Part 33 (2/2)
Pinchas, who had been fuming throughout this speech, for to him Karlkammer stood for the archetype of all donkeys, jumped up impatiently when Karlkammer paused for breath and denounced as an interruption that gentleman's indignant continuance of his speech. The sense of the meeting was with the poet and Karlkammer was silenced. Pinchas was dithyrambic, sublime, with audacities which only genius can venture on.
He was pungently merry over Imber's pretensions to be the National Poet of Israel, declaring that his prosody, his vocabulary, and even his grammar were beneath contempt. He, Pinchas, would write Judaea a real Patriotic Poem, which should be sung from the slums of Whitechapel to the _Veldts_ of South Africa, and from the _Mellah_ of Morocco to the _Judenga.s.sen_ of Germany, and should gladden the hearts and break from the mouths of the poor immigrants saluting the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. When he, Pinchas, walked in Victoria Park of a Sunday afternoon and heard the band play, the sound of a cornet always seemed to him, said he, like the sound of Bar Cochba's trumpet calling the warriors to battle. And when it was all over and the band played ”G.o.d save the Queen,” it sounded like the paean of victory when he marched, a conqueror, to the gates of Jerusalem. Wherefore he, Pinchas, would be their leader. Had not the Providence, which concealed so many revelations in the letters of the Torah, given him the name Melchitsedek Pinchas, whereof one initial stood for Messiah and the other for Palestine. Yes, he would be their Messiah. But money now-a-days was the sinews of war and the first step to Messiahs.h.i.+p was the keeping of the funds. The Redeemer must in the first instance be the treasurer. With this anti-climax Pinchas wound up, his childishness and _navete_ conquering his cunning.
Other speakers followed but in the end Guedalyah the greengrocer prevailed. They appointed him President and Simon Gradkoski, Treasurer, collecting twenty-five s.h.i.+llings on the spot, ten from the lad Raphael Leon. In vain Pinchas reminded the President they would need Collectors to make house to house calls; three other members were chosen to trisect the Ghetto. All felt the incongruity of hanging money bags at the saddle-bow of Pegasus. Whereupon Pinchas re-lit his cigar and muttering that they were all fool-men betook himself unceremoniously without.
Gabriel Hamburg looked on throughout with something like a smile on his shrivelled features. Once while Joseph Strelitski was holding forth he blew his nose violently. Perhaps he had taken too large a pinch of snuff. But not a word did the great scholar speak. He would give up his last breath to promote the Return (provided the Hebrew ma.n.u.scripts were not left behind in alien museums); but the humors of the enthusiasts were part of the great comedy in the only theatre he cared for. Mendel Hyams was another silent member. But he wept openly under Strelitski's harangue.
When the meeting adjourned, the lank unhealthy swaying creature in the corner, who had been mumbling the tractate Baba Kama out of courtesy, now burst out afresh in his quaint argumentative recitative.
”What then does it refer to? To his stone or his knife or his burden which he has left on the highway and it injured a pa.s.ser-by. How is this? If he gave up his owners.h.i.+p, whether according to Rav or according to Shemuel, it is a pit, and if he retained his owners.h.i.+p, if according to Shemuel, who holds that all are derived from 'his pit,' then it is 'a pit,' and if according to Rav, who holds that all are derived from 'his ox,' then it is 'an ox,' therefore the derivatives of 'an ox' are the same as 'an ox' itself.”
He had been at it all day, and he went on far into the small hours, shaking his body backwards and forwards without remission.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COURTs.h.i.+P OF SHOSs.h.i.+ SHMENDRIK.
Meckisch was a _Chasid_, which in the vernacular is a saint, but in the actual a member of the sect of the _Chasidim_ whose centre is Galicia.
In the eighteenth century Israel Baal Shem, ”the Master of the Name,”
retired to the mountains to meditate on philosophical truths. He arrived at a creed of cheerful and even stoical acceptance of the Cosmos in all its aspects and a conviction that the incense of an enjoyed pipe was grateful to the Creator. But it is the inevitable misfortune of religious founders to work apocryphal miracles and to raise up an army of disciples who squeeze the teaching of their master into their own mental moulds and are ready to die for the resultant distortion. It is only by being misunderstood that a great man can have any influence upon his kind. Baal Shem was succeeded by an army of thaumaturgists, and the wonder-working Rabbis of Sadagora who are in touch with all the spirits of the air enjoy the revenue of princes and the reverence of Popes. To s.n.a.t.c.h a morsel of such a Rabbi's Sabbath _Kuggol_, or pudding, is to insure Paradise, and the scramble is a scene to witness. _Chasidism_ is the extreme expression of Jewish optimism. The Chasidim are the Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In England their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy jubilant services in their _Chevrah_, the wors.h.i.+ppers dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating their heads against the wall as they will, and frisking like happy children in the presence of their Father.
