The Rise of David Levinsky Part 60

"You're not simply a charming girl. You're a charming American girl," I said.

I wondered whether Dora had been keeping up her studies, and by questioning Lucy about the books under her arm I contrived to elicit the information that her mother had read not only such works as the Vicar of Wakefield, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving's Sketch Book, and Lamb's Shakespeare Stories, which had been part of Lucy's course during her first year at college, but that she had also read some of the works of Cooper, George Eliot, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and all sorts of cheaper novels

"Mother is a great reader," Lucy said. "She reads more than I do.

Why, she reads newspapers and magazines--everything she can lay her hands on! Father calls her Professor."

She also told me that her mother had read a good deal of poetry, that she knew the "Ancient Mariner" and "The Raven" by heart

"She's always at me because I don't care for poetry as much as she does," she laughed.

"Well, you're not taller than your mother in this respect, are you?"

"N-no," she a.s.sented, with an appreciative giggle

She left the car on the corner of One Hundred and Second Street. I was in a queer state of excitement

It flashed upon my mind that the section of Central Park in the vicinity of One Hundred and Second Street teemed with women and baby-carriages, and that it was but natural to suppose that Dora would be out every day wheeling her baby in that locality, and reading a book, perhaps. I visioned myself meeting her there some afternoon and telling her of my undying love. I even worked out the details of the plan, but I felt that I should never carry it out

I still loved Dora, but that was the Dora of six years before, an image of an enshrined past. She was a dear, sad memory scarcely anything more, and it seemed as though to disturb that sadness were sacrilege

"I shall probably run up against her some day," I said to myself, dolefully

And an echo seemed to add, "You are all alone in the world!"

CHAPTER II

I WAS a lonely man. I was pulsating with activity and with a sense of triumph. I was receiving mult.i.tudes of new impressions and enjoying life in a mult.i.tude of ways, with no dearth of woman and song in the program. But at the bottom of my consciousness I was always lonely

There were moments when my desolation would a.s.sert itself rather violently.

This happened nearly every time I returned to New York from the road. As the train entered the great city my sense of home-coming would emphasize a feeling that the furnished two-room apartment on Lexington Avenue which was waiting to receive me was not a home

Meyer Nodelman, whom I often met in a Broadway restaurant at the lunch hour these days, would chaff or lecture me earnestly upon my unmarried state

"You don't know who you're working for," he would say, his sad, Oriental face taking on an affectionate expression. "Life is short at best, but when a fellow has n.o.body to bear his name after he is gone it is shorter still.

Get married, my boy. Get married." He took a lively interest in the growth of my business. He rejoiced in it as though he ascribed my successes to the loans he had given me when I struggled for a foothold. He often alluded to those favors, but he was a devoted friend, all the same. Moreover, he was a most attractive man to talk to, especially when the conversation dealt with one's intimate life. With all his illiteracy and crudity of language he had rare insight into the human heart and was full of subtle sympathy. He was the only person in America with whom I often indulged in a heart-to-heart confab. He was keenly aware of my loneliness. It seemed as though it disturbed him

"You are not a happy man, Levinsky," he once said to me. "You feel more alone than any bachelor I ever knew. You're an orphan, poor thing. You have a fine business and plenty of money and all sorts of nice times, but you are an orphan, just the same. You're still a child. You need a mother. Well, but what's the use? Your own mother--peace upon her--cannot be brought to life until the coming of the Messiah, so do the next best thing, Levinsky. Get married and you will have a mother--for your children. It isn't the same kind, but you won't feel lonesome any longer."

I laughed

"Laugh away, Levinsky. But you can't help it. And the smart books you read won't help you, either. You've got to get married whether you want it or not. This is a bill that must be paid."

I had lunch with him a day or two after my meeting with Lucy. The sight of his affectionate, melancholy face and the warmth of his greeting somehow made me think of the sentimental mood in which I had been left by that encounter

"I do feel lonesome," I said, with a smile, in the course of our chat.

"I met a girl the other day--"

"Did you?" he said, expectantly.

"Oh, she is a mere child, not the kind of girl you mean, Mr.

Nodelman. I once boarded in her mother's house. She was a mere child then. She is still a child, but she goes to college now, and she is taller than her mother.

When I saw her I felt old."

"Is that anything to be sad about? Pshaw! Get married, and you'll have a daughter of your own, and when she grows up you won't be sorry. Take it from me, Levinsky. There can be no greater pleasure than to watch your kids grow." And he added, in a lower tone, "I do advise you to get married."

"Perhaps I ought to," I said, listlessly. "But then it takes two to make a bargain."

"Oh, there are lots of good girls, and you can have the best piece of goods there is." "Oh, I don't know. It wouldn't be hard to find a good girl, perhaps. The question is whether she'll be good after the honeymoon is over."

"You don't want a bond and mortgage to guarantee that you'll be happy, do you? A fellow must be ready to take a chance."

There is an old story of a rabbi who, upon being asked by a bachelor whether he should marry, said: "If you do you will regret it, my son; but then if you remain single you are sure to regret it just as much; perhaps more. So get married like everybody else and regret it like everybody else." Nodelman now quoted that rabbi. I had heard the anecdote more than once before, but it seemed as though its meaning had now revealed itself to me for the first time.

"According to that rabbi, marriage is not a pleasure, but a miserable necessity," I urged

"Well, it isn't all misery, either. People are fond of saying that the best marriage is a curse. But it's the other way around. The worst marriage has some blessing in it, Levinsky."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Get married and you will. There is plenty of pleasure in the worst of homes. Take it from me,. Levinsky. When I come home and feel that I have somebody to live for, that it is not the devil I am working for, then--take it from me, Levinsky--I should not give one moment like that for all the other pleasures in the world put together."

I thought of his wife whom his mother had repeatedly described to me as a "meat-ball face" and a virago, and of his home which I had always pictured as h.e.l.l. His words touched me

"It isn't that I don't want to take chances, Mr. Nodelman. It's something else. Were you ever in love, Mr. Nodelman?"

"What? Was I in love? Why?" he demanded, coloring. "What put it in your head to ask me such a funny question?"

"Funny! There's more pain than fun in it. Well, I have loved, Mr.

Nodelman, and that's why it's so hard for me to think of marriage as a cold proposition. I don't think I could marry a girl I did not love."

I expected an argument against love-marriages, but Nodelman had none to offer. Instead, he had me dilate on the bliss and the agony of loving. He asked me questions and eagerly listened to my answers. I told him of my own two love-affairs, particularly of my relations with Dora. I omitted names and other details that might have pointed, ever so remotely, to Mrs.

Margolis's ident.i.ty. Nodelman was interested intensely. His interrogations were of the kind that a girl of sixteen who had not yet loved might address to a bosom friend who had. How does it feel to be in doubt whether one's pa.s.sion had found an echo? How did I feel when our lips were joined in our first kiss? How did she carry herself the next time I saw her? Was she shy? Did she look happy? Was she afraid of her husband? Was I afraid? The restaurant had been nearly deserted for about an hour, and we still sat smoking cigars and whispering.

CHAPTER III

ONE day, as Nodelman took his seat across the table from me at the restaurant, he said: "Well, Levinsky, it's no use, you'll have to get married now. There will be no wriggling out of it. My wife has set her mind on it."

"Your wife?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes. I have an order to bring you up to the house, and that's all there is to it. Don't blame her, though. The fault is mine. I have told her so much about you she wants to know you."