Voila! Here is France—France in New York and the France of to-day. One could forgive the Boche all the crimes he has committed but the one that he has robbed the French of their gayety, of their lightness of heart. Dark gray has taken the place of happy rose and green. Sparkling eyes have been dulled and the gay ribbons pleated in the hair of women have disappeared. A small black band on the sleeve tells the reason why. One hears laughter no longer from the open windows and on the street.
Voila! American and Canadian soldiers pass on the street and are cheered. Little boys and girls shake their hands. A young woman drops her marketing bag, claps her hands and cries "Vive l'Amerique," to which one gallant boy in khaki answers with "Vive la France!" Windows and doors open. Women and children bend over the sills as much as they dare. A hundred, a thousand hands applaud, a hundred, a thousand voices cheer, from a dozen phonographs "The Marseillaise" is heard.
Voila! you are in New York, in the French quarter, on Eighth Avenue between Twenty-eighth and Thirty-sixth Streets.
In the evenings the neighborhood still gathers at Clement's. Papa Baviele still holds the floor, only he no longer tells the stories of the Commune, while Blanchard and Clero are discussing the merits of a Packard engine or of a Bleriot versus a Curtiss airplane.
The war is the topic and Clement speaks with authority, for he has been in it, in 1870.
"We would have beaten them then, only we had a sleepy Emperor and a coward or a traitor—in the end it amounts to the same—as a general."
"Père Clement is right," said old Bideaux. "Foch was born fifty years too late. Look here, how many of us are missing? Bernard, Duval, Chuffot, Denure, Carreaux, Henry—all the young ones gone to France. La Vielle Mamma Clement, a little more wine—to forget."
"Where is Marguerite?" Papa Clement asked his wife.
Marguerite, the young wife of Clement's son, Bernard, had been living with them since her husband returned to France to do his duty. Six months after she had come over to this country with her widowed father, Bideaux, the mechanician, the war broke out. But in these six months she had loved and married Bernard.
"Ma petite," he said to her on the second day of August, "I shall go and see my consul." And when he came back he told her, "I am going to fight the Boches."
And he went.
She went to work. Her nimble fingers and developed sense for beauty of line found employment in a dress shop. And each week she sent something to her Bernard, somewhere in France, to supplement the four sous a day the Government was paying him. Every evening, returning from work, she asked, "Any news?"
Bernard wrote frequently and well. Twice they had had bad news. Wounded at the Aisne. Wounded on the Verdun front. "But Marguerite's husband won't die before he has again kissed her and told her all about the savage Boche. Tell papa I don't want ever to see Hans Seidel at our table again. His Socialism was only masquerade. I can swear I saw him in one of the Aisne attacks. We must learn not to forget our wounds even after they have healed."
Hans Seidel had never left New York, and was still a frequent guest at Clement's, where his Alsatian French amused everybody. But after Bernard's letter he was gently told his company was no longer desired.
"Marguerite will soon be here, père."
There was a ring at the door. Mamma Clement ran to open.
"Marguerite Clement?" a voice asked, and a uniformed boy stepped into the room.
"She not here—but I am ze father."
And Clement's shaking hands stretched for the envelope the boy held between his fingers.
"Ne pleure pas, don't cry. A million sons of other mothers have paid the price. Be brave."
He did not cry. "Be French, quoi!"
But the mother cried. Clement seemed to have aged ten years in ten minutes. The other men present withdrew to the remotest corners of the room. Only old Bideaux emptied his glass, muttering a terrible oath.
"He has sold his life dearly—friends. The letter says we shall soon receive his Croix de Guerre and his Legion d'Honneur medal. What a son I had! What a son we had!"
"A brave son," they all said.
Mamma Clement was in the other room crying softly. The men tried to console the father.
Suddenly they all stopped talking. Steps were heard on the stairway. They looked one at the other.
"That's Marguerite's step," said her father.
The crying of the mother ceased. Was it because she realized the other woman's pain? Was it because she wanted to be brave, or because she wanted to postpone the news?
The men regrouped themselves around the table. A key was turned in the latch. The door opened wide and radiantly Marguerite floated into the room.
"Bonsoir, papa, Bonsoir, mes amis. Good news! Very good news!"
She kissed every one present as she spread a newspaper on the table.
"Yesterday the Bulgars asked for peace, to-day St. Quentin is French again."
She took her father's hand and started to dance.
"What's the matter, quoi? Why don't you dance? Come quick, the Marseillaise—Allons enfants de la patrie——"
But no one moved. Mamma Clement came out from her room. "Oh, Marguerite!" she wanted to cry, but checked herself in presence of so much exuberance.
"We can't dance, Marguerite; it's—after ten o'clock—it's New York. People want to sleep."
"Ah! voila! you are old, all of you, that's the reason."
A group of boys passed in the street, singing. Marguerite threw open the window, applauded and yelled at the top of her voice "Bravo!" And the gayer she grew the sadder the men looked. It made their situation ever so harder.
"Sure, you drink wine all alone—give me some, too—and who gives me a glass? Oh, I want to be happy—the war will soon end. The Boche gets his due. Why do you sit like undertakers?"
She had one look at all of them. It sobered her.
"It is about Bernard. What is it? Come, tell me, what it is."
None present dared say a word. They all stood up. Her thin voice had changed to a deep alto. Her frivolous little head suddenly became as stern as the image of vengeance.
Her father, old Bideaux, was the first to recover.
"Give her the letter, Clement."
In a glance she took in all the contents. Bernard was dead. The rest was not important.
Her eyes closed. Her muscles stiffened as she gripped the edge of the table. It looked as though she was going to faint. She remained so for a few minutes, then she threw her head back and with all her strength she yelled at the top of her voice:
"Vive la France! Vive la France! Vive la France!"
And the mother and the father of the dead soldier repeated the cry with tears in their eyes, as loudly as they could, to dull the edge of their cutting pain, to drown their sorrow.
