THE LUFTMENSCHToC

I

Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio, brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. It began 'Angel of God!'

He laughed bitterly. 'Just when I am at my most diabolical!' He did not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many begging-letters which were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist period. But he turned over the page to see the name of the Orientally effusive scribe. It was 'Nehemiah Silvermann, Dentist and Restaurateur.' His laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense of humour was still saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand the figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. He read the letter.

Such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of Barstein's melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its cornucopia. 'It is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured, re-reading the letter with unction.

It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. He asked for details of Silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to the Russo-Jewish Fund, which existed to help such refugees from persecution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring Mansel Place?

Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors in Zionism, a pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the voluble little man now loomed suddenly large as a possible authority upon his brother-dentist.

By return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the 'dictionary in distress.'

This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation. Instead of being a victim of the Russian troubles, a recent refugee from massacre and robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London for ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by Russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. His ideas of his future seemed as hazy as his past. Four pounds would be a very present help; he could continue his London career. With fifteen pounds he was ready to start off anywhither. With thirty pounds he would end all his troubles in Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form, Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and repaired to the Minories. But he looked in vain for either a dentist or a restaurant at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence, trying to edge itself into the important street. At last, after wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby door. A frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said that the Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.

'What!' cried Barstein. 'Is he married?'

'I should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'He has eleven children at least.'Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony. The family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back, which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silvermann had rushed thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded from it. But Mr. Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded, bewigged creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked curiously round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. But he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into a bedstead at night for half the family. But of a dentist's chair there was not even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-backed books—some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' He noted a Russo-German and a German-English. Then the sounds of frying penetrated more keenly to his brain.

'You are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired.

'Restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'Have I not enough cooking to do for my own family? And where shall I find money to keep a restaurant?'

'Your husband said——' murmured Barstein, as in guilty confusion.

A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile mob. From the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings. Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board. She placed it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous.

'Where does your husband do his dentistry?' Barstein inquired, seating himself cautiously upon the board.

'Do I know?' said his wife. 'He goes out, he comes in.' At this moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in.

'Holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of Barstein's coat, and kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor, positively soaring heavenwards with rapture.

But Barstein inquired brutally: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'

'Never mind me,' replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 'Let me look on you!' And a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze.

But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'

The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no friends.'The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the dictionary was his fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze with large liquid eyes.

'But you have managed to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed out.

'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once has He deserted me and my children.'

'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein.

The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes.

'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.

Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?'

'That is here.'

'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again.

'Where else? Here is a wide opening for a kosher restaurant. There are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around—poor young men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.'

'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'

'Naturally—a counsel that I have given myself.'

'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?'

Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.

'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!'

Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was softened by noting how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands—they might well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?'

As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto Sicilian fashions were paralleled.

'I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' Nehemiah explained. 'But here is this great empty room. What am I to do with it? At night of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. Also I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a week from my friends in Russia and America, and one of which I even buy here. When I have read them these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given myself a counsel, if I would make here a reading-room they should come in the evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy to make them to eat and drink. First I will give to them only coffee and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all the Delicatessen of Poland. When our custom will become too large we shall take over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility——'

'But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted Barstein, alarmed.

'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,' said Nehemiah reassuringly. 'From you I ask nothing.'

'In that case,' replied Barstein drily, 'I must say I consider it an excellent plan. Your idea of building up from small foundations is most sensible—some of the young men may even have toothache—but I do not see where you need me—unless to supply a few papers.'

'Did I not say you were from heaven?' Nehemiah's eyes shone again. 'But I do not require the papers. It is enough for me that your holy feet have stood in my homestead. I thought you might send money. But to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able to tell I have spoken with him face to face!'

Barstein was touched. 'I think you will need a larger table for the reading-room,' he said.

The tall figure shook its tall hat. 'It is only gas that I need for my operations.'

'Gas!' repeated Barstein, astonished. 'Then you propose to continue your dentistry too.'

'It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated Nehemiah. 'Unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not come. But the penny gas is all I need.'

'Well, if it costs only a penny——' began Barstein.

'A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. 'But then there is the meter and the cost of the burners.' He calculated that four pounds would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all the homeless moths of the neighbourhood.

So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected with his first sense of solid foothold. After all Nehemiah had sustained his surprise visit fairly well—he was obviously no Croesus—and if four pounds would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the whole neighbourhood—

He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. It contained only three pounds ten. He rummaged his pockets for silver, finding only eight shillings.

'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he murmured.

'As if I couldn't trust you!' cried Nehemiah reproachfully, and as he lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw that he had no waistcoat.

II

About six months later, when Barstein had utterly forgotten the episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly recalled everything.

So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant. Anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. Emigration appeared now the only salvation.

But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly Persia was meant. But why Persia? Wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in Persia? Nehemiah's original suggestion of Jerusalem had been much more intelligible. Perhaps it persisted still under the head of Turkey. Not least characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious gloating over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.

