CHAPTER XVI
I WAS rapidly advancing on the road to financial triumphs. I was planning to move my business to larger quarters, in the same modest neighborhood. Mrs.
Chaikin, my partner's wife, failed to realize the situation, however. She could not forgive me the false representations I had made to her regarding my assets
"And where is the treasure you were expecting?" she would twit me. "You never tell a lie, do you? You simply don't know how to do it. Poor thing!"
When we were in the midst of an avalanche of lucrative orders promising a brilliant winter season she took it into her head to withdraw her husband from the firm, in which he was a silent partner. Her decision was apparently based on the extreme efforts she had once seen me making to raise five hundred dollars. As a matter of fact, this was due to the rapidity of our growth. I lacked capital. But then my credit was growing, too, