The Rise of David Levinsky

by Abraham Cahan

CHAPTER II

MAX occupied the top floor of an old private house on Henry Street, a small "railroad" apartment of two large, bright rooms—a living-room and a kitchen—with two small, dark bedrooms between them. The ceiling was low and the air somewhat tainted with the odor of mold and dampness. I found Max in the general living-room, which was also a dining-room, a fat boy of three on his lap and a slender, pale girl of eight on a chair close by. His wife, a slender young woman with a fine white complexion and serious black eyes, was clearing away the lunch things

"Mrs. Margolis, Mr. Levinsky," he introduced us. "Plainly speaking, this is my wifey and this is a friend of mine."

As she was leaving the room for the kitchen he called after her,
"Dvorah! Dora! make some tea, will you?"

She craned her neck and gave him a look of resentment. "It's a good thing you are telling me that," she said. "Otherwise I shouldn't know what I have got to do, should I?"

When she had disappeared he explained to me that he variously addressed her by the Yiddish or English form of her name

"We are plain Yiddish folk," he generalized, good-humoredly

A few minutes later, as Mrs. Margolis placed a glass of Russian tea before me, he drew her to him and pinched her white cheek

"What do you think of my wifey, Levinsky?"

She smiled—a grave, deprecating smile—and took to pottering about the house

"And what do you think of these little customers?" he went on. "Lucy, examine mamma in spelling. Quick! Dora, be a good girl, sit down and let Levinsky see how educated you are." ("Educated" he said in English, with the accent on the "a.") "What do you want?" his wife protested, softly. "Mr. Levinsky wants to see you on business, and here you are bothering him with all sorts of nonsense

"Never mind his business. It won't run away. Sit down, I say. It won't take long." She yielded. Casting bashful side-glances at nobody in particular, she seated herself opposite Lucy

"Well?" she said, with a little laugh

I thought her eyes looked too serious, almost angry. "Insane people have eyes of this kind," I said to myself. I also made a mental note of her clear, fresh, delicate complexion. Otherwise she did not interest me in the least, and I mutely prayed Heaven to take her out of the room

"How do you spell 'great'?" the little girl demanded

"G-r-e-a-t—great," her mother answered, with a smile

"Book?"

"B-o-o-k—book. Oh, give me some harder words."

"Laughter."

"L-a-u-g-h-t-e-r—laughter."

"Is that correct?" Margolis turned to me, all beaming. "I wish I could do as much. And nobody has taught her, either. She has learned it all by herself.

Little Lucy is the only teacher she ever had. But she will soon be ahead of her. Won't she, Lucy?"

"I'm afraid I am ahead of her already," Mrs. Margolis said, gaily, yet flushed with excitement

"You are not!" Lucy protested, with a good-natured pout

"Shut up, bad girl you," her mother retorted, again with a bashful side-glance

"Is that the way you talk to your mamma?" Max intervened. "I'll tell your teacher."

I was on pins and needles to be alone with him and to get down to the object of my visit

Finally he said, brusquely: "Well, we have had enough of that.
Leave us alone, Dora. Go to the parlor and take the kids along."

She obeyed

When he heard of my venture he was interested. He often interrupted me with boisterous expressions of admiration for my subterfuges as well as for the plan as a whole. With all his boisterousness, however, there was an air of caution about him, as if he scented danger. When I finally said that all depended upon my raising four hundred dollars his face clouded

"I see, I see," he murmured, with sudden estrangement. "I see. I see." "Don't lose courage," I said to myself. "Nodelman was exactly like that at first. Go right ahead."

I portrayed my business prospects in the most alluring colors and gave Max to understand that if "somebody" advanced me the four hundred dollars he would be sure to get it back in thirty days plus any interest he might name

"It would be terrible if I had to let it all go to pieces on account of such a thing," I concluded

There was a moment of very awkward silence. It was broken by
Max

"It's really too bad. What are you going to do about it?" he said.
"Where can you get such a 'somebody'?"

"I don't know. That's why I came to consult you. I thought you might suggest some way. It would be a pity if I had to give it all up on account of four hundred dollars."

"Indeed it would. It would be terrible. Still, four hundred dollars is not four hundred cents. I wish I were a rich man. I should lend it to you at once. You know I should."

"I should pay you every cent of it, Max."

"You say it as if I had money. You know I have not." What I did know was that he had, and he knew that I did

He took to analyzing the situation and offering me advice. Why not go to that kindly Gentile, the commission merchant, make a clean breast of it, and obtain an extension of time? Why not apply to some money-lender? Why not make a vigorous appeal to Nodelman? He seemed to be an obliging fellow, so if I pressed him a little harder he might give me the cash as well as the goods

I was impelled to retort that advice was cheap, and he apparently read my thoughts

Presently he said, with genuine ardor: "I tell you what, Levinsky. Why not try to get your old landlady to open her stocking? From what you have told me, she ought not to be a hard nut to crack if you only go about it in the right way.

This suggestion made a certain appeal to me, but I would not betray it. I continued resentfully silent

"You just try her, Levinsky. She'll let you have the four hundred dollars, or half of it, at least."

"And if she does, her son will refuse to get me the goods," I remarked, with a sneer.

"Nonsense. If you know how to handle her, she will realize that she must keep her mouth shut until after she gets the money back."

"Oh, what's the use?" I said, impatiently. "I must get the cash at once, or all is lost."

