The Rise of David Levinsky Part 84

"Oh, it would take too long to tell," she answered. "And it isn't important, either. The main thing is that you should not let him get into business relations with you, or into any other kind of relations, for that matter."

Her English was a striking improvement upon what it had been sixteen years before. As we continued to talk it became evident to me that she was a well-read, well-informed woman. I made some efforts to break her reserve, but they failed. Nor, indeed, was I over-anxious to have them succeed. She did speak of her husband's jealousy, however (though she dropped her glance and slurred over the word as she did so); and from what she said, as well as by reading between the lines of her statement, I gathered a fairly clear picture of the situation. Echoes of Max's old jealousy would still make themselves felt in his domestic life. A clash, an irritation, would sometimes bring my name to his lips. He still, sometimes, tortured her with questions concerning our relations

"I never answer these questions of his," she said, her eyes on my office rug. "Not a word. I just let him talk. But sometimes I feel like putting an end to my life," she concluded, with a smile

I listened with expressions of surprise and sympathy and with a feeling of compunction. A thought was sluggishly trailing through my mind: "Does she still care for me?"

Margolis had built up some sort of auction business, but his real-estate mania had ruined it and eaten up all he had except three thousand dollars, which Dora had contrived to save from the wreck. With this she had bought a cigar-and-stationery store on Washington Heights by means of which she now supported the family. He spent his days and evenings hanging around real-estate haunts as a penniless drunkard does around liquor-shops. He was always importuning Dora for "a couple of hundred dollars" for a "sure thing." This was often the cause of an altercation. Quarrels had, in fact, never been such a frequent occurrence in the house as they had been since he lost his money in real estate, and one of his favorite thrusts in the course of these brawls was to allude to me

"If Levinsky asked you for money you would not refuse him, would you?" he would taunt her

Now, that he had met me at "The Curb," he had taken it into his head that his jealousy had worn off long since and that he had the best of feelings for me. His heart was set upon regaining my friendship. He had spoken to her of our meeting as a "predestined thing" that was to result in my "letting him in" on some of my deals. Dora, however, felt sure that a renewal of our acquaintance would only rekindle the worst forms of his jealousy and make life impossible to her. She dreaded to imagine it

We spoke of Lucy again. It was so stirring to think of her as a mother. Dora told me that Lucy's husband was in the jewelry business and quite well-to-do

She rose to go. I escorted her, continuing to question her about Lucy, Dannie, her husband. It would have been natural for me to take her out by way of my private little corridor, but I preferred to pilot her through my luxurious show-rooms. We found two customers there to whom some of my office men and a designer were showing our "line." I greeted the customers, and, turning to Dora again, I asked her to finish an interrupted remark. We paused by one of the windows. What she was saying about Lucy was beginning to puzzle me. She did not seem to be pleased with her daughter's marriage

"She has three servants and a machine," she said, with a peculiar smile.

"She wanted it and she got what she wanted."

"Why?" I said, perplexed

"Everything is all right," she answered, with another smile

We spoke in an undertone, so that n.o.body could overhear us. The fact, however, that we were no longer alone had the effect of relieving our constraint. Dora unbent somewhat. A certain note of intimacy that had been lacking in our talk while we were by ourselves stole into it now that we were in the presence of other people

In the course of our love-affair she had often spoken to me of her determination not to let Lucy repeat her mistake, not to let her marry otherwise than a man she loved. We were both thinking of it at this minute, and it seemed to be tacitly understood between us that we were

At last I ventured to ask: "What's the trouble, Dora: Tell me all about it.

It interests me very much."

"I don't know whether there's anything to tell," she answered, coloring slightly. "She says she cares for her husband, and they really get along very well. He certainly worships her. Why shouldn't he? She is so beautiful--a regular flower--and he is old enough to be her father."

"You don't say!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with genuine distress

"She is satisfied."

"Are you?"

"As if it mattered whether I was or not. I had other ideas about her happiness, but I am only a mother and was not even born in this country. So what does my opinion amount to? I begged her not to break my heart, but she would have her automobile."

"Perhaps she does love him."

She shook her head ruefully. "She was quite frank about it. She called it being practical. She thought my ideas weren't American, that I was a dreamer.

She talked that way ever since she was eighteen, in fact. 'I don't care if I marry a man with white hair, provided he can make a nice living for me,' she used to say. I thought it would drive me mad.

And the girls she went with had the same ideas. When they got together it would be, 'This girl married a fellow who's worth a hundred thousand,' and, 'That girl goes with a fellow who's worth half a million.' If that's what they learn at college, what's the use going to college?"

"It's prosperity ideas," I suggested. "It's a temporary craze."

"I don't care what it is. A girl should be a girl. She ought to think of love, of real happiness." (Her glance seemed to be the least bit unsteady.) "But I ain't 'practical,' don't you know. Exactly what my mother--peace upon her [this in Hebrew]--used to say. She, too, did not think it was necessary to be in love with the man you marry. But then she did not go to college, not even to school. Of what good is education, then?"

It was evident that she spoke from an overflowing heart, and that she could speak for hours on the subject. But she cut herself short and took another tack

"You must not think her husband is a kike, though," she said. "He is no fool and he writes a pretty good English letter. And he is a very nice man."

