it was in this happier mood that barstein ran down to middleton to plead his suit verbally with sir asher aaronsberg. mabel had feared to commit their fates [109]to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. a plump negative would be so difficult to fight against. a personal interview permitted one to sound the ground, to break the thing delicately, to reason, to explain, to charm away objections. it was clearly the man's duty to face the music.
not that barstein expected anything but the music of the wedding march. he was glad that his original contempt for sir asher had been exchanged for sincere respect, and that the bluff briton was a mere veneer. it was to the palestinian patriarch that he would pour out his hopes and his dreams.
alas! he found only the bluff briton, and a briton no longer genially, but bluntly, bluff.
'it is perfectly impossible.'
barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. was he not pious enough, or not rich enough, too artistic or too low-born? or did sir asher consider his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious? let sir asher say.
but sir asher would not say. 'i am not bound to give my reasons. we are all proud of your work—it confers honour on our community. the mayor alluded to it only yesterday.' he spoke in his best platform manner. 'but to receive you into my family—that is another matter.'
and all the talk advanced things no further.
'it would be an entirely unsuitable match.' sir asher caressed his long beard with an air of finality.
with a lover's impatience, barstein had made the mistake of seeking sir asher in his counting-house, where the municipal magnate sat among his solidities. the mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers, [110]the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through whom barstein had had to penetrate, the factory buildings stretching around, with their sense of throbbing machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the burly briton a background against which visions and emotions seemed as unreal as ghosts under gaslight. the artist felt all this solid life closing round him like the walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out his confidence, his aspirations, his very life.
'then you prefer to break your daughter's heart!' he cried desperately.
'break my daughter's heart!' echoed sir asher in amaze. it was apparently a new aspect to him.
'you don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully?' barstein went on, perceiving his advantage.
'break her heart!' repeated sir asher, startled out of his discreet reticence. 'i'd sooner break her heart than see her married to a zionist!'
this time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp.
'to a what?' he cried.
'to a zionist. you don't mean to deny you're a zionist?' said sir asher sternly.
barstein gazed at him in silence.
'come, come,' said sir asher. 'you don't suppose i don't read the jewish papers? i know all about your goings-on.'
the artist found his tongue. 'but—but,' he stammered, 'you yearn for zion too.'
'naturally. but i don't presume to force the hand of providence.'
'how can any of us force providence to do anything it doesn't want to? surely it is through human [111]agency that providence always works. god helps those who help themselves.'
'spare me your blasphemies. perhaps you think you are the messiah.'
'i can be an atom of him. the whole jewish people is its own messiah—god working through it.'
'take care, young man; you'll be talking trinity next. and with these heathen notions you expect to marry my daughter! you must excuse me if i wish to hear no further.' his hand began to wander towards the row of electric bells on his desk.
'then how do you suppose we shall ever get to palestine?' inquired the irritated artist.
sir asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'in god's good time,' he said.
'and when will that be?'
'when we are either too good or too bad for our present sphere. to-day we are too neutral. besides, there will be signs enough.'
'what signs?'
'read your bible. mount zion will be split by an earthquake, as the prophet——'
barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 'but why can't we go to jerusalem and wait for the earthquake there?' he asked.
'because we have a mission to the nations. we must live dispersed. we have to preach the unity of god.'
'i have never heard you preach it. you lowered your voice when you denounced the trinity to me, lest the christians should hear.'
'we have to preach silently, by our example. merely by keeping our own religion we convert the world.'
[112]'but who keeps it? dispersion among sunday-keeping peoples makes our very sabbath an economic impossibility.'
'i have not found it so,' said sir asher crushingly. 'indeed, the growth of the saturday half-holiday since my young days is a remarkable instance of judaizing.'
'so we have to remain dispersed to promote the week-end holiday?'
'to teach international truth,' sir asher corrected sharply; 'not narrow tribalism.'
'but we don't remain dispersed. five millions are herded in the russian pale to begin with.'
'the providence of god has long been scattering them to new york.'
'yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. a pretty scattering!'
sir asher flushed angrily. 'but they go to the argentine too. i heard of a colony even in paraguay.'
'where they are preaching the unity to the indians.'
'i do not discuss religion with a mocker. we are in exile by god's decree—we must suffer.'
'suffer!' the artist's glance wandered cynically round the snug solidities of sir asher's exile, but he forbore to be personal. 'then if we must suffer, why did you subscribe so much to the fund for the russian jews?'
sir asher looked mollified at barstein's acquaintance with his generosity. 'that i might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch of humour.
'then you are a jewish patriot,' retorted barstein.
the bluff british face grew clouded again.
'heaven forbid. i only know of british patriots. you talk treason to your country, young man.'
[113]'treason—i!' the young man laughed bitterly.
'it is you zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so painfully won in the west.'
'oh, then you're not really a british patriot,' barstein began.
'i will beg you to remember, sir, that i equipped a corps of volunteers for the transvaal.'
'i dare say. but a corps of volunteers for zion—that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.'
'zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and teachers. and what would your volunteers do in zion? fight the sultan with his million soldiers? they couldn't even live in palestine as men of peace. there is neither coal nor iron—hence no manufactures. agriculture? it's largely stones and swamps. not to mention it's too hot for jews to work in the fields. they'd all starve. you've no right to play recklessly with human lives. besides, even if palestine were as fertile as england, jews could never live off one another. and think how they'd quarrel!'
sir asher ended almost good-humouredly. his array of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers.
'we can live off one another as easily as any other people. as for quarrelling, weren't you in parliament? party government makes quarrel the very basis of the constitution.'
sir asher flushed again. a long lifetime of laying down the law had ill prepared him for repartee.
'a pretty mess we should make of government!' he sneered.
'why? we have given ministers to every cabinet in the world.'
[114]'yes—we're all right as long as we're under others. sir asher was recovering his serenity.
'all right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'do you realize what you're saying, sir asher? the boers against whom you equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under others! and we—the thought of jewish autonomy makes us foam at the mouth. the idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call our fatherlands.'
sir asher dismissed the subject with a podsnappian wave of the hand. 'this is all a waste of breath. fortunately the acquisition of palestine is impossible.'
'then why do you pray for it—"speedily and in our days"?'
sir asher glared at the bold questioner.
'that seems a worse waste of breath,' added barstein drily.
'i said you were a mocker,' said sir asher severely. 'it is a divine event i pray for—not the creation of a ghetto.'
'a ghetto!' barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'yes, you're an anti-semite too—like your daughter, like your son, like all of us. we're all anti-semites.'
'i an anti-semite! ho! ho! ho!' sir asher's anger broke down in sheer amusement. 'i have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said, recovering his magisterial note. 'i was once in love myself. but when it comes to calling me an anti-semite, it is obvious you are not in a fit state to continue this interview. indeed, i no longer wonder that you think yourself the messiah.'
[115]'even if i do, our tradition only makes the messiah a man; somebody some day will have to win your belief. but what i said was that god acts through man.'
'ah yes,' said sir asher good-humouredly. 'three-in-one and one-in-three.'
'and why not?' said barstein with a flash of angry intuition. 'aren't you a trinity yourself?'
'me?' sir asher was now quite sure of the sculptor's derangement.
'yes—the briton, the jew, and the anti-semite—three-in-one and one-in-three.'
sir asher touched one of the electric bells with a jerk. he was quite alarmed.
barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. never would he marry into these triune tribes. 'and it's the same in every land where we're emancipated, as it is called,' he went on furiously. 'the jew's a patriot everywhere, and a jew everywhere and an anti-semite everywhere. passionate hungarians, and true-born italians, eagle-waving americans, and loyal frenchmen, imperial germans, and double dutchmen, we are dispersed to preach the unity, and what we illustrate is the jewish trinity. a delicious irony! three-in-one and one-in-three.' he laughed; to sir asher his laugh sounded maniacal. the old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.
barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly.
