The Spirit of the Ghetto Part 12

He pointed in the old "magid" opposite him.

"Whenever I want to amuse myself," he said, "I talk to a man like that, and I cannot amuse myself without learning more about psychology."

With the exception of his poems most of the poet's work was written in the English language.

"I began to write English late in life," he said. "Israel Zangwill helped me to begin. He said he would correct what I wrote, but I wrote so much that Mr. Zangwill stopped reading it and told me to go ahead on my own hook. So I did. I have written infinitely in English, some of which has been published--_Music of the Psalms_; _Education and the Talmud_, which was issued by the United States government in the report of the commissioner of education; many articles on mysticism and other subjects in the magazine _Ariel_; _The Mystery of the Golden Calf_, _The Music of the Ghetto_, and many other works on the cabalistic mysticism. I have also written, _Who Was Crucified?_ wherein I prove that it was not Jesus. If I kept on all day I could not tell you the names of all I have written. I have published many articles in the Jewish-American papers satirizing the rabbis, who consequently hate me. Much of my work, indeed, is satirical. The world needs cleaning up a little, particularly the rabbis. Put the reformed and orthodox rabbis together and some good might come of them. I am not afraid of these people, whom I call silk-chimney rabbis, because they wear tall hats instead of knowing the Talmud. It was my own invention--'silk-chimney rabbis.'"

Mr. Imber is evidently very fond of this phrase, for he repeated it many times. Indeed, he does not seem to be a very pious Jew. He himself admits it, for he said:

"I do not think they will say 'Kaddish' for my soul when I am dead.

And yet I am not a skeptic, exactly. I have a principle, Zionism. And beyond Zionism I have another great interest. I have now perfected Zionism, so I am free to pa.s.s on to Mysticism, in which I am deeply at work. The mystics are all bluffers. I am a mystic, but my mysticism is simple and plain. My aim is to present a perfectly simple view of occultism. It is difficult to persuade Americans to become mystics.

They care nothing for Hegel and Kant. Their philosophy I call Barnumism."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPTALI HERZ IMBER]

Mr. Imber has largely given up writing Hebrew now, but lately he wrote a Hebrew poem comprising 200 closely printed pages. He did it, he said, to spite a man who said the poet had forgotten Hebrew because of his penchant for English.

Not long ago Mr. Imber wrote a _Last Confession_ in Hebrew. He was very sick in a St. Louis hospital with blood poisoning, and thought he was going to die. They wanted him to confess his sins. So he did it, in Hebrew verse, which he translated to me, evidently on the spur of the moment, thus:

When my day will come To wander in distress, Call the priest to my room, My sins to confess.

The sins which I have committed With deliberation, They will by the Lord be omitted, Who promised us salvation.

The evils I have done, Not conscious of the action, Have pa.s.sed away and gone Without satisfaction.

I see near me the green table: The gamblers play aloud, And I am sick and unable To mix up with the crowd.

There are still beautiful roses, With aroma blessed; There are still handsome maidens, Whose lips I have not pressed.

This has me affected, I am full of remorse, That of late I have neglected The girl and the roses.

Written on what the poet thought was his deathbed, this satirical poem is almost as heroic as _The Watch on the Jordan_.

Mr. Imber has also written many original poems in English, which, however, he fears will not live. Many of them are satirical poems about American life and politics. When in Denver before the Spanish war he wrote some verses beginning:

Our flag will soon be planted In a land where we do not want it.

It was, the poet said, through the simple, clear character of his mystical attainments that he was able to predict the results of the war with Spain.

Mr. Imber looks upon America as the "land of the bluff" and as such admires it. But he disapproves of our reform movements. He thinks the recent attempt to reform the east side was due to the desire of the rich to divert attention from their own vices. He doesn't approve of reform any way.

"We have been trying to reform human nature," he said, "for 2,000 years, and have not done it yet. The only way to make a man good is to remove his stomach, for so long as he is hungry he will steal, and so long as he has other desires he will commit other wicked actions.

Moses and Jesus were smart men and knew that evil could not be rooted out, and so they tolerated it."

