The Seven-Branched Candlestick Part 17

"And hurry up back to college," he said, with a little catch in his voice. "There are twenty other Jewish undercla.s.smen who want the same sort of counsel from you. You see--they didn't know they had a leader--and they do need one!"

It is not part of the tale, perhaps, but I cannot help intruding the fact that Frank was the first freshman to be elected to the editorial board of the college paper--and that, in his senior year, he became its managing editor.

My aunt came, too. I had been secretly expecting her--hoping, perhaps, for no especial reason, that she would come.

She wept a little at the sight of my healing scar. It was a long while since I had seen her, and it shocked me--she looked so worn. She clung to my hand for several minutes before she would speak.

"I read about it," she sobbed. "It was in the papers--and they said the nicest things of you.... But I didn't come sooner because--because I didn't know whether you wanted--you wanted--"

"Yes, Aunt Selina, I am very glad to see you."

She drew a deep sigh. "It has been so long--and I am growing old. I'm just a lonely old woman, boy. And there's no comfort in old age."

I looked at her. She had changed much, I thought. "But you had so many friends," I remonstrated. "All those intellectual society folk!"

"I don't know--they don't seem to interest me any more. I'm growing old.

That's all--old and lonely. And they are such fools, every one of them--almost as foolish as I am--and hypocrites, all."

Her hand went tighter about mine, and her rheumy eyes sought mine and searched them. "You seem so happy, boy--so changed. What's the secret of it--can't you tell me?"

I shook my head. It would be of no use, I thought.

"I want it," she begged. "The comfort of it--I did not know I should need it when I was old--and when all else fell away."

So I reached for a book which was on a table nearby, and gave it to her.

It was an old Union Prayer Book.

She took it with the barest flicker of lashes. "It's--it's Hebrew," she protested. "I don't know how to read it."

"There is always an English translation on the opposite page," I showed her. "You will be able to read that. Perhaps it will help you."

"Perhaps," she said after me, her thin voice quavering.

"Read it all. You will come at any rate to a better understanding of your fellow Jews."

Her head went down, as if in shame of some unpleasant reminiscence.

"Perhaps--I will try, anyhow--and perhaps--"

"Aunt Selina," I told her hastily, "I am coming home to live with you at the end of this college year. We shall begin all over again."

Then her tears began afresh. "I did not dare ask it--but oh, if you could only know how I have wanted it--and for how long! I would have prayed for it--yes, really, prayed for it--if I had only had someone to pray to!"

And then, as if suddenly remembering, she hugged the shabby leather book to her breast, and smiled.

But, before she left, I opened it up to show her why I prized this particular copy. For, on the yellowed flyleaf in old ink, was the name, "Isidore Levi." And below it, newly written, these words:

"_To a Jew who could not stand aside._"

He had sent it to me immediately after he had learned of that last incident at college. And he did not need to explain where I had seen this prayer book last.

Yom Kippur was my last day at the settlement before returning to college. I went with Frank Cohen and his father to the service of their orthodox congregation. The little synagogue, just off the Bowery, had had to be abandoned, for once, in favor of a huge bare hall that usually served political meetings. But, large as it was, it was packed tightly; and from the gallery, where I stole once to look on, it seemed a vast black sea--wave upon wave of derbies and shiny top hats, with the flicker of white prayer shawls for froth. The prayers and the chantings came up to me almost like mystic exhalations. The great, drab, smeared walls had the splendor of the afternoon sun upon them; the cheap chairs, the improvised altar, the temporary gilt ark behind it--the long gray beards of the patriarchs, the wan faces of the fasting children--everything, children--everything, every one had been gradually drenched in the glory that poured through the windows.

It was the setting sun upon Israel--and Israel prayed and sang in the gold of it.

I went back to college the next day. Mr. Richards and I had breakfast together, so that we might say slowly and easily the last things that were to be said.

"I'm glad you're going to finish it out," he began. "You've proved what I once told you; that college isn't all child's play. Some things about it are, of course." He paused a moment, a little embarra.s.sed. "Trevelyan phoned me last night, after you'd gone to bed."

"Yes? About me?"

"Well, in a way. He'd just come from one of our fraternity meetings. He wanted to tell me that, when you are back, they will probably offer you an election."

"What? To your fraternity?"

"Yes." He paused and watched me amusedly. "It doesn't seem to thrill you."

I smiled back at him. "No, not the way I would have in freshman year."

"Yes--that's how I thought you'd feel. You needn't be afraid of hurting my feelings--or Trevelyan's, either--by declining. They're a little too late, aren't they?"

"Oh, it isn't that. I don't want them to think me ungrateful, you see--but I've pa.s.sed that stage. There are so many other things for me to care about, now." I was thinking of Frank Cohen's remark about the number of Jewish undercla.s.smen who wanted counsel, leadership--and, now more than ever, I was sure of myself.

"I understand," said Mr. Richards, shaking my hand at parting. "Good luck to you--or better still, good faith to you! A man's work and a man's G.o.d--you've found them at last."

That night, in my room at college, I found on the mantle shelf the big, bra.s.s, seven-branched candlestick which I had seen in the room of the cla.s.s president. It was Fred's gift to me.

And, thinking of those years, I lit the seven candles, one by one, and watched them struggle feebly, desperately, until all of them were calm and bright, their flicker ended--until the Menorah, with its uplifted arms, and all the little s.p.a.ce about it, shone with a radiance that was firm and beautiful.