Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch. Two Stories of Jewish Life

"It's a remarkable thing, Herr Doktor, that man grows into a block of ice, when his time comes. He doesn't die, but he freezes. Just as outside in nature everything stiffens with the frost when the time comes; and all life dies, because the sun is gone, the great warmth. What curdles in us, is the warm current of life, the blood. No herb grows which can prevent it. Forgive me, Herr Kreisphysikus, for speaking to you so openly. But at my age you don't make beans about things any more, and you think all sorts of thoughts – about life and death. And I've always found you a sensible man, to whom I can say anything at all; and if I now say to you: when the long winter comes upon men, nothing will help them, no doctor, no tea, and no mulled wine, you won't take offense, will you?"

"But spring follows winter," I said more to quiet him than out of conviction. He may have felt this, because he smiled mournfully, and his faded features were suffused with a glorified light – the light that fills us with the awe of the infinite when we stand in the presence of the dead.

"What that spring is which follows the winter of our lives, no man knows. I think it is an eternal winter; and if a new life does blossom out of the grave, it is a fresh beginning, which grows from itself, and does not join on to an end without an end." He gazed meditatively into space. "My idea is," he continued, "that death is the only reality on earth. Life is only a seeming. Life changes at every moment and passes, death never changes and remains forever. Tell me, Herr Kreisphysikus, if men grow old, they live seventy years or a little more, and don't they stay dead a million years? Have you ever heard of anyone's living twice, or being young twice?"

It is not the first time I am called upon to notice the profundity of the old man's observations; but it never fails to surprise me.

"Have you never heard of the immortality of the soul, Herr Eichelkatz?" I asked.

"Soul, Herr Doktor? What is soul? Where is it? In what is it? How does it look? Does it fly out of the body when life is at an end? By the window? By the chimney? Through the keyhole? Has anyone ever seen it? Has someone ever felt it? Sometimes I read in the paper about spirits with whom chosen mortals talk. Do you believe it, Herr Doktor? I don't. Has such a thing ever been proved? They are meshugge or else cheats; it always turns out that way."

I had to laugh at the curt way in which he disposed of spiritualism and all its excrescences.

"Nevertheless, my dear friend," I answered, "there is probably a spiritual after-life which manifests itself in our children and grandchildren – a young spring time of life made fruitful by the impulses of our souls."

He wrapped himself more tightly in his cover. A slight shiver went through his body.

"Herr Kreisphysikus, and how about those who have no children, or those whose children go away from them, or those who do not know their own children? – through no fault of their own. Why should they be worse off than the others? What have they done that they should be extinguished forever, while the others live on forever? I don't believe it. For if I did happen to see in the world a great deal about which I had to ask myself why, still I didn't see anything that had no definite plan and no compelling cause, the good and the bad. The thing might not have pleased me, and it might have seemed bad or false, but it had a law according to which it had to be carried out."

There he was dealing with Kantian abstractions again; the categorical imperative came to him instinctively. I did not want to tire him with thinking too much, and I said:

"By the way, Herr Eichelkatz, I wanted to ask you something that is of personal interest to me. Who is Herr Jonas Goldstücker?"

He looked at me slyly.

"Are you trying to provide for a spiritual after-life, which will manifest itself in your children and grandchildren?" He repeated my words with a touch of irony in the intonation. "And Herr Jonas Goldstücker is to help you on to immortality?"

"We haven't reached that point yet, Herr Eichelkatz," I answered laughing, rejoiced that I had made him think of other things. Without his noticing it, I turned the conversation upon my colleagues in the place, especially Sanitätsrat Ehrlich.