Mr. Imber has recently made his last will and testament. It is in Hebrew prose and runs thus in English:

"To the rabbis I leave what I don't know; it will help them to a longer life. To my enemies I leave my rheumatism. Between the Republican and Democratic parties I divide the boodle which they have not yet touched. To the Jewish editors I leave my broken pen, so that they can write slowly and avoid mistakes. My books--those intended for beginners--I leave to the eight professors, so that they can learn to read. As an executor there shall be appointed a man who knows Barnum's philosophy through and through. Written on my deathbed. Witness, Mr.

Pluto of the Underground and his Famulus, the doctor. As an afterthought I leave to my publishers the last bill unpaid by me. They can frame it and keep it as an amulet to ward away that cla.s.s of authors."

"Is it sarcastic?" asked Mr. Imber, chuckling delightedly.

Some time ago Mr. Imber sent the news of his own death to the various Hebrew and Yiddish publications. Many long obituaries--"very fine ones," said the poet--appeared.

"In that way," said Mr. Imber, "I learned who were my enemies. It had one evil consequence, however. When I afterward asked the editor to publish one of my articles he said:

"'You are officially dead, and as such cannot rush into print.'

"That reply really gave me a grievous moment," said the poet, with a shrewd, Voltairian smile.

AN INTELLECTUAL DEBAUCHEE

Four men sat excitedly talking in the little cafe on Grand Street where the Socialists and Anarchists of the Russian quarter were wont to meet late at night and stay until the small hours. An American, who might by chance have happened there, would have wondered what important event had occurred to rasp these men's voices, to cause them to gesticulate so wildly, to give their dark, intelligent faces so fateful, so ominous an expression. In reality, however, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was the usual course of human affairs which kept these men in a constant glow of unhappy emotion; an emotion which they deeply preferred to trivial optimism and the content founded on Philistine well-being. They were always excited about life, for life as it is const.i.tuted seemed to them very unjust.

It was nearly midnight, and the men in the cafe, altho they had drunk nothing stronger than Russian tea, talked on, seemingly intoxicated with ideas. One was the editor of a Yiddish newspaper in the quarter and a contributor to the Anarchistic monthly. He was a man of about forty years of age, lighter in complexion than his companions, but yet dark. Like them he was dressed carelessly and poorly. In his melancholy eyes shone a gentle idealism. He spoke in a voice lower and softer than those of his fellows. He was deeply liked by them, for he was capable of sweet and beautiful ideas about the perfect humanity, some of which he had put into a play which had a short life on the Bowery, but lived in the hearts of these warm intellectuals.

Non-resistance to evil was the favorite principle of this gentle Anarchist, whose name was Blanofsky.

His companions were younger and more heated and violent in speech, tho their attenuated bodies and thoughtful and sensitive faces did not suggest reliance on physical force. On the Bowery the Irish tough fights after a word, but an all day dispute between two Jews on Ca.n.a.l or Hester Street is unaccompanied by the clenching of a fist. A dark, thin young man, whose closely shaven face seemed somehow to fit his spirit, given over entirely to the "movement," sat at Blanofsky's right hand. At almost any hour of the day or night Hermann Samarovitch could be found at the Anarchist headquarters on Ess.e.x Street, poring over the books of the propaganda and engaging in talk with other bright spirits of the "movement." Now, as he talked or listened in the cafe on Grand Street, his pale, smooth face seemed dead to all the ordinary interests of youth. The spirit of life was represented in him only by the pa.s.sion for the cause, which burned in his black eyes. He had no other function than to wors.h.i.+p at the shrine. How he lived, therefore, was a mystery.

Of the other two men, one, Jacob Hessler, a labor leader in the Ghetto, an eloquent speaker, of more commanding presence, but less sensitive and impressive at short range than either Blanofsky or Samarovitch, was silent, for the most part. He talked only to crowds, partly because it was exciting, but mainly because his limited intelligence put him at a disadvantage in intimate talk with men of concentrated intellectual character. The fourth man in the cafe, Abraham Gudinsky, was a simple admirer of Blanofsky. He was born in Jerusalem, had studied law in Constantinople, had lived in Paris as a bohemian, and, after a few years pa.s.sed in the commonplace, dissipated gayety of youth, had come to New York, where his sympathetic and idealistic character had come under the influence of the quiet charm of Blanofsky. He had small, live, eyes and a high forehead, and his body perpetually moved nervously.

