Ghetto Comedies - Israel Zangwill (great novels of all time txt) 📗

was asked what handicraftsman I was, of course I had to say I had no trade, for, foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of Russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to hold one up to scorn, they say to him: 'Anybody can see you are a descendant of a handicraftsman.'

I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, but what availed these accomplishments? As I found I could obtain no work, I went into the Shool of the 'Sons of the Soul.' I seated myself next a man, and we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he: 'I will give you advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is a very fine man.'

I did so. As I entered, he sat in company with another man, holding his Lulov and Esrog (palm and citron). 'What do you want?' I couldn't answer him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand. I felt assured of sympathy, if of nothing else. I told him we were perishing for want of bread, and asked him to give me advice. He answered nothing. He turned to the man, and spoke concerning the Tabernacle and the Citron. He took no further notice of me, but left me standing.

So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia. And this is a Rabbi! As I saw I might as well have talked to the wall, I left the room without a word from him. As the moujik would say: 'Sad and bitter is the poor man's lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb and not to see the sunlit world than to be a poor man and be compelled to beg for money.'

I came home, where my family was waiting patiently for my return with bread. I said: 'Good Yomtov,' weeping, for they looked scarcely alive, having been without a morsel of food that day.

So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his due. 'Hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep?' But he refused to be talked over. So we passed the night. When day came the little children began to cry: 'Father, let us go. We will beg bread in the streets. We die of hunger. Don't hold us back.'

When the mother heard them speak of begging in the streets, she swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour among the children. When at length we brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her to life. 'I would rather have died than hear you speak of begging in the streets—rather see my children die of hunger before my eyes.' This speech of the mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they sat and wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man from next door, Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was the matter. He looked around, and his heart went out to us. So he went away, and returned speedily with bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away again, returning with five shillings. He said: 'This I lend you.' Later he came back with a man, Nathan Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away the three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when I called to see them in his house in St. George's Road, they hid themselves from me, being afraid I should want them to return to endure again the pangs of hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should have the care of my children, and that they should shun me as one shuns a forest-robber.

After Yomtov I went to Grunbach, the shipping agent, to see whether my luggage had arrived, as I had understood from Kazelia that it would get here in a month's time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired concerning it. Said he: 'Your luggage won't come to London, only to Rotterdam. If you like, I will write a letter to inquire if it is at Rotterdam, and how much money is due to redeem it.' I told him I had borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he calculated that it would cost me £4 6s., including freight to redeem it. But I told him to write and ask. Some days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating the cost at eighty-three roubles (£8 13s.), irrespective of freight dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I immediately wrote to Kazelia: 'Why do you behave like a forest-robber, giving me only twenty-five roubles where you got eighty-three?' Answered he: 'Shame on you to write such a letter! Haven't you been in my house, and seen what an honourable Jew I am? Shame on you! To such men as you one can't do a favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in the world? You are all thick-headed. You can't read a letter. I only took fifty-four roubles on the luggage; I had to recoup myself because I lost money through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, and only took what was due to me.' I showed the letter to Grunbach, and he wrote again to Rotterdam, and they answered that they knew nothing of a Kazelia. I must pay the £8 13s. if I wanted my bundle. Well, what was to be done? The weather grew colder. Hunger we had become inured to. But how could we pass the winter nights on the bare boards? I wrote again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever. Day and night I went about asking advice concerning the luggage. Nobody could help me.

And as I stood thus in the middle of the sea, word came to me of a Landsmann (countryman) I had once helped to escape from the Russian army, in the days when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in front of the sea in a great town called Brighton. So I started off at once to talk to him—two days' journey, they said—for I knew he would help; and if not he, who? I would come to him as his Sabbath guest; he would surely fall upon my neck. The first night I slept in a barn with another tramp, who pointed me the way; but because I stopped to earn sixpence by chopping wood, lo! when Sabbath came I was still twelve miles away, and durst not profane the Sabbath by walking. So I lingered that Friday night in a village, thanking God I had at least the money for a bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money. And all next day, I know not why, the street-boys called me a Goy (heathen) and a fox—'Goy-Fox, Goy-Fox!'—and they let off fireworks in my face. So I had to wander in the woods around, keeping within the Sabbath radius, and when the three stars appeared in the sky I started for Brighton. But so footsore was I, I came there only at midnight, and could not search. And I sat down on a bench; it was very cold, but I was so tired. But the policeman came and drove me away—he was God's messenger, for I should perchance have died—and a drunken female with a painted face told him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. How could I refuse? I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday morning I started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; but my heart grew sick, for I saw the shops were shut. At last I saw a jewellery shop and my Landsmann's name over it. It sparkled with gold and diamonds, and little bills were spread over it—'Great sale! Great sale!' Then I went joyfully to the door, but lo! it was bolted. So I knocked and knocked, and at last a woman came from above, and told me he lived in that road in Hove, where I found indeed my redeemer, but not my Landsmann. It was a great house, with steps up and steps down. I went down to a great door, and there came out a beautiful heathen female with a shining white cap on her head and a shining white apron, and she drove me away.

'Goy-Fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath and slammed the door on my heart; and I sat down on the pavement without, and I became a pillar of salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw the Angel of the Lord.

CHAPTER III THE PICTURE EVOLVES

Such was my model's simple narrative, the homely realism of which appealed to me on my most imaginative side, for through all its sordid details stood revealed to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it Heine or another who said 'The people of Christ is the Christ of peoples'? At any rate, such was the idea that began to take possession of me as I painted away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried model—to paint, not the Christ that I had started out to paint, but the Christ incarnated in a race, suffering—and who knew that He did not suffer over again?—in its Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could still be my model, but after another conception altogether.

It was an idea that called for no change in what I had already done. For I had worked mainly upon the head, and now that I purposed to clothe the figure in its native gaberdine, there would be little to re-draw. And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling even safer now that I was painting and interpreting a real thing than when I was trying to reconstruct retrospectively the sacred figure that had walked in Galilee.

And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new conception than I found everywhere how old it was. It appeared even to have Scriptural warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture by a Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of the passages in the Prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming Messiah, really applied to Israel, the people. Israel it was whom Isaiah, in that famous fifty-third chapter, had described as 'despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.' Israel it was who bore the sins of the world. 'He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Yes, Israel was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German Professor, I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic opinion. My model proved a mine of lore upon this as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he said—that the Messhiach would come riding upon a white ass. Israel would be redeemed by itself, though his neighbours would have called the sentiment 'epicurean.'

'Whoever saves me is my Messhiach,' he declared suddenly, and plucked at my hand to kiss it.

'Now, you shock me,' I said, pushing him away.

'No, no,' he said; 'I agree with the word of the moujik: "the good people are God."'

'Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,' I said.

'Yes,' he replied; 'now that you have saved me, I see that God works only through men. As for the Messhiach on the white ass, they do not really believe it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. For my own part, when I say the prayer, "Blessed be Thou who restorest the dead to life," I always mean it of you.'

Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satisfied the greediest benefactor, and was infinitely in excess of what he owed me. He seemed unconscious that he was doing