Chapter 9

HE rabbi sat before his empty fire-place, with slippered feet upon the hearth, reading to himself, in a whisper, from the current number of The Jewish Messenger. He raised his eyes absent-mindedly upon Elias’s face, where they rested for an instant, vacant of expression. Then, suddenly, they lighted up, but with a light which was manifestly that of alarm. Throwing aside his newspaper, and half rising from his chair, “What—what is the matter with you?” he cried. “What has happened?”

“Happened? The matter with me?” stammered Elias, halting. “What do you mean?”

“Why, boy, you’re as pale as death. You look—you look as though you had seen a ghost.”

Elias forced a laugh, a faint one.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I’m all right. Perhaps it’s the shade of your lamp. The light, coming through that green, is enough to make any one look.”

He sat down opposite the rabbi, and struggled hard to appear nonchalant and at his ease, even going to the length of lighting a cigarette. He must have met with some success; for presently the rabbi, who had not ceased to regard him anxiously, observed with an air of relief, “Yes, I guess it was the lamp-shade. Now that you’re seated and out of the range of it, you look as usual. But when you first came in, I declare, you gave me quite a turn.” With which he picked up his newspaper, found his place, and resumed his whispered reading.

Thus for a few minutes. Then, tossing his half-consumed cigarette into the grate, “I wanted to have a little talk with you to-night, Uncle Felix, if you don’t mind,” Elias said.

“Of course, I don’t mind,” the rabbi returned kindly, lowering his paper. “What did you want to say?”

“Something that will surprise you, I suppose. I wanted to tell you that I am thinking of—of getting married.”

“Ah, indeed!” cried the rabbi, his face breaking into a smile. “Thinking of getting married! Well, I’m glad, right glad, to hear it. It’s—you’re twenty-seven, aren’t you?—it’s high time.”

“So it is,” Elias assented, conscious of a certain dismal humor in the situation.

There befell a silence, during which the rabbi, still with a smile upon his lips, seemed to be revolving the intelligence in his mind.

Pretty soon, “Yes, I admit, it does surprise me,” he continued, “for, to speak the truth, I had set you down for a pretty confirmed woman-hater. But, as I say, it’s high time. Men wait too long nowadays about getting married. In half the weddings that I perform, the bridegrooms are fully thirty-five, and many of them are upwards of forty. Now, in my time, it was different. We used to recognize marriage as a religious obligation—which it is, in fact—and to look askance at a man who was still single at five-and-twenty. I myself was married at twenty-three.”

He paused for a moment, then asked, “Well, have you begun to look around?”

“To look around?” queried Elias, puzzled.

“Exactly—for a young lady,” explained the rabbi.

“Oh! Why, no. I found her without looking around.”

“Found her? You mean, then, that you have actually made a choice?”

“Why, of course. What did you suppose?”

“Oh, I thought may be you were merely considering the subject abstractly—on general principles—and had decided that the time had come. But you say that you have already chosen the lady. Well, I declare, how close-mouthed you have kept!—I suppose now,” he added, “you want me to open negotiations, eh?”

“Negotiations? How do you mean?”

“Why, with her parents, of course. Ask for her hand—declare your sentiments.”

“Oh, no; that isn’t necessary.”

“No? How so?”

“Why, I’ve done all that for myself. I have proposed, and—and been accepted.”

“You have! You don’t say so! Oh, you sly, secretive rascal! Well, I congratulate you. You ought to have stuck to the good, old-fashioned custom, and had me make the first advances; but I congratulate you, all the same. What’s her name? Who is she? One of our congregation? Tell me all about her.”

The rabbi sat forward in his chair, curiosity incarnate. His pale skin had become slightly flushed. His eyes, beaming over the gold bows of his spectacles, were fixed intently upon his nephew’s face.

Elias had not enjoyed this beating about the bush; but he had lacked both the courage and the tact to put an end to it. Now, however, when its end had arrived naturally, in the course of circumstances, he wished that it might have been indefinitely prolonged; so great, so unreasonable, was the dread he felt.

