"Did he write of his love in those letters?" I demanded, shyly

"He did not write of onions, did he?" Naphtali retorted. After a little I asked: "But how could she read those letters? She certainly does not read holy tongue?"

"Go ask her."

"You're a funny fellow. Did Tevkin get the girl?"

"He did, and they have been married for many years. Why, did you wonder if you mightn't have a chance?"

"You're impossible, Naphtali."

He smiled.



CHAPTER II

ONE afternoon Naphtali called on me at the Preacher's Synagogue

"Have you got all your 'days'?" he asked, in his whisper

"Why?"

He had discovered a "treasure"—a pious, rich, elderly woman whose latest hobby was to care for at least eighteen poor Talmudists—eighteen being the numerical value of the letters composing the Hebrew word for "life." Her name was Shiphrah Minsker. She belonged to one of the oldest families in Antomir, and her husband was equally well-born. Her religious zeal was of recent origin, in fact, and even now she wore her hair "Gentile fashion." It was a great sin, but she had never worn a wig in her life, and putting on one now seemed to be out of the question. This hair of hers was of a dark-brown hue, threaded with silver, and it grew in a tousled abundance of unruly wisps that seemed to be symbolic of her harum-scarum character. She was as pugnacious as she was charitable, and as quick to make up a quarrel as to pick one. Her husband, Michael Minsker, was a "worldly" man, with only a smattering of Talmud, and their younger children were being educated at the Russian schools. But they all humored her newly adopted old-fashioned ways, to a certain extent at least, while she tolerated their "Gentile" ones as she did her own uncovered hair. Relegating her household affairs to a devoted old servant, with whom she was forever wrangling, Shiphrah spent most of her time raising contributions to her various charity funds, looking after her Talmud students, quarreling with her numerous friends, and begging their forgiveness. If she was unable to provide meals for a student in the houses of some people of her acquaintance she paid for his board out of her own purse

Her husband was an exporter of grain and his business often took him to Koenigsberg, Prussia, for several weeks at a time. Occasions of this kind were hailed by Shiphrah as a godsend (in the literal sense of the term), for in his absence she could freely spend on her beneficiaries and even feed some of them at her own house

When I was introduced to her as "the son of the woman who had been killed on the Horse-market" and she heard that I frequently had nothing to eat, she burst into tears and berated me soundly for not having knocked at her door sooner

"It's terrible! It's terrible!" she moaned, breaking into tears again. "In fact I, too, deserve a spanking. To think that I did not look him up at once when that awful thing happened!"

As a matter of fact, she had not done so because at the time of my mother's death her house had been agog with a trouble of its own. But of this presently

She handed me a three-ruble bill and set about filling up the gaps in my eating calendar and substituting fat "days" for lean ones.

She often came to see me at the synagogue, never empty-handed. Now she had a silver coin for me, now a pair of socks, a shirt, or perhaps a pair of trousers which some member of her family had discarded. Often, too, she would bring me a quarter of a chicken, cookies, or some other article of food from her own table

My days of hunger were at an end. I lived in clover. "Now I can work," I thought to myself, with the satisfaction of a well-filled stomach. "And work I will. I'll show people what I can do."

I applied myself to my task with ardor, but it did not last long. My former interest in the Talmud was gone. The spell was broken irretrievably. Now that I did not want for food, my sense of loneliness became keener than ever. Indeed, it was a novel sense of loneliness, quite unlike the one I had experienced before

My surroundings had somehow lost their former meaning. Life was devoid of savor, and I was thirsting for an appetizer, as it were, for some violent change, for piquant sensations

Then it was that the word America first caught my fancy

The name was buzzing all around me. The great emigration of Jews to the United States, which had received its first impulse two or three years before, was already in full swing. It may not be out of order to relate, briefly. how it had all come about

An anti-Semitic riot broke out in a southern town named Elisabethgrad in the early spring of 1881. Occurrences of this kind were, in those days, quite rare in Russia, and when they did happen they did not extend beyond the town of their origin. But the circumstances that surrounded the Elisabethgrad outbreak were of a specific character. It took place one month after the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. The actual size and influence of the "underground" revolutionary organization being an unknown quantity, St.

Petersburg was full of the rumblings of a general uprising. The Elisabethgrad riot, however, was not of a revolutionary nature. Yet the police, so far from suppressing it, encouraged it. The example of the Elisabethgrad rabble was followed by the riffraff of other places. The epidemic quickly spread from city to city. Whereupon the scenes of lawlessness in the various cities were marked by the same method in the mob's madness, by the same connivance on the part of the police, and by many other traits that clearly pointed to a common source of inspiration. It has long since become a well-established historical fact that the anti-Jewish disturbances were encouraged, even arranged, by the authorities as an outlet for the growing popular discontent with the Government.

Count von Plehve was then at the head of the Police Department in the Ministry of the Interior.

This bit of history repeated itself, on a larger scale, twenty-two years later, when Russia was in the paroxysm of a real revolution and when the ghastly massacres of Jews in Kishineff, Odessa, Kieff, and other cities were among the means employed in an effort to keep the masses "busy."

Count von Plehve then held the office of Prime Minister. To return to 1881 and 1882. Thousands of Jewish families were left homeless. Of still greater moment was the moral effect which the atrocities produced on the whole Jewish population of Russia. Over five million people were suddenly made to realize that their birthplace was not their home (a feeling which the great Russian revolution has suddenly changed). Then it was that the cry "To America!" was raised. It spread like wild-fire, even over those parts of the Pale of Jewish Settlement which lay outside the riot zone

This was the beginning of the great New Exodus that has been in progress for decades

My native town and the entire section to which it belongs had been immune from the riots, yet it caught the general contagion, and at the time I became one of Shiphrah's wards hundreds of its inhabitants were going to America or planning to do so. Letters full of wonders from emigrants already there went the rounds of eager readers and listeners until they were worn to shreds in the process

I succumbed to the spreading fever. It was one of these letters from America, in fact, which put the notion of emigrating to the New World definitely in my mind. An illiterate woman brought it to the synagogue to have it read to her, and I happened to be the one to whom she addressed her request. The concrete details of that letter gave New York tangible form in my imagination. It haunted me ever after

The United States lured me not merely as a land of milk and honey, but also, and perhaps chiefly, as one of mystery, of fantastic experiences, of marvelous transformations. To leave my native place and to seek my fortune in that distant, weird world seemed to be just the kind of sensational adventure my heart was hankering for.

When I unburdened myself of my project to Reb Sender he was thunderstruck

"To America!" he said. "Lord of the World! But one becomes a Gentile there."

"Not at all," I sought to reassure him. "There are lots of good Jews there, and they don't neglect their Talmud, either." The amount that was necessary to take me to America loomed staggeringly large. Where was it to come from? I thought of approaching Shiphrah, but the idea of her helping me abandon my Talmud and go to live in a godless country seemed preposterous. So I began by saving the small allowance which I received from her and by selling some of the clothes and food she brought me. For the evening meal I usually received some rye bread and a small coin for cheese or herring, so I invariably added the coin to my little hoard, relishing the bread with thoughts of America.

While I was thus pinching and saving pennies I was continually casting about for some more effective way of raising the sum that would take me to New York. I confided my plan to Naphtali.

"Not a bad idea," he said, "but you will never raise the money. You are a master of dreams, David."

"I'll get the money, and, what is more, when I am in America I shall bring you over there, too."

"May your words pass from your lips into the ear of God."

"I thought you did not believe in God."

"How long will you believe in Him after you get to America?"



BOOK IV

MATILDA

CHAPTER I

I COULD scarcely think of anything but America. I read every letter from there that I could obtain. I was constantly seeking information about the country and the opportunities it held out to a man of my type, and cudgeling my brains for some way of scraping together the formidable sum. I was restless, sleepless, and finally, when I caught a slight cold, my health broke down so completely that I had to be taken to the hospital. Shiphrah visited me every day, calling me poor orphan boy and quarreling with the superintendent over me. One afternoon, after I had been discharged, when she saw me at the synagogue, feeble and emaciated, she gasped

"You're a cruel, heartless man," she flared up, addressing herself to the beadle. "The poor boy needs a good soft bed, fine chicken soup, and real care. Why didn't you let me know at once? Come on, David!"

"Where to?" I inquired, timidly.

"None of your business. Come on. I'm not going to take you to the woods, you may be sure of that. I want you to stay in my house until you are well rested and strong enough to study. Don't you like it?" she added, with a wink to the beadle

It appeared that her husband was away on one of his prolonged business excursions. Otherwise installing in her "modern" home an old-fashioned, ridiculous young creature like a Talmud student would have been out of the question

I followed her with fast-beating heart. I knew that her family was "modern," that her children spoke Russian and "behaved like Gentiles," that there was a grown young woman among them and that her name was Matilda

The case of this young woman had been the talk of the town the year before.

She had been persuaded to marry a man for whom she did not care, and shortly after the wedding and after a sensational passage at arms between his people and hers, she made her father pay him a small fortune for divorcing her

Matilda's family being one of the "upper ten" in our town, its members were frequently the subject of envious gossip, and so I had known a good deal about them even before Shiphrah befriended me. I had heard, for example, that Matilda had received her early education in a boarding-school in Germany (in accordance with a custom that had been in existence among people of her father's class until recently); that she had subsequently studied Russian and other subjects under Russian tutors at home; and that her two brothers, who were younger than she, were at the local Russian gymnasium, or high school. I had heard, also, that Matilda was very pretty. That she was well dressed went without saying

All this both fascinated and cowed me

Suddenly Shiphrah paused, as though bethinking herself of something. "Wait.

