Part 94 (2/2)
”You will never do it with the old generation,” said Strelitski. ”My hope is in the new. Moses led the Jews forty years through the wilderness merely to eliminate the old. Give me young men, and I will move the world.”
”You will do nothing by attempting too much,” said Raphael; ”you will only dissipate your strength. For my part, I shall be content to raise Judaea an inch.”
”Go on, then,” said Strelitski. ”That will give me a barley-corn. But I've wasted too much' of your time, I fear. Good-bye. Remember your promise.”
He held out his hand. He had grown quite calm, now his decision was taken.
”Good-bye,” said Raphael, shaking it warmly. ”I think I shall cable to America, 'Behold, Joseph the dreamer cometh.'”
”Dreams are our life,” replied Strelitski. ”Lessing was right--aspiration is everything.”
”And yet you would rob the orthodox Jew of his dream of Jerusalem! Well, if you must go, don't go without your tie,” said Raphael, picking it up, and feeling a stolid, practical Englishman in presence of this enthusiast. ”It is dreadfully dirty, but you must wear it a little longer.”
”Only till the New Year, which is bearing down upon us,” said Strelitski, thrusting it into his pocket. ”Cost what it may, I shall no longer countenance the ritual and ceremonial of the season of Repentance. Good-bye again. If you should be writing to Miss Ansell, I should like her to know how much I owe her.”
”But I tell you I don't know her address,” said Raphael, his uneasiness reawakening.
”Surely you can write to her publishers?”
And the door closed upon the Russian dreamer, leaving the practical Englishman dumbfounded at his never having thought of this simple expedient. But before he could adopt it the door was thrown open again by Pinchas, who had got out of the habit of knocking through Raphael being too polite to reprimand him. The poet, tottered in, dropped wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands, letting an extinct cigar-stump slip through his fingers on to the literature that carpeted the floor.
”What is the matter?” inquired Raphael in alarm.
”I am miserable--vairy miserable.”
”Has anything happened?”
”Nothing. But I have been thinking vat have I come to after all these years, all these vanderings. Nothing! Vat vill be my end? Oh. I am so unhappy.”
”But you are better off than you ever were in your life. You no longer live amid the squalor of the Ghetto; you are clean and well dressed: you yourself admit that you can afford to give charity now. That looks as if you'd come to something--not nothing.”
”Yes,” said the poet, looking up eagerly, ”and I am famous through the vorld. _Metatoron's Flames_ vill s.h.i.+ne eternally.” His head drooped again. ”I have all I vant, and you are the best man in the vorld. But I am the most miserable.”
”Nonsense! cheer up,” said Raphael.
”I can never cheer up any more. I vill shoot myself. I have realized the emptiness of life. Fame, money, love--all is Dead Sea fruit.”
His shoulders heaved convulsively; he was sobbing. Raphael stood by helpless, his respect for Pinchas as a poet and for himself as a practical Englishman returning. He pondered over the strange fate that had thrown him among three geniuses--a male idealist, a female pessimist, and a poet who seemed to belong to both s.e.xes and categories.
And yet there was not one of the three to whom he seemed able to be of real service. A letter brought in by the office-boy rudely snapped the thread of reflection. It contained three enclosures. The first was an epistle; the hand was the hand of Mr. Goldsmith, but the voice was the voice of his beautiful spouse.
”DEAR MR. LEON:
”I have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency from the ideas with which _The Flag of Judah_ was started. It is obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasize the olden features of our faith--the questions of _kosher_ meat, etc.--as forcibly as our readers desire. You no doubt cherish ideals which are neither practical nor within the grasp of the ma.s.ses to whom we appeal. I fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you reluctant--in the dearth of genius and Hebrew learning--to saddle me with the task of finding a subst.i.tute, but I feel it is time for me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. I have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it might be possible for Mr. Pinchas, of whom you have always spoken so highly, to undertake the duties of editors.h.i.+p, Mr. Sampson remaining sub-editor as before. Of course I count on you to continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to remain in the background.
”Yours sincerely,
”HENRY GOLDSMITH.
”P.S.--On second thoughts I beg to enclose a cheque for four guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise enclosed herewith. Your sister seconds Mrs. Goldsmith in the hope that you will do so. Our tenancy of the Manse only lasts a few weeks longer, for of course we return for the New Year holidays.”
This was the last straw. It was not so much the dismissal that staggered him, but to be called a genius and an idealist himself--to have his own orthodoxy impugned--just at this moment, was a rough shock.
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