"You said, Bideaux, I had a brave son. But how much braver is your daughter!"
"What is your name, please?" Mr. Lauders asked the young Frenchwoman in mourning applying for the position of designer in his dressmaking shop.
"My name is Marguerite V. L. F. Clement."
"Full name, please?"
"Marguerite Vive la France Clement——"
And every time Marguerite's pain is too sharp to bear she cries out: "Vive la France!"
It's now more than four years since the Boche invaded New York through the French quarter. Gray and black are the dominant colors of what was the most joyous district of our city.
You hear people talk about the disadvantages of living in New York. Personally, I cannot think of greater happiness than being in this great metropolis, if only for the reason that I can be all over Europe in one night. Five cents carfare lands you in the French district. Five more minutes reading of the "Subway Sun" lands you in Hungary; from whence you can tramp in fifteen minutes to Italy or Greece or Turkey, as the spirit moves you or inclination dictates. You can eat your breakfast in a Russian restaurant on East Fifth Street, have caviar and Bolshevik talk; go for lunch in China, on Mott Street, where they will serve you tea grown on the highest mountain of Asia; for dinner you can have your choice between Persian, French, Hindu or Greek menus, and still have the cuisines of a dozen other foreign nationalities to choose from if you are alive the next morning.
And now, in case you ever intend going down to the Syrian Quarter for supper and atmosphere, I will acquaint you with the story of Luleika, as it was told to me by Malouf the jeweler, who is a Mohammedan gentleman, born in Constantinople. Malouf believes in the glory of Allah. His face is as dry as smoked parchment, and he touches the ground with his forehead twice a day, at sunrise and sundown, as it is commanded in the Koran. Malouf lives on Washington Street, which is at a stone's throw from the Statue of Liberty in the Bay of New York.
"And it is written in the Koran: 'For whosoever sells his soul for gain, shall suffer in his flesh, and whosoever sells his flesh for gain shall suffer in his soul.'
"But you, my listener, are either a Christian Giaour or a Yehudi Kepek, and know nothing about the Koran.
"And Luleika was young then, in her twenty-fifth year, and the Koran was only a name to her and not the fountain of wisdom which it really is.
"She was young and beautiful when her brother, Ali, who was a rich dealer in rugs, brought her here, to this pork-eating country. Her brother was very proud of her. Not one woman in a thousand could wear a diamond-studded comb in her hair as well as Luleika could; not one in a million could carmine her nails as well; and not another in the whole world could make the lines of her mouth harmonize so well with the curves of her eyebrows.
"I loved Luleika. But I was poor and her brother was rich, and richer yet were the friends he had. So Ali set up a store, not far from the Christian church around the corner, in which he sold rugs to the rich of this country. And in the store he put up a little cage in which sat Luleika like an imprisoned bird. Men came to buy rugs and smile at the girl. Ali became richer every day. As his gold piled up he forgot the good teachings of the holy book and ate pork and drank wine. And Luleika did as he did.
"Then my mother sent word through Mustapha Hogea, the priest, that I should come home that she might see me before joining her father in Allah. And I answered: "I have bread here a-plenty, and there is a woman my heart holds my eyes on, and you may die in peace, for I shall follow the words of the Koran and end my daily prayers with Allah il Allah, Mohammed rassul Allah."
"She must have died peacefully.
"Daily, under some excuse or other, I went to see Luleika. She changed her dress little by little as she learned the language of this country. Her beautifully woven bournous was replaced with a white waist which looked as if made out of tissue paper, and her heavy pantaloons, cut from goods brought on a camel's back from Damascus, were exchanged for a flimsy skirt, the like of which is worn by the women of the land of the Francs.
"And one day, when I no longer could wait, I spoke to her of my love. She listened to the end and then she said: 'Thou art young and strong. A woman could love thee. But thou art poor, and I am afraid of poverty. I shall therefore marry Kurguz Mehmed, the partner of my brother Ali.'
"'But Mehmed is dreadfully old!' I cried.
"'I wish he were older,' she told me.
"Luleika married Kurguz Mehmed. He was so old he could not walk without a cane. Kurguz had become very rich in this country, rich and dissolute. He was the shame of his people.
"Ali knew, Luleika knew, yet she married him, because he was rich.
"And I, I worked myself tired and cried myself to sleep. Twice the soul of my mother stayed my hand from murder. Thousands of rings and brooches in silver and gold I have made for men and women, and in them I have engraved all the tortures of my soul and flesh. I have put sapphires and rubies in the eyes of the engraved serpents on the brooches and pale green topazes in the mouths of the carved monsters on the rings I made.
"And every day I took an oath afresh never to see her again.
"Then one day her last words to me rang in my ears: 'I wish he were older.'
"But Kurguz Mehmed got stronger and younger every day now. I saw him pass the street without leaning on his cane.
"Five years later, one morning, Luleika suddenly appeared at the door of my place.
"'That you make for me a brooch, Malouf,' she said, 'a brooch as beautiful as you ever made.'
"I looked at her. My heart grew cold, my mouth burned. Was this the same Luleika? She was still beautiful, but her flesh had lost its firmness, and the corners of her mouth drooped.
"And as I worked at her brooch I cooled the white-heated golden wires with my tears, yet I dared not speak to her of my love, for she was the wife of another man. She must have known I still loved her; women always do.
"Kurguz Mehmed lived on and grew richer every day. He lived on five more years, and then five more and then some more. The last two years he lay, with no use of limbs and eyes on his bed, and allowed not that she leave him alone. He was still her master.
"Then he died.
"She was left alone and rich, oh very rich. Every rug sold in this country had added something to her riches. But she was no longer young when Kurguz died. She was no longer young and she knew it.
"My soul was dead to her. My flesh burnt to cold cinders. She came for a ring one day. I spoke nothing at all to her save of the ring—nothing of love.
"But there were other men, men of our people who have come here in the last fifteen years. Young men wooed her, swore love to her. She never believed. Was she not ten times as rich as Kurguz was when she married him for his wealth?