Don't stir," she said, rushing back. Ten or fifteen minutes later she returned, saying: "I was not long, was I? I just went to get the beadle's forgiveness. Had insulted him for nothing. But he's a dummy, all the same.

Come on, David."

Arrived at her house, she introduced me to her old servant, in the kitchen

"He'll stay a week with us, perhaps more," she explained. "I want you to build him up. Fatten him up like a Passover goose. Do you hear?"

The servant, a tall, spare woman, with an extremely dark face tinged with blue, began by darting hostile glances at me

"Look at the way she is staring at him!" Shiphrah growled. "He is the son of the woman who was murdered at the Horse-market."

The old servant started. "Is he?" she said, aghast

"Are you pleased now? Will you take good care of him?"

"May the Uppermost give him a good appetite."

As Shiphrah led me from the kitchen into another room she said: "She took a fancy to you. It will be all right."

She towed me into a vast sitting-room, so crowded with new furniture that it had the appearance of a furniture-store. There were many rooms in the apartment and they all produced a similar impression. I subsequently learned that the superabundance of sofas, chests of drawers, chairs, or bric—brac-stands was due to Shiphrah's passion for bargains, a weakness which made her the fair game of tradespeople and artisans. Several of her wardrobes and bureaus were packed full of all sorts of things for which she had no earthly use and many of which she had smuggled in when her husband and the children were out

Ensconced in a corner of an enormous green sofa in the big crowded sitting-room, with a book in her lap, we found a young woman with curly brown hair and sparkling brown eyes set in a small oval face. She looked no more than twenty, but when her mother addressed her as Matilda I knew that I was facing the heroine of the sensational divorce. She was singularly interesting, but pretty she certainly was not. Her Gentile name had a world of charm for my ear

One of the trifles that clung to my memory is the fact that upon seeing her I felt something like amazement at her girlish appearance. I had had a notion that a married woman, no matter how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did not begin to look married.

Matilda got up, cast a frowning side-glance at her mother, and walked over to one of the four immense windows illuminating the room. Less than a minute later she turned around and crossed over to her mother's side

She was small, but well made, and her movements were brisk, firm, elastic

"Come on, mother, there's something I want to tell you," she said, a jerk of her curly head indicating the adjoining room

"I have no secrets," Shiphrah growled. "What do you want?"

A snappish whispered conference ensued, the trend of which was at once betrayed in an acrimonious retort by Shiphrah: "Just keep your foolish nose out of my affairs, will you? When I say he is going to stay here for some time I mean it. Don't you mind her, David."

"Mother! Mother! Mother!" Matilda trilled with a gesture of disgust, and flounced out of the room

I felt my face turning all colors, and at the same time her "Mother! Mother! Mother!" (instead of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!") was echoing in my brain enchantingly

Presently a fair-complexioned youth of eighteen or nineteen came in, apparently attracted by his mother's angry voice. He wore a blue coat with silver lace and silver buttons, the uniform of a Russian high school, which sent a flutter of mixed envy and awe through me. He threw a frowning glance at me, and withdrew. Two smaller children, a uniformed boy and a little girl, made their appearance, talking in Russian noisily. At sight of me they fell silent, looked me over, from my side-locks to the edge of my long-skirted coat, and then took to whispering and giggling

"Clear out, you devils!" Shiphrah shouted, stamping her foot. "Shoo!" A young chambermaid passed through the room, and Shiphrah stopped her long enough to introduce me and to command her to look after me as if I were one of the family—"even better."



CHAPTER II

THE spacious sitting-room was used as a breakfast-room as well. It was in this room, on the enormous green sofa, that my bed was made for the night.

It was by far the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in

Early the next morning, after I finished my long prayer and had put away my phylacteries, the young chambermaid removed the bedding and the swarthy old servant served me my breakfast

"Go wash your hands and eat in good health. Eat hearty, and may it well agree with you," she said, with a compound of deep commiseration, reverence, and disdain. I went to the kitchen, where I washed my hands, and, while wiping them, muttered the brief prayer which one offers before eating. As I returned to the sitting-room I found Matilda there. She was seated at some distance from the table upon which my breakfast was spread. She wore a sort of white kimono. One did not have to stand on ceremony with a fellow who did not even wear a stiff collar and a necktie. Nor did I know enough to resent her costume. She did not order anything to eat for herself, not even a glass of tea. It seemed as though she had come in for the express purpose of eying me out of countenance. If she had, she succeeded but too well. Her silent glances fell on me like splashes of hot water. I was so disconcerted I could not swallow my food. There were centuries of difference between her and myself, not to speak of the economic chasm that separated us. To me she was an aristocrat, while I was a poor, wretched "day" eater, a cross between a beggar and a recluse. I dared not even look at her. Talmud students were expected to be the shyest creatures under the sun. On this occasion I certainly was

The other children entered the room. They were dressing themselves, eating and studying their Gentile lessons all at once. Matilda had a mild altercation with Yeffim, her eighteen-year-old brother, ordered breakfast for herself, and seemed to have forgotten my existence. Her mother came in and took to cloying me with food

At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon I was alone in the drawing-room. I stood at the piano—the first I had ever laid eyes on—timidly sounding some of the keys, when I heard approaching voices. With my heart in my mouth, I rushed over to the nearest window, where I paused, feigning interest in some passing peasant teams. Presently Matilda made her appearance. accompanied by two girl friends

The three young women were chattering in Russian, a language of which I understood scarcely three dozen words. I could conjecture, however, that the subject of their talk was no other than my own quailing personality

Suddenly Matilda addressed herself to me in Yiddish: "Look here, young man! Don't you know it is bad manners for a gentleman to stand with his back to ladies?"

I faced about, all flushed and scared

"That's better," she said, gaily. "Never mind staring at the floor. Give us a look, will you? Don't act as a shy bridegroom."

I made no answer. The room seemed to be in a whirl

"Why don't you speak?" Matilda insisted, concealing her quizzical purpose under a well-acted air of gravity

Her two friends roared, and, spurred on by their merriment, she continued to make game of me.

"Won't you give us one look, at least? Do, please! Come, my mother will never find out you have been guilty of a great sin like that."

I was dying to get up and fling out of the room, but I felt glued to the spot. Their cruel sport, which made me faint with embarrassment and misery, had something inexpressibly alluring in it

One of the two girls said something in Russian of which I caught the word "kiss" and which was greeted by a new outburst of laughter. I was terror-stricken

"Well, pious Jew!" Matilda resumed. "Suppose a girl were to give you a kiss.

What would you do? Commit suicide, would you? Well, never fear; we won't be as cruel as all that. I tell you what, though. I'll hide your side-locks behind your ears. I just want to see how you would look without them." At this she stepped up close to me and reached out her hands for my two appendages

I pushed her off. "Please, let me alone," I protested

"At last we have heard his voice. Bravo! We're making headway, aren't we?"

At this point her mother's angry voice made itself heard. Matilda desisted, with a merry remark to her friends

The next morning when she and I were alone she tantalized me again. She made another attempt to tuck my side-locks behind my ears. As we were alone I had more courage

"If you don't stop I'll go away from here," I said, in a rage. "What do you want of me?"

As I thus gave vent to my resentment I instinctively felt that, so far from causing her to avoid me, it would quicken her rompish interest in me. And I hoped it would

"'S-sh! don't yell," she said, startled. "Can't you take a joke?"

"A nice joke, that."

"Very well, I won't do it again. I didn't know you were a touch-me-not." After a pause she resumed, in grave, friendly accents: "Come, don't be angry. I want to talk to you. Look here. Is there any sense in your wasting your life the way you do? Look at the way you are dressed, the way you live generally. Besides, the idea of a young man like you not being able to speak a word of Russian! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why, mother says you are remarkably bright. Isn't it a pity that you should throw it all away? Why don't you try to study Russian, geography, history? Why don't you try to become an educated man?"

"The idea!" I said, with a laugh.

My confusion was gone, partly, at least. I looked her full in the face

She flared up. "The idea!" she mocked me. "Rather say, 'The idea of a bright young fellow being so ignorant!' Did you ever hear of a provoking thing like that?" There was a good deal of her mother's helter-skelter explosiveness in her

Now, that I had scanned her features in the light of the fact that she was a married woman, I read that fact into them. She did look married, I remarked to myself. Her exposed hair gave her an effect of "aristocratic" wickedness and wantonness which repelled and drew me at once. She was a girl, and yet she was a married woman. This duality of hers deepened the fascinating mystery of the distance between us

She proceeded to draw me out. She made me tell her the story of my young life, and I obeyed her but too willingly. I told her my whole tale of woe, reveling in my own rehearsal of my sufferings and more especially in the expressions of horror and heartfelt pity which it elicited from her.

"My God! My God!" she cried, gasping and wringing her hands. "Poor boy!" or, "Oh, I can't hear it! I can't hear it! It is enough to drive one crazy."

At one point, as I described the pangs of hunger which I had often borne, there were tears in her interesting eyes

When I had finished my story, flushed with a sense of my histrionic success, she ordered tea and preserves, as though to indemnify me for my past sufferings

"All the more reason for you to study Russian and to become an educated man," she said, as she put sugar into my glass. She cited the cases of former Talmudists, poor and friendless like myself, who had studied at the universities, fighting every inch of their way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up and down the room fiercely

All this sounded shockingly wicked, and yet it did not shock me in the least

"I have a plan," I said

When she heard what I wanted to do she shook her head and frowned. She said, in substance, that America was a land of dollars, not of education, and that she wanted me to be an educated man. I assured her that I should study English in America and, after I had laid up some money, prepare for college there (she could have made me promise anything). But colleges in which the instruction was not in Russian failed to appeal to her imagination

Still, when she saw that my heart was set on the project, she yielded. She seemed to like the fervor with which I defended my cause, and the notion of my going to a far-away land was apparently beginning to have its effect. I was the hero of an adventure. Gradually she became quite enthusiastic about my plan

"I tell you what. I can raise the money for you," she said, with a gesture of sudden resolution. "How much is it?"

