short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided, much to his own surprise, with the jewish penitential period, and the day of atonement came in the middle. a wealthy jewish philanthropist had organized a prison prayer-service, and elkan eagerly grasped at the break in the monotony. several of the prisoners [305]who posed as jews with this same motive were detected and reprimanded; but elkan felt, with the new grim sense of humour that meditation on yvonne rupert and the world she fooled was developing in him, that he was as little of a jew as any of them. this elopement to america had meant a violent break with his whole religious past. not once had he seen the inside of an american synagogue. gittel had had no use for synagogues.
he entered the improvised prayer-room with this ironic sense of coming back to judaism by the christian prison door. but the service shook him terribly. he forgot even to be amused by the one successful impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen deprivation of rations during the whole fast day. the passionate outcries of the old-fashioned chazan, the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the cornet, which had once been merely ?sthetic effects to the reputable master-cutter, were now surcharged with doom and chastisement. the very sight of the hebrew books and scrolls touched a thousand memories of home and innocence.
ah, god, how he had sinned!
'forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' he cried, smiting his breast and rocking to and fro.
his poor deserted wife and children! how terrible for haigitcha to wake up one morning and find him gone! as terrible as for him to wake up one morning and find gittel gone. ah, god had indeed paid him in kind! eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
the philanthropist himself preached the sermon. god could never forgive sins till the sinner had first straightened out the human wrongs.
[306]ah, true, true! if he could only find his family again. if he could try by love and immeasurable devotion to atone for the past. then again life would have a meaning and an aim. poor, poor haigitcha! how he would weep over her and cherish her. and his children! they must be grown up. yankely must be quite a young man. yes, he would be seventeen by now. and rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub!
in all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts pause upon them. his past lay like a misty dream behind those thousand leagues of ocean. but now it started up in all the colours of daylight, warm, appealing. yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must still crave his love and guidance; he would plead and be forgiven, and end his days piously at the sacred hearth of duty.
'forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!'
if only he could get back to old england.
he appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition. it was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the atlantic. now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a modicum and the wife of his bosom.
