family came back to the city.

That burden lifted, it seemed as though the memory of my unfortunate acquaintance with Miss Tevkin had suddenly grown in clarity and painful acuteness

Our rush season had pa.s.sed, but we were busy preparing for our removal to new quarters, on Fifth Avenue near Twenty-third Street. That locality had already become the center of the cloak-and-suit trade, being built up with new sky-sc.r.a.pers, full of up-to-date cloak-factories, dress-factories, and ladies'-waist-factories. The sight of the celebrated Avenue swarming with Jewish mechanics out for their lunch hour or going home after a day's work was already a daily spectacle

The new aspect of that section of the proud thoroughfare marked the advent of the Russian Jew as the head of one of the largest industries in the United States. Also, it meant that as master of that industry he had made good, for in his hands it had increased a hundredfold, garments that had formerly reached only the few having been placed within the reach of the ma.s.ses. Foreigners ourselves, and mostly unable to speak English, we had Americanized the system of providing clothes for the American woman of moderate or humble means. The ingenuity and unyielding tenacity of our managers, foremen, and operatives had introduced a thousand and one devices for making by machine garments that used to be considered possible only as the product of handwork. This--added to a vastly increased division of labor, the invention, at our instance, of all sorts of machinery for the manufacture of tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and the enormous scale upon which production was carried on by us--had the effect of cheapening the better cla.s.s of garments prodigiously. We had done away with prohibitive prices and greatly improved the popular taste. Indeed, the Russian Jew had made the average American girl a "tailor-made" girl.

When I learned the trade a cloak made of the cheapest satinette cost eighteen dollars. To-day n.o.body would wear it. One can now buy a whole suit made of all-wool material and silk-lined for fifteen dollars

What I have said of cloaks and suits applies also to skirts and dresses, the production of which is a branch of our trade. It was the Russian Jew who had introduced the factory-made gown, constantly perfecting it and reducing the cost of its production.

The ready-made silk dress which the American woman of small means now buys for a few dollars is of the very latest style and as tasteful in its lines, color scheme, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g as a high-cla.s.s designer can make it. A ten-dollar gown is copied from a hundred-dollar model.

Whereupon our gifted dress-designers are indefatigably at work on the problem of providing a good fit for almost any figure, with as little alteration as possible, and the results achieved in this direction are truly phenomenal. Nor is it mere apish copying. We make it our business to know how the American woman wants to look, what sort of lines she would like her figure to have. Many a time when I saw a well-dressed American woman in the street I followed her for blocks, scanning the make-up of her cloak, jacket, or suit. I never wearied of studying the trend of the American woman's taste. The subject had become a veritable idee fixe with me

The average American woman is the best-dressed average woman in the world, and the Russian Jew has had a good deal to do with making her one.

My Fifth Avenue establishment occupied four vast floors, the rent being thirty-eight thousand dollars a year. The office floor, which was elaborately furnished, had an immense waiting-room with gold letters on doors of dull gla.s.s bearing the legends: "General Offices," "Show-rooms," "Private Offices," "Salesmen. Please show samples of merchandise between 9 and 12 A.M.," and "Information." The "Private Office" door led to a secluded little kingdom with the inscription "David Levinsky" on one of its several doors, another door leading from my private office to the showrooms

I employed a large staff of trained bookkeepers, stenographers, clerks, and cloak models. These models were all American girls of Anglo-Saxon origin, since a young woman of other stock is not likely to be built on American lines--with the exception of Scandinavian and Irish girls, who have the American figure. But the figure alone was not enough, I thought. In selecting my model-girls, I preferred a good-looking face and good manners, and, if possible, good grammar. Experience had taught me that refinement in a model was helpful in making a sale, even in the case of the least refined of customers. Indeed, often it is even more effectual than a tempting complexion

My new place was the talk of the trade. Friends came to look it over. I received numerous letters of congratulation, from mill men, bankers, retail merchants, buyers, private friends. My range of acquaintance was very wide.

In hundreds of American cities and towns there were business people with whom my firm was in correspondence or whom I knew personally, who called me Dave and whom I called Jim, Jack, or Ned. So, many of these people, having received my circular describing my new place, sent their felicitations. Some of these letters were inspired by genuine admiration for my enterprise and energy. All of them had genuine admiration for my success.

Success! Success! Success! It was the almighty G.o.ddess of the hour. Thousands of new fortunes were advertising her gaudy splendors. Newspapers, magazines, and public speeches were full of her glory, and he who found favor in her eyes found favor in the eyes of man

Nodelman scarcely ever left my place during the first three days.

He would show visitors over the four floors with a charming pride, like that of a mother. Among the things he exhibited was the stub-book of my first check account, a photograph of the rickety house where I had had my first shop, and letters of congratulation from some well-known financiers. Bender, with a big, shining bald disk on his head, slender and spruce as ever, was fussing around with the gruff air of an unappreciated genius, while Loeb, also bald-headed, but fat and beaming, was telling everybody about the sc.r.a.ps he and I used to have on the road when he was a star drummer and I a struggling beginner

One of the men who came to congratulate me at my magnificent new place on Fifth Avenue was the kindly American commission merchant who had been the first to grant me credit when I was badly in need of it. As I took him over my immense factory, splendid showrooms, and offices, we recalled the days when it took a man of special generosity to treat a beginning manufacturer of my type as he had treated me. That was the time when woolen-mills would even refuse to bother with a check of a Russian Jew; he had to bring cash.

