By way of warding off "bad luck," she offered to lend me three dollars in cash, out of which I could pay her. I declined her offer.
She pleaded and expostulated. But I stood firm, and I came away in a state of the blackest wretchedness and self-disgust
I could never again bring myself to show my face at her house
A little music-store was now my chief resort. It was kept by a man whom I had met at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir, a former cantor who now supplemented his income from the store by doing occasional service as a wedding bard. The musicians, singers, and music-teachers who made the place their headquarters had begun by taking an interest in me, but the dimes and nickels I was now unceasingly "borrowing" of them had turned me into an outcast in their eyes. I felt it keenly. I would sulk around the store, anxious to leave, and loitering in spite of myself. There was a piano in the store, upon which they often played. This, their talks of music, and their venomous gossip had an irresistible fascination for me
I noticed that morbid vanity was a common disease among them.
Some of them would frankly and boldly sing their own panegyrics, while others, more discreet and tactful, let their high opinions of themselves be inferred. Nor could they conceal the grudges they bore one another, the jealousies with which they were eaten up. I thought them ludicrous, repugnant, and yet they lured me. I felt that some of those among them who were most grotesque and revolting in their selfishness had something in their make-up--certain interests, pa.s.sions, emotions, visions-- which placed them above the common herd. This was especially true of a spare, haggard-looking violinist, boyish of figure and cat-like of manner, with deep dark rings under his insatiable blue eyes. He called himself Octavius. He was literally consumed by the blaze of his own conceit and envy. When he was not in raptures over the poetry, subtlety, or depth of his own playing or compositions, he would give way to paroxysms of malice and derision at the expense of some other musician, from his East Side rivals all the way up to Sarasate, who was then at the height of his career and had recently played in New York. Wagner was his G.o.d, yet no sooner would somebody else express admiration for Wagner music than he would offer to show that all the good things in the works of the famous German were merely so many paraphrased plagiarisms from the compositions of other men. He possessed a phenomenal memory. He seemed to remember every note in every opera, symphony, oratorio, or concerto that anybody ever mentioned, and there was not a piece of music by a celebrated man but he was ready to "prove" that it had been stolen from some other celebrated man
His invective was particularly violent when he spoke of those Jewish immigrants in the musical profession whose success had extended beyond the East Side. He could never mention without a jeer or some coa.r.s.e epithet the name of a Madison Street boy, a violinist, who was then attracting attention in Europe and who was booked for a series of concerts before the best audiences in the United States
He was a pa.s.sionate phrase-maker. Indeed, it would have been difficult to determine which afforded him more pleasure--his self-laudations or the colorful, pungent, often preposterous language in which they were clothed
"I am writing something with hot tears in it," I once heard him brag.
"They"ll be so hot they"ll scald the heart of every one who hears it, provided he has a heart."
He had given me some nickels, yet his boasts would fill me with disgust. On the occasion just mentioned I was so irritated with my poverty and with the whole world that I was seized with an irresistible desire to taunt him. As he continued to eulogize his forthcoming masterpiece I threw out a Hebrew quotation: "Let others praise thee, but not thine own mouth."
He took no heed of my thrust. But since then he never looked at me and I never dared ask him for a nickel again
He had a ferocious temper. When it broke loose it would be a veritable volcano of revolting acrimony, his thin, firm opening and snapping shut in a peculiar fashion, as though he were squirting venom all over the floor. He was as sensual as Maximum Max, only his voluptuous talks of women were far more offensive in form. But then his lewd drivel was apt to glitter with flashes of imagination. I do not remember ever seeing him in good humor
BOOK VII
MY TEMPLE
CHAPTER I
ONE Friday evening in September I stood on Grand Street with my eyes raised to the big open windows of a dance-hall on the second floor of a brick building on the opposite side of the lively thoroughfare. Only the busts of the dancers could be seen. This and the distance that divided me from the hall enveloped the scene in mystery. As the couples floated by, as though borne along on waves of the music, the girls clinging to the men, their fantastic figures held me spellbound. Several other people were watching the dancers from the street, mostly women, who gazed at the appearing and disappearing images with envying eyes
Presently I was accosted by a dandified-looking young man who rushed at me with an exuberant, "How are you?" in English. He was dressed in the height of the summer fashion. He looked familiar to me, but I was at a loss to locate him
"Don"t you know me? Try to remember!"