For some days the sculptor went about weighed down by Nehemiah's misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the Minories. But he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell upon him.

As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein summoned a hansom and sped to the Minories.

III

Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the visitor. From chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.

But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss.

'Where is the gas?' he asked drily.

'Alas, the company removed the meter.'

'But the gas-brackets?'

'What else had we to eat?' said Nehemiah simply.

Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the ceiling. But a fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. He could not, however, recall whether the pipe had been there before or not.

'So the young men would not come?' he said.

'Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. Only they did not pay.'

'You should have made it a rule—cash down.'

Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and melancholy visage.

'And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where had those young men to turn but to me?'

Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. He hastened to change the conversation.

'And why do you want to go to Bursia?' he said.

'Why shall I want to go to Bursia?' Nehemiah replied.

'You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.

'Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. Always Sir Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to Russia.'

'He would,' said Barstein grimly. 'But where is Bursia?'

Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'Shall I know? My little Rebeccah was drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we lived two months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'

'Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'

'And do I not trust Him?' said Nehemiah fervently. 'Otherwise, burdened down as I am with a multitude of children——'

'You made your own burden,' Barstein could not help pointing out.

Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had caught sight of feet of clay beneath Barstein's shining boots.

'"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' Nehemiah quoted in Hebrew. 'Is not that the very first commandment in the Bible?'

'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the sculptor evasively. 'I suppose you mean Palestine?'

'No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should ought to go, there to work for Palestine. Are not many of the Sultan's own officials Jews? If we can make of them hot-hearted Zionists——'

It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found himself sitting on the table to discuss it. The reverence with which Nehemiah listened to his views was touching and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror. Yet he could not suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of Zionism Nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe trembling on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of Palestine, and Barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity was repeated and re-enforced.

Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that Nehemiah himself would have scant opportunity of influential contact with Ottoman officials, and that the real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in Turkey. He mentioned the point.

Nehemiah waved it away. 'And cannot the Almighty support us in Turkey as well as in England?' he asked. 'Yes, even in Bursia itself the Guardian of Israel is not sleepy.'It was then that the word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. He was an air-man, floating on facile wings through the Æther. True, he spoke of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition. At worst they were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in common with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision. Never for a moment had Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had he lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely optimism in disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he, the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new child with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah lost his robustious faith in life, his belief in God, man, or himself.

Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his respect for others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant humanity, by men become as Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he address one as 'Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his pole-stars. And what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible resilience! He had once been a dentist, and he still considered himself one. Before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the proprietor of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly between two gilded horizons. The superficial might call him shiftless, but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the art of living? Did he not incarnate the great Jewish gospel of the improvident lilies?

'You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a burst of artistic fervour. 'Thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small business here.'

Nehemiah stared at him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were distinctly audible.

Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest.

'But what business do you think you——?' he began.

'Shall I presume dictation to the angel?' asked Nehemiah with wet shining eyes.

'I am thinking that perhaps we might find something in which your children could help you. How old is the eldest?'

'I will ask my wife. Salome!' he cried. The dismal creature trotted in.

'How old is MoshelÉ?' he asked.

'And don't you remember he was twelve last Tabernacles?'

Nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'Merciful Heaven! He must soon begin to learn his Parshah (confirmation portion). What will it be? Where is my Chumash (Pentateuch)?' Mrs. Silvermann drew it down from the row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future.

Barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'What business do you think your husband could set up here?'

'Is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply.

Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.

'Would you like to be a dentist again?'

'Ah, but how shall I find achers?'

'You put up a sign,' said Barstein. 'One of those cases of teeth. I daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door, especially if you take an extra room. I will buy you the instruments, furnish the room attractively. You will put in your newspapers—why, people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling.

Nehemiah addressed his wife. 'Did I not say he was a genteel archangel?' he cried ecstatically.

IV

Barstein was sitting outside a cafÉ in Rome sipping vermouth with Rozenoffski, the Russo-Jewish pianist, and Schneemann the Galician-Jewish painter, when he next heard from Nehemiah.

He was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. So when the man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand. But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and recalled the forgotten Luftmensch. He threw the letter impatiently on the table.

'Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding.

'I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here, in this classical atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with the gaunt godly Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for the ne'er-do-well! Let his Providence look after him!

'Is she beautiful?' quizzed Schneemann.

Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was broken up. Nehemiah as a petticoated romance was too tickling.

'You shall read the letter,' he said.

Schneemann protested comically. 'No, no, that would be ungentlemanly—you read to us what the angel says.'

'It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he tore open the letter. He read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter at each eruption of adjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.' Rozenoffski and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked with the mad foreigners.

'3a, The Minories, E.

'Right Honourable Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,

'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent position in which I have no earn by my dental practice likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.

'Your obedient servant respectfully,
'Nehemiah Silvermann,
'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'