When I said, forlornly, that it would come to about eighty rubles, she declared, gravely: "That's all right. I shall get it for you. Only, say nothing to mother about it." I thought myself in a flurry of joy over this windfall, but a little later, when I was left to myself, I became aware that the flurry I was in was of quite a different nature. When I tried to think of America I found that my ambition in that direction had lost its former vitality

I was deeply in love with Matilda



CHAPTER III

SHE continued to treat me in a patronizing, playful way; but we were supposed to be great friends and I asked myself no questions.

"The money is assured," she once announced. "You shall get it in a few days.

You may begin to pack your great baggage," she jested

My heart sank within me, but I feigned exultation

"Do you deserve it, pious soul that you are?" she laughed. And casting a glance at my side-locks, she added: "I do wish you would cut off those horrid things of yours. You won't take them to America, will you?"

I smiled. Small as was my stock of information of the New World, I knew enough of it to understand, in a general way, that side-locks were out of place there

She proceeded to put my side-locks behind my ears, and this time I did not object. She then smoothed them down, the touch of her fingers thrilling me through and through. Then she brought a hand-glass and made me look at myself.

"Do you see the difference?" she demanded. "If you were not rigged out like the savage that you are you wouldn't be a bad-looking fellow, after all.

Why, girls might even fall in love with you. But then what does a pious soul like you know about such things as love?"

"How do you know I don't?" I ventured to say, blushing like a poppy

"Do you, really?" she said, with mischievous surprise

I nodded

"Well, well. So you are not quite so saintly as I thought you were! Perhaps you have even been in love yourself? Have you? Tell me."

I kept silent. My heart was throbbing wildly.

"Do you love me?"

I nodded once more. My heart stood still.

"Kiss me, then."

She put my arms around her, made me clasp her to my breast, and we kissed, passionately

I suddenly felt ten years older

She broke away from me, jumping around, slapping her hands and bubbling over with triumphant mirth, as she shouted: "There is a pious soul for you! There is a pious soul for you!"

A thought of little Red Esther of my childhood days flashed through my brain, of the way she would force me to "sin" and then gloat over my "fall."

"A penny for your piety," Matilda added, gravely. "When you are in America you'll dress like a Gentile and even shave. Then you won't look so ridiculous. Good clothes would make another man of you." At this she looked me over in a business-like sort of way. "Pretty good figure, that," she concluded

In the evening of that day, when there was company in the house, she bore herself as though she did not know me. But the next morning, after the children had gone to school and her mother was away on her various missions, she made me put on the glittering coat and cap of her brother's Sunday uniform

"It's rather too small for you, but it's becoming all the same," she said, enthusiastically. "If mamma came in now she would not know you. But then there would be a nice how-do-you-do if she did." She gave a titter which rolled through my very heart. "Well, Mr. Gymnasist, [note] are you really in love with me?"

"Don't make fun of me, pray," I implored her. "It hurts, you know." "Very well, I sha'n't. But you haven't answered my question."

"What question?"

"What a poor memory you have! And yet mother says you have 'a good head.' Try to remember."

"I do remember your question."

"Then what is your answer?"

"Yes."

"Yes!" she mocked me. "That's not the way gentlemen declare their love." "What else shall I say?"

"What else! Well, say: 'I am ready to die for you. You are the sunshine of my life.'" "'You are the sunshine of my life,'" I echoed, with a smile that was a combination of mirth and resentment

"'You are my happiness, my soul. The world would be dark without you.'"

"I am no baby to parrot somebody else's words."

"Then you don't love me."

"Yes, I do. But I hate to be made fun of. Don't! Please don't!" I said it with a beseeching, passionate tremor in my voice, and all at once I clasped her violently to me and was about to kiss her. She put up her lips responsively, but suddenly she wrenched herself back

"Easy, easy, you saintly Talmudist," she said, good-naturedly. "You must not forget that you are not a gymnasist, that to kiss a woman is a sin, a great sin. You'll be beaten with rods of iron in the world to come. Well, good-by," she concluded, gravely. "I must go. Take off that coat and cap.

Mamma may come in at any moment." She showed me where to hang them

[note: Gymnasist] A pupil of a gymnasium or high school



CHAPTER IV

In my incessant reveries of her I developed the theory that if I abandoned my plan about going to America she would have her father send me to college with a view to my marrying her. Indeed, matches of this kind were not an unusual arrangement in our town (nor are they in the Jewish districts of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, for example)

My bed was usually made on the enormous green sofa in the spacious sitting-room. One night, when I was asleep on that great sofa, I was suddenly aroused by the touch of a hand

"'S-sh," I heard Matilda's whisper. "I want to talk to you. I can't sleep, anyhow. I don't know why. So I was thinking of all kinds of things till I came to your plan about America. It is foolish. Why go so far? Perhaps something can be done to get you into high school and then into the university."

"I have guessed it right, then," I exclaimed within myself. The room was pitch-dark. Her white kimono was all I could see of her

She explained certain details. She spoke in a very low undertone, with great earnestness. I took her by the hand and drew her down to a seat on the edge of the sofa beside me. She offered no resistance. She continued to talk, partly in the same undertone, partly in whispers, with her hand remaining in mine. I was aflame with happiness, yet I listened intently. I felt sure that she was my bride-to-be, that it was only a matter of days when our engagement would be celebrated. My heart went out to her with a passion that seemed to be sanctioned by God and men. I strained down her head and kissed her, but that was the stainless kiss of a man yearning upon the lips of his betrothed. I clasped her flimsily garmented form, kissed her again and again, let her kiss and bite me; and still it all seemed legitimate, or nearly so. I saw in it an emphatic confirmation of my feeling that she did not regard herself a stranger to me. That mattered more than anything else at this moment

"You're a devil," she whispered, slapping me on both cheeks, "a devil with side-locks." And she broke into a suppressed laugh

"I'll study as hard as I can," I assured her, with boyish exultation.

"You'll see what I can do. The Gentile books are child's play in comparison with the Talmud."

I went into details. She took no part in my talk, but she let me go on. I became so absorbed in what I was saying that my caresses ceased. I sat up and spoke quite audibly

"'S-sh!" she cautioned me in an irritated whisper

I dropped my voice. She listened for another minute or two and then, suddenly rising, she said: "Oh, you are a Talmud student, after all," and her indistinct kimono vanished in the darkness

I felt crushed, but I was sure that the words "Talmud student," which are Yiddish for "ninny," merely referred to my rendering our confab dangerous by speaking too loud

The next afternoon she kissed me once more, calling me Talmud student again.

But she was apparently getting somewhat fidgety about our relations. She was more guarded, more on the alert for eavesdroppers, as though somebody had become suspicious. My Gentile education she never broached again. Finally when a letter came from her father announcing his speedy return and Shiphrah hastened to terminate my stay at the house, Matilda was obviously glad to have me go.

"I shall bring you the money to the synagogue," she whispered as I was about to leave

I was stunned. I left in a turmoil of misery and perplexity, yet not in despair

When I returned to the synagogue everybody and everything in it looked strange to me. Reb Sender was dearer than ever, but that was chiefly because I was longing for a devoted friend. I was dying to relieve my fevered mind by telling him all and seeking advice, but I did not

"Are you still weak?" he asked, tenderly, looking close into niy eyes

"Oh, it is not that, Reb Sender." "Is it the death of your dear mother—peace upon her?"

"Yes, of course. That and lots of other things."

"It will all pass. She will have a bright paradise, and The Upper One will help you. Don't lose heart, my boy."

I ran over to Naphtali's place. We talked of Shiphrah and her children—at least I did. He asked about Matilda, and I answered reluctantly. Now and again I felt impelled to tell him all. It would have been such a relief to ease my mind of its cruel burden and to hear somebody's, anybody's opinion about it. But his laconical questions and answers were anything but encouraging

I spent many an hour in his company, but he was always absorbed in the Talmud, or in some of his infidel books. The specific character of my restlessness was lost upon him

I was in the grip of a dull, enervating, overpowering agony that seemed to be weighing my heart down and filling my throat with pent-up sobs. I was writhing inwardly, praying for Matilda's mercy. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever experienced. I remember it distinctly in every detail. If I now wished to imagine a state of mind driving one to suicide I could not do it better than by recalling my mental condition in those days

In point of fact I took pride in my misery. "I am in love. I am no mere slouch of a Talmud student," I would say to myself

In the evening of the fourth day, as I was making a pretense at reading Talmud, a poor boy came in to call me out. In the alley outside the house of worship I found Matilda. She had the money with her

"I don't think I want it now," I said. "I don't care to go to America." "Why?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh, take it and let me be done with it," she said, forcing a small packet into my hand. "I have no time to bother with you. Go to America. I wish you good luck."

"But I'll miss you. I sha'n't be able to live without you."

"What? Are you crazy?" she said, sternly. "You forget your place, young man!"

She stalked hastily away, her form, at once an angel of light and a messenger of death, being swallowed up by the gloom

Ten minutes later, when I was at my book again, my heart bleeding and my head in a daze, I was called out once more

Again I found her standing in the lane

"I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she said. "I wish you good luck from the bottom of my heart."

She uttered it with a warm cordiality, and yet the note of impatience which rang in her voice ten minutes before was again there

"Try to become an educated man in America," she added. "That's the main thing. Good-by. You have my best wishes. Good-by."

And before I had time to say anything she shook my hand and was gone.



