He looked around as if searching for the bottle, but catching a grim look from his wife he slunk into an easy chair. He mumbled apologetically that he was getting rusty. Nobody said anything. He yawned loudly. Why not a game of chess? he said wearily.
Mrs. Essen spoke up. Please, not to-night!
He dragged himself to his feet, It’s stuffy in here, he said. I’m taking a walk. Don’t run away! I’ll be back soon.
When he had gone Mrs. Essen tried to account for his unseemly conduct. He’s lost interest in everything; he’s alone too much. She spoke almost as if he were already deceased.
Said the son: He ought to take a vacation.
Yes, said the daughter, we’re trying to get him to visit Palestine.
Why not send him to Paris? said Mona. That would liven him up.
The boy began to laugh hysterically.
What’s the matter? I asked.
He laughed even harder. Then he said: If he ever got to Paris we’d never see him again.
Now, now! said the mother.
You know Dad, he’d go plumb crazy, what with all the girls, the cafe’s, the…
What a way to talk! said Mrs. Essen.
You don’t know him, the boy retorted. I do. He wants to live. So do I.
Why not send the two of them abroad? said Mona. The father would look after the son and the son after the father.
At this point the doorbell rang. It was a neighbor who had heard that we were visiting the Essens and had come to make our acquaintance.
This is Mr. Elfenbein, said Mrs. Essen. She didn’t seem too delighted to see him.
With elbows bent and hands clasped Mr. Elfenbein came forward to greet us. His face was radiant, the perspiration was dripping from his brow.
What a privilege! he exclaimed, making a little bow, then clasping our hands and wringing them vigorously. I have heard so much about you, I hope you will pardon the invasion. Do you speak Yiddish perhaps—or Russe? He hunched his shoulders and moved his head from side to side, the eyes following like compass needles. He fixed me with a grin. Mrs. Skolsky tells me you are fond of Cantor Sirota…
I felt like a bird released from its cage. I went up to Mr. Elfenbein and gave him a good hug.
From Minsk or Pinsk? I said.
From the land of the Moabites, he replied.
He gave me a beamish look and stroked his beard. The boy put a glass of Kummel in his hand. There was a stray lock of hair on the crown of Mr. Elfenbein’s baldish head; it stood up like a corkscrew. He drained the glass of Kummel and accepted a piece of fruit cake. Again he clasped his hands over his breast.
Such a pleasure, he said, to make the acquaintance of an intelligent Goy. A Goy who writes books and talks to the birds. Who reads the Russians and observes Yom Kippur. And has the sense to marry a girl from Bukovina … a Tzigane, no less. And an actress! Where is that loafer, Sid? Is he drunk again? He looked around like a wise old owl about to hoot. Non, if a man studies all his life and then discovers that he is an idiot, is he right? The answer is Yes and No. We say in our village that a man must cultivate his own nonsense, not somebody else’s. And in the Cabala it says … But we mustn’t split hairs right away. From Minsk came the mink coats and from Pinsk nothing but misery. A Jew from the Corridor is a Jew whom the devil never touches. Moishe Echt was such a Jew. My cousin, in other words. Always in trouble with the rabbi. When winter came he locked himself in the granary. He was a harness maker…
He stopped abruptly and gave me a Satanic smile, In the Book of Job, I began. I Make it Revelations, he said. It’s more ectoplasmic.
Mona began to giggle. Mrs. Essen discreetly withdrew. Only the boy remained. He was making signs behind Mr. Elfenbein’s back, as if ringing a telephone attached to his temple.
When you begin a new opus, Mr. Elfenbein was saying, in what language do you pray first?
In the language of our fathers, I replied instanter. Abraham, Isaac, Ezekiel, Nehemiah…
And David and Solomon, and Ruth and Esther, he chimed in.
The boy now refilled Mr. Elfenbein’s glass and again he drained it in one gulp.
A fine young gangster he will grow to be, said Mr. Elfenbein, smacking his lips. Already he knows nothing from nothing. A malamed he should be—if he had his wits. Do you remember in Tried and Punished … ?