"I do not believe," said Blanofsky, in Russian, "that anything can be accomplished by force. Our cause is too sacred to tarnish it with blood, and it is too strong in logic and justice not to conquer peaceably in the end; and that, too, without leaving behind it the ill-breeding weeds of a violent course. I have nothing but pity for the misguided wretch who took the life of King Humbert, thinking he was acting for the cause. It is the acts of such madmen as he that make us appear to the public as merely irrational monsters."

"Nevertheless," said Samarovitch, his dark eyes glowing, "it is natural that the crimes of society against the individual should irritate us sometimes into violent acts. I am not sure but that it is good that it should be so. Those devoted men, in the great movement in Russia, at the time the Czar was killed, were as clearheaded as they were devoted; and they felt that the governmental evil pressing in Russia could be relieved only by a kind of terrorism. And they were right," he concluded, with gloomy emphasis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A YOUNG MAN AND A YOUNG WOMAN JUST ENTERED THE CAFe]

Blanofsky shook his head, and was about to speak of Tolstoy, whom he regarded as the great interpreter of genuine anarchy, when he was interrupted by the approach of a young man and a young woman who had just entered the cafe. Sabina, as she was familiarly known to the faithful, dark and slender, with very large, emotional eyes and a mobile mouth, had just come from her lecture to a crowd of workingmen, to whom she had spoken eloquently of their right to lead a life with greater light and beauty in it. The emotions expressed by her eloquence, and stirred by it, still lay in her deep eyes as she entered the cafe. Her companion, who had walked with her from the lecture, was a young poet, whose words followed one another with turbulent energy. His head was set uncommonly close to his compact, stout shoulders, seeming to have a firmer rest than usual on the trunk, and thus better to support the strain of his thick-coming fancies. His habitual att.i.tude was to hold his closed fist even with his shoulder, and punctuate with it the transitions of his thought.

Even in winter the perspiration rolled down his face as he spoke, for thought with him was intense to the point of pain. He was the perfect type of the intellectual debauchee of the Russian-Jewish colony. He drank nothing but tea and coffee, but within him burned his ideas. He made his living by writing an occasional poem or article for a Yiddish paper, and when he had gathered together a few dollars he repaired again to the cafes, seeking companions to whom he could confide his exuberant thoughts, which were always expressed in poetic images. He slept whenever and wherever he was tired, but he slept seldom, and unwillingly. Unrest was his quest and unhappiness his dearest consolation. The type of his mind was as Russian as his name, which was Levitzky. The girl looked and listened to him, fascinated. They sat down at the table with the others, and while the waiter was bringing their tea and lemon, Levitzky continued his discourse:

"No, I do not like America. The people here are satisfied. Things seem frozen here--finished. Great deeds have been done, great things have been created. Wall Street and Broadway fill me with wonder. The outside is great, showing energy that has been. But at the core, all is dead. The imagination and the heart are extinguished. Content and comfort eat up the nation. New York seems to me an active city of the dead, where there is much movement, but no soul. Russia, which I love, is just the opposite. There nothing is done, nothing finished. One sees nothing, but feels warmth and vitality at the heart. In love it is the same way. The American wants a legal wife and a comfortable home, but the Russian wants a mistress behind a mountain to whom he can not penetrate but towards whom he can strive, for whom he can long and dream. It is better to hope than to attain."

Sabina looked at him, her bosom heaving. His last words seemed to trouble her, but she sat in silence and appeared to listen to the conversation, which turned on a recent strike in the Ghetto. Finally she got up to go home, refusing Levitzky's offer to accompany her.

Leaving the Anarchists still engaged in talk, she went into the street, which, altho it was after one o'clock, was still far from deserted.

Instead of going to her poor room in the tenement-house on Hester Street she walked slowly along Grand Street, towards the Bowery, deep in reflection. She was thinking of Levitzky and of her life. Ten years before, as a child of twelve, she had come to New York from Russia, with her father, a tailor, who had worked for several years in the sweat-shops. He had died two years before, and since then Sabina had worked in the sweat-shops in the day time and in the evening had devoted herself to the cause. At first she had gone to the Socialistic and Anarchistic meetings merely because they were attended by the only society in the east side which at all satisfied her growing intellectual activity. These rough workingmen sometimes seemed to her inspired, and her ardor and youth were soon deeply interested in the cause of Socialism, partly because of the pity inspired by the sordid poverty about her, but mainly because of the strong attraction any earnest movement has for a young and emotionally intellectual person.