CHAPTER V

A LITTLE over three weeks had elapsed. It was two days after Passover. I had just solemnized the first anniversary of my mother's death. The snow had melted. Each of my five senses seemed to be thrillingly aware of the presence of spring

I was at the railway station. Clustered about me were Reb Sender and his wife, two other Talmudists from the Preacher's Synagogue, the retired old soldier with the formidable side-whiskers, and Naphtali

As I write these words I seem to see the group before me. It is one of those scenes that never grow dim in one's memory

"Be a good Jew and a good man," Reb Sender murmured to me, confusedly. "Do not forget that there is a God in heaven in America as well as here. Do not forget to write us." Naphtali, speaking in his hoarse whisper, half in jest, half in earnest, made me repeat my promise to send him a "ship ticket" from America. I promised everything that was asked of me. My head was swimming

While the first bell was sounding for the passengers to board the train, Shiphrah rushed in, puffing for breath. I looked at the door to see if Matilda was not following her. She was not.

The group around me made way for the rich woman

"Here," she said, handing me a ten-ruble bill and a package. "There is a boiled chicken in it, and some other things, provided you won't neglect your Talmud in America."

A minute later she drew her purse from her skirt pocket, produced a five-ruble bill, and put it into my hand. That all the other money I had for my journey had come from her daughter she had not the remotest idea

I made my final farewells amid a hubbub of excited voices and eyes glistening with tears



BOOK V

I DISCOVER AMERICA

CHAPTER I

TWO weeks later I was one of a multitude of steerage passengers on a Bremen steamship on my way to New York. Who can depict the feeling of desolation, homesickness, uncertainty, and anxiety with which an emigrant makes his first voyage across the ocean? I proved to be a good sailor, but the sea frightened me. The thumping of the engines was drumming a ghastly accompaniment to the awesome whisper of the waves. I felt in the embrace of a vast, uncanny force. And echoing through it all were the heart-lashing words: "Are you crazy? You forget your place, young man!" When Columbus was crossing the Atlantic, on his first great voyage, his men doubted whether they would ever reach land. So does many an America-bound emigrant to this day. Such, at least, was the feeling that was lurking in my heart while the Bremen steamer was carrying me to New York. Day after day passes and all you see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are skeptical

In my devotions, which I performed three times a day, without counting a benediction before every meal and every drink of water, grace after every meal and a prayer before going to sleep, I would mentally plead for the safety of the ship and for a speedy sight of land. My scanty luggage included a pair of phylacteries and a plump little prayer-book, with the Book of Psalms at the end. The prayers I knew by heart, but I now often said psalms, in addition, particularly when the sea looked angry and the pitching or rolling was unusually violent. I would read all kinds of psalms, but my favorite among them was the 104th, generally referred to by our people as "Bless the Lord, O my soul," its opening words in the original Hebrew. It is a poem on the power and wisdom of God as manifested in the wonders of nature, some of its verses dealing with the sea. It is said by the faithful every Saturday afternoon during the fall and winter; so I could have recited it from memory; but I preferred to read it in my prayer-book. For it seemed as though the familiar words had changed their identity and meaning, especially those concerned with the sea. Their divine inspiration was now something visible and audible. It was not I who was reading them. It was as though the waves and the clouds, the whole far-flung scene of restlessness and mystery, were whispering to me: "Thou who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. . . . So is this great and wide sea wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. . .

."

The relentless presence of Matilda in my mind worried me immeasurably, for to think of a woman who is a stranger to you is a sin, and so there was the danger of the vessel coming to grief on my account. And, as though to spite me, the closing verse of Psalm 104 reads, "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more." I strained every nerve to keep Matilda out of my thoughts, but without avail

When the discoverers of America saw land at last they fell on their knees and a hymn of thanksgiving burst from their souls. The scene, which is one of the most thrilling in history, repeats itself in the heart of every immigrant as he comes in sight of the American shores. I am at a loss to convey the peculiar state of mind that the experience created in me

When the ship reached Sandy Hook I was literally overcome with the beauty of the landscape

The immigrant's arrival in his new home is like a second birth to him.

Imagine a new-born babe in possession of a fully developed intellect. Would it ever forget its entry into the world? Neither does the immigrant ever forget his entry into a country which is, to him, a new world in the profoundest sense of the term and in which he expects to pass the rest of his life. I conjure up the gorgeousness of the spectacle as it appeared to me on that clear June morning: the magnificent verdure of Staten Island, the tender blue of sea and sky, the dignified bustle of passing craft—above all, those floating, squatting, multitudinously windowed palaces which I subsequently learned to call ferries. It was all so utterly unlike anything I had ever seen or dreamed of before. It unfolded itself like a divine revelation. I was in a trance or in something closely resembling one

"This, then, is America!" I exclaimed, mutely. The notion of something enchanted which the name had always evoked in me now seemed fully borne out

In my ecstasy I could not help thinking of Psalm 104, and, opening my little prayer-book, I glanced over those of its verses that speak of hills and rocks, of grass and trees and birds.

My transport of admiration, however, only added to my sense of helplessness and awe. Here, on shipboard, I was sure of my shelter and food, at least.

How was I going to procure my sustenance on those magic shores? I wished the remaining hour could be prolonged indefinitely

Psalm 104 spoke reassuringly to me. It reminded me of the way God took care of man and beast: "Thou openest thine hand and they are filled with good." But then the very next verse warned me that "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die." So I was praying God not to hide His face from me, but to open His hand to me; to remember that my mother had been murdered by Gentiles and that I was going to a strange land.

When I reached the words, "I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being," I uttered them in a fervent whisper

My unhappy love never ceased to harrow me. The stern image of Matilda blended with the hostile glamour of America

One of my fellow-passengers was a young Yiddish-speaking tailor named Gitelson. He was about twenty-four years old, yet his forelock was gray, just his forelock, the rest of his hair being a fine, glossy brown. His own cap had been blown into the sea and the one he had obtained from the steerage steward was too small for him, so that gray tuft of his was always out like a plume. We had not been acquainted more than a few hours, in fact, for he had been seasick throughout the voyage and this was the first day he had been up and about. But then I had seen him on the day of our sailing and subsequently, many times, as he wretchedly lay in his berth. He was literally in tatters. He clung to me like a lover, but we spoke very little.

Our hearts were too full for words

As I thus stood at the railing, prayer-book in hand, he took a look at the page. The most ignorant "man of the earth" among our people can read holy tongue (Hebrew), though he may not understand the meaning of the words. This was the case with Gitelson

"Saying, 'Bless the Lord, O my soul'?" he asked, reverently. "Why this chapter of all others?"

"Because—Why, just listen." With which I took to translating the Hebrew text into Yiddish for him

He listened with devout mien. I was not sure that he understood it even in his native tongue, but, whether he did or not, his beaming, wistful look and the deep sigh he emitted indicated that he was in a state similar to mine

When I say that my first view of New York Bay struck me as something not of this earth it is not a mere figure of speech. I vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those at home!" For the moment the little animal made America real to me. At the same time it seemed unreal itself. I was tempted to feel its fur to ascertain whether it was actually the kind of creature I took it for

We were ferried over to Castle Garden. One of the things that caught my eye as I entered the vast rotunda was an iron staircase rising diagonally against one of the inner walls. A uniformed man, with some papers in his hands, ascended it with brisk, resounding step till he disappeared through a door not many inches from the ceiling. It may seem odd, but I can never think of my arrival in this country without hearing the ringing footfalls of this official and beholding the yellow eyes of the black cat which stared at us at the Hoboken pier. The harsh manner of the immigration officers was a grievous surprise to me. As contrasted with the officials of my despotic country, those of a republic had been portrayed in my mind as paragons of refinement and cordiality. My anticipations were rudely belied. "They are not a bit better than Cossacks," I remarked to Gitelson. But they neither looked nor spoke like Cossacks, so their gruff voices were part of the uncanny scheme of things that surrounded me. These unfriendly voices flavored all America with a spirit of icy inhospitality that sent a chill through my very soul

The stringent immigration laws that were passed some years later had not yet come into existence. We had no difficulty in being admitted to the United States, and when I was I was loath to leave the Garden

Many of the other immigrants were met by relatives, friends. There were cries of joy, tears, embraces, kisses. All of which intensified my sense of loneliness and dread of the New World. The agencies which two Jewish charity organizations now maintain at the Immigrant Station had not yet been established. Gitelson, who like myself had no friends in New York, never left my side. He was even more timid than I. It seemed as though he were holding on to me for dear life. This had the effect of putting me on my mettle

"Cheer up, old man!" I said, with bravado. "America is not the place to be a ninny in. Come, pull yourself together." In truth, I addressed these exhortations as much to myself as to him; and so far, at least, as I was concerned, my words had the desired effect.

I led the way out of the big Immigrant Station. As we reached the park outside we were pounced down upon by two evil-looking men, representatives of boarding-houses for immigrants. They pulled us so roughly and their general appearance and manner were so uninviting that we struggled and protested until they let us go—not without some parting curses. Then I led the way across Battery Park and under the Elevated railway to State Street.

A train hurtling and panting along overhead produced a bewildering, a daunting effect on me. The active life of the great strange city made me feel like one abandoned in the midst of a jungle. Where were we to go? What were we to do? But the presence of Gitelson continued to act as a spur on me. I mustered courage to approach a policeman, something I should never have been bold enough to do at home. As a matter of fact, I scarcely had an idea what his function was. To me he looked like some uniformed nobleman—an impression that in itself was enough to intimidate me. With his coat of blue cloth, starched linen collar, and white gloves, he reminded me of anything but the policemen of my town. I addressed him in Yiddish, making it as near an approach to German as I knew how, but my efforts were lost on him. He shook his head. With a witheringly dignified grimace he then pointed his club in the direction of Broadway and strutted off majestically

"He's not better than a Cossack, either," was my verdict

At this moment a voice hailed us in Yiddish. Facing about, we beheld a middle-aged man with huge, round, perpendicular nostrils and a huge, round, deep dimple in his chin that looked like a third nostril. Prosperity was written all over his smooth-shaven face and broad-shouldered, stocky figure.