In the role of manufacturer he was regarded as a joke. By hard work, perseverance, thrift, and ingenuity, however, we had completely changed all that. By the time I moved to the avenue our beginners could get any amount of credit. The American merchants dealing in raw material had gradually realized our energy, ability, and responsibility--realized that we were a good risk, while we, on our part, had a.s.similated the ways of the advanced American business man

Another man who came to see my new establishment was Eaton, the Philadelphia buyer who had given me my first lesson in table manners. He had a small, but well-established, business of his own now, and it was with my financial aid that he had founded it.

Our friendship had never flagged. Sometimes I go to spend a day or two in his cozy little house in North Philadelphia, where I feel as much at home as I do in Bender's or Nodelman's house

I a.s.signed one of my office men to the special duty of looking up and inviting Mr. Even, the kindly old man who had bought me my first American suit of clothes and paid for my first American bath.

He came back with the report that Mr. Even had been dead for over four years. The news was a genuine shock to me. It was as though it had come from my birthplace and concerned the death of a half-forgotten relative. It stirred a swarm of memories; but, of course, impressions and moods of this kind do not last long. I received requests for donations from all sorts of East Side inst.i.tutions and I responded liberally. Mindels, the handsome doctor, made me contribute twenty-five hundred dollars to a prospective hospital in which he expected to be one of the leading spirits

There was dining and wining. I was being toasted, complimented, blessed

One of these dinners was given in my honor by my office employees, salesmen, designers, and foremen. Bender, who presided, told, in an elaborate and high-flown oration, of his experiences as my school-teacher, of our walks after school hours, and of our chance meeting a few years later

Loeb made a rough-and-ready speech, the gist of which was a joke on the bottle of milk which I had spilled while in the employ of Manheimer Brothers and which had led to my becoming a manufacturer. His concluding words were: "There's at least one saying that has come true. I mean the saying, 'There's no use crying over spilled milk.' Mr. Levinsky, you certainly have no reason to cry over the milk you spilled at Manheimer's, have you?"

I had heard the witticism from him more than once before. So had some of the other men present. Nevertheless, he now delivered it with gusto, and it was received with a hearty roar of merriment, in which his own laughter was the loudest

Among the people who came to rejoice in my success were some whose appearance was an amusing surprise to me. One of these was Octavius, the violinist, who had had nothing but contempt for me in the days when to go twenty-four hours without food was a usual experience with me. He had scarcely changed. He entered my office with bohemian self-importance

"Glad to see you, Levinsky. I was glad to hear of your rise in the world," he said, somewhat pompously. "I can't complain, either, though. However, our fields are so different."

The implication was that, while I had succeeded as a prosaic, pitiable cloak-manufacturer, he had conquered the world by the magic of his violin and compositions. He never referred to olden times. Instead, he boasted of his successes, present and future.

The upshot of the interview was that I sent a check to the treasurer of the free conservatory of which Octavius was one of the founders

I was elated and happy, but there was a fly in the ointment of my happiness.

The question, "Who are you living for?" reverberated through the four vast floors of my factory, and the image of Miss Tevkin visited me again and again, marring my festive mood. My sense of triumph often clashed with a feeling of self-pity and yearning. The rebuff I had received at her hands in the afternoon of that storm lay like a mosquito in my soul

BOOK XIII

AT HER FATHER'S HOUSE

CHAPTER I

I MADE it my business to visit a well-known Hebrew book-store on Ca.n.a.l Street. I asked for Tevkin's works. It appeared that before he emigrated to America he had published three small volumes of verse and prose, that they had once aroused much interest, but that they were now practically out of print. I tried two other stores, with the same result. I was referred to the Astor Library, whose Hebrew department was becoming one of the richest in the world.

Sitting down in a public library to read a book seemed to be an undignified proceeding for a manufacturer to engage in, but my curiosity was beyond considerations of this sort. Whenever I thought of Miss Tevkin I beheld the image of those three books--the only things related to her with which I was able to come in contact

Finally, on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I found myself at one of the green tables of Astor Library. I was reading poetry written in the holy tongue, a language I had not used for more than eighteen years

Two of Tevkin's three little volumes were made up of poetry, while the third consisted of brief essays, prose, poems, "meditations," and epigrams. I came across a "meditation" ent.i.tled "My Children," and took it up eagerly. It contained but three sentences: "My children love me, yet my heart is hungry. They are mine, yet they are strangers. I am homesick for them even when I clasp them to my bosom."

The next "meditation," on the same page, had the word "Poetry"

for its head-line

"The children of Israel have been pent up in cities," it ran. "The stuffy synagogue has been field and forest to them. But then there is more beauty in a heaven visioned by a congregation of worshipers than in the bluest heaven sung by the minstrel of landscapes. They are not worshipers. They are poets. It is not G.o.d they are speaking to. It is a sublime image. It is not their Creator.

It is their poetic creation."

Several of the poems were dedicated to Doctor Rachaeles, and of these one of two stanzas seemed to contain a timid allusion to Tevkin's love for his daughter. Here it is in prosaic English: "Saith Koheleth, the son of David: 'All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.' Ah! the rivers are flowing and flowing, yet they are full as ever. And my lips are speaking and speaking, yet my heart is full as ever

"Behold! The brook is murmuring and murmuring, but I know not of what. My heart is yearning and yearning, and I know not of what. I cherish the murmur of the brook. I cherish the pang of my lonely heart."