"What she herself had done was the measure by which she weighed what others may do. She would have believed the young men, ten years ago, should Kurguz have died when she expected him to. But now, her mirror told her: 'What else do men see to love in thee except thy gold?'
"As she grew richer she believed still less. She bedecked herself with the costliest jewels, yet she always knew they wouldn't bring back youth.
"Go now, you my listener, to the store of Luleika, Kurguz Mehmed's rich widow. Buy rugs. The richer she will become the greater her punishment will be. It will poison her mind and poison the souls of her wooers.
"Because her sin was so great Allah prolonged the life of even so great a sinner as Kurguz Mehmed.
"I shall live my days engraving this sad story in gold and silver. Believers and infidels, rich and poor, in the thousands are near it without knowing."
Malouf finished his story. For the time being I thought myself somewhere in the Orient—in Constantinople or Salonica, where roving packs of dogs howl day and night and no soul cares about the infernal noise—somewhere near Turkish giamies topped by the crescent moon—somewhere where men sit with their feet in the gutter and smoke from long pipes, while veiled women walk near the walls.
But when I walked out of Malouf's store, boys were just lighting the paper lanterns for a block dance. Across the street hung a big war poster with famous sayings penned underneath.
As if lit by a huge flying glow-worm, the torch of the Lady of Liberty in bronze pointed to the flitting stars. Dark-eyed men and women returned home, to the Orient from the Occident. Night was coming.
A few men on the street, facing the setting sun, bowed very low as they said their short prayers to Allah, who is here, there and everywhere.
Isaac Cohen came from Russia ten years ago. He left there his wife and two children and came here, where he had a rich uncle who was in the real estate business.
His uncle took him to his home, had him rest up, bought him a new suit of clothes and began to Americanize the nephew by telling him that he would have to make a living.
"Did you believe, uncle, that I have come here to watch my beard grow? I, who have a wife and children to support," Cohen answered.
The answer pleased his uncle very much, because he knew how easily some forget their duties when at a distance.
"Isaac, I shall try my best to get you something. Let's call in your aunt and ask her advice."
Aunt Sarah came into the room, and folding her bejewelled hands, she began to think.
"The best would be, my husband, if your nephew would tell us at what he would like to work," she finally said.
"Well, Isaac, what do you say?"
Isaac Cohen's face lit up. He had his dreams, like all mortals. His greatest desire was to be a beadle in a synagogue.
"Nothing easier," the uncle explained. "In the synagogue of our own congregation such a position is now vacant."
And the uncle phoned up to the President of the congregation, who was delighted to immediately receive the applicant at his home.
Was Isaac Cohen happy? Was there ever a happier man than he was as he walked with his uncle from Second Avenue to Rivington Street?
During the whole voyage he had dreamed of getting a position as a beadle—and now, suddenly, it was being realized. The silken blouses he saw spread out between bunches of radishes and beets on the pushcarts of Orchard Street were now almost within his grasp. He would buy one for his wife with the first money he earned. On another pushcart were toys, leftovers, seconds from last Christmas. He would buy a horse for his little son. All those luxurious things he saw in the windows of the stores were to be for him also. And a three-room flat, with water from faucets, a dumb-waiter, and other new world wonders.
A beadle! Was there ever a higher position in life?
"Isaac," his uncle suddenly cut in on his dreams, "if Mr. Rosen, the President, asks you how much you want, you should answer that you will be satisfied with the same amount as the former beadle received." And before Cohen had time to say a word the uncle continued—"and here we are—second floor front. Let's hope for the best."
"Amen," said Cohen.
Mr. Rosen, the President of the Odessa Synagogue, was a very fine old gentleman. He had come to New York twenty years before Cohen, and prospered in the insurance business. He was a member of at least twenty societies. Half of his income was paid in dues to the organizations to which he belonged. Half of the Jewish population were his "brothers." Of course they were all insured through him.
Brother Rosen received Cohen very nicely, and Isaac Cohen made a very good impression on him.
"A nephew of yours is certainly a very desirable asset to our community, I am sure, brother Cohen. The position of beadle in our synagogue is a very honorable one."
The President then turned his attention to the applicant who was nonplussed by the riches of the house. Velvet on every chair. Big brass chandeliers and a world of photographs depicting the host in all his glory as President of twenty lodges. Rosen watched the effect on the newcomer, then he spoke.
"You could enter upon your duties even to-day. I am sure you know all about them. The beadle about to leave us will instruct you and show you all the details of the work. He is a very good man, old Reb Baruch, Mr. Cohen, only we always had trouble with him on account of his handwriting. You know he has to enter in the book names and dates of births, marriages and deaths. Well, nobody can read his handwriting, not even himself; and on account of this we had a lot of trouble."
Isaac Cohen paled. He almost fainted there.
"What is the trouble?" the two men asked.
"I can't—write—never learned—to write," Isaac stammered.
And so the dream of being the beadle of the Odessa Synagogue or any other synagogue was shattered.
On returning to his uncle's home he was given a lecture by his aunt. He had to make a living. The long and short of it was that they gave him a twenty-dollar bill and told him to go and shift for himself.
A week later Isaac Cohen was peddling matches, garters and suspenders on Hester Street. A month later he was the owner of a pushcart on which he sold stockings, combs and toothbrushes. At night he learned knee-pants making. A year later he had a little shop and two machines were working for him.
His family was brought over here, and the wife helped what she could in the shop, living in the rear of the store. It was not as easy as it sounds when read, but two years later ten machines were grinding out knickerbockers in Isaac Cohen's factory. Ten years after his arrival in New York the firm of Cohen & Co. was known as the biggest of its kind. Two factories in Brownsville, one in New York, four hundred machines in all and twenty travelling salesmen selling his wares.
But he had never forgiven his uncle and aunt for having so abruptly turned him out of their house, for not having helped him realize his dream over here, and assisted him until he learned how to write.