He was literally aglow with diamonds and self-satisfaction. But he was unmistakably one of our people. It was like coming across a human being in the jungle. Moreover, his very diamonds somehow told a tale of former want, of a time when he had landed, an impecunious immigrant like myself; and this made him a living source of encouragement to me

"God Himself has sent you to us," I began, acting as the spokesman; but he gave no heed to me. His eyes were eagerly fixed on Gitelson and his tatters

"You're a tailor, aren't you?" he questioned him

My steerage companion nodded. "I'm a ladies' tailor, but I have worked on men's clothing, too," he said

"A ladies' tailor?" the well-dressed stranger echoed, with ill-concealed delight. "Very well; come along. I have work for you."

That he should have been able to read Gitelson's trade in his face and figure scarcely surprised me. In my native place it seemed to be a matter of course that one could tell a tailor by his general appearance and walk.

Besides, had I not divined the occupation of my fellow-passenger the moment I saw him on deck? As I learned subsequently, the man who accosted us on State Street was a cloak contractor, and his presence in the neighborhood of Castle Garden was anything but a matter of chance. He came there quite often, in fact, his purpose being to angle for cheap labor among the newly arrived immigrants

We paused near Bowling Green. The contractor and my fellow-passenger were absorbed in a conversation full of sartorial technicalities which were Greek to me, but which brought a gleam of joy into Gitelson's eye. My former companion seemed to have become oblivious of my existence.

As we resumed our walk up Broadway the bejeweled man turned to me

"And what was your occupation? You have no trade, have you?"

"I read Talmud," I said, confusedly.

"I see, but that's no business in America," he declared. "Any relatives here?" "Well, don't worry. You will be all right. If a fellow isn't lazy nor a fool he has no reason to be sorry he came to America. It'll be all right."

"All right" he said in English, and I conjectured what it meant from the context. In the course of the minute or two which he bestowed upon me he uttered it so many times that the phrase engraved itself upon my memory. It was the first bit of English I ever acquired

The well-dressed, trim-looking crowds of lower Broadway impressed me as a multitude of counts, barons, princes. I was puzzled by their preoccupied faces and hurried step. It seemed to comport ill with their baronial dress and general high-born appearance

In a vague way all this helped to confirm my conception of America as a unique country, unlike the rest of the world

When we reached the General Post-Office, at the end of the Third Avenue surface line, our guide bade us stop

"Walk straight ahead," he said to me, waving his hand toward Park Row. "Just keep walking until you see a lot of Jewish people. It isn't far from here." With which he slipped a silver quarter into my hand and made Gitelson bid me good-by

The two then boarded a big red horse-car

I was left with a sickening sense of having been tricked, cast off, and abandoned. I stood watching the receding public vehicle, as though its scarlet hue were my last gleam of hope in the world. When it finally disappeared from view my heart sank within me. I may safely say that the half-hour that followed is one of the worst I experienced in all the thirty-odd years of my life in this country

The big, round nostrils of the contractor and the gray forelock of my young steerage-fellow haunted my brain as hideous symbols of treachery.

With twenty-nine cents in my pocket (four cents was all that was left of the sum which I had received from Matilda and her mother) I set forth in the direction of East Broadway



CHAPTER II

TEN minutes' walk brought me to the heart of the Jewish East Side. The streets swarmed with Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The sign-boards were in English and Yiddish, some of them in Russian. The scurry and hustle of the people were not merely overwhelmingly greater, both in volume and intensity, than in my native town. It was of another sort. The swing and step of the pedestrians, the voices and manner of the street peddlers, and a hundred and one other things seemed to testify to far more self-confidence and energy, to larger ambitions and wider scopes, than did the appearance of the crowds in my birthplace

The great thing was that these people were better dressed than the inhabitants of my town. The poorest-looking man wore a hat (instead of a cap), a stiff collar and a necktie, and the poorest woman wore a hat or a bonnet

The appearance of a newly arrived immigrant was still a novel spectacle on the East Side. Many of the passers-by paused to look at me with wistful smiles of curiosity

"There goes a green one!" some of them exclaimed

The sight of me obviously evoked reminiscences in them of the days when they had been "green ones" like myself. It was a second birth that they were witnessing, an experience which they had once gone through themselves and which was one of the greatest events in their lives.

"Green one" or "greenhorn" is one of the many English words and phrases which my mother-tongue has appropriated in England and America. Thanks to the many millions of letters that pass annually between the Jews of Russia and their relatives in the United States, a number of these words have by now come to be generally known among our people at home as well as here. In the eighties, however, one who had not visited any English-speaking country was utterly unfamiliar with them. And so I had never heard of "green one" before. Still, "green," in the sense of color, is Yiddish as well as English, so I understood the phrase at once, and as a contemptuous quizzical appellation for a newly arrived, inexperienced immigrant it stung me cruelly. As I went along I heard it again and again. Some of the passers-by would call me "greenhorn" in a tone of blighting gaiety, but these were an exception. For the most part it was "green one" and in a spirit of sympathetic interest. It hurt me, all the same. Even those glances that offered me a cordial welcome and good wishes had something self-complacent and condescending in them. "Poor fellow! he is a green one," these people seemed to say. "We are not, of course. We are Americanized."

For my first meal in the New World I bought a three-cent wedge of coarse rye bread, off a huge round loaf, on a stand on Essex Street. I was too strict in my religious observances to eat it without first performing ablutions and offering a brief prayer. So I approached a bewigged old woman who stood in the doorway of a small grocery-store to let me wash my hands and eat my meal in her place. She looked old-fashioned enough, yet when she heard my request she said, with a laugh: "You're a green one, I see."

"Suppose I am," I resented. "Do the yellow ones or black ones all eat without washing? Can't a fellow be a good Jew in America?"

"Yes, of course he can, but—well, wait till you see for yourself."

However, she asked me to come in, gave me some water and an old apron to serve me for a towel, and when I was ready to eat my bread she placed a glass of milk before me, explaining that she was not going to charge me for it

"In America people are not foolish enough to be content with dry bread," she said, sententiously

While I ate she questioned me about my antecedents. I remember how she impressed me as a strong, clever woman of few words as long as she catechised me, and how disappointed I was when she began to talk of herself.

The astute, knowing mien gradually faded out of her face and I had before me a gushing, boastful old bore

My intention was to take a long stroll, as much in the hope of coming upon some windfall as for the purpose of taking a look at the great American city. Many of the letters that came from the United States to my birthplace before I sailed had contained a warning not to imagine that America was a "land of gold" and that treasure might be had in the streets of New York for the picking. But these warnings only had the effect of lending vividness to my image of an American street as a thoroughfare strewn with nuggets of the precious metal. Symbolically speaking, this was the idea one had of the "land of Columbus." It was a continuation of the widespread effect produced by stories of Cortes and Pizarro in the sixteenth century, confirmed by the successes of some Russian emigrants of my time

I asked the grocery-woman to let me leave my bundle with her, and, after considerable hesitation, she allowed me to put it among some empty barrels in her cellar

I went wandering over the Ghetto. Instead of stumbling upon nuggets of gold, I found signs of poverty. In one place I came across a poor family who—as I learned upon inquiry—had been dispossessed for non-payment of rent. A mother and her two little boys were watching their pile of furniture and other household goods on the sidewalk while the passers-by were dropping coins into a saucer placed on one of the chairs to enable the family to move into new quarters

What puzzled me was the nature of the furniture. For in my birthplace chairs and a couch like those I now saw on the sidewalk would be a sign of prosperity. But then anything was to be expected of a country where the poorest devil wore a hat and a starched collar

I walked on

The exclamation "A green one" or "A greenhorn" continued. If I did not hear it, I saw it in the eyes of the people who passed me

When it grew dark and I was much in need of rest I had a street peddler direct me to a synagogue. I expected to spend the night there. What could have been more natural? At the house of God I found a handful of men in prayer. It was a large, spacious room and the smallness of their number gave it an air of desolation. I joined in the devotions with great fervor. My soul was sobbing to Heaven to take care of me in the strange country

The service over, several of the worshipers took up some Talmud folio or other holy book and proceeded to read them aloud in the familiar singsong.

The strange surroundings suddenly began to look like home to me

One of the readers, an elderly man with a pinched face and forked little beard, paused to look me over

"A green one?" he asked, genially.

He told me that the synagogue was crowded on Saturdays, while on week-days people in America had no time to say their prayers at home, much less to visit a house of worship

"It isn't Russia," he said, with a sigh. "Judaism has not much of a chance here."

When he heard that I intended to stay at the synagogue overnight he smiled ruefully

"One does not sleep in an American synagogue," he said. "It is not Russia." Then, scanning me once more, he added, with an air of compassionate perplexity: "Where will you sleep, poor child? I wish I could take you to my house, but—well, America is not Russia. There is no pity here, no hospitality. My wife would raise a rumpus if I brought you along. I should never hear the last of it."

With a deep sigh and nodding his head plaintively he returned to his book, swaying back and forth. But he was apparently more interested in the subject he had broached. "When we were at home," he resumed, "she, too, was a different woman. She did not make life a burden to me as she does here. Have you no money at all?"

I showed him the quarter I had received from the cloak contractor

"Poor fellow! Is that all you have? There are places where you can get a night's lodging for fifteen cents, but what are you going to do afterward? I am simply ashamed of myself."

