The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel
I only had the pleasure of making his acquaintance half an hour ago. I met him in the street as he was coming home from morning service, and he was kind enough to invite me to dinner."
Yankelé gasped; despite his secret amusement at Manasseh's airs, there were moments when the easy magnificence of the man overwhelmed him, extorted his reluctant admiration. How in Heaven's name had the Spaniard conquered at a blow!
Looking down at the table, he now observed that it was already laid for dinner – and for three! He should have been that third. Was it fair of Manasseh to handicap him thus? Naturally, there would be infinitely less chance of a fourth being invited than a third – to say nothing of the dearth of provisions. "But, surely, you don't intend to stay to dinner!" he complained in dismay.
"I have given my word," said Manasseh, "and I shouldn't care to disappoint the Rabbi."
"Oh, it's no disappointment, no disappointment," remarked Rabbi Remorse Red-herring cordially, "I could just as well come round and see you after dinner."
"After dinner I never see people," said Manasseh majestically; "I sleep."
The Rabbi dared not make further protest: he turned to Yankelé and asked, "Well, now, what's this about your marriage?"
"I can't tell you before Mr. da Costa," replied Yankelé, to gain time.
"Why not? You said anybody might hear."
"Noting of the sort. I said a stranger might hear. But Mr. da Costa isn't a stranger. He knows too much about de matter."
"What shall we do, then?" murmured the Rabbi.
"I can vait till after dinner," said Yankelé, with good-natured carelessness. "I don't sleep – "
Before the Rabbi could reply, the wife brought in a baked dish, and set it on the table. Her husband glowered at her, but she, regular as clockwork, and as unthinking, produced the black bottle of schnapps. It was her husband's business to get rid of Yankelé; her business was to bring on the dinner. If she had delayed, he would have raged equally. She was not only wife, but maid-of-all-work.
Seeing the advanced state of the preparations, Manasseh da Costa took his seat at the table; obeying her husband's significant glance, Mrs. Red-herring took up her position at the foot. The Rabbi himself sat down at the head, behind the dish. He always served, being the only person he could rely upon to gauge his capacities. Yankelé was left standing. The odour of the meat and potatoes impregnated the atmosphere with wistful poetry.
Suddenly the Rabbi looked up and perceived Yankelé. "Will you do as we do?" he said in seductive accents.
The Schnorrer's heart gave one wild, mad throb of joy. He laid his hand on the only other chair.
"I don't mind if I do," he said, with responsive amiability.
"Then go home and have your dinner," said the Rabbi.
Yankelé's wild heart-beat was exchanged for a stagnation as of death. A shiver ran down his spine. He darted an agonised appealing glance at Manasseh, who sniggered inscrutably.
"Oh, I don't tink I ought to go avay and leave you midout a tird man for grace," he said, in tones of prophetic rebuke. "Since I be here, it vould be a sin not to stay."
The Rabbi, having a certain connection with religion, was cornered; he was not able to repudiate such an opportunity of that more pious form of grace which needs the presence of three males.
"Oh, I should be very glad for you to stay," said the Rabbi, "but, unfortunately, we have only three meat-plates."
"Oh, de dish vill do for me."
"Very well, then!" said the Rabbi.
And Yankelé, with the old mad heart-beat, took the fourth chair, darting a triumphant glance at the still sniggering Manasseh.
The hostess rose, misunderstanding her husband's optical signals, and fished out a knife and fork from the recesses of a chiffonier. The host first heaped his own plate high with artistically coloured potatoes and stiff meat – less from discourtesy than from life-long habit – then divided the remainder in unequal portions between Manasseh and the little woman, in rough correspondence with their sizes. Finally, he handed Yankelé the empty dish.
"You see there is nothing left," he said simply. "We didn't even expect one visitor."
"First come, first served," observed Manasseh, with his sphinx-like expression, as he fell-to.
Yankelé sat frozen, staring blankly at the dish, his brain as empty. He had lost.
Such a dinner was a hollow mockery – like the dish. He could not expect Manasseh to accept it, quibbled he ever so cunningly. He sat for a minute or two as in a dream, the music of knife and fork ringing mockingly in his ears, his hungry palate moistened by the delicious savour. Then he shook off his stupor, and all his being was desperately astrain, questing for an idea. Manasseh discoursed with his host on neo-Hebrew literature.
"We thought of starting a journal at Grodno," said the Rabbi, "only the funds – "
"Be you den a native of Grodno?" interrupted Yankelé.
"Yes, I was born there," mumbled the Rabbi, "but I left there twenty years ago." His mouth was full, and he did not cease to ply the cutlery.
"Ah!" said Yankelé enthusiastically, "den you must be de famous preacher everybody speaks of. I do not remember you myself, for I vas a boy, but dey say ve haven't got no such preachers nowaday."
"In Grodno my husband kept a brandy shop," put in the hostess.
There was a bad quarter of a minute of silence. To Yankelé's relief, the Rabbi ended it by observing, "Yes, but doubtless the gentleman (you will excuse me calling you that, sir, I don't know your real name) alluded to my fame as a boy-Maggid. At the age of five I preached to audiences of many hundreds, and my manipulation of texts, my demonstrations that they did not mean what they said, drew tears even from octogenarians familiar with the Torah from their earliest infancy. It was said there never was such a wonder-child since Ben Sira."
"But why did you give it up?" enquired Manasseh.
"It gave me up," said the Rabbi, putting down his knife and fork to expound an ancient grievance. "A boy-Maggid cannot last more than a few years. Up to nine I was still a draw, but every year the wonder grew less, and, when I was thirteen, my Bar-Mitzvah (confirmation) sermon occasioned no more sensation than those of the many other lads whose sermons I had written for them. I struggled along as boyishly as I could for some time after that, but it was in a losing cause. My age won on me daily. As it is said, 'I have been young, and now I am old.' In vain I composed the most eloquent addresses to be heard in Grodno. In vain I gave a course on the emotions, with explanations and instances from daily life – the fickle public preferred younger attractions. So at last I gave it up and sold vodki."
"Vat a pity! Vat a pity!" ejaculated Yankelé, "after vinning fame in de Torah!"
"But what is a man to do? He is not always a boy," replied the Rabbi. "Yes, I kept a brandy shop. That's what I call Degradation. But there is always balm in Gilead. I lost so much money over it that I had to emigrate to England, where, finding nothing else to do, I became a preacher again." He poured himself out a glass of schnapps, ignoring the water.
"I heard nothing of de vodki shop," said Yankelé; "it vas svallowed up in your earlier fame."
The Rabbi drained the glass of schnapps, smacked his lips, and resumed his knife and fork. Manasseh reached for the unoffered bottle, and helped himself liberally. The Rabbi unostentatiously withdrew it beyond his easy reach, looking at Yankelé the while.
"How long have you been in England?" he asked the Pole.
"Not long," said Yankelé.
"Ha! Does Gabriel the cantor still suffer from neuralgia?"
Yankelé looked sad. "No – he is dead," he said.
"Dear me! Well, he was tottering when I knew him. His blowing of the ram's horn got wheezier every year. And how is his young brother, Samuel?"
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"What,