Myrom's Making
CHAPTER I.
“CH! There is nothing but the beautiful, and more often than not, even that is doubtful.”
“Myrom is again excited. You cannot prove the beautiful.”
“I—what!” and Andre Myrom sprang up impetuously, flung his Russian cigarette into the fire, and sat down, expostulating with both hands. He was a tall, nervous, sallow-complexioned man, and his flowing hair was thrown back, with a Grecian bend, from the forehead. The pince-nez of this most restless mortal needed frequent adjustment on the short, broad and tilted nose. In the club—and the discussion was proceeding there—Myrom had a unique reputation. Tender as a child, soft-hearted as a woman, kind and generous to a fault, he was ever ready to champion what he considered a principle. Myrom's important principles were innumerable, they cropped up in the discussion of ideas of which no one beforehand knew that he was the Quixotic protector. Myrom was a Russian Jew, secretly trained on forbidden Jewish literature, partly developed in Paris, and therefore most Parisian, with a soul seared by anti-Jewish persecution and parental orthodoxy. Having leaped the religious barrier, he roamed at will through the philosophies, hated religious ideas after having been, in thought, a brief follower of each and every faith and doctrine. An excellent steel engraver, he had roamed half round the globe, tearing his artistic passion to tatters in his contact with the world. He was the spoilt child of misfortune, happy at a kind word, eccentric and morose apparently without cause; it was sometimes dangerous to arouse his wild nature in debate, for the irresponsible artist would sometimes become a Savonarola, ready to die at the stake for some new fanaticism. In less heroic language, he fought tooth and nail for his convictions, however illogical, and generally confounded many of his hearers by his display of knowledge of old and new literatures.
The club was the ideal, though not the creation of Myrom. Here he met, quarreled with and loved his friends, for he did not give mere friendship. Though a club of young men, practically every shade of Jewish life and thought was to be met with in this small circle, members of which had been in every land, and knew every form of civilization. Not a topic could be sprung round the fireside which someone had not read up, but however deep and philosophical, the talk had a light, intimate and personal touch; the conversation roamed among twenty men as between two—this was the boast, the cause of pride, the secret of the club's success.
Myrom's momentary antagonist, Michael Haftel, was a dark, bespectacled young man with a head of curly hair and a face betraying remarkable intellectual power. His tones were decisive and his utterance slow and concise.
“Do sit still, Myrom. You would find it difficult to give two good definitions of the sublime and the beautiful. And these are the least; there are other