As was quite inevitable, she went from an unreserved love for the group of ideas called Socialistic to the quite contrary ones of Anarchy. And this change was not founded on intellectual conviction, but was due to the simple fact that the Anarchistic cause was more extreme and gave greater apparent opportunity for self-sacrifice; and for the reason, too, that the most interesting man she had met, Levitzky, was at that time an Anarchist. These two made, very often, pa.s.sionate speeches on the same evening to a crowd of attentive laborers, and after the meeting walked the street together or sat over their tea in the cafe discussing high ideals, not only Anarchy, but all n.o.ble subjects that detach the soul from the sordid business of life.

Of course, Sabina loved Levitzky. His robust intellect and exuberant, poetical nature, a nature constant to pa.s.sion, but inconstant to persons, made her beloved ideas seem real, gave a concrete seal to the creations of her imagination.

Neither Levitzky nor Sabina were conscious of the strong feeling that he was arousing in the girl's soul. He poured his mind out to her. His rich nature unfolded in her sympathetic presence. She loved him for the mental crises he had pa.s.sed; and he loved merely the mental images his words aroused in him when she was present.

It was not until the evening of the scene in the cafe that she had fully understood that she was eternally in love with Levitzky. On the walk from the lecture to the Grand Street cafe they had for the first time spoken of love between man and woman, and Levitzky had launched forth into an eloquent tirade against satisfied desire, a speech which was concluded in the cafe, with the remark about how a Russian loves an inaccessible mistress, a beautiful creature separated from her lover by a mountain, while the despised American wants a legal wife whom he can enjoy and be sure of.

The sentiment fitted in beautifully with Sabina's habitually enthusiastic habit of mind. But to-night she was ashamed of herself because his words filled her with fear and pain. Irrational emotion drove her theories from her head, and struck her dumb with grief for what she looked upon as a betrayed ideal. She, who had devoted herself to the "movement"; she, who had chosen an intellectual career, a life devoted to the cause of humanity; she, who had been proud of her independence and had confidently looked forward to a life of celibacy; this superior person was in love, and loved as pa.s.sionately and as personally as any commonplace woman. She devoutly believed in the worth of Levitzky's ideas against human love between the s.e.xes, and the fact that her nerves and imagination went against her head overwhelmed her with remorse. She was unfaithful not only to her own ideals, but to the ideals of the man she loved. She knew that Levitzky felt no love for her. If he had, she would not have loved him. She longed to tear this feeling, which she felt to be unworthy of her and in the nature of an insult to him, from her heart; but she knew she could not.

After leaving Levitzky and the Anarchists in the cafe, Sabina walked slowly towards the Bowery, suffering with love and humiliation, thinking of Levitzky and of the past, the devoted past which now seemed deeply wronged. Her despair can perhaps be understood by the fanatical nun whose years of devotion to her vows are rendered vain by a sudden impulse of the heart which is yielded to; or by the ambitious man of affairs who betrays a governmental trust because of the repeated frenzy of an emotion which wears out his resistance and leads him to the woman who has charmed and deceived him.

As Sabina pa.s.sed through the street her attention was mechanically caught by the notice in a shop window, which was still dimly lighted, of an important labor meeting, to take place in a couple of days, at which a famous German Anarchist was to speak--a man who was coming from Europe to join the "Movement" in New York, whose books she had read and loved. Such notices always arrested her eager attention, and even now habit led her to stop by the window and dully read the entire poster. The thought of the coming event, which would once have been of palpitating interest to her, increased her remorse and despair. Of such great activity as this she had rendered herself incapable. To go to any such meeting now would be hypocrisy, she felt. The cause she wanted to love and serve and still did love she could yet never again be wholehearted about. She bore with her a burden. She seemed to herself to be a sinful creature, and the devoted life she had led seemed poisoned by this terrible pa.s.sion which controlled her. She felt she never again could look Levitzky in the face; for a terrible impulse in her was about to drag her from the pedestal where he had helped to place her; and to drag with her the man she loved from the impersonal height at which he stood.