The Rise of David Levinsky (56 page)

“Must have been brought up on printed menu-cards,” one of the other women at our table commented, with a laugh.

“That’s right,” Mrs. Kalch assented, appreciatively. “I could not say whether her father was a horse-driver or a stoker in a bath-house, but I do know that her husband kept a coal-and-ice cellar a few years ago.”

“That’ll do,” her bewhiskered husband snarled. “It’s about time you gave your tongue a rest.”

Auntie Yetta’s golden teeth glittered good-humoredly. The next instant she called my attention to a woman who, driven to despair by the superiority of her “bosom friend’s” gowns, had gone to the city for a fortnight, ostensibly to look for a new flat, but in reality to replenish her wardrobe. She had just returned, on the big “husband train,” and now “her bosom friend won’t be able to eat or sleep, trying to guess what kind of dresses she brought back.”

Nor was this the only kind of gossip upon which Mrs. Kalch regaled me. She told me, for example, of some sensational discoveries made by several boarders regarding a certain mother of five children, of her sister who was “not a bit better,” and of a couple who were supposed to be man and wife, but who seemed to be “somebody else’s man and somebody else’s wife.”

At last Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel entered the dining-room. Something like a thrill passed through me. I felt like exclaiming, “At last!”

“That’s the one I met you with, isn’t it? Not bad-looking,” said Mrs. Kalch.

“Which do you mean?”

“ ‘Which do you mean’! The tall one, of course; the one you were so sweet on. Not the dwarf with the horse-face.”

“They’re fine, educated girls, both of them,” I rejoined.

“Both of them! As if it was all the same to you!” At this she bent over and gave me a glare and a smile that brought the color to my face. “The tall one is certainly not bad-looking, but we don’t call that pretty in this place.”

“Are there many prettier ones?” I asked, gaily.

“I haven’t counted them, but I can show you some girls who shine like the sun. There is one!” she said, pointing at a girl on the other side of the aisle. “A regular princess. Don’t you think so?”

“She’s a pretty girl, all right,” I replied, “but in comparison with that tall one she’s like a nice piece of cotton goods alongside of a piece of imported silk.”

“Look at him! He’s stuck on her. Does she know it? If she does not, I’ll tell her and collect a marriage-broker’s commission.”

I loathed myself for having talked too much.

“I was joking, of course,” I tried to mend matters. “All girls are pretty.”

Luckily Mrs. Kalch’s attention was at this point diverted by the arrival of the waiter with a huge platter laden with roast chicken, which he placed in the middle of the table. There ensued a silent race for the best portions. One of the other two women at the table was the first to obtain possession of the platter. Taking her time about it, she first made a careful examination of its contents and then attacked what she evidently considered a choice piece. By way of calling my attention to the proceeding, Auntie Yetta stepped on my foot under the table and gave me a knowing glance.

The noise in the dining-room was unendurable. It seemed as though everybody was talking at the top of his voice. The musicians—a pianist and two violinists—found it difficult to make themselves heard. They were pounding and sawing frantically in a vain effort to beat the bedlam of conversation and laughter. It was quite touching. The better to take in the effect of the turmoil, I shut my eyes for a moment, whereupon the noise reminded me of the Stock Exchange.

The conductor, who played the first violin, was a fiery little fellow with a high crown of black hair. He was working every muscle and nerve in his body. He played selections from “Aïda,” the favorite opera of the Ghetto; he played the popular American songs of the day; he played celebrated “hits” of the Yiddish stage. All to no purpose. Finally, he had recourse to what was apparently his last resort. He struck up the “Star-spangled Banner ” The effect was overwhelming. The few hundred diners rose like one man, applauding. The children and many of the adults caught up the tune joyously, passionately. It was an interesting scene. Men and women were offering thanksgiving to the flag under which they were eating this good dinner, wearing these expensive clothes. There was the jingle of newly-acquired dollars in our applause. But there was something else in it as well. Many of those who were now paying tribute to the Stars and Stripes were listening to the tune with grave, solemn mien. It was as if they were saying: “We are not persecuted under this flag. At last we have found a home.”