"I don't know the people of to-day very well, Herr Kreisphysikus. Since I gave up my business I haven't bothered myself much about them. The present Sanitätsrat Ehrlich is the son of the Sanitätsrat Ehrlich who was one of the trustees along with Dr. Krakauer. He studied at the same time as my son. And when Ehrlich had finished his course, he established himself here and took up his father's practice. He married and reached a position of prominence and wealth in the same place as his father, who has been dead ten years. If that's what you mean by after-life, Herr Doktor, then the old Sanitätsrat Ehrlich actually does live on in his son. They say the son uses the very same prescriptions as his father. He's not a shining light; but he's a fine, respected man. I believe in time he was made trustee, like his father; and he has children, sons and daughters, who are a satisfaction to him. His oldest son is also studying medicine, and will probably some time take up his father's prescriptions and his practice. The old Sanitätsrat Ehrlich was no shining light, and neither is his son, and I don't know the young one at all – but, at any rate, their light burns a long time, like a Yom Kippur light, and in the Khille it may be said of this family: Ehrlich währt am längsten."

He smiled, and was pleased at his own little joke, and I for my part was glad to have left him in a better mood than I had found him.

November 18.

My old friend grows perceptibly weaker. There are no symptoms of a definite trouble but senectus morbus ipsa. The nasty cold penetrates the chinks at door and window and settles in some corner of the room, however carefully warmed and provided against weather. The very time of year prepares mischief for an old, decaying body. If Simon were sitting in some sunny spot, who knows if his seventy-eight years would be oppressing him so? What remarkable old people I saw in the south, especially in Rome. They bore their eighty or ninety years with proud dignity and fine carriage. We of the north age much more rapidly; perhaps we are not even born young. Especially we Jews! Conditions have been bettered in the course of time, since our young people have been allowed to benefit by the sanitary, hygienic, and æsthetic achievements of modern life. They all devote themselves to sports, and the obligation to serve in the army has forced them – and the need therefor is highly significant – to practice gymnastic exercises to their advantage. Nevertheless they have something old, thoughtful, worldly-wise in their souls. It is the heritage of the many thousands of years of culture, the culture which has won us renown and singled us out among the nations, but has burdened us also and weighted us down with the over-thoughtfulness born of limitless life-experience. Naïveté and an easy mode of existence we have lost through this heritage; and that it manifests itself especially in spiritual matters is praiseworthy, though neither gratifying nor exhilarating. How difficult we are! How dependent upon tradition! What deep roots we have struck in the soil of the past! I believe we drag the chains of our long history more painfully than those put upon us by the other nations. And though these chains are wrought of the gold of fidelity and linked with the pearls of wisdom, they weight us down – they weight us down in a world where we are only tolerated – strangers!

Simon Eichelkatz awakened these thoughts in me. Yesterday he told me a great deal again. Remarkable! It is as though he felt the need to unburden his soul of a few more matters before he sinks into the great, eternal silence. But he doesn't suspect my anxiety in his behalf. He chats on heedlessly into the twilight of the early winter evenings. The twilight makes people communicative and confidential. It is the time of intimate secrets. And at such a time Simon acquainted me with the most solemn experience of his life.

"I do not know, Herr Kreisphysikus, how to tell you – when I found it out, I felt a pain as though a piece of my body were being torn away. It hurt! My, how it hurt! I cried aloud! I made a rent in my coat; I threw myself on the ground, and I sat Shiveh. My son was dead, my only child! Madame Eichelkatz said nothing. She remained immovable. Not a sound passed her lips; and to this day I do not know what she thought or felt when the news came that our only child had been – baptized! He had had himself baptized, Herr Kreisphysikusleben. Converted! Stepped from one religion into another as lightly as though stepping from the middle of the street over the gutter onto the pavement! From the painful, dusty road to the elegant, smoothly-paved street!

"'What have you to say to this?' I screamed at my wife. But she said nothing. And she raised no objections when after the Shiveh I declared my intention of giving up the business, because, not having a child any more, I did not know for whom to work. She quietly let me do whatever I decided on in my pain and anger. She seemed entirely broken. But no one learned whether from surprise, grief, or repentance. She faded away, and two years after the terrible event she died from no special sickness. 'As a punishment,' the people said, 'of a broken heart' – who knows what goes on in the soul of such a woman!

"I did not know. And that's where I was wrong in the matter. I know it now. And it's a pity, Herr Kreisphysikus, that you never know at the right time. You are never clever, you never understand, you never do the right thing at the right time. It always comes when it's too late."