You mean Crime and Punishment, said young Essen.
In Russian it is The Crime and its Punishment. Now take a back seat and don’t make faces behind my back. I know I’m meshuggah, but this gentleman doesn’t. Let him find out for himself. Isn’t that so, Mr. Gentleman? He made a mock bow.
When a Jew turns from his religion, he went on, thinking of Mrs. Essen, no doubt, it’s like fat turning to water. Better to become a Christian than one of these milk and water—. He cut himself short, mindful of the proprieties. A Christian is a Jew with a crucifix in his hand. He can’t forget that we killed him, Jesus, who was a Jew like any other Jew, only more fanatical. To read Tolstoy you don’t have to be a Christian; a Jew understands him just as well. What was good about Tolstoy was that he finally got the courage to run away from his wife … and to give his money away. The lunatic is blessed; he doesn’t care about money. Christians are only make-believe lunatics; they carry life insurance as well as beads and prayer books. A Jew doesn’t walk about with the Psalms; he knows them by heart. Even when he’s selling shoe laces he’s humming a verse to himself. When the Gentile sings a hymn it sounds like he’s making war. Onward Christian Soldiers! How does it go—? Marching as to war. Why as to? They’re always making war—with a sabre in one hand and a crucifix in the other.
Mona now rose to draw closer. Mr. Elfenbein extended his hands, as if to a dancing partner. He sized her up from head to toe, like an auctioneer. Then he said: And what did you play in last, my rose of Sharon?
The Green Cockatoo, she replied (Tic-tac-toe.)
And before that?
The Goat Song, Liliom … Saint Joan.
Stop! He put up his hand. The Dybbuk is better suited to your temperament. More gynecological. Now what was that play of Sudermann’s? No matter. Ah yes … Magda. You’re a Magda, not a Monna Vanna. I ask you, how would I look in The God of Vengeance? Am I a Scbildkraut or a Ben Ami? Give me Siberia to play, not The servant in the House! He chucked her under the chin. You remind me a little of Elissa Landi. Yes, with a touch of Nazimova perhaps. If you had more weight, you could be another Modjeska. Hedda Gabler, that’s for you. My favorite is The Wild Duck. After that The Playboy of the Western World. But not in Yiddish, God forbid!
The theatre was his pet subject evidently. He had been, an actor years ago, first in Rummeldumvitza or some hole like that, then at the Thalia on the Bowery. It was there he met Ben Ami. And somewhere else Blanche Yurka. He had also known Vesta Tilly, odd thing. And David Warfield. He thought Androcles and the Lion was a gem, but didn’t care much for Shaw’s other plays. He was very fond of Ben Jonson and Marlowe, and of Hasenclever and von Hoffmansthal.
Beautiful women rarely make good actresses, he was saying. There should always be a defect of some kind—a longish nose or the eyes a little mis-focused. The best is to have an unusual voice. People always remember the voice. Pauline Lord’s, for example. He turned to Mona. You have a good voice too. It has brown sugar in it and cloves and nutmeg. The worst is the American voice—no soul in it. Jacob Ben Ami had a marvelous voice … like good soup … never turned rancid. But he dragged it around like a tortoise. A woman should cultivate the voice above everything. She should also think more, about what the play means … not about her exquisite postillion … I mean posterior. Jewish actresses have too much flesh usually; when they walk across the stage they shake like jelly. But they have sorrow in their voices.’.. Sorge. They don’t have to imagine that a devil is pulling a breast off with hot pincers. Yes, sin and sorrow are the best ingredients. And a bit of phantasmus. Like in Webster or Marlowe. A shoemaker who talks to the Devil every time he goes to the water closet. Or falls in love with a beanstalk, as in Moldavia. The Irish plays are full of lunatics and drunkards, and the nonsense they talk is holy nonsense. The Irish are poets always, especially when they know nothing. They have been tortured too, maybe not as much as the Jews, but enough. No one likes to eat potatoes three times a day or use a pitchfork for a toothpick. Great actors, the Irish. Born chimpanzees. The British are too refined, too