She started to go

"Tell me some more about Dannie," I said, on our way to the elevator

"He's going to college. Always first or second in his cla.s.s. And one of the best men on the football team, too." She smiled, the first radiant smile I had seen on her that morning

"He's all right," she continued. And in Yiddish, "He is my only consolation." And again in English, "If it wasn't for him life wouldn't be worth living. Good-by," she said, as we paused in front of the elevator door. "Don't forget what I told you." She was ill at ease again

The elevator came down from the upper floors. We shook hands and she entered it. It sank out of sight. I stood still for a second and then returned to my private office with a sense of relief and sadness. My heart was full of love for Anna

CHAPTER VII

IN a vague, timid way I had been planning to propose to Anna all along. My meeting with Dora gave these plans shape. Her unexpected visit revived in my mind the whole history of my acquaintance with her. I said to myself: "It was through tenacity and persistence that I won her. It was persistence, too, that gave me success in business. Anna is a meek, good-natured girl.

She has far less backbone than Dora. I can win her, and I will." It seemed so convincing. It was like a discovery. It aroused the fighting blood in my veins. I was throbbing with love and determination. I was priming myself for a formal proposal. I expected to take her by storm. I was only waiting for an opportunity. In case she said no, I was prepared for a long and vigorous campaign. "I won't give her up. She shall be mine, whether she wants it or not," I said to myself again and again.

These soliloquies would go on in my mind at all hours and in all kinds of circ.u.mstances--while I was pushing my way through a crowded street-car, while I was listening to some of Bender's scoldings, while I was parleying with some real-estate man over a piece of property. They often made me so absent-minded that I would pace the floor of my hotel room, for instance, with one foot socked and the other bare, and then distressedly search for the other sock, which was in my hand. One morning as I sat at my mahogany desk in my office, with the telephone receiver to my ear, waiting to be connected with a banker, I said to myself: "Women like a man with a strong will. My very persistence will fascinate her." And this, too, seemed like a discovery to me. The banker answered my call. It was an important matter, yet all the while I spoke or listened to him I was conscious of having hit upon an invincible argument in support of my hope that Anna would be mine

At last I thought I saw my opportunity. It was an evening in April.

According to the Jewish calendar it was the first Pa.s.sover night, when Israel's liberation from the bondage of Egypt is commemorated by a feast and family reunion which form the greatest event in the domestic life of our people

Two years before, when I was engaged to f.a.n.n.y, I deeply regretted not being able to spend the great evening at her father's table. This time I was an invited guest at the Tevkins'. They were not a religious family by any means. Tevkin had been a free-thinker since his early manhood, and his wife, the daughter of the Jewish Ingersoll, had been born and bred in an atmosphere of aggressive atheism. And so religious faith never had been known in their house. Of late years, however--that is, since Tevkin had espoused the cause of Zionism or nationalism--he had insisted on the Pa.s.sover feast every year. He contended that to him it was not a religious ceremony, but merely a "national custom," but about this his children were beginning to have their doubts. It seemed to them that the older their father grew the less sure he was of his free thought. They suspected that he was getting timid about it, fearful of the hereafter. As a rule, they saw only the humorous side of the change that was apparently coming over him, but sometimes they would awaken to the pathos of it

As we all sat in the library, waiting to be called to the great feast, he delivered himself of a witticism at the expense of the prospective ceremony

"You needn't take his atheism seriously, Mr. Levinsky," said Anna, the sound of my name on her lips sending a thrill of delight through me. "'Way down at the bottom of his heart father is getting to be really religious, I'm afraid." And, as though taking pity on him, she crossed over to where he sat and nestled up to him in a manner that put a choking sensation into my throat and filled me with an impulse to embrace them both

At last the signal was given and we filed down into the dining-room. A long table, flanked by two rows of chairs, with a sofa, instead of the usual arm-chair, at its head, was set with bottles of wine, bottles of mead, wine-gla.s.ses, and little piles of matzos (thin, flat cakes of unleavened bread). The sofa was cushioned with two huge Russian pillows, inclosed in fresh white cases, for the master of the house to lean on, in commemoration of the freedom and ease which came to the Children of Israel upon their deliverance from Egypt. Placed on three covered matzos, within easy reach of the master, were a shank bone, an egg, some horseradish, salt water, and a mush made of nuts and wine. These were symbols, the shank bone being a memorial of the pascal lamb, and the egg of the other sacrifices brought during the festival in ancient times, while the horseradish and the salt water represented the bitter work that the Sons of Israel had to do for Pharaoh, and the mush the lime and mortar from which they made brick for him. A small book lay in front of each seat. That was the Story of the Deliverance, in the ancient Hebrew text, accompanied by an English translation

Moissey, the uncompromising atheist and Internationalist, was demonstratively absent, much to the distress of his mother and resentment of his father. His Biblical-looking wife was at the table. So were Elsie and Emil. They were as uncompromising in their atheism as Moissey, but they had consented to attend the quaint supper to please their parents. As to Anna, Sasha, and George, each of them had his or her socialism "diluted" with some species of nationalism, so they were here as a matter of principle, their theory being that the Pa.s.sover feast was one of the things that emphasized the unity of the Jews of all countries. But even they, and even Tevkin himself, treated it all partly as a joke. In the case of the poet, however, it was quite obvious that his levity was pretended. For all his jesting and frivolity, he looked nervous. I could almost see the memories of his childhood days which the scene evoked in his mind. I could feel the solemnity that swelled his heart. It appeared that this time he had decided to add to the ceremony certain features which he had foregone on the previous few Pa.s.sover festivals he had observed. He was now bent upon having a Pa.s.sover feast service precisely like the one he had seen his father conduct, not omitting even the white shroud which his father had worn on the occasion. As a consequence, several of these details were a novel sight to his children. A white shroud lay ready for him on his sofa, and as he slipped it on, with smiles and blushes, there was an outburst of mirth

"Oh, daddy!" Anna shouted

"Father looks like a Catholic priest," said Emil

"Don't say that, Emil," I rebuked him

Fun was made of the big white pillows upon which Tevkin leaned, "king-like," and of the piece of unleavened bread which he "hid"

under them for Gracie to "steal."