He paused in his confidences, somewhat hastily uttered, and looked gloomily into space. Then, as though he had suddenly gathered together his inner forces, he added:

"And yet, when I think it over carefully, it's probably not such a pity. It must be so and can't be different, because to err is human. And it's only by way of error that you arrive at knowledge. In man error is life. When he knows everything, more than he likes to know, then comes death."

Error is life, and knowledge is death! The soul of this old man comprehends everything. Philosophers and poets – he never read a line of their works, scarcely a name of theirs reaches his ear, and yet their finest thoughts are crystallized in his observations. And again, for after a little pause he said:

"Death, what is it, Herr Kreisphysikus? Something else that no one knows, surely doesn't know – forgive me, Herr Kreisphysikus, you, too – although you've studied about life and death – and you're a fine, learned man, a serious, learned man – I know, I know. If anyone could have learned about death you certainly would have – but can one learn the eternal riddles of nature? Who knows her secrets? The greatest learning can't penetrate to them. Do me a favor, Herr Kreisphysikus, if there is anyone who knows, tell me; I'd be happy to learn one more thing, before I lay myself down and become a dead man, as now I am a live man."

A startling thought flashed through my mind; but before I could answer him, he said, almost hastily:

"I knew it, Herr Kreisphysikus; you can't tell me. Why? Because there's not a soul who could have discovered it – nobody knows what – we don't know anything."

Ignorabimus!

Ay, there's the rub. The thought has given pause to many another besides Simon Eichelkatz!

But now I was determined to give expression to the thought which a moment before had flashed through my mind.

"That's not so easily disposed of as you think, Herr Eichelkatz. We know as little as you say, and yet we know so much! When the inscrutable fails to yield us anything positive, when the exact sciences can tell us no more, then comes the work of hypothesis, of thought."

He looked at me with great, astonished eyes. A light of comprehension spread over his face, although he softly said:

"That's too much for me, Herr Kreisphysikus, what you are saying – I mean the way you say it – I think I can understand your meaning; and as for the exact sciences, I can imagine what that means, I have heard the words before. But the other word, poth – pothe – it can't come from apothecary? What you mean is that when we don't know about something, others come and try to explain it from what they have thought over the matter for themselves."

"That is called philosophy," I said.

"I know the word," he murmured under his breath.

"And the greatest minds of all times have occupied themselves with it."

"And has anything ever come of it?" he said, an ironical smile flitting about the corners of his sunken mouth.

"Why, yes! For if thinking, interpreting, and reasoning did not make the things of this earth clear to us and throw a moral light upon them, there would be only one course left to us; we should be driven to desperation."

He was obviously trying to adjust the meaning of my words in his mind, for it was after a few minutes' pause that he said:

"And you really believe, Herr Kreisphysikus, that it is of some use? Well, I won't argue with you, because I don't understand – but that we should accomplish anything for the general good through morality, I mean, the same sort of morality for many or for all – that – that seems unlikely to me. I've always found that each man has his own morality, just as every Jew has his own Shulchan Oruch. And there is nothing too bad or too wicked for one man to do to another but that he can excuse it as being moral. I've experienced it, Herr Kreisphysikus – I" – he paused an instant – "yes, and why shouldn't I tell you? At the time when my only child forsook the faith of his fathers, he wrote me a letter, yes – and he explained the necessity for his taking the step, and in the finest words and thoughts told me how it is the highest morality to be true to yourself – not to what has been handed down to you by others – and how each must find in himself the moral laws of the world – and how each must free himself in order to strive unhampered toward the light. No one should abide by what others have offered him, for to take is – mercy! And the strong man must not kill himself out of compassion and mercy. But my son said of himself, he was strong, and for that reason, he said, he must go his own way pitilessly, and I should forgive him the pain he caused me – he was not one of those who quietly gives a little of himself here and a little there, as is the custom in narrow circles; he was one of the few – one of the magnificently wealthy – a great giver who gives himself to mankind!"

His voice had risen as he conveyed the contents of the letter to me; but then, as though tired out, he added:

"I know every word by heart. I read the letter a thousand times; and, do you know, Herr Kreisphysikus, so that I'd be sure to understand it and read it perfectly, he wrote it in Hebrew letters."