"'Hospitality,'" he quoted from the Talmud, "'is one of the things which the giver enjoys in this world and the fruit of which he relishes in the world to come.' To think that I cannot offer a Talmudic scholar a night's rest! Alas! America has turned me into a mound of ashes."

"You were well off in Russia, weren't you?" I inquired, in astonishment.

For, indeed, I had never heard of any but poor people emigrating to America

"I used to spend my time reading Talmud at the synagogue," was his reply

Many of his answers seemed to fit, not the question asked, but one which was expected to follow it. You might have thought him anxious to forestall your next query in order to save time and words, had it not been so difficult for him to keep his mouth shut

"She," he said, referring to his wife, "had a nice little business. She sold feed for horses and she rejoiced in the thought that she was married to a man of learning. True, she has a tongue. That she always had, but over there it was not so bad. She has become a different woman here. Alas! America is a topsy-turvy country."

He went on to show how the New World turned things upside down, transforming an immigrant shoemaker into a man of substance, while a former man of leisure was forced to work in a factory here. In like manner, his wife had changed for the worse, for, lo and behold! instead of supporting him while he read Talmud, as she used to do at home, she persisted in sending him out to peddle. "America is not Russia," she said. "A man must make a living here." But, alas! it was too late to begin now! He had spent the better part of his life at his holy books and was fit for nothing else now. His wife, however, would take no excuse. He must peddle or be nagged to death. And if he ventured to slip into some synagogue of an afternoon and read a page or two he would be in danger of being caught red-handed, so to say, for, indeed, she often shadowed him to make sure that he did not play truant.

Alas! America was not Russia

A thought crossed my mind that if Reb Sender were here, he, too, might have to go peddling. Poor Reb Sender! The very image of him with a basket on his arm broke my heart. America did seem to be the most cruel place on earth

"I am telling you all this that you may see why I can't invite you to my house," explained the peddier

All I did see was that the poor man could not help unburdening his mind to the first listener that presented himself

He pursued his tale of woe. He went on complaining of his own fate, quite forgetful of mine. Instead of continuing to listen, I fell to gazing around the synagogue more or less furtively. One of the readers attracted my special attention. He was a venerable-looking man with a face which, as I now recall it, reminds me of Thackeray. Only he had a finer head than the English novelist

At last the henpecked man discovered my inattention and fell silent. A minute later his tongue was at work again

"You are looking at that man over there, aren't you?" he asked

"Who is he?"

"When the Lord of the World gives one good luck he gives one good looks as well."

"Why, is he rich?"

"His son-in-law is, but then his daughter cherishes him as she does the apple of her eye, and—well, when the Lord of the World wishes to give a man happiness he gives him good children, don't you know."

He rattled on, betraying his envy of the venerable-looking man in various ways and telling me all he knew about him—that he was a widower named Even, that he had been some years in America, and that his daughter furnished him all the money he needed and a good deal more, so that "he lived like a monarch." Even would not live in his daughter's house, however, because her kitchen was not conducted according to the laws of Moses, and everything else in it was too modern. So he roomed and boarded with pious strangers, visiting her far less frequently than she visited him and never eating at her table.

"He is a very proud man," my informant said. "One must not approach him otherwise than on tiptoe."

I threw a glance at Even. His dignified singsong seemed to confirm my interlocutor's characterization of him

"Perhaps you will ask me how his son-in-law takes it all?" the voluble Talmudist went on. "Well, his daughter is a beautiful woman and well favored." The implication was that her husband was extremely fond of her and let her use his money freely. "They are awfully rich and they live like veritable Gentiles, which is a common disease among the Jews of America. But then she observes the commandment, 'Honor thy father.' That she does."

Again he tried to read his book and again the temptation to gossip was too much for him. He returned to Even's pride, dwelling with considerable venom upon his love of approbation and vanity. "May the Uppermost not punish me for my evil words, but to see him take his roll of bills out of his pocket and pay his contribution to the synagogue one would think he was some big merchant and not a poor devil sponging on his son-in-law."

A few minutes later he told me admiringly how Even often "loaned" him a half-dollar to enable him to do some reading at the house of God.

"I tell my virago of a wife I have sold fifty cents' worth of goods," he explained to me, sadly

After a while the man with the Thackeray face closed his book, kissed it, and rose to go. On his way out he unceremoniously paused in front of me, a silver snuff-box in his left hand, and fell to scrutinizing me. He had the appearance of a well-paid rabbi of a large, prosperous town. "He is going to say, 'A green one,'" I prophesied to myself, all but shuddering at the prospect. And, sure enough, he did, but he took his time about it, which made the next minute seem a year to me. He took snuff with tantalizing deliberation. Next he sneezed with great zest and then he resumed sizing me up. The suspense was insupportable. Another second and I might have burst out, "For mercy's sake say 'A green one,' and let us be done with it." But at that moment he uttered it of his own accord: "A green one, I see. Where from?" And grasping my hand he added in Hebrew, "Peace be to ye."

His first questions about me were obsequiously answered by the man with the forked beard, whereupon my attention was attracted by the fact that he addressed him by his Gentile name—that is, as "Mr. Even," and not by his Hebrew name, as he would have done in our birthplace. Surely America did not seem to be much of a God-fearing country

When Mr. Even heard of my Talmud studies he questioned me about the tractates I had recently read and even challenged me to explain an apparent discrepancy in a certain passage, for the double purpose of testing my "Talmud brains" and flaunting his own. I acquitted myself creditably, it seemed, and I felt that I was making a good impression personally as well.

Anyhow, he invited me to supper in a restaurant.

On our way there I told him of my mother's violent death, vaguely hoping that it would add to his interest in me. It did—even more than I had expected. To my pleasant surprise, he proved to be familiar with the incident. It appeared that because our section lay far outside the region of pogroms, or anti-Jewish riots, the killing of my mother by a Gentile mob had attracted considerable attention. I was thrilled to find myself in the lime-light of world-wide publicity. I almost felt like a hero

"So you are her son?" he said, pausing to look me over, as though I had suddenly become a new man. "My poor orphan boy!" He caused me to recount the incident in every detail. In doing so I made it as appallingly vivid as I knew how. He was so absorbed and moved that he repeatedly made me stop in the middle of the sidewalk so as to look me in the face as he listened

"Oh, but you must be hungry," he suddenly interrupted me. "Come on." Arrived at the restaurant, he ordered supper for me. Then he withdrew, commending me to the care of the proprietress until he should return.

He had no sooner shut the door behind him than she took to questioning me: Was I a relative of Mr. Even? If not, then why was he taking so much interest in me? She was a vivacious, well-fed young matron with cheeks of a flaming red and with the consciousness of business success all but spurting from her black eyes. From what she, assisted by one of the other customers present, told me about my benefactor I learned that his son-in-law was the owner of the tenement-house in which the restaurant was located, as well as of several other buildings. They also told me of the landlord's wife, of her devotion to her father, and of the latter's piety and dignity. It appeared, however, that in her filial reverence she would draw the line upon his desire not to spare the rod upon her children, which was really the chief reason why he was a stranger at her house

I had been waiting about two hours and was growing uneasy, when Mr. Even came back, explaining that he had spent the time taking his own supper and finding lodgings for me

He then took me to store after store, buying me a suit of clothes, a hat, some underclothes, handkerchiefs (the first white handkerchiefs I ever possessed), collars, shoes, and a necktie.

He spent a considerable sum on me. As we passed from block to block he kept saying, "Now you won't look green," or, "That will make you look American." At one point he added, "Not that you are a bad-looking fellow as it is, but then one must be presentable in America." At this he quoted from the Talmud an equivalent to the saying that one must do in Rome as the Romans do

When all our purchases had been made he took me to a barber shop with bathrooms in the rear

"Give him a hair-cut and a bath," he said to the proprietor. "Cut off his side-locks while you are at it. One may go without them and yet be a good Jew."

He disappeared again, but when I emerged from the bathroom I found him waiting for me. I stood before him, necktie and collar in hand, not knowing what to do with them, till he showed me how to put them on

"Don't worry. David," he consoled me. "When I came here I, too, had to learn these things." When he was through with the job he took me in front of a looking-glass. "Quite an American, isn't he?" he said to the barber, beamingly. "And a good-looking fellow, too."

When I took a look at the mirror I was bewildered. I scarcely recognized myself

I was mentally parading my "modern" make-up before Matilda. A pang of yearning clutched my heart. It was a momentary feeling. For the rest, I was all in a flutter with embarrassment and a novel relish of existence. It was as though the hair-cut and the American clothes had changed my identity. The steamer, Gitelson, and the man who had snatched him up now appeared to be something of the remote past. The day had been so crowded with novel impressions that it seemed an age

He took me to an apartment in a poor tenement-house and introduced me to a tall, bewhiskered, morose-looking, elderly man and a smiling woman of thirty-five, explaining that he had paid them in advance for a month's board and lodging. When he said, "This is Mr. Levinsky," I felt as though I was being promoted in rank as behooved my new appearance. "Mister" struck me as something like a title of nobility. It thrilled me. But somehow it seemed ridiculous, too. Indeed, it was some time before I could think of myself as a "Mister" without being tempted to laugh.

"And here is some cash for you," he said, handing me a five-dollar bill, and some silver, in addition. "And now you must shift for yourself. That's all I can do for you. Nor, indeed, would I do more if I could. A young man like you must learn to stand on his own legs. Understand? If you do well, come to see me. Understand?"

There was an eloquent pause which said that if I did not do well I was not to molest him. Then he added, aloud: "There is only one thing I want you to promise me. Don't neglect your religion nor your Talmud. Do you promise that, David?"

