Part 13 (2/2)
This was the moment selected by Fate and Melchitsedek Pinchas for the latter's entry.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NEO-HEBREW POET.
He came through the open street door, knocked perfunctorily at the door of the room, opened it and then kissed the _Mezuzah_ outside the door.
Then he advanced, s.n.a.t.c.hed the Rebbitzin's hand away from the handle of the coffee-pot and kissed it with equal devotion. He then seized upon Hannah's hand and pressed his grimy lips to that, murmuring in German:
”Thou lookest so charming this morning, like the roses of Carmel.” Next he bent down and pressed his lips to the Reb's coat-tail. Finally he said: ”Good morning, sir,” to Levi, who replied very affably, ”Good morning, Mr. Pinchas,” ”Peace be unto you, Pinchas,” said the Reb. ”I did not see you in _Shool_ this morning, though it was the New Moon.”
”No, I went to the Great _Shool_,” said Pinchas in German. ”If you do not see me at your place you may be sure I'm somewhere else. Any one who has lived so long as I in the Land of Israel cannot bear to pray without a quorum. In the Holy Land I used to learn for an hour in the _Shool_ every morning before the service began. But I am not here to talk about myself. I come to ask you to do me the honor to accept a copy of my new volume of poems: _Metatoron's Flames_. Is it not a beautiful t.i.tle? When Enoch was taken up to heaven while yet alive, he was converted to flames of fire and became Metatoron, the great spirit of the Cabalah. So am I rapt up into the heaven of lyrical poetry and I become all fire and flame and light.”
The poet was a slim, dark little man, with long, matted black hair. His face was hatchet-shaped and not unlike an Aztec's. The eyes were informed by an eager brilliance. He had a heap of little paper-covered books in one hand and an extinct cigar in the other. He placed the books upon the breakfast table.
”At last,” he said. ”See, I have got it printed--the great work which this ignorant English Judaism has left to moulder while it pays its stupid reverends thousands a year for wearing white ties.”
”And who paid for it now, Mr. Pinchas?” said the Rebbitzin.
”Who? Wh-o-o?” stammered Melchitsedek. ”Who but myself?”
”But you say you are blood-poor.”
”True as the Law of Moses! But I have written articles for the jargon papers. They jump at me--there is not a man on the staff of them all who has the pen of a ready writer. I can't get any money out of them, my dear Rebbitzin, else I shouldn't be without breakfast this morning, but the proprietor of the largest of them is also a printer, and he has printed my little book in return. But I don't think I shall fill my stomach with the sales. Oh! the Holy One, blessed be He, bless you, Rebbitzin, of course I'll take a cup of coffee; I don't know any one else who makes coffee with such a sweet savor; it would do for a spice offering when the Almighty restores us our Temple. You are a happy mortal, Rabbi. You will permit that I seat myself at the table?”
Without awaiting permission he pushed a chair between Levi and Hannah and sat down; then he got up again and washed his hands and helped himself to a spare egg.
”Here is your copy, Reb Shemuel,” he went on after an interval. ”You see it is dedicated generally:
”'To the Pillars of English Judaism.'
”They are a set of donkey-heads, but one must give them a chance of rising to higher things. It is true that not one of them understands Hebrew, not even the Chief Rabbi, to whom courtesy made me send a copy.
Perhaps he will be able to read my poems with a dictionary; he certainly can't write Hebrew without two grammatical blunders to every word. No, no, don't defend him, Reb Shemuel, because you're under him. He ought to be under you--only he expresses his ignorance in English and the fools think to talk nonsense in good English is to be qualified for the Rabbinate.”
The remark touched the Rabbi in a tender place. It was the one worry of his life, the consciousness that persons in high quarters disapproved of him as a force impeding the Anglicization of the Ghetto. He knew his shortcomings, but could never quite comprehend the importance of becoming English. He had a latent feeling that Judaism had flourished before England was invented, and so the poet's remark was secretly pleasing to him.
”You know very well,” went on Pinchas, ”that I and you are the only two persons in London who can write correct Holy Language.”
”No, no.” said the Rabbi, deprecatingly.
”Yes, yes,” said Pinchas, emphatically. ”You can write quite as well as I. But just cast your eye now on the especial dedication which I have written to you in my own autograph. 'To the light of his generation, the great Gaon, whose excellency reaches to the ends of the earth, from whose lips all the people of the Lord seek knowledge, the never-failing well, the mighty eagle soars to heaven on the wings of understanding, to Rav Shemuel, may whose light never be dimmed, and in whose day may the Redeemer come unto Zion.' There, take it, honor me by taking it. It is the homage of the man of genius to the man of learning, the humble offering of the one Hebrew scholar in England to the other.”
”Thank you,” said the old Rabbi, much moved. ”It is too handsome of you, and I shall read it at once and treasure it amongst my dearest books, for you know well that I consider that you have the truest poetic gift of any son of Israel since Jehuda Halevi.”
”I have! I know it! I feel it! It burns me. The sorrow of our race keeps me awake at night--the national hopes tingle like electricity through me--I bedew my couch with tears in the darkness”--Pinchas paused to take another slice of bread and b.u.t.ter. ”It is then that my poems are born.
The words burst into music in my head and I sing like Isaiah the restoration of our land, and become the poet patriot of my people. But these Englis.h.!.+ They care only to make money and to stuff it down the throats of gorging reverends. My scholars.h.i.+p, my poetry, my divine dreams--what are these to a besotted, brutal congregation of Men-of-the-Earth? I sent Buckledorf, the rich banker, a copy of my little book, with a special dedication written in my own autograph in German, so that he might understand it. And what did he send me? A beggarly five s.h.i.+llings? Five s.h.i.+llings to the one poet in whom the heavenly fire lives! How can the heavenly fire live on five s.h.i.+llings? I had almost a mind to send it back. And then there was Gideon, the member of Parliament. I made one of the poems an acrostic on his name, so that he might be handed down to posterity. There, that's the one. No, the one on the page you were just looking at. Yes, that's it, beginning:
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