“Her name,” he began—he looked hard at the floor; and his voice was a trifle unsteady—“she’s a young American lady; and her name is Redwood—Miss Christine Redwood.”

For an instant the rabbi’s appearance did not change. It no doubt needed that instant for his mind to appreciate the purport of what his ears had heard. But all at once, the flush across his forehead first deepened to a vivid crimson, and then faded quite away, leaving the skin waxen white, with the blue veins distended upon it. A dart of light, like an electric spark, shot from his eyes, which then filled with an opaque, smoky darkness. His lips twitched a little; his fingers clenched convulsively. He started backward a few inches into his chair. His attitude was that of a man whose faculties have been scattered and confounded by a sudden, tremendous blow.

But this attitude the rabbi retained for scarcely the time it takes to draw a breath. Almost at once he seemed to recover himself. His fingers relaxed. His face regained its ordinary composure. In a low voice, with not a trace of perturbation, coldly, even indifferently:

“A young American lady? Miss Christine—? Be kind enough to repeat the name,” he said.

Elias, continuing to stare hard at the floor, repeated it: “Redwood—Miss Christine Redwood.”

Then, with bowed head and trembling heart, he waited for the outbreak which, he supposed, of course, would come. He stared at the floor—taking vague note of the patch of carpet at his feet, remarking how threadbare it was worn, how faded its colors were, remarking even how, at a certain point, a bent pin stuck upward from it—stared at the floor, and waited. But the rabbi spoke no word. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, ticked, ticked; suddenly, from its interior, sounded a quick whir of machinery, and then a single clear stroke of its bell—half-after midnight. Next instant the clock of St. George’s church, across the park, responded with a deep, reverberating boom-Elias waited; and still the rabbi did not speak. Such silence was incomprehensible, exasperating, ominous. All the more violent, for this delay, would the storm be, when it broke, Elias thought. He did not dare to look the rabbi squarely in the face, to meet his eye; but he stole a glance, swift enough to escape arrest, and yet deliberate enough to see that the rabbi was still seated, just as before, in his chair; and then he returned to his contemplation of the carpet. Yes, the silence was exasperating, even unbearable. Why did he not say his say, scold, plead, exhort, curse, empty the phials of his wrath, and have done with it? Elias waited till his over-taxed nerves could endure the suspense no longer; when, teeth gritted, tone defiant, “Redwood,” he repeated for a third time. “Don’t you hear?”

The rabbi vouchsafed no syllable in reply; but his lips curled in a slight, enigmatic smile.

Again Elias found himself constrained to wait. He waited till the silence had again grown insupportable. At length, springing to his feet, “For God’s sake,” he cried, “why—why don’t you speak?”

“Speak?” echoed the rabbi, with the same inscrutable smile, and a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. “What is there to say?”

“Say—say any thing. I don’t care what you say,” Elias cried passionately. “Only, this silence—if you want to drive me crazy, keep it up. It makes me feel as if—as if my head would burst open.” He crushed his hands hard against his temples. “Go on. Speak. Curse me. Any thing. Only, don’t sit there that way, as though you had been struck dumb.”

“Come, come, Elias! Stop your bellowing. Stop storming about like that. Sit down—there, where you were before. Be quiet. Be rational. Then, if you wish, we can talk.”

Elias dropped into his chair.

“I’m quiet. I’m rational,” he groaned. “Go ahead.”

“Well, really,” the rabbi submitted. “I don’t see that there is much to be said.”

“Not much to be said! For heaven’s sake! Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you understood? Haven’t I told you that I am going to marry a Christian?”

“There’s no need of screaming at me, Elias. Yes. I have understood. When—when was it your intention that this marriage should take place?”

“To-morrow. It takes place to-morrow evening at half past eight o’clock.”

“Indeed? So soon? Why have you waited so long about telling me? Or, having waited so long, why did you tell me at all?”

“I don’t know. Many reasons. I thought—”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference,” the rabbi interrupted, and again relapsed into silence.

“Well?” ventured Elias, interrogatively.

“Well, what?” returned the rabbi.

“Well, why don’t you go on? Finish what you’ve got to say?”