Meckisch also danced at home and sang ”Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, toi, toi, ta,” varied by ”Rom, pom, pom” and ”Bim, bom” in a quaint melody to express his personal satisfaction with existence. He was a weazened little widower with a deep yellow complexion, prominent cheek bones, a hook nose and a scrubby, straggling little beard. Years of professional practice as a mendicant had stamped his face with an anguished suppliant conciliatory grin, which he could not now erase even after business hours. It might perhaps have yielded to soap and water but the experiment had not been tried. On his head he always wore a fur cap with lappets for his ears. Across his shoulders was strung a lemon-basket filled with grimy, gritty bits of sponge which n.o.body ever bought.
Meckisch's merchandise was quite other. He dealt in sensational spectacle. As he shambled along with extreme difficulty and by the aid of a stick, his lower limbs which were crossed in odd contortions appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance had attracted attention, his legs would give way and he would find himself with his back on the pavement, where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic spectators shedding silver and copper. After an indefinite number of performances Meckisch would hurry home in the darkness to dance and sing ”Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, bim, bom.”
Thus Meckisch lived at peace with G.o.d and man, till one day the fatal thought came into his head that he wanted a second wife. There was no difficulty in getting one--by the aid of his friend, Sugarman the __ soon the little man found his household goods increased by the possession of a fat, Russian giantess. Meckisch did not call in the authorities to marry him. He had a ”still wedding,” which cost nothing.
An artificial canopy made out of a sheet and four broomsticks was erected in the chimney corner and nine male friends sanctified the ceremony by their presence. Meckisch and the Russian giantess fasted on their wedding morn and everything was in honorable order.
But Meckisch's happiness and economies were short-lived. The Russian giantess turned out a tartar. She got her claws into his savings and decorated herself with Paisley shawls and gold necklaces. Nay more! She insisted that Meckisch must give her ”Society” and keep open house.
Accordingly the bed-sitting room which they rented was turned into a _salon_ of reception, and hither one Friday night came Peleg Shmendrik and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Sugarman. Over the Sabbath meal the current of talk divided itself into masculine and feminine freshets. The ladies discussed bonnets and the gentlemen Talmud. All the three men dabbled, pettily enough, in stocks and shares, but nothing in the world would tempt them to transact any negotiation or discuss the merits of a prospectus on the Sabbath, though they were all fluttered by the allurements of the Sapphire Mines, Limited, as set forth in a whole page of advertis.e.m.e.nt in the ”_Jewish Chronicle_, the organ naturally perused for its religious news on Friday evenings. The share-list would close at noon on Monday.
”But when Moses, our teacher, struck the rock,” said Peleg Shmendrik, in the course of the discussion, ”he was right the first time but wrong the second, because as the Talmud points out, a child may be chastised when it is little, but as it grows up it should be reasoned with.”
”Yes,” said Sugarman the _Shadchan_, quickly; ”but if his rod had not been made of sapphire he would have split that instead of the rock.”
”Was it made of sapphire?” asked Meckisch, who was rather a Man-of-the-Earth.
”Of course it was--and a very fine thing, too,” answered Sugarman.
”Do you think so?” inquired Peleg Shmendrik eagerly.
”The sapphire is a magic stone,” answered Sugarman. ”It improves the vision and makes peace between foes. Issachar, the studious son of Jacob, was represented on the Breast-plate by the sapphire. Do you not know that the mist-like centre of the sapphire symbolizes the cloud that enveloped Sinai at the giving of the Law?”
”I did not know that,” answered Peleg Shmendrik, ”but I know that Moses's Rod was created in the twilight of the first Sabbath and G.o.d did everything after that with this sceptre.”
”Ah, but we are not all strong enough to wield Moses's Rod; it weighed forty seahs,” said Sugarman.
”How many seahs do you think one could safely carry?” said Meckisch.
”Five or six seahs--not more,” said Sugarman. ”You see one might drop them if he attempted more and even sapphire may break--the First Tables of the Law were made of sapphire, and yet from a great height they fell terribly, and were shattered to pieces.”
”Gideon, the M.P., may be said to desire a Rod of Moses, for his secretary told me he will take forty,” said Shmendrik.
<script>