It was Gitelson, my fellow-pa.s.senger on board the ship that had brought me to America, the tailor who clung to my side when I made my entry into the New World, sixteen months before
The change took my breath away
"You didn"t recognize me, did you?" he said, with a triumphant snicker, pulling out his cuffs so as to flaunt their gold or gilded b.u.t.tons
He asked me what I was doing, but he was more interested in telling me about himself. That cloak-contractor who picked him up near Castle Garden had turned out to be a skinflint and a slave-driver. He had started him on five dollars a week for work the market price of which was twenty or thirty. So Gitelson left him as soon as he realized his real worth, and he had been making good wages ever since. Being an excellent tailor, he was much sought after, and although the trade had two long slack seasons he always had plenty to do. He told me that he was going to that dance-hall across the street, which greatly enhanced his importance in my eyes and seemed to give reality to the floating phantoms that I had been watching in those windows.
He said he was in a hurry to go up there, as he had "an appointment with a lady" (this in English), yet he went on describing the picnics, b.a.l.l.s, excursions he attended
Thereupon I involuntarily shot a look at his jaunty straw hat, thinking of his gray forelock. I did so several times. I could not help it. Finally my furtive glances attracted his attention
"What are you looking at? Anything wrong with my hat?" he asked, baring his head. His hair was freshly trimmed and dudishly dressed. As I looked at the patch of silver hair that shone in front of a glossy expanse of brown, he exclaimed, with a laugh: "Oh, you mean that! That"s nothing. The ladies like me all the same
He went on boasting, but he did it in an inoffensive way. He simply could not get over the magic transformation that had come over him. While in his native place his income had amounted to four rubles (about two dollars) a week, his wages here were now from thirty to forty dollars. He felt like a peasant suddenly turned to a prince. But he spoke of his successes in a pleasing, soft voice and with a kindly, confiding smile that won my heart.
Altogether he made the impression of an exceedingly unaggressive, good-natured fellow, without anything like ginger in his make-up
After he had bragged his fill he invited me to have a gla.s.s of soda with him. There was a soda-stand on the next corner, and when we reached it I paused, but he pulled me away
"Come on," he said, disdainfully. "We"ll go into a drug-store, or, better still, let"s go to an ice-cream parlor."
This I hesitated to do because of my shabby clothes. When he divined the cause of my embarra.s.sment he was touched
"Come on!" he said, with warm hospitality, uttering the two words in English. "When I say "Come on" I know what I am talking about."
"But your lady is waiting for you." "She can wait. Ladies are never on time, anyhow."
"But maybe she is."
"If she is she can dance with some of the other fellows. I wouldn"t be jealous. There are plenty of other ladies. I should not take fifty ladies for this chance of seeing you. Honest."
He took me into a little candy-store, dazzlingly lighted and mirrored and filled with marble-topped tables
We seated ourselves and he gave the order. He did so rather swaggeringly, but his manner to me was one of affectionate and compa.s.sionate respectfulness
"Oh, I am so glad to see you," he said. "You remember the ship?"
"As if one could ever forget things of that kind."
"I have often thought of you. "I wonder what has become of him," I said to myself." He did not remember my name, or perhaps he had never known it, so I had to introduce myself afresh. The contrast between his flashy clothes and my frowsy, wretched-looking appearance, as I saw ourselves in the mirrors on either side of me, made me sorely ill at ease. The brilliancy of the gaslight chafed my nerves. It was as though it had been turned on for the express purpose of illuminating my disgrace. I was longing to go away, but Gitelson fell to questioning me about my affairs once more, and this time he did so with such unfeigned concern that I told him the whole cheerless story of my sixteen months" life in America
He was touched. In his mild, unemphatic way he expressed heartfelt sympathy
"But why don"t you learn some trade?" he inquired. "You don"t seem to be fit for business, anyhow" (the last two words in misp.r.o.nounced English)
"Everybody is telling me that."
"There you are. You just listen to me, Mr. Levinsky. You won"t be sorry for it." He proposed machine-operating in a cloak-shop, which paid even better than tailoring and was far easier to learn.
Finally he offered to introduce me to an operator who would teach me the trade, and to pay him my tuition fee
He went into details. He continued to address me as Mr. Levinsky and tried to show me esteem as his intellectual superior, but, in spite of himself, as it were, he gradually took a respectfully contemptuous tone with me
"Don"t be a lobster, Mr. Levinsky." (" Lobster" he said in English.) "This is not Russia. Here a fellow must be no fool. There is no sense in living the way you do. Do as Gitelson tells you, and you"ll live decently, dress decently, and lay by a dollar or two. There are lots of educated fellows in the shops." He told me of some of these, particularly of one young man who was a shopmate of his.
"He never comes to work without some book" he said.
"When there is not enough to do he reads. When he has to wait for a new "bundle," as we call it, he reads. Other fellows carry on, but he is always reading. He is so highly educated he could read any kind of book, and I don"t believe there is a book in the world that he has not read. He is saving up money to go to college."
On parting he became fully respectful again. "Do as I tell you, Mr.