He drew the Bible that always lay on the table closer to himself, took out a piece of paper showing signs of much handling, and gave it to me. It was the letter.

The depths of my soul were stirred.

"What could I do, nebbich, Herr Kreisphysikus? This letter was the only thing I'd ever read of philosophy. Then – yes, after getting it, I sat Shiveh! Because I learned from the letter: 'Be true to yourself.' And I was true to myself in being true to my religion. 'And each must find in himself the moral laws of the world,' – and the moral law of my world is to hold sacred what the God of Israel has commanded. But I hid my sorrow in my soul, and I never again reproached Madame Eichelkatz with having led him into error through her education. What could a frivolous Madame Eichelkatz do, and how could she hinder a man who 'gives himself to mankind,' nebbich?

"She never saw him again, nor did he stand at her grave; because I got the rabbi to write to him he should not come. He answered with only two lines."

Simon reached out again for the book, took a slip of paper out, set his horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and read:

"'Weep not, my father! Is not all weeping a lament? And all lamenting an accusation? Accuse not my mother in her grave – accuse not me. Your soul will be healed; for yours is not a petty grief.'

"That was the last I heard from him. Not a tear was shed at Madame Eichelkatz's grave. Then I settled down here with Feiwel Silbermann. I had enough to live on, more than enough, and I began to ponder over mankind and things in general. I've grown old, and I am a stranger to people. Rabbi Dr. Merzbach has been dead a long time, and Cantor Elias, and Meyer Nathanson the Shammes, and Saul Feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and Dr. Krakauer, saving your reverence, and all the others. The new generation scarcely knows me."

The last words were uttered brokenly, his head sank softly forward. He had dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion. After a few minutes he came to himself, and Feiwel Silbermann carried him to bed while I stood there. We administered some bouillon and Tokay wine; but he remained apathetic, and only murmured, almost unintelligibly: "Yes – times change – the Khille is no longer fromm." Then he fell asleep again.

I was greatly disturbed on leaving him, and returned the next morning at the very earliest hour possible. He was asleep. Two days later he had passed into the eternal sleep of death.

November 23.

To-day we carried Simon Eichelkatz to his last resting-place. Only a few people accompanied him. But at his grave stood a solitary man.

"Myself I sacrifice to my love, and my neighbor I sacrifice as myself, thus runs the speech of all creators."

The Nietzsche phrase flitted through my mind, a phrase that I had heard explained by the son, the heir of that unlearned, wise old man whom we had just consigned to the earth. "But all creators are hard – thus spoke Zarathustra."

And there —

In a soft though intelligible voice the solitary man repeated the Hebrew words, as he shovelled the earth onto the coffin:

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest; but the spirit returns to God who gave it."

Then he raised himself up, his eye fastened on the growing mound.

Friedrich Eichner!

THE PATRIARCH

Joshua Benas, Geheimrat, arose from his seat at his desk. His smug countenance wore a smile of satisfaction, as he gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, and stroked the close-trimmed beard, already touched with grey.

"Very good," he muttered, with a complacent smile, "first-rate. Elkish has put the matter well. A la bonheur! We will declare fourteen per cent dividend; if we strain a point, perhaps fourteen and a half – and enough for a surplus. Great! Splendid!.. What a figure we shall cut! No small affair! The gentlemen will be astonished. But after all that is what they're used to; Joshua Benas doesn't fall short of what people expect of him."

He pressed the electric button.

"Tell Mr. Elkish to come up when he leaves the office," he said to the servant who had entered quietly; then he glanced at the clock standing on his desk, a Mercury of light-colored Barbedienne bronze.

"Five o'clock already! Tell Elkish to be here by half-past five."

The servant bowed; as he was leaving the room, his master called after him:

"Is my son at home?"

"No, Herr Geheimrat."

"And my daughter?"

"She and Mlle. Tallieu drove to Professor Jedlitzka's for her music lesson."

"Hm! Very well! Be sure to give my message to Mr. Elkish, Francis."

At this moment an elderly lady of distinguished appearance entered the room.