“I don’t know that I have any thing more to say.”

“Any thing more! You haven’t said any thing at all, as yet.”

“Well, then, I don’t know that I have any thing at all to say.”

“Good God!” Elias broke out furiously. “You—you’ll—what is the matter with you, any how? I tell you that I am going to marry a Christian; and you—you sit there—like—like I don’t know what—and answer that you have nothing to say about it!”

“Precisely; because, indeed, I have nothing to say about it—except this, that the marriage will never take place. That’s all.”

“Never take place! I give it up. What in reason’s name do you mean?”

“I mean what I say.”

“That we—she and I—are—are not going to get married, after all?”

“Yes.”

“But haven’t I told you that our marriage comes off to-morrow night?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, you have told me so; but you are mistaken.”

“Mistaken! I think you must have gone mad.”

“Not in the least. The marriage won’t come off to-morrow night, nor any other night.”

“I should like to know what’s to prevent it.”

“It will be prevented.”

“I don’t just see how.”

“Wait, and you shall see.”

“By whom? By you, for example? If so, by what means?”

“Oh, no; not by me.”

“By whom, then?”

Elias put this question, smiling defiantly.

For a moment there was a deep stillness in the room, broken only by the ticking of the clock. Then the rabbi rose to his feet, advanced close to Elias, and stood facing him. With an expression of immense dignity upon his white, delicately modeled features, quietly, gravely, in a tone of serene conviction: “Elias,” he said, “by the Lord our God, the God of Israel.”

Elias’s smile died out. He recoiled with a start into his chair; and for an instant all the blood left his lips. But then, with an attempt at lightness which was somehow very unbecoming, “Oh, so? You mean, I suppose, that the Lord will strike me dead—or afflict me with a paralysis—or something of that kind—yes?”

Quite unscathed by his nephew’s irony, slowly, seriously, without raising his voice, “I mean, Elias,” the rabbi pursued, “that you had better beware. You expected me—when, at midnight, you burst in here, pale with guilt, and made the announcement that within twenty-four hours you were going to transgress all the laws of our religion, by marrying a woman who is not of our race or faith—you expected me—didn’t you?—to reason with you, to picture to you the awful consequences that must follow upon such a sin, to plead with you in the name of your dead father and mother, to entreat you, to endeavor in every possible way to get you to give up your insane, suicidal idea. You expected me, as you have said, to curse you; or, that failing, to fall upon my knees, and beseech you.—Well, you see—and, to judge from your actions, you see with some surprise, even with some disappointment—that I do none of these things, that I do nothing of the kind. Why? Because, as I have told you, the marriage you speak of will never take place. There is not a single chance of its taking place—not any more chance of its taking place, than there is of the sun’s failing to rise to-morrow morning. Neither I, nor any man, need raise a finger, need speak a word. The Lord God of Israel, Elias Bacharach, has His eye upon you. He will prevent this marriage from taking place. And all I say to you is—what I said at the beginning—look out! Beware!”

The rabbi had spoken very earnestly, but very quietly, and without a touch of excitement. Having concluded, he went back to his chair, took off his spectacles, wiped their lenses with his handkerchief, and unconcernedly replaced them upon the bridge of his nose.

Elias had sat still, nervously twitching his foot, and allowing his eyes to roam vacantly about the room. Now, for a moment, he kept his peace. Then, “You don’t state the grounds for this singular and no doubt comforting belief, nor do you specify the methods by which the Lord is to accomplish the result. I should like to know, if it is the some to you, just what to expect. Am I, as I suggested, to be incapacitated bodily? By paralysis? By death? Or what?”

“I don’t choose to state the grounds of my belief, Elias, nor to specify in any respect, nor, indeed, to discuss the question at all with you—especially when you see fit to adopt that insolent and blasphemous tone of voice. I will simply repeat—what I hope you will reflect upon, and take to heart—that you had best beware. Now I wish to be left alone. I shall see you again in the morning. Good-night.”

Elias rose.

“Well, I’m glad you take the matter so easily, Uncle Felix; and since you practically put me out, good-night.”