Part 44 (1/2)
The poet rushed in and kissed the hem of Wolf's coat.
”Oh, you be a great man!” he said. Then he walked out, closing the door gently. A moment afterwards, a vision of the dusky head, with the carneying smile and the finger on the nose, reappeared.
”You von't forget your promise,” said the head.
”No, no. Go to the devil. I won't forget.”
Pinchas walked home through streets thronged with excited strikers, discussing the situation with oriental exuberance of gesture, with any one who would listen. The demands of these poor slop-hands (who could only count upon six hours out of the twenty-four for themselves, and who, by the help of their wives and little ones in finis.h.i.+ng, might earn a pound a week) were moderate enough--hours from eight to eight, with an hour for dinner and half an hour for tea, two s.h.i.+llings from the government contractors for making a policeman's great-coat instead of one and ninepence halfpenny, and so on and so on. Their intentions were strictly peaceful. Every face was stamped with the marks of intellect and ill-health--the hue of a muddy pallor relieved by the flash of eyes and teeth. Their shoulders stooped, their chests were narrow, their arms flabby. They came in their hundreds to the hall at night. It was square-shaped with a stage and galleries, for a jargon-company sometimes thrilled the Ghetto with tragedy and tickled it with farce. Both species were playing to-night, and in jargon to boot. In real life you always get your drama mixed, and the sock of comedy galls the buskin of tragedy. It was an episode in the pitiful tussle of hunger and greed, yet its humors were grotesque enough.
Full as the Hall was, it was not crowded, for it was Friday night and a large contingent of strikers refused to desecrate the Sabbath by attending the meeting. But these were the zealots--Moses Ansell among them, for he, too, had struck. Having been out of work already he had nothing to lose by augmenting the numerical importance of the agitation.
The moderately pious argued that there was no financial business to transact and attendance could hardly come under the denomination of work. It was rather a.n.a.logous to attendance at a lecture--they would simply have to listen to speeches. Besides it would be but a black Sabbath at home with a barren larder, and they had already been to synagogue. Thus degenerates ancient piety in the stress of modern social problems. Some of the men had not even changed their everyday face for their Sabbath countenance by was.h.i.+ng it. Some wore collars, and s.h.i.+ny threadbare garments of dignified origin, others were unaffectedly poverty-stricken with dingy s.h.i.+rt-cuffs peeping out of frayed sleeve edges and unhealthily colored scarfs folded complexly round their necks.
A minority belonged to the Free-thinking party, but the majority only availed themselves of Wolf's services because they were indispensable.
For the moment he was the only possible leader, and they were sufficiently Jesuitic to use the Devil himself for good ends.
Though Wolf would not give up a Friday-night meeting--especially valuable, as permitting of the attendance of tailors who had not yet struck--Pinchas's politic advice had not failed to make an impression.
Like so many reformers who have started with blatant atheism, he was beginning to see the insignificance of irreligious dissent as compared with the solution of the social problem, and Pinchas's seed had fallen on ready soil. As a labor-leader, pure and simple, he could count upon a far larger following than as a preacher of militant impiety. He resolved to keep his atheism in the background for the future and devote himself to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the body before tampering with the soul. He was too proud ever to acknowledge his indebtedness to the poet's suggestion, but he felt grateful to him all the same.
”My brothers,” he said in Yiddish, when his turn came to speak. ”It pains me much to note how disunited we are. The capitalists, the Belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. Have we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little factions among ourselves? (Hear, hear.) How can we hope to succeed unless we are thoroughly organized? It has come to my ears that there are men who insinuate things even about me and before I go on further to-night I wish to put this question to you.” He paused and there was a breathless silence. The orator threw his chest forwards and gazing fearlessly at the a.s.sembly cried in a stentorian voice:
_”Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Chairman?”_ (Are you satisfied with your chairman?)
His audacity made an impression. The discontented cowered timidly in their places.
”_Yes_,” rolled back from the a.s.sembly, proud of its English monosyllables.
”_Nein_,” cried a solitary voice from the topmost gallery.
Instantly the a.s.sembly was on its legs, eyeing the dissentient angrily.
”Get down! Go on the platform!” mingled with cries of ”order” from the Chairman, who in vain summoned him on to the stage. The dissentient waved a roll of paper violently and refused to modify his standpoint. He was evidently speaking, for his jaws were making movements, which in the din and uproar could not rise above grimaces. There was a battered high hat on the back of his head, and his hair was uncombed, and his face unwashed. At last silence was restored and the tirade became audible.
”Cursed sweaters--capitalists--stealing men's brains--leaving us to rot and starve in darkness and filth. Curse them! Curse them!” The speaker's voice rose to a hysterical scream, as he rambled on.
Some of the men knew him and soon there flew from lip to lip, ”Oh, it's only _Meshuggene David_.”
Mad Davy was a gifted Russian university student, who had been mixed up with nihilistic conspiracies and had fled to England where the struggle to find employ for his clerical talents had addled his brain. He had a gift for chess and mechanical invention, and in the early days had saved himself from starvation by the sale of some ingenious patents to a swaggering co-religionist who owned race-horses and a music-hall, but he sank into squaring the circle and inventing perpetual motion. He lived now on the casual crumbs of indigent neighbors, for the charitable organizations had marked him ”dangerous.” He was a man of infinite loquacity, with an intense jealousy of Simon Wolf or any such uninstructed person who a.s.sumed to lead the populace, but when the a.s.sembly accorded him his hearing he forgot the occasion of his rising in a burst of pa.s.sionate invective against society.
When the irrelevancy of his remarks became apparent, he was rudely howled down and his neighbors pulled him into his seat, where he gibbered and mowed inaudibly.
Wolf continued his address.
”_Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Secretary_?”
This time there was no dissent. The _”Yes”_ came like thunder.
”_Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Treasurer_?”
_Yeas_ and _nays_ mingled. The question of the retention, of the functionary was put to the vote. But there was much confusion, for the East-End Jew is only slowly becoming a political animal. The ayes had it, but Wolf was not yet satisfied with the satisfaction of the gathering. He repeated the entire batch of questions in a new formula so as to drive them home.
”_Hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen mir_?” Which is Yiddish for ”has any one anything to say against me?”