One day old Mr. Rosen suddenly remembered to ask Brother Cohen about the nephew.
"Why, Mr. Rosen, don't you know? He is the firm Isaac Cohen & Co."
"He, the same fellow?" Rosen asked astounded.
Cohen did not care to say much about him, and old Rosen understood something was wrong between the two.
Early next morning Mr. Rosen went to see Isaac Cohen at his office. The rich manufacturer recognized him immediately. Before long he agreed to take a policy of $25,000 from Mr. Rosen's insurance company. But when the old man gave him the application to sign Isaac Cohen said:
"What is that?"
"An application, Mr. Cohen—just write down your name—you know—here at the bottom——"
"But, Mr. Rosen, if I had ever learned to write I would be a beadle in a synagogue to-day."
If you don't know Mr. Leib Aaronson, permit me to introduce him. Leib Aaronson is the marriage broker of Harlem. He was in the "Schatchen" business in Harlem when there were only two synagogues for the whole community and both of them were half empty even on holidays. They were built on speculation with an eye to the future development of the section. Such ancient residenceship in Harlem cannot be boasted by many, and it is therefore regarded with great respect. It is Mayflowery, so to speak.
Leib Aaronson's couples have grandchildren now, and he keeps track of all of them as future prospects. In his notebook he has three divisions—Men, Women and Widows. A three-days-old boy is entered in the section Men, with date of birth and fortune of parents; and when one of his couples, the Abrahams, invite him to the christening of their daughter, he enters the little child in the section Women. Near each name are figures which Mr. Aaronson changes frequently in the course of years. If the figures are near a name in the Men section, it means a dowry he is worthy of. Figures near the name of a woman mean what dowry her father is able to give. A line across the whole stands for death, marriage or—and for this last act Mr. Aaronson is always very angry—love-marriage for which no fee was delivered.
Should Mr. Aaronson hear that Mr. Goldberg made a pile of money on some real estate transaction, the figures near Miss Sady Goldberg are raised accordingly. When Baruch Levinsohn was bankrupt the ten thousand dollars dowry marked for his daughter on the marriage broker's notebook dwindled to almost nothing—just enough for a tailor, or lucky if she could get anything with it.
That little notebook of Leib Aaronson contains the history of all the Harlem fortunes; and the lines drawn across—as they occurred more frequently in the last few years, and Aaronson is not yet a rich man from brokerage fees—stand for only one thing; the modernization of Harlem; the love matches Mr. Aaronson is so much against.
Now that I have acquainted you with the marriage broker and his methods, I will tell you the story of his daughter.
A more beautiful girl than Leah Aaronson was never seen in Harlem. Even while a child the neighborhood called her "Beautiful Leah"; "two eyes like big prunes, lips like cherries, and cheeks like a red apple," was the verdict of the fruit man on the corner.
And a more dutiful daughter never lived. She almost never attended any of the parties. Her mother was an invalid, so she attended to everything about the apartment. It was always spick and span. Her father invited people to his home to talk business, and just to make them feel at home that old-time samovar was set on the table. And did the brass shine? Did it? Why, the whole house was kept so clean one could pass a white handkerchief over the floor and not find a speck of dust on it.
Her own dress, her mother's old black silk gown and her father's clothes, were always like just brought home from the tailor. It was all Leah's work.
But all that did not help Leah to get a husband. She was nowhere on her father's book. She was already sixteen, and her father had never given a thought to her future. Why should he? There was no fee in it.
Then something happened.
Leib Aaronson had invited Abraham Goldberg to his home for tea and arranged that Mrs. Fahler should casually come in to see Mrs. Aaronson! Mrs. Fahler had inherited an insurance policy and two houses from her dead husband.
But when Abraham Goldberg saw Leah it almost spoiled the match with the widow. It took three months to get the deal through, and then only when Goldberg was on the verge of bankruptcy.
"When Goldberg comes to see me, I don't want you to be much around, Leah, or you will spoil the deal. It's four hundred dollars, you understand!"
Leah understood. Four hundred dollars was a great fortune.
But when was she to get married? The invalid mother thought of that many a time, and spoke about it to her husband.
"In about two years from now, Dora Summer will be ready; she is fifteen now. By that time Rabinowitz's son will just come out of college and will need money to establish himself—so it will be a sure deal. My fee will be about two thousand dollars. Summer, the butcher, is making money so fast he can't count it. Then, I will not forget my daughter," Leib Aaronson explained.
"Yes, Leib, but suppose——"
"That can't be, woman. Dora Summer will not make a love match; she's cross-eyed."
"I did not mean that. But suppose Rabinowitz gets on his feet himself—you know yourself what good family he comes from—will he then let his own son marry a butcher's daughter?"
"Suppose nothing! A butcher in America is as good as a rabbi if he has money. Believe me, Summer will give all he has for a doctor as a husband for his cross-eyed daughter."
It was all so certain, as Mrs. Aaronson later on explained to Leah, that the girl began to look at Dora Summer as her benefactress. Dora was a walking dowry for her. The whole Aaronson household was interested in Dora's welfare and in her fast growing fortune.
Aaronson made some money, a small fee here and there, while waiting for the big deal to get ripe—but that time was not to be.
Cross-eyed Dora met a cousin from Philadelphia and married him just when Rabinowitz's son obtained his degree. And to spoil every other plan, this young fool actually married a Christian girl he had known in college.
Leah was eighteen. She decided to look out for herself.
There was a young bookkeeper, a brother of her only girl friend, Fanny Shuman. He was nice to look at. He was also very ambitious. After she had met him at the Shumans' house he fairly invited himself for a Sunday evening at the Aaronsons'. Fanny Shuman whispered in Leah's ear "catch him. I hate Gussy Schwartz."
Things went on pretty well but slowly. Leah arranged and timed the visits of the young man in such a way that he should come when her father was absent. Yet on the third week Leib Aaronson met the visitor.
