The Ghetto Part 10

Father, between us matters cannot be improved--now nor ever!

ESTHER.

Well, upon my word!

SACHEL.

Why not? You have something you dare not tell. There is a woman in it.

You had forty guilders when you went away this morning. Have you a cent of it left?

RAFAEL.

I gave it all to Mordecai to bury his son.

SACHEL.

I do not believe it.

RAFAEL.

Father! For the little time that I remain here need we add more bitterness to what exists?

SACHEL.

What do you say?

RAFAEL.

I am going away.

SACHEL.

What--what--what do you say?

RAFAEL.

I am going away!

SACHEL.

Oh, oh, that crowns all! He can look into my dead eyes and threaten this--without a quiver--without a qualm!

RAFAEL.

Ah, there was a time--there was a time, when I would have yielded any sacrifice for you--when I was a boy and you had just gone blind, and my heart was wrung with a pity for you that was a very pity in itself.

If I had seen tears in your poor sightless eyes, then my peace would have been utterly destroyed; at the thought of having vexed you I should have beaten my brow. And now it's gone--gone--and it won't come back--it can't come back--because you robbed me of it.

SACHEL.

I? I? What have _I_ done? And why do you go away?

RAFAEL.

For reasons all of which I will not tell.

SACHEL.

You dog! To leave your father--sick and blind, and on the road to poverty! G.o.d shall curse you for it!

RAFAEL.

No; G.o.d shall not! To live under this roof--to see, day in, day out--nothing--nothing--but, no--no! There _are_ reasons, reasons enough, Heaven be my judge!

[_Several musical instruments begin to tune up in the house where DANIEL and SAMSON live._

ESTHER.

Heaven will be your judge! There _are_ reasons--reasons you are ashamed of--reasons you dare not tell!

SACHEL.

It is true! You have fouled my name, you have been in the mire, you have committed some contemptible thing you are ashamed of! You are running away, you dare not tell why!

[_RAFAEL throws over a chair; regains his composure._

RAFAEL.

Is it but three years ago that I was so ignorant, so raw, and so fond of you? I had known you with the fire of life in your eyes, and now it had gone; the light of your soul was as hidden in a dungeon, because you were blind. Ah, how I suffered! I shut my eyes to imagine it--darkness, black nothing; G.o.d's beautiful sky gone for ever, as if you were in your coffin under ground! Awful! Awful! And this, this was my father--my father, whom I loved and honoured, of all the world!

SACHEL.

Who asked your sympathy? Hold your tongue!

RAFAEL.

I honoured you because you asked the sympathy of no man. I _honoured_ you. Shall I ever forget that Friday, when I stood alone in the gloom of this warehouse, watching you, sorrowing over your blindness, with tears in my eyes! You stood by the scales. They were weighing out your merchandise; the man who had bought it stooped and s.h.i.+fted the weights; and your creature Jacob read the figures out and you wrote them down in great coa.r.s.e scrawls--your grey head bare, your face turned up to heaven. How I loved you--how I pitied you! You bore yourself with such calm--such fort.i.tude--as if, when G.o.d had touched your eyes, He had whispered into your ears some portion of the everlasting truth. No one saw me--I was back in the shadow. And I started forward; I wanted to say, "Father--go in; father, never labour again! Sit in your chair--rest always--while I do your bidding--while I do everything!" But I did not say it. No! I stopped; I slunk back into the deepest shadow like a criminal. I had uttered a cry, but you and Jacob did not hear me. On the platform of the scales, when your client stooped to balance them, I had seen a foot go out--go out while your white face was turned in holy calm to heaven--go out and press down--so that the scales read false--so that the man who bought our goods was tricked and robbed--robbed of the money we had not earned from him. And again I saw it, and again, and again, father! And the man whose foot went out and did this crime, the man who was stealing and stealing, time after time, stealing his money, stealing my respect, my honour, my youth, before my eyes--was it Jacob? No, it was you--you, my father--my father, whom I loved and pitied, and they had trusted--because you were blind!

ESTHER.

Shame! That's a lie! Shame!

RAFAEL.

[_Turning to his father._] Is it a lie?

SACHEL.

[_Hoa.r.s.ely._] Let him go on. Let him go on.