I did. There was a note of fatherly tenderness in the way this utter stranger called me David. It reminded me of Reb Sender. I wanted to say something to express my gratitude, but I felt a lump in my throat

He advised me to invest the five dollars in dry-goods and to take up peddling. Then, wishing me good luck, he left

My landlady, who had listened to Mr. Even's parting words with pious nods and rapturous grins, remarked that one would vainly search the world for another man like him, and proceeded to make my bed on a lounge

The room was a kitchen. The stove was a puzzle to me. I wondered whether it was really a stove.

"Is this used for heating?" I inquired

"Yes, for heating and cooking," she explained, with smiling cordiality. And she added, with infinite superiority, "America has no use for those big tile ovens."

When I found myself alone in the room the feeling of desolation and uncertainty which had tormented me all day seized me once again

I went to bed and began to say my bed-prayer. I did so mechanically. My mind did not attend to the words I was murmuring. Instead, it was saying to God: "Lord of the Universe, you have been good to me so far. I went out of that grocery-store in the hope of coming upon some good piece of luck and my hope was realized. Be good to me in the future as well. I shall be more pious than ever, I promise you, even if America is a godless country."

I was excruciatingly homesick. My heart went out to my poor dead mother.

Then I reflected that it was my story of her death that had led Even to spend so much money on me. It seemed as if she were taking care of me from her grave. It seemed, too, as though she had died so that I might arouse sympathy and make a good start in America. I thought of her and of all Antomir, and my pangs of yearning for her were tinged with pangs of my unrequited love for Matilda.



CHAPTER III

MY landlady was a robust little woman, compact and mobile as a billiard-ball, continually bustling about, chattering and smiling or laughing. She was a good-natured, silly creature, and her smile, which automatically shut her eyes and opened her mouth from ear to ear, accentuated her kindliness as well as her lack of sense. When she did not talk she would hum or sing at the top of her absurd voice the then popular American song "Climbing Up the Golden Stairs." She told me the very next day that she had been married less than a year, and one of the first things I noticed about her was the pleasure it gave her to refer to her husband or to quote him. Her prattle was so full of, "My husband says, says my husband," that it seemed as though the chief purpose of her jabber was to parade her married state and to hear herself talk of her spouse. The words, "My husband," were music to her ears. They actually meant, "Behold, I am an old maid no longer!"

She was so deeply impressed by the story of my meeting with Mr. Even, whose son-in-law was her landlord, and by the amount he had spent on me that she retailed it among her neighbors, some of whom she invited to the house in order to exhibit me to them

Her name was Mrs. Dienstog, which is Yiddish for Tuesday. Now Tuesday is a lucky day, so I saw a good omen in her, and thanked God her name was not Monday or Wednesday, which, according to the Talmud, are unlucky

One of the first things I did was to make up a list of the English words and phrases which our people in this country had adopted as part and parcel of their native tongue. This, I felt, was an essential step toward shedding one's "greenhornhood," an operation every immigrant is anxious to dispose of without delay. The list included, "floor," "ceiling," "window," "dinner," "supper," "hat," "business," "job," "clean," "plenty," "never," "ready," "anyhow," "never mind," "hurry up," "all right," and about a hundred other words and phrases

I was quick to realize that to be "stylishly" dressed was a good investment, but I realized, too, that to use the Yiddish word for "collar" or "clean" instead of their English correlatives was worse than to wear a dirty collar

I wrote down the English words in Hebrew characters and from my landlady's dictation, so that "never mind," for example, became "nevermine."

When I came home with a basket containing my first stock of wares, Mrs.

Dienstog ran into ecstasies over it. She took to fingering some of my collar-buttons and garters, and when I protested she drew away, pouting

Still, the next morning, as I was leaving the house with my stock, she wished me good luck ardently; and when I left the house she ran after me, shouting: "Wait, Mr. Levinsky. I'll buy something of you 'for a lucky start.'" She picked out a paper of pins, and as she paid me the price she said, devoutly, "May this little basket become one of the biggest stores in New York."

My plan of campaign was to peddle in the streets for a few weeks—that is, until my "greenness" should wear off— and then to try to sell goods to tenement housewives. I threw myself into the business with enthusiasm, but with rather discouraging results. I earned what I then called a living, but made no headway. As a consequence, my ardor cooled off. It was nothing but a daily grind. My heart was not in it. My landlord, who was a truck-driver, but who dreamed of business, thought that I lacked dash, pluck, tenacity; and the proprietor of the "peddler supply store" in which I bought my goods seemed to be of the same opinion, for he often chaffed me on the smallness of my bill. On one occasion he said: "If you want to make a decent living you must put all other thoughts out of your mind and think of nothing but your business."

Only my smiling little landlady was always chirping words of encouragement, assuring me that I was not doing worse than the average beginner. This and her cordial, good-natured manner were a source of comfort to me. We became great friends. She taught me some of her broken English; and I let her talk of her husband as long as she wanted. One of her weaknesses was to boast of holding him under her thumb, though in reality she was under his.

Ceaselessly gay in his absence, she would become shy and reticent the moment he came home. I never saw him talk to her save to give her some order, which she would execute with feverish haste. Still, in his surly, domineering way he was devoted to her

I was ever conscious of my modern garb, and as I walked through the streets I would repeatedly throw glances at store windows, trying to catch my reflection in them. Or else I would pass my fingers across my temples to feel the absence of my side-locks. It seemed a pity that Matilda could not see me now

One of the trifles that have remained embedded in my memory from those days is the image of a big, florid-faced huckster shouting at the top of his husky voice: "Strawberri-i-ies, strawberri-i-ies, five cents a quart!"

I used to hear and see him every morning through the windows of my lodging; and to this day, whenever I hear the singsong of a strawberry-peddler I scent the odors of New York as they struck me upon my arrival, in 1885, and I experience the feeling of uncertainty, homesickness, and lovesickness that never left my heart at that period

I often saw Antomir in my dreams

The immigrants from the various Russian, Galician, or Roumanian towns usually have their respective synagogues in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago. So I sought out the house of worship of the Sons of Antomir

There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of small congregations on the East Side, each of which had the use of a single room, for the service hours on Saturdays and holidays, in a building rented for all sorts of gatherings—weddings, dances, lodge meetings, trade-union meetings, and the like. The Antomir congregation, however, was one of those that could afford a whole house all to themselves. Our synagogue was a small, rickety, frame structure

It was for a Saturday-morning service that I visited it for the first time.

I entered it with throbbing heart. I prayed with great fervor. When the devotions were over I was disappointed to find that the congregation contained not a single worshiper whom I had known or heard of at home.

Indeed, many of them did not even belong to Antomir. When I told them about my mother there was a murmur of curiosity and sympathy, but their interest in me soon gave way to their interest in the information I could give each of them concerning the house and street that had once been his home

Upon the advice of my landlord, the truck-driver, and largely with his help, I soon changed the character of my business. I rented a push-cart and tried to sell remnants of dress-goods, linen, and oil-cloth. This turned out somewhat better than basket peddling; but I was one of the common herd in this branch of the business as well

Often I would load my push-cart with cheap hosiery collars, brushes, hand-mirrors, note-books, shoe-laces, and the like, sometimes with several of these articles at once, but more often with one at a time. In the latter case I would announce to the passers-by the glad news that I had struck a miraculous bargain at a wholesale bankruptcy sale, for instance, and exhort them not to miss their golden opportunity. I also learned to crumple up new underwear, or even to wet it somewhat, and then shout that I could sell it "so cheap" because it was slightly damaged

I earned enough to pay my board, but I developed neither vim nor ardor for the occupation. I hankered after intellectual interest and was unceasingly homesick. I was greatly tempted to call on Mr. Even, but deferred the visit until I should make a better showing.

I hated the constant chase and scramble for bargains and I hated to yell and scream in order to create a demand for my wares by the sheer force of my lungs. Many an illiterate dolt easily outshouted me and thus dampened what little interest I had mustered. One fellow in particular was a source of discouragement to me. He was a half -witted, hideous-looking man, with no end of vocal energy and senseless fervor. He was a veritable engine of imbecile vitality. He would make the street ring with deafening shrieks, working his arms and head, sputtering and foaming at the mouth like a madman. And it produced results. His nervous fit would have a peculiar effect on the pedestrians. One could not help pausing and buying something of him. The block where we usually did business was one of the best, but I hated him so violently that I finally moved my push-cart to a less desirable locality

I came home in despair

"Oh, it takes a blockhead to make a success of it," I complained to Mrs.

Dienstog

"Why, why," she consoled me, "it is a sin to be grumbling like that. There are lots of peddlers who have been years in America and who would be glad to earn as much as you do. It'll be all right. Don't worry, Mr. Levinsky."

It was less than a fortnight before I changed my place of business once again. The only thing by which these few days became fixed in my memory was the teeth of a young man named Volodsky and the peculiar tale of woe he told me. He was a homely, commonplace-looking man, but his teeth were so beautiful that their glistening whiteness irritated me somewhat. They were his own natural teeth, but I thought them out of place amid his plain features, or amid the features of any other man, for that matter. They seemed to be more suited to the face of a woman. His push-cart was next to mine, but he sold—or tried to sell—hardware, while my cart was laden with other goods; and as he was, moreover, as much of a failure as I was, there was no reason why we should not be friends. So we would spend the day in heart-to-heart talks of our hard luck and homesickness. His chief worry was over the "dower money" which he had borrowed of his sister, at home, to pay for his passage

"She gave it to me cheerfully," he said, in a brooding, listless way. "She thought I would send it back to her at once. People over there think treasure can really be had for the picking in America. Well, I have been over two years here, and have not been able to send her a cent. Her letters make holes in my heart. She has a good marriage chance, so she says, and unless I send her the money at once it will be off. Her lamentations will drive me into the grave."