Love for America blazed up in my soul. I shouted to the musicians, “My Country,” and the cry spread like wild-fire. The musicians obeyed and we all sang the anthem from the bottom of our souls.

I
WAS in the lobby, chatting with the clerk across his counter and casting glances at the dining-room door. Miss Tevkin had not yet finished her meal and I was watching for her to appear. Presently she did, toying with Miss Siegel’s hand.

“Feeling better now?” I asked, stepping up to meet them. “I hope you enjoyed your dinner.”

“Oh, we were so hungry, I don’t think we knew what we were eating,” Miss Tevkin returned, politely.

“Going to take the air on the veranda?”

“Why—no. We are going out for a walk,” she answered in a tone that said as clearly as words that my company was not wanted. And, nodding with exaggerated amiability, they passed out.

The blood rushed to my face as though she had slapped it. I stood petrified. “It’s all because of Mrs. Kalch’s tongue, confound her!” I thought. “To-morrow I shall be in Tannersville and this trifling incident will be forgotten.” But at this I became aware that I did not care to go to Tannersville and that the prospect of seeing Fanny had lost its attraction for me. I went back to the counter and attempted to resume my conversation with the clerk, but he was a handsome fellow, which was one of his chief qualifications for the place, and so I soon found myself in the midst of a bevy of girls and married women. However, they all seemed to know that I was a desirable match and they gradually transferred their attentions to me, the girls in their own interests and the older matrons in those of their marriageable daughters. Their crude amenities sickened me. One middle-aged woman tried to monopolize me by a confidential talk concerning the social inferiority of the Catskills.

“The food is good here,” she said, in English. “There’s no kick comin’ on that score. But my daughter says with her dresses she could go to any hotel in Atlantic City, and she’s right, too. I don’t care what you say.”

I fled as soon as I could. I went to look for a seat on the spacious veranda. I said to myself that Miss Tevkin and Miss Siegel must have had an appointment with some one else and that I had no cause for feeling slighted by them.

I felt reassured, but I was lonely. I was yearning for some congenial company, and blamed fate for having allowed Miss Tevkin to make another engagement—if she had.

The veranda was crowded and almost as noisy as the dining-room had been. There was a hubbub of broken English, the gibberish being mostly spoken with self-confidence and ease. Indeed, many of these people had some difficulty in speaking their native tongue. Bad English replete with literal translations from untranslatable Yiddish idioms had become their natural speech. The younger parents, however, more susceptible of the influence of their children, spoke purer English.

It was a dark night, but the sky was full of stars, full of golden mystery. The mountains rose black, vast, disquieting. A tumultuous choir of invisible katydids was reciting an interminable poem on an unpoetic subject that had something to do with Miss Tevkin. The air was even richer in aroma than it had been in the morning, but its breath seemed to be part of the uncanny stridulation of the katydids. The windows of the dancing-pavilion beyond the level part of the lawn gleamed like so many sheets of yellow fire. Presently its door flew open, sending a slanting shaft of light over the grass.

I found a chair on the veranda, but I was restless, and the chatter of two women in front of me grated on my nerves. I wondered where Miss Tevkin and her companion were at this minute. I was saying to myself that I would never come near them again, that I was going to see Fanny; but I did not cease wondering where they were. The two women in front of me were discussing the relative virtues and faults of little boys and little girls. They agreed that a boy was a “big loafer” and a great source of trouble, and that a little girl was more obedient and clinging. It appeared that one of these two mothers had a boy and two girls and that, contrary to her own wish, he was her great pet, although he was not the “baby.”

“I am just crazy for him,” she said, plaintively.

She boasted of his baseball record, whereupon she used the slang of the game with so much authority that it became entertaining, but by a curious association of ideas she turned the conversation to the subject of a family who owed the hotel-keeper their last summer’s board and who had been accepted this time in the hope that they would pay their old debt as well as their new bills.

Two men to the right of me were complaining of the unions and the walking delegates, of traveling salesmen, of buyers. Then they took up the subject of charity, whereupon one of them enlarged on “scientific philanthropy,” apparently for the sheer lust of hearing himself use the term.

