Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 57

Both men turned to the bed, startled to see her sitting up with a rapt smile.

"How so?" said the Red Beadle uneasily. "I am not a _Goy_ (Christian) befriended by a _Gabbai_."

"No, but it is the brotherhood of humanity."

"Bother the brotherhood of humanity, Frau Herz!" said the Red Beadle gruffly. He glanced round the denuded room. "The important thing is that you will now be able to have a few delicacies."

"_I?_" Hulda opened her eyes wide.

"Who else? What I earn is for all of us."

"G.o.d bless you!" said Zussmann; "but you have enough to do to keep yourself."

"Indeed he has!" said Hulda. "We couldn't dream of taking a farthing!"

But her eyes were wet.

"I insist!" said the Red Beadle.

She thanked him sweetly, but held firm.

"I will advance the money on loan till Zussmann gets work."

Zussmann wavered, his eyes beseeching her, but she was inflexible.

The Red Beadle lost his temper. "And this is what you call the brotherhood of humanity!"

"He is right, Hulda. Why should we not take from one another? Pride perverts brotherhood."

"Dear husband," said Hulda, "it is not pride to refuse to rob the poor. Besides, what delicacies do I need? Is not this a land flowing with milk?"

"You take Cohen's milk and refuse my honey!" shouted the Red Beadle unappeased.

"Give me of the honey of your tongue and I shall not refuse it," said Hulda, with that wonderful smile of hers which showed the white teeth Nature had made; the smile which, as always, melted the Beadle's mood.

That smile could repair all the ravages of disease and give back her memoried face.

After the Beadle had been at work a day or two in the _Gabbai's_ workshop, he broached the matter of a fellow-penitent, one Zussmann Herz, with no work and a bedridden wife.

"That _Meshummad!_" (apostate) cried the _Gabbai_." He deserves all that G.o.d has sent him."

Undaunted, the Red Beadle demonstrated that the man could not be of the missionary camp, else had he not been left to starve, one converted Jew being worth a thousand pounds of fresh subscriptions.

Moreover he, the Red Beadle, had now convinced the man of his spiritual errors, and _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ was no longer on sale. Also, being unable to leave his wife's bedside, Zussmann would do the work at home below the Union rates prevalent in public.

So, trade being brisk, the _Gabbai_ relented and bargained, and the Red Beadle sped to his friend's abode and flew up the four flights of stairs.

"Good news!" he cried. "The _Gabbai_ wants another hand, and he is ready to take you."

"Me?" Zussmann was paralyzed with joy and surprise.

"Now will you deny that the Idea works?" cried Hulda, her face flushed and her eyes glittering. And she fell a-coughing.

"You are right, Hulda; you are always right," cried Zussmann, in responsive radiance. "Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!"

"G.o.d forgive me," muttered the Red Beadle.

"Go at once, Zussmann," said Hulda. "I shall do very well here--this has given me strength. I shall be up in a day or two."

"No, no, Zussmann," said the Beadle hurriedly. "There is no need to leave your wife. I have arranged it all. The _Gabbai_ does not want you to come there or to speak to him, because, though the Idea works in him, the other 'hands' are not yet so large-minded: I am to bring you the orders, and I shall come here to fetch them."

The set of tools to which Zussmann clung in desperate hope made the plan both feasible and pleasant.

And so the Red Beadle's visits resumed their ancient frequency even as his Sabbath clothes resumed their ancient gloss, and every week's-end he paid over Zussmann's wages to him--full Union rate.

But Hulda, although she now accepted illogically the Red Beadle's honey in various shapes, did not appear to progress as much as the Idea, or as the new book which she stimulated Zussmann to start for its further propagation.

VI

One Friday evening of December, when miry snow underfoot and grayish fog all around combined to make Spitalfields a malarious marsh, the Red Beadle, coming in with the week's wages, found to his horror a doctor hovering over Hulda's bed like the shadow of death.

From the look that Zussmann gave him he saw a sudden change for the worse had set in. The cold of the weather seemed to strike right to his heart. He took the sufferer's limp chill hand.

"How goes it?" he said cheerily.

"A trifle weak. But I shall be better soon."

He turned away. Zussmann whispered to him that the doctor who had been called in that morning had found the crisis so threatening that he was come again in the evening.

The Red Beadle, grown very white, accompanied the doctor downstairs, and learned that with care the patient might pull through.

The Beadle felt like tearing out his red beard. "And to think that I have not yet arranged the matter!" he thought distractedly.

He ran through the gray bleak night to the office of _The Flag of Judah_; but as he was crossing the threshold he remembered that it was the eve of the Sabbath, and that neither little Sampson nor anybody else would be there. But little Sampson _was_ there, working busily.

"Hullo! Come in," he said, astonished.

The Red Beadle had already struck up a drinking acquaintances.h.i.+p with the little journalist, in view of the great negotiation he was plotting. Not in vain did the proverbial wisdom of the Ghetto bid one beware of the red-haired.

"I won't keep you five minutes," apologized little Sampson. "But, you see, Christmas comes next week, and the compositors won't work. So I have to invent the news in advance."

Presently little Sampson, lighting an unhallowed cigarette by way of Sabbath lamp, and slinging on his shabby cloak, repaired with the Red Beadle to a restaurant, where he ordered "forbidden" food for himself and drinks for both.

The Red Beadle felt his way so cautiously and cunningly that the negotiation was unduly prolonged. After an hour or two, however, all was settled. For five pounds, paid in five monthly instalments, little Sampson would translate _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ into English, provided the Beadle would tell him what the Hebrew meant. This the Beadle, from his loving study of Hulda's ma.n.u.script, was now prepared for. Little Sampson also promised to run the translation through _The Flag of Judah_, and thus the Beadle could buy the plates cheap for book purposes, with only the extra cost of printing such pa.s.sages, if any, as were too dangerous for _The Flag of Judah_. This unexpected generosity, coupled with the new audience it offered the Idea, enchanted the Red Beadle. He did not see that the journalist was getting gratuitous "copy," he saw only the bliss of Hulda and Zussmann, and in some strange exaltation, compact of whisky and affection, he shared in their vision of the miraculous spread of the Idea, once it had got into the dominant language of the world.

In his grat.i.tude to little Sampson he plied him with fresh whisky; in his excitement he drew the paper-covered book from his pocket, and insisted that the journalist must translate the first page then and there, as a hansel. By the time it was done it was near eleven o'clock. Vaguely the Red Beadle felt that it was too late to return to Zussmann's to-night. Besides, he was liking little Sampson very much.

They did not separate till the restaurant closed at midnight.

Quite drunk, the Red Beadle staggered towards Zussmann's house. He held the page of the translation tightly in his hand. The Hebrew original he had forgotten on the restaurant table, but he knew in some troubled nightmare way that Zussmann and Hulda must see that paper at once, that he had been charged to deliver it safely, and must die sooner than disobey.

The fog had lifted, but the heaps of snow were a terrible hindrance to his erratic progression. The cold air and the shock of a fall lessened his inebriety, but the imperative impulse of his imaginary mission still hypnotized him. It was past one before he reached the tall house. He did not think it at all curious that the great outer portals should be open; nor, though he saw the milk-cart at the door, and noted Cohen's uncomfortable look, did he remember that he had discovered the milk-purveyor nocturnally infringing the Sabbath. He stumbled up the stairs and knocked at the garret door, through the c.h.i.n.ks of which light streamed. The thought of Hulda smote him almost sober. Zussmann's face, when the door opened, restored him completely to his senses. It was years older.