"Hello, Isaac Shuman! Look what a big man he is! How old are you, now?"
"Twenty-four, Mr. Aaronson."
"Twenty-four! Wait—I think you are older." And out he took that fatal little notebook. "You will be twenty-six, my boy, next month."
After a few minutes' silence, Leib Aaronson, the marriage broker, said to his daughter. "Make the samovar and leave us alone, please. I have something to talk to Mr. Shuman."
Leah trembled and cried as she went to the kitchen. When she returned to the front room she heard her father say to the young man:
"Fanny is nearly twenty-five. She has to marry. Without a dowry—it's a sin unto Israel. She is your sister!"
Leah cried. But Leib Aaronson could not lose a double fee. Besides the dire need, Aaronson was also urged by professional pride to turn such a clever deal and make the same money pay a double fee.
Gussy Schwartz's dowry was four thousand dollars. Out of this money Isaac Shuman gave one thousand toward his sister's dowry, who was married through Aaronson to a newly established paper box manufacturer. Both marriages took place on the same day. This was some inducement to the young manufacturer of paper boxes travelling on thin ice at his bank. It cut the wedding expenses in half.
The few hundred dollars Aaronson got as fees from that deal just put the family over the holy days.
Midwinter found Leah acquainted with a nice young fellow who studied dentistry in the day time and worked as a waiter at night. He was not from the district, consequently nowhere in her father's notebook. He had already gone so far as to kiss Leah's hand, although she said "Please don't," when Aaronson got hold of him quite accidentally at Shuman's house. Aaronson always visited his couples frequently the first year of their marriage. Back of his mind he had a notion that he guaranteed his sales for a year, as are some dollar watches.
In two weeks the future D. D. S. was convinced by the marriage broker that marriage was a more honorable profession than night work in a restaurant, and the deal was clinched. For a year's board and lodging and a promise of one thousand dollars when the young man should finish his studies, Schwartz bought a doctor for his second daughter. There was some argument as to the fee. Aaronson claimed that a year's board was worth $1,000, consequently they owed him brokerage on $2,000. But it was all settled amiably.
The Schatchen had to buy a new coat for himself. Rent was also overdue and he had no cash.
Leah was twenty-one. Leah was twenty-two, and Leah was twenty-three. And the best husbands of the district were given away by her father to other girls; one for two months' rent, one for a winter coat, one for a long overdue bill at the grocers'.
Leah's cheeks were now a little pale, her lips a little drawn. As the shoemaker's children walk barefooted, so was Leah left without a husband because her father was a marriage broker. There was not much hope for a dowry. The best matches fizzled out because of that modern institution—love. It was Aaronson's greatest enemy. No matter how much he combatted it by saying that all love matches were failures, love matches multiplied daily.
A new element invaded old Harlem. Men without reverence for old customs. People whose antecedents nobody knew. They lit no candles on Friday night and rode in cars on Saturday. Girls and young men walked arm-in-arm on the street and laughed aloud immodestly.
Aaronson complained bitterly. His time-honored profession was no longer needed.
"Leib, what about our daughter?"
"Bother with your daughter! There are no Jewish nunneries. With God's help she too will marry."
He had an eye on a certain young widow with a little money, and a young man who needed money. He invited the young man for tea and Mrs. Adler was to come in casually on a visit to Mrs. Aaronson. That old samovar was to do duty again.
Leah was watching. She was wise now. That young man was to be hers.
She placed her chair facing the young man and sat near the widow to give him a chance to compare between them. The young man was very bashful, so the widow also simulated bashfulness. But Leah was in her best mood, and actually sang as she poured tea for the company. She made Mrs. Adler look twenty years older by comparison, and angered the young widow so much that she left the table with tears trembling on her eyelashes.
The deal with the widow fell through. He did not like her. She was too old.
Two months later Leah married the young fellow. She swept him off his feet behind her father's back.
Aaronson was studying his little notebook for a suitable match for the man, when the young couple came into the room and announced that they were just married by the Alderman of the district.
The marriage broker could not forgive his daughter. Not only had she robbed him of a possible fee, but she had completed the ruin of his business. People will point at him and say:
"A marriage broker, and his daughter made a love match!"
The Pretzel-Painters' Union had emerged victoriously from their last strike. The Pretzel eating population of the city had refused to eat Pretzels that were not glazed by the expert hand of a capable expert in the art of pretzel painting—the beer-drinking population refused to drink beer in saloons where dull pretzels were offered and capital had to yield to labor. Organized labor was triumphant. The pretzel painters who had worked fourteen hours a day for ten dollars a week before the strike, won a ten-hour day, an increase of two dollars a week, as well as official recognition of their Union.
The Union consisted of twenty members, all of whom, except one, were officials of the organization. The officials numbered a president, two vice presidents, a recording secretary and a financial secretary, a treasurer, three controllers, a house committee of five, an organizer and three trustees. The total income of the Union from dues never amounted to more than three dollars a week, but this was supplemented by the income from the yearly Pretzel-Painters' concert and ball every winter, and from the picnic every summer.
After the strike was won the members felt the necessity of solidarity more than ever. This feeling brought them together twice every week to discuss Union matters and matters of private concern. But after a while, when they had exhausted all possible subjects and the Union was running smoothly, the organizer had difficulty getting even the legal quorum together once every second week. The organizer knew from experience what such negligence caused.
The collection of dues had already diminished perceptibly. Some of the members were in arrears with five and six weeks. Fifteen cents a week is comparatively easy to pay, but when the sum is over a dollar and the pay is twelve dollars a week—it's a different story! The Pretzel-Painters' Local was in great danger.
The organizer began to feel that non-union pretzel-painters were shining the beer drinkers' delicacy. He called meeting after meeting and described passionately to the four or five old men present the great fight between Labor and Capital in general and the battle their own Union had won; the high price paid for what they already had gained through solid organization, but it was all in vain; the others did not come. They owed too much for dues and fines.