"Do I disturb you, Joe?"

He dismissed the servant with a nod.

"No, Fanny, if a half-hour will suffice; in half an hour I expect Elkish. At half-past five, Francis."

The servant withdrew as quietly as he had entered, and husband and wife were left alone.

With the eye of the careful housewife she glanced about the room. The luxury of her surroundings had not diminished the traditional concern for minute details of housekeeping. From her mother she had acquired her loving devotion to the affairs of the house. She guarded its growing prosperity, and with a keen eye, as well as a careful hand, she treasured the beautiful and choice possessions with which a fondness for collecting and a feeling for art had enriched her home. Her large corps of servants was capable and well-trained; yet Mrs. Benas would delegate to none the supervision of her household and the inspection of its details.

Her appearance did not betray her habits. She was forty-nine years old; her dark hair, with a touch of grey, was becomingly arranged over a rather high forehead. Her generous mouth, showing well-preserved teeth, and her full double chin gave her countenance a look of energy, softened by the mild and intelligent expression of her eyes. The slight curve of her nose was sufficient to impart to her countenance the unmistakable stamp of her race. But it did not detract from the air of distinction that characterized Frau Geheimrat Benas.

The rapid survey satisfied her that everything was in the best of order in the luxuriously equipped workroom of her husband. Not a particle of dust rested upon the costly bronzes, standing about on desk and mantel, on tables and stands, with designed carelessness. Not too obtrusively, and yet effectively, they revealed the Geheimrat as a patron of the arts, able to surround himself with the choicest works of the most distinguished artists.

Glorious old Flemish tapestries hung above the sofa, forming the background for book-cases filled with the classics of all literatures, and for various objets d'art, which a discerning taste had collected. Mrs. Benas's glance rested with particular tenderness upon a few antique pieces of silver, which seemed a curious anachronism in a room furnished in its up-to-date style. They were heirlooms from her parents' home in Rogasen, where her father, Samuel Friedheim – Reb Salme Friedheim as he was called – had been held in high regard. There was the Kiddush cup, the Besomim box, the Menorah, and the large silver Seder platter, used by her father; and there were the silver candelabra, the lights of which her mother had "blessed". Her father had been a thrifty dealer in wools, not too greatly blessed with worldly goods; a great Talmudic scholar he had been, however, worthy to marry the great-granddaughter of the celebrated Rabbi Akiba Friedländer, under whom he had studied.

Mrs. Benas's demeanor unconsciously reflected the dignity of such ancestry. She took it as a matter of course that her lot in life should have been cast in the high financial circles, the sphere which gives importance and position to the modern Jew. The son-in-law of Reb Salme Friedheim could not be other than a Geheimrat, unless, continuing the traditions, he had been a student of the Talmud. But, after all, nowadays a Geheimrat is to be preferred to a Jewish scholar or to a modern rabbi; and with pride becoming to her and no offense to her husband she gloried in the aristocracy of her family, without overlooking the advantages her husband's wealth had brought.

The home of her husband had also been in the province of Posen; and it was the respect in which her father had been held throughout the province that had attracted his father, Isidor Benas of Lissa, to the match. Although the dowry was smaller than Benas senior thought he was entitled to demand for his son, the rank of her family weighed so heavily in the balance that Joshua was allowed to court Fanny and win her as his life companion.

His father died shortly after the marriage. Joshua moved the banking and grain business, in which he had been a partner, to Berlin. Here the business prospered to such an extent that the firm of Joshua Benas was soon reckoned among the most influential of the rapidly developing capital. Indeed, it headed all financial and industrial undertakings. Joshua Benas, prominent in the establishment of a large bank, member of the boards of the principal industrial corporations, was appointed Kommerzienrat at the end of the "seventies", and a few years later, in recognition of special services to the Government in the supply of arms, he was made Geheimrat. At the time there were rumors of a high order, which were never made true; and Mrs. Benas gave up the hope she had probably cherished in secret, for the growth of anti-Semitism set a short limit to the honors conferred on Jews, and rendered the dignity of a Geheimer Kommerzienrat the highest to which they dared aspire.