CHAPTER IV

I SOON had to move from the Dienstogs' to make room for a relative of the truck-driver's who had arrived from England. My second lodgings were an exact copy of my first, a lounge in a kitchen serving me as a bed. To add to the similarity, my new landlady was incessantly singing. Only she had three children and her songs were all in Yiddish. Her ordinary speech teemed with oaths like: "Strike me blind," "May I not be able to move my arms or my legs," "May I spend every cent of it on doctor's bills," "May I not be able to get up from this chair."

A great many of our women will spice their Yiddish with this kind of imprecations, but she was far above the average in this respect

The curious thing about her was that her name was Mrs. Levinsky, though we were not related in the remotest degree

Whatever enthusiasm there was in me found vent in religion. I spent many an evening at the Antomir Synagogue, reading Talmud passionately. This would bring my heart in touch with my old home, with dear old Reb Sender, with the grave of my poor mother. It was the only pleasure I had in those days, and it seemed to be the highest I had ever enjoyed. At times I would feel the tears coming to my eyes for the sheer joy of hearing my own singsong, my old Antomir singsong. It was like an echo from the Preacher's Synagogue. My former self was addressing me across the sea in this strange, uninviting, big town where I was compelled to peddle shoe-black or oil-cloth and to compete with a yelling idiot. I would picture my mother gazing at me as I stood at my push-cart. I could almost see her slapping her hands in despair

As for my love, it had settled down to a chronic dull pain that asserted itself on special occasions only

I was so homesick that my former lodging in New York, to which I had become used, now seemed like home by comparison. I missed the Dienstogs keenly, and I visited them quite often

I wrote long, passionate letters to Reb Sender, in a conglomeration of the Talmudic jargon, bad Hebrew, and good Yiddish, referring to the Talmud studies I pursued in America and pouring out my forlorn heart to him. His affectionate answers brought me inexpressible happiness

But many of the other peddlers made fun of my piety and it could not last long. Moreover, I was in contact with life now, and the daily surprises it had in store for me dealt my former ideas of the world blow after blow. I saw the cunning and the meanness of some of my customers, of the tradespeople of whom I bought my wares, and of the peddlers who did business by my side. Nor was I unaware of certain unlovable traits that were unavoidably developing in my own self under these influences. And while human nature was thus growing smaller, the human world as a whole was growing larger, more complex, more heartless, and more interesting. The striking thing was that it was not a world of piety. I spoke to scores of people and I saw tens of thousands. Very few of the women who passed my push-cart wore wigs, and men who did not shave were an exception. Also, I knew that many of the people with whom I came in daily contact openly patronized Gentile restaurants and would not hesitate even to eat pork

The orthodox Jewish faith, as it is followed in the old Ghetto towns of Russia or Austria, has still to learn the art of trimming its sails to suit new winds. It is exactly the same as it was a thousand years ago. It does not attempt to adopt itself to modern conditions as the Christian Church is continually doing. It is absolutely inflexible. If you are a Jew of the type to which I belonged when I came to New York and you attempt to bend your religion to the spirit of your new surroundings, it breaks. It falls to pieces. The very clothes I wore and the very food I ate had a fatal effect on my religious habits. A whole book could be written on the influence of a starched collar and a necktie on a man who was brought up as I was. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, I should let a barber shave my sprouting beard

"What do you want those things for?" Mrs. Levinsky once said to me, pointing at my nascent whiskers. "Oh, go take a shave and don't be a fool. It will make you ever so much better-looking. May my luck be as handsome as your face will then be."

"Never!" I retorted, testily, yet blushing

She gave a sarcastic snort. "They all speak like that at the beginning," she said. "The girls will make you shave if nobody else does."

"What girls?" I asked, with a scowl, but blushing once again

"What do I know what girls?" she laughed. "That's your own lookout, not mine."

I did not like her. She was provokingly crafty and cold, and she had a mean smile and a dishonest voice that often irritated me. She was ruddy-faced and bursting with health, taller than Mrs. Dienstog, yet too short for her great breadth of shoulder and the enormous bulk of her bust. I thought she looked absurdly dumpy. What I particularly hated in her was her laughter, which sounded for all the world like the gobble of a turkey

She was constantly importuning me to get her another lodger who would share her kitchen lounge with me

"Rent is so high, I am losing money on you. May I have a year of darkness if I am not," she would din in my ears

She was intolerable to me, but I liked her cooking and I hated to be moving again, so I remained several months in her house

It was not long before her prediction as to the fate of my beard came true.

I took a shave. What actually decided me to commit so heinous a sin was a remark dropped by one of the peddlers that my down-covered face made me look like a "green one." It was the most cruel thing he could have told me. I took a look at myself as soon as I could get near a mirror, and the next day I received my first shave. "What would Reb Sender say?" I thought. When I came home that evening I was extremely ill at ease. Mrs. Levinsky noticed the change at once, but she also noticed my embarrassment, so she said nothing, but she was continually darting furtive glances at me, and when our eyes met she seemed to be on the verge of bursting into one of her turkey laughs. I could have murdered her



BOOK VI

A GREENHORN NO LONGER

CHAPTER I

I BOUGHT my goods in several places and made the acquaintance of many peddlers. One of these attracted my attention by his popularity among the other men and by his peculiar talks of women. His name was Max Margolis. We used to speak of him as Big Max to distinguish him from a Little Max, till one day a peddler who was a good chess-player and was then studying algebra changed the two names to "Maximum Max" and "Minimum Max," which the other peddlers pronounced "Maxie Max" and "Minnie Max."

Some of the other fellows, too, were addicted to obscene story-telling, but these mostly made (or pretended to make) a joke of it. The man who had changed Max's sobriquet, for instance, never tired of composing smutty puns, while another man, who had a married daughter, was continually hinting, with merry bravado, at his illicit successes with Gentile women. Maximum Max, on the other hand, would treat his lascivious topics with peculiar earnestness, and even with something like sadness, as though he dwelt on them in spite of himself, under the stress of an obsession

Otherwise he was a jovial fellow

He was a tall, large-boned man, loosely built. His lips were always moist and when closed they were never in tight contact. He had the reputation of a liar, and, as is often the case with those who suffer from that weakness, people liked him. Nor, indeed, were his fibs, as a rule, made out of whole cloth. They usually had a basis of truth. When he told a story and he felt that it was producing no effect he would "play it up," as newspapermen would put it, often quite grotesquely. Altogether he was so inclined to overemphasize and embellish his facts that it was not always easy to say where truth ended and fiction began. Somehow it seemed to me as though the moistness and looseness of his lips had something to do with his mendacity

He was an ignorant man, barely able to write down an address

Max was an instalment peddler, his chief business being with frequenters of dance-halls, to whom he sold clothing, dress-goods, jewelry, and—when there was a marriage among them—furniture. Many a young housewife who had met her "predestined one" in one of these halls wore a marriage ring, and had her front room furnished with a "parlor set," bought of Max Margolis. He was as popular among the dancers as he was among the men he met at the stores. He was married, Max, yet it was as much by his interest in the dancers as by his business interest that he was drawn to the dance-halls. He took a fancy to me and he often made me listen to his discourses on women

The youngest married man usually appealed to me as being old enough to be my father, and as Maximum Max was not only married, but eleven years my senior, there seemed to be a great chasm between us. That he should hold this kind of conversations with an unmarried youngster like myself struck me as something unnatural, doubly indecent. As I listened I would feel awkward, but would listen, nevertheless

One day he looked me over, much as an expert in horseflesh would a colt, and said, with the utmost seriousness: "Do you know, Levinsky, you have an awfully fine figure. You are a good-looking chap all around, for that matter. A fellow like you ought to make a hit with women. Why don't you learn to dance?"

The compliment made me wince and blush. Perhaps, if he had put it in the form of a jest I should even have liked it. As it was, I felt like one stripped in public. Still, I recalled with pleasure that Matilda had said similar things about my figure

"Why don't you learn to dance, Levinsky?" he repeated

I laughed, waving the suggestion aside as a joke

On another occasion he said, "Every woman can be won, absolutely every one, provided a fellow knows how to go about it."

As he proceeded to develop his theory he described various types of women and the various methods to be used with them

"Of course, the man must not be repulsive to her," he said

That evening, when Mrs. Levinsky's husband, their three children, and myself sat around the table and she was serving us our supper she appeared in a new light to me. She was nearly twice my age and I hated her not only for her meanness and low cunning, but also for her massive, broad-shouldered figure and for her turkey laugh, but she was a full-blooded, healthy female, after all. So, as I looked at her bustling between the table and the stove, Max's rule came back to me. I could almost hear his voice, "Every woman can be won, absolutely every one. Mrs. Levinsky's oldest child was a young man of nearly my age, yet I looked her over lustfully and when I found that her florid skin was almost spotless, her lips fresh, and her black hair without a hint of gray, I was glad. Presently, while removing my plate, she threw the trembling bulk of her great, firm bust under my very eyes. I felt disturbed. "Some morning when we are alone," I said to myself, "I shall kiss those red lips of hers."

From that moment on she was my quarry

As her husband worked in a sweatshop, while I peddled, he usually got up at least an hour before me. And it was considered perfectly natural that Mrs.

Levinsky should be hovering about the kitchen while I was sleeping or lying awake on the kitchen lounge. Also, that after her husband left for the day I should go around half-naked, washing and dressing myself, in the same crowded little room in which she was then doing her work, as scantily clad as I was and with the sleeves of her flimsy blouse rolled up to her armpits.

I had never noticed these things before, but on the morning following the above supper I did. As I opened my eyes and saw her bare, fleshy arms held out toward the little kerosene-stove I thought of my resolve to kiss her