Finally the organizer hit upon a great idea. "The Pretzel-Painters' Union has to be reorganized," he wrote to all the members.
It was a new thing, that word "reorganized." It was something worth while finding out about. "We must reorganize or our organization goes to pieces," he wrote to them. That Wednesday evening was a gala evening. The financial secretary had never taken in so much money at once; twenty-six dollars in one evening! They all paid up to the minute; because it was explained in the letter that only members with paid-up dues had a vote in the reorganization of the mighty Pretzel-Painters' Union.
The Pretzel-Painters' Union was not without its inner dissensions. There was a group of Galician Jews and a group of Russian Jews always fighting one another; and both groups fought whatever the group of Roumanian Jews proposed. There were also two old Portuguese Jews; and whatever they wanted carried through was sure to be defeated by the above-mentioned three groups.
But the Russian group was always the deciding factor. By themselves alone they were the majority of the organization.
After the secretary had announced that everybody was present and paid up to the minute, the chairman, Mr. Bindzel, opened the meeting and asked the organizer to explain the cry of distress.
"Mr. Chairman and brothers," the organizer began, "we must reorganize or we go to pieces. Already the Hinshel Company employs two non-union pretzel painters. If we don't reorganize they will break our Union. We must uphold the rights of labor or the heel of capitalism will crush us——"
He spoke well into the night and urged them with tears in his eyes and a proper catch in the voice to stand by the flag of their class.
The silence was very impressive when the organizer finished and sat down to wipe his perspiring face. No one spoke a word. The chairman did not want to break the silence. He felt the greatness of the moment.
Finally brother Kessler said:
"Mr. Chairman!"
"Brother Kessler has the floor."
Brother Kessler, of the Galician group, seldom took the floor. So everybody was astonished that he of all others should want to speak.
"Mr. Chairman and Brothers.... Mr. Chairman. Of course, we want to reorganize, but we don't know how to do it."
"Well said! Go ahead Brother Kessler!" several voices were heard at once.
Kessler took heart.
"We are Pretzel Painters. We are proud of our Union, are strong for our Union, and we want to protect it. Let Brother Kirshen, our organizer, tell us how."
"Sure, Kessler is right. Let Brother Kirshen tell us how," came voices from everywhere.
"Order, please!" the chairman called. "This is an important meeting. On it depends the battle between Labor and Capital. Order, please. Brother Kirshen has the floor."
Brother Kirshen, aglow from his recent triumph, took the centre of the platform.
"The first thing to do to reorganize our Union is to elect new officers. I make therefore a motion that we elect new officers."
"Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman," several called out.
"That's a political trick," called out the Roumanian group in one voice.
"Order, please!" yelled the chairman. The heavy gavel came down upon the table.
Everybody was soon seated.
"I make an amendment to the motion," Kessler said.
"Sit down, Brother Kessler, we must proceed regularly. The Pretzel-Painters' Union has a constitution. We will proceed according to its constitution. The constitution of the Pretzel-Painters' Union says that when a motion is put before the house, it is first voted upon before any amendments are discussed. Does anybody want to speak on the motion?"
"Then, I propose that the motion be voted upon without debates because it is late and they will soon put out the lights in the house," said Kessler.
"Politics, politics," the Portuguese group cried. "Traitor, traitor," came from another group. But when Kessler's proposal was voted upon he had a majority. The Russian group voted with him. And so it happened that the nineteen officers of the Pretzel-Painters' Union were shifted around.
The chairman became the treasurer and so forth. But when it came to vote upon the secretaryship, Kessler, who had hitherto been the twentieth of the Union, the only member who had been without an office, was elected Secretary of the Pretzel-Painters' Union, because he was backed by the Russian group.
The following evening Kessler was the first to appear at the local of the Union. A little later the dethroned official appeared. They did not even greet one another. Kirshen, the organizer, was the third man to come.
"Brother Grumberg," he said to the former secretary, "would you please give over the books to brother Kessler and show him what he has to do?"
Grumberg took out from a drawer the two books of the Union and was ready to explain the work.
"But by God! In God's name! What do you want me to do with these books?" Kessler cried.
"Record the meetings, brother Kessler, write down what takes place," Grumberg said.
"What?" the new Secretary called out horror-stricken. "I—write? How should I write? I don't write—I don't know how to write—never did. What do you want with my life—what?"
"For God's sake, Kessler! If you cannot read and write why did you accept the nomination for the secretaryship?" the organizer asked angrily. But Kessler was defiant.
"Well, how and from where did you want me to know that a secretary must know to read and write?"
Kessler's resignation and the election of a new secretary brought the organization on the brink of ruin. And if it would not have been for the superior generalship of organizer Kirshen the Pretzel-Painters' Union would have been crushed under the heel of capitalism.
One does not expect to meet anything out of the ordinary at West Farms to break the monotony where the big city fringes out. The old wooden shacks lean on the brick tenements, and one does not know whether the city invades the peaceful country or the country tries to catch up with the city. The outskirts of New York always brings to me the memory of a certain gentleman in silk hat and dress suit, but with the ends of his trousers in fringes and his shoes down at the heel. But—as a wise man once said—if one stands in one place long enough he sees the whole world pass before him as in a kaleidoscope. Thus also my frequent visits to West Farms were repaid when I saw one morning a gypsy tribe camped there.
Six wagons back of the road, a dozen horses neighing as they rubbed their noses on the shafts; a few tents with the flaps undulating windward; a few patches of color on the dress of the women. What a change it made in the dreary place, how stolid old West Farms was transformed when the curling smoke rose from the stovepipes of the camp wagons!
I expected to hear the usual noise attending camping; song and laughter, as only gypsies can sing and laugh.
It was a Roumanian gypsy tribe; one of many that have come over to this country in the last decade. But the people went about in the quietest possible way, which I knew was not at all their custom.
"Have they taken on manners?" I wondered.
