The Law and Love.
1.
A LMOST bare, the appearance of the room,on the second floor of Number Two,Cannon Alley, suggested the untoward.The big streaming roses on the wall paper blinkedin the candlelight. Dusty lines indicated wherethe pictures had been hung ; on the mantle-shelfwere an odd assortment of ornaments as thoughhurriedly gathered from all manner of places, andhastily dumped down on the first available spot.Pieces of carpeting and oilcloth clung tenaciouslyto the floor nails ; some bedding and curtains littered one end of the room ; an empty sugar box,with the candle burning in a tin holder, completed the inventory of the furniture.
The door pressed steadily, noiselessly opened. A man entered, treading warily, and with a strange sacrosanct air. He raised a pair of heavy eyelids, and dreamily surveyed the household wreckage. Tall, well, even stoutly built, with soft, fleshy face; and soft chubby hands, he took in the scene. Gently, still with an air as though a loud footfall would desecrate the room, he removed the candle to the floor, and seated himself on the box, and clasping a knee fell into a reverie. Hot tears coursed down his cheeks, and bedewed his tawny reddish beard ; and Mendel Kodisch was not easily brought to tears. There was nothing of the stoic about him, but a natural optimism, had stood him in good stead in the fretful passage of his life.
Now, however, his whole being throbbed with emotion. His little home, brought together by five years careful purchases, was gone, — taken away by his wife, who had forsaken him for a stupid, ignorant stranger. Oh the shame of it! The disgrace of it! If his Rebecca could hear the talk in the court below, the women's gossip would make her hide her face for shame. The rank stupidity of the thing! True he was neither a handsome, nor a rich man, but—and he reflected slowly—he was not a bad man. Perhaps he should have occasionally granted her a little more money for womanly trifles, for little glittering ornaments for personal and impersonal adornment? But she had amply revenged herself;
for with the home she had taken the little bag of gold, so scrupulously divided—so much for stock money, so much savings against the day of trouble, so much towards the great object that filled the dreaming hours of his life. And he was her husband, was that not a great, all-powerful claim on a Jewish wife? Had he not gone to Russia, five years ago, to find a wife, and taken her to America, and afterwards brought her back to England? His heart was full of a vague sickness. For the first time in his life he was seized with real despair. “ All is vanity.” Yes ! Now he understood the cry of the Preacher. He looked around. Emptiness !
His head fell again.... If they had had children, Ah! Was this the key to the riddle? A childless home was an empty home to a woman. Men had often said this of their womankind. As for himself he had, for many years, so lovingly fondled a great dream-child, that the absence of baby prattle in his home had never occured to him. But to have steeped herself in shame? To have permitted any pair of scowling eyes to scan her contemptuously? Woman was past comprehension. The Preacher indeed knew when he began woman's Golden Alphabet with a question, ‘ A virtuous woman who can find her ? ”
The door opened noiselessly, a bewrinkled female face peered in, a foot stepped forward stealthily, an old woman passed in and placing a glass of thin, ruby-colored tea, in which floated a slice of lemon, beside him, departed as she came.
Mendel Kodisch grasped the action, without noting the actor ! It was kind of Mrs. Ruebensohn to come and go in silence ; mechanically he repeated the blessing and sipped the comforting drink.... A new chain of thought seized him. He was alone. The battle would begin again ; but this time he would live for it alone.... The mystic's rapture came over him. Had he not seen two great shadowy arms loom out of the darkness, and had not a light, a wondrous ray, skimmed the surface of New York harbor in that night when, still in the trough of the green sea, he had neared the American coast. He had often mused on the manifestation, not knowing