Again he spoke of money-lenders. He went into details about one of them and offered to ascertain his address for me. He evidently felt awkward about his part in the matter and eager to atone for it in some way

"Why should a usurer trust me?" I said, rising to go.

"Wait. What's your hurry? If that money-lender hears your story, he may trust you. He is a peculiar fellow, don't you know. When he takes a fancy to a man he is willing to take a chance on him. Of course, the interest would be rather high." He paused abruptly, wrinkled his forehead with an effect of pondering some new scheme, and said: "Wait. I think I have a better plan.

I'll see if I can't get you the money without a money-lender." With this he sprang to his feet and had his wife bring him his coat and hat. "I'll be back in less than half an hour," he said. "Dvorah dear, give Levinsky some more tea, will you? I am going out for a few minutes. Don't let him be downhearted." Then, shaking a finger of warning at me, he said, playfully, "Only take care that you don't fall in love with her!" And he was gone

"It's all play-acting," I thought. "He just wants me to believe he is trying to do something for me." But, of course, I was not altogether devoid of hope that I was mistaken and that he was making a sincere effort to raise a loan for me

Mrs. Margolis went into the kitchen immediately her husband departed.

Presently she came back, carrying a glass of tea on a saucer. She placed it before me with an embarrassed side-glance, brought some cookies, and seated herself at the far end of the table. I uttered some complimentary trivialities about the children

When a man finds himself alone with a woman who is neither his wife nor a close relative, both feel awkward. It is as though they heard a whisper, "There is nobody to watch the two of you."

Still, confused as I was, I was fully aware of her tempting complexion and found her angry black eyes strangely interesting. Upon the whole, however, I do not think she made any appeal to me save by virtue of the fact that she was a woman and that we were alone. I was tense with the consciousness of that fact, and everything about her disturbed me. She wore a navy-blue summer wrapper and I noticed the way it set off the soft whiteness of her neck. I remarked to myself that she looked younger than her husband, that she must be about twenty-eight or thirty, perhaps. My glances apparently caused her painful embarrassment. Finally she got up again, making a pretense of bustling about the room. It seemed to me that when she was on her feet she looked younger than when she was seated

I asked the boy his name, and he answered in lugubrious, but distinct, accents: "Daniel Margolis."

"He speaks like a grown person," I said

"She used to speak like that, too, when she was of his age," my hostess replied, with a glance in the direction of her daughter

"Did you?" I said to Lucy

The little girl grinned coyly

"Why don't you answer the gentleman's question?" her mother rebuked her, in English. "It's Mr. Levinsky, a friend of papa's."

Lucy gave me a long stare and lost all interest in me. "Don't you like me at all? Not even a little bit?" I pleaded

She soon unbent and took to plying me with questions. Where did I live? Was I a "customer peddler "like her papa? How long had I been in America? (A question which a child of the East Side hears as often as it does queries about the weather.) "Can you spell?" "No," I answered. "Not at all?"

"Not at all!"

"Shame! But my papa can't spell, neither."

"Shut up, you bad girl you!" her mother broke in with a laugh. "Vere you lea'n such nasty things? By your mamma? The gentleman will think by your mamma."

She delivered her a little lecture in English, taking pains to produce the "th" and the American "r," though her "w's" were "v's."

She urged me not to let the tea get cold. As I took hold of the tall, thin, cylindrical glass I noted that it was scrupulously clean and that its contents had a good clear color. I threw a glance around the room and I saw that it was well kept and tidy

Mrs. Margolis took a seat again. Lucy, with part of a cooky in her mouth, stepped over to her and seated herself on her lap, throwing her arm around her. She struck me as the very image of her mother. Presently, however, I discovered that she resembled her father quite as closely. It seemed as though the one likeness lay on the surface of her face, while the other loomed up from underneath, as the reflection of a face does from under the surface of water. Lucy soon wearied of her mother and walked over to my side. I put her on my lap. She would not let me pat her, but she did not mind sitting on my knees.

"Are you a good speller?" I asked

"I c'n spell all the words we get at school," she answered, sagely

"How do you spell 'colonel'?"

"We never got it at school. But you can't spell it, either."

"How do you know I can't? Maybe I can. Well, let us take an easier word. How do you spell 'because'?"

She spelled it correctly, her mother joining in playfully. I gave them other words, addressing myself to both, and they made a race of it, each trying to head off or outshout the other. At first Mrs. Margolis did so with feigned gaiety, but her face soon set into a grave look and glowed with excitement

At last I asked them to spell "coefficient."

"We never got it at school," Lucy demurred

"I don't know what it means," said Mrs. Margolis, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"It means something in mathematics, in high figuring," I explained in Yiddish

Mrs. Margolis shrugged her shoulders once more

I asked Lucy to try me in spelling. She did and I acquitted myself so well that she exclaimed: "Oh, you liar you! Why did you say you didn't know how to spell?"

Once more her mother took her to task for her manners

"Is that the vay to talk to a gentleman? Shame! Vere you lea'n up to be such a pig? Not by your mamma!"

When Max came back Lucy hastened to inform him that I could spell "awful good." To which he replied in Yiddish that he knew I was a smart fellow, that I could read and write "everything," and that I had studied to go to college and "to be a doctor, a lawyer, or anything."

His wife looked me over with bashful side-glances. "Really?" she said.

Max told me a lame story about his errand and promised to let me know the "final result." It was clearer than ever to me that he was making a fool of me.