Children of the neighborhood, and even grown-ups, began to assemble around the wagons. They stood at a distance. A mother warned her over-curious little boy:
"Don't go too near, dearie! Gypsies steal children."
As the woman spoke two little boys of the tribe climbed out from one of the camp wagons.
"Look at these white children!" exclaimed several people.
"Surely, stolen children."
The features of the children were distinctly of a Roumanian cast. A young gypsy woman followed the little ones to a tent.
From inside the wagon broke out a loud cry that was drowned in the wails and groanings of the people in every wagon and tent. The curious throng assembled about the camp now widened the circle. The gypsy litany of the dead was officiated.
In funeral rhythm the dead one's virtues were enumerated one by one, while others made incantations to chase the evil spirit.
"Leave us! If thou hast come through the chimney, leave through the chimney; and if through the door, evil one, leave the same way!"
"That thou be fed burning stones from now until eternity. That thy thirst be quenched only with the blood of thy own kin."
The same incantations were repeated for more than a half hour. They ceased abruptly, at the sound of a gong. The evil one had departed. Slowly, in single file, the gypsies descended the steps of the wagon and bowed very low westward, to the setting sun of an early autumn day, before going each one to his own tent.
The circle of the curious neighbors had widened very much when I approached an old gypsy and asked him who had died. He turned full face as he said:
"Our Chief, Yorga, our Chief. We would want to bury him under a tree near a river—but can we do as we please in this country? Tell me, stranger."
Like the drippings from a burning candle the tears fell from the man's eyes as he spoke to me.
On the wooden cross over Yorga's grave I have carved with my pen-knife the name of the dead one. In the fall of every year his tribe comes to the burial grounds, and each one cuts out a piece of cloth from his best garment and leaves it there as an offering to the dead Chief.
And the old gypsy told me: "A great man was Yorga. A king among men. His mother was killed by her father when Yorga was born, because she was the daughter of a great Roumanian boyar, and the child, fruit of a secret love, was the son of a gypsy. But the child was allowed to live, so beautiful was he.
"When Yorga was six years old, his grandfather, the old boyar, who had no other children, took the boy from the servant quarters into the house and called a special teacher to show him the letters. Later on Yorga was sent to school, and grew to be a learned man. All this time he did not know who his father was, and did not know that the hand he kissed good-night was the one that had murdered his mother.
"But there was a restless spirit in the boy; a spirit that made him roam from city to city whenever he had an opportunity. And thus he wandered all over the world. In search of learning, it was thought. Because no one realized the yearning of the gypsy in this stately youth.
"When Yorga was twenty-five his grandfather married him to another boyar's daughter. The following year the old man died, leaving his land and fortune to his grandson.
"Yorga was not happy in his marriage, not because the 'Conitza' was not a beautiful and good wife, not because she did not love him. Neither did his great fortune bring him happiness. It only tied him down to one place. Yorga began to go to the city once a month, and usually came home drunk. Then once every week. Later on he was seldom seen at home.
"The usurers first took away part of his land, then some of his oxen. His wife cried. One and then another child was born to them. Yorga made resolutions to better himself—cried and beat his heart and asked for forgiveness. A few days, a few weeks, or a few months of strenuous work, and then again back to the riotous life, to dissipation—and again home a repentant sinner. The land he owned shrunk daily. And the cattle he owned were either taken away or died in neglect—because 'the eye of the master fattens the cows.' And Yorga was careless. He had no ambition in life. He wanted nothing, he desired nothing. Even his carouses no longer had any distraction for him.
"Then one day our tribe camped near his grounds. At once he left wife, children, land and home, and came to live with us. For twenty years he guided our ways. There was no day that he thought not and labored not for us. He no longer thought of carouses and drinks. He bade us dress cleanly and live healthful lives, and we were respected wherever we came. It was he who guided us here over strange lands and great seas, and his wisdom is still guiding us."
"But," asked I, "what about the white children I saw in your tents?"
"They are of Yorga and his gypsy wife—and with them we have great trouble, for our ways are not their ways. Their souls are like the soul of Yorga's mother, the boyar's daughter. Some day they will run away and settle in some village—stolid, stale peasants."
"And what about Yorga's first children?" I asked again.
"They roam the world; are celebrated musicians. And the sun never finds them where the moon put them to sleep. They have the father's blood," the old man answered as he took with his bare fingers a piece of burning charcoal to light his freshly stuffed pipe.
"What's born of a cat runs after mice."
"Impossible, impossible, impossible," said everybody when the news passed around that Stark's Café was closed and that the house was being demolished.
Stark's Café on Houston Street was a celebrated landmark of New York. It was there that the playwrights, from the most pretentious to the humblest, closed contracts with managers. A special table at the upper end of the place was reserved for this purpose, and when a manager was sitting at that table with a playwright it meant business. "Charlie" the lawyer, would then loom up from somewhere and draw up the "funeral papers." Stark's Café! Why, Jewish actors in Alexandria, Egypt, made appointments with their London acquaintances to "meet at Stark's." It was not necessary to add "in New York."
Stark's was the stage mart of the world. The first tables near the door, just ordinary wooden tables, were apportioned for the ushers, ticket speculators and supers. Next to these tables were a few better ones, marble topped, at which were seated the provincial actors on visit in the metropolis. After those, there were a few which belonged to musicians and the writers of vaudeville jingles. But the round centre tables and those near the windows toward Houston Street were reserved for stars of both sexes, managers and successful playwrights. Stark's head waiter put it very clearly: "These tables are reserved for gentlemen who at least occasionally put on a silk hat."
And now, this place, this rendezvous of the two hemispheres was closed and being torn down.
Old Samuels, one of the oldest Jewish actors, complained bitterly about it.
"You understand," he said, "it's now twenty years that I never missed a day from Stark's. In the morning, after breakfast, I'd shave, dress and go to Stark's. Maybe, who knows! and after lunch I'd return there. To save carfare we moved not far from the place. After supper I was again there, and after the show—maybe—maybe."