I recalled that one of the things I was booked to do in Tannersville was to attend a charity meeting of East Side business men, of which Kaplan was one of the organizers. Two subscriptions were to be started—one for a home for aged immigrants and one for the victims of the anti-Jewish riots in Russia—and I was expected to contribute sums large enough to do credit to my prospective father-in-law.

The multitudinous jabber was suddenly interrupted by the sound of scampering feet accompanied by merry shrieks. A young girl burst from the vestibule door, closely followed by three young men. She was about eighteen years old, well fed, of a ravishing strawberries-and-cream complexion, her low-cut evening gown leaving her plump arms and a good deal of her bust exposed. One of the rocking-chairs on the porch impeding her way, she was seized by her pursuers, apparently a willing victim, and held prisoner. Two of her captors gripped her bare arms, while the third clutched her by the neck. Thus they stood, the men stroking and kneading her luscious flesh, and she beaming and giggling rapturously. Then one of the men gathered her to him with one arm, pressing his cheek against hers.

“She’s my wife,” he jested. “We are married. Let go, boys.”

“I’ll sue you for alimony then,” piped the girl.

Finally, they released her, and the next minute I saw them walking across the lawn in the direction of the dancing-pavilion.

The man who had talked scientific philanthropy spat in disgust.

“Shame!” he said. “Decent young people wouldn’t behave like that in Russia, would they?”

“Indeed they wouldn’t,” his interlocutor assented, vehemently. “People over there haven’t yet forgotten what decency is.”

“Oh, well, it was only a joke, said a woman.

“A nice joke, that!” retorted the man who had dwelt on scientific charity.

“What would you have? Would you want American-born young people to be a lot of greenhorns? This is not Russia. They are Americans and they are young, so they want to have some fun. They are just as respectable as the boys and the girls in the old country. Only there is some life to them. That’s all.”

Young people were moving along the flagged walk or crossing the lawn from various directions, all converging toward the pavilion. They walked singly, in twos, in threes, and in larger groups, some trudging along leisurely, others proceeding at a hurried pace. Some came from our hotel, others from other places, the strangers mostly in flocks. I watched them as they sauntered or scurried along, as they receded through the thickening gloom, as they emerged from it into the slanting shaft of light that fell from the pavilion, and as they vanished in its blazing doorway. I gazed at the spectacle until it fascinated me as something weird. The pavilion with its brightly illuminated windows was an immense magic lamp, and the young people flocking to it so many huge moths of a supernatural species. As I saw them disappear in the glare of the doorway I pictured them as being burned up. I was tempted to join the unearthly procession and to be “burned” like the others. Then, discarding the image, I visioned men and women of ordinary flesh and blood dancing, and I was seized with a desire to see the sexes in mutual embrace. But I exhorted myself that I was soon to be a married man and that it was as well to keep out of temptation’s way.

Presently I saw Miss Tevkin crossing the lawn, headed 428 for the pavilion. She was one of a bevy of girls and men. I watched her get nearer and nearer to that shaft of light. When she was finally swallowed up by the pavilion the lawn disappeared from my consciousness. My thoughts were in the dance-hall, and a few minutes later I was there in the flesh.

It was a vast room and it was crowded. It was some time before I located Miss Tevkin. The chaotic throng of dancers was a welter of color and outline so superb, I thought, that it seemed as though every face and figure in it were the consummation of youthful beauty. However, as I contemplated the individual couples, in quest of the girl who filled my thoughts, I met with disillusion after disillusion. Then, after recovering from a sense of watching a parade of uncomeliness, I began to discover figures or faces, or both, that were decidedly charming, while here and there I came upon a young woman of singular beauty. The number of good-looking women or women with expressive faces was remarkably large, in fact. As I scanned the crowd for the third time it seemed to me that the homely women looked cleverer than the pretty ones. Many of the girls or matrons were dressed far more daringly than they would have been a year or two before. Almost all of them were powdered and painted. Prosperity was rapidly breaking the chains of American Puritanism, rapidly “Frenchifying” the country, and the East Side was quick to fall into line.