Samuels's nickname was "Samuel Maybe," because it's now more than twenty years since he came from London, where he was a success, to play here, and it's still "Maybe." But he has never been faithless to his art. Oh, no! This was chiefly due to the fact that his wife and daughter were excellent dressmakers.
"You see for yourself what a calamity the tearing down of Stark's place is," old Samuels continued, as he wiped a tear from his eye. "All my hopes are blasted. There can be no 'maybe' any longer—I am doomed. What will I do every morning, every afternoon, every evening? Where will they come to look for me when they will need me?"
I must tell here that this conversation took place in a new café on 10th Street; whereupon some kind-hearted companion suggested to the weather-beaten veteran of the Jewish stage that he should make this place his steady abode. But the old man straightened his bent back, his eyes flashed fire and his thin hands shot out from his white cuffs in a dramatic sweep. "Here, in this place? I, Samuels, the man who created 'Kean' Shylock? No, never! Even if I starve to death. In a place without atmosphere, without traditions—never! never!"
One minute later he looked up at the clock on the wall and began to make hasty excuses: His wife was waiting for him with supper.
Samuels's past contained one of the greatest dramas. It ruined his life. It wiped the floor with him, so to say. Here is what had happened to him twenty-odd years ago:
There were only two Jewish theatres worthy of the name in the whole world. One was in London, and the other on the Bowery, New York—the old Thalia Theatre. The theatre in the Bowery had the greater reputation because of the genius of the lamented playwright, Jacob Gordin, presiding there, and the host of actors he had developed. It was the ambition of every London actor to play in New York. One of Samuels's confreres had already achieved fame on the Bowery when Samuels, who like all actors knew in his heart of hearts that he was better than any other living actor, decided to try his luck over here. In London he was already famous in certain classic rôles.
Ten days after his decision was taken, he and his grip landed at Stark's Café.
"From London? How is London? What's the new play there?"
Samuels had his best clothes on, and was admitted to the centre tables. It brought him in contact with stars and managers. His confrere, who had preceded him here, sat enviously at one of the minor tables. He only had a small part in a play, for which he received pay in "pasteboards" (tickets), which he himself peddled or sold to the brood of speculators. In those days Jewish actors did not own ten-thousand-dollar automobiles. Samuels's initial success, the ready admittance to the centre tables, made his former friend, Kashin, green with envy.
It so happened that Gordin, the dramatic manager, saw Samuels, liked his face, and engaged him immediately for a new play they were then rehearsing.
That same evening a cable was flashed to London to the actor's wife: "Pack up and come with baby." It brought Esther here two weeks later—just in time for the opening night of the new show.
Samuels's rôle was the one next to the star. Kashin had but a very minor rôle—as a body servant to Samuels, who was stalking about in flowing Oriental robes back stage from one end to the other.
Samuels waited in the wings for his cue. He had to come in with majestic steps and utter his decision to leave his faithless spouse to her lover. Oh how he chafed, waiting for his cue! It was to take the house by storm. He was to outshine even the star.
And—the cue was given, Kashin near him—everything in order. But just as he opened the door, Kashin gently but firmly stepped on poor Samuels's corn—on the little toe.
The pain was so terrible that the actor stumbled and limped on the stage with one foot in his hands. Mechanically he said his lines. Instead of using a stentorian voice with face to the gallery, he drawled them out in a plaintive tone, like a whimpering dog, looking at the stage door, with his back to the audience.
It was so funny that the audience roared with laughter and could not be brought to its senses. The heroine cried and pleaded, but it did not help. The gallery continued to laugh. When the curtain went down Kashin had disappeared from the theatre. The actors almost mobbed poor Samuels. The playwright, Gordin, could have killed him. "Even if they should have cut your head off you should still have been acting your rôle properly," he said. As soon as the poor actor appeared again in the next act, the people shook with laughter. It could not be suppressed.
When the manager came out before the curtain and explained to the people what had happened, it became even worse. It was impossible to go on. It killed the show—a good play which was revived ten years later with great success—and it killed Samuels.
Esther, a practical wife, opened a dressmaking shop. Samuels spent the next year or so explaining what had happened.
The first few weeks after the occurrence Samuels receded from the centre tables at Stark's to the side tables, and actors in good humor coaxed him into telling his story over and over again. It became a tradition to coax Samuels—and Samuels was easily coaxed into telling the story.
But he could get no place on the stage. From a character player he became a character. It became a habit with every manager to promise him a part in the next play. Some pretended it brought good luck to do so. When a play went to smash it was, they said, "Because Samuels did not believe you."
Thus the Jewish stage grew under his eyes with the doors closed to him, because some one had stepped on his corn. He became "Maybe"—"maybe" in the next play.
"Don't refuse Samuels," the manager would whisper to the playwright when the contract was drawn at the big table. "Don't refuse him; it brings bad luck."
Samuels would certainly have his eye on the proceedings, and come up to shake hands and bid good luck.
"And will I have a part?"
"I hope so, Samuels."
"Esther, I have a part in Ash's new play."
Esther had heard that same phrase twenty years thrice a day. Like all actors Samuels had but a poor vocabulary of his own. Relying on other men to supply them the tools of expression, actors are poor word finders.
Then, the night of the first performance, Samuels would warm up near some one, and as the "rôle" appeared he would sadly say, "My rôle, look what he is making with my rôle."
Twenty years of daily hopes and daily disappointments. A whole world grew up before him. He knew nothing of it at all. Stark's Café was New York, America. The whole world was comprised between his home and this place. His hair turned gray, the corners of his mouth drooped, his eyes dimmed, his shoulders stooped. His wife grew old, his daughter bloomed into youth and withered from overwork. There came the Boer War, several earthquakes, the Balkan War, and now this Great War. All this left Samuels cold and indifferent. All those years he was waiting at Stark's Café for an engagement.
"Maybe to-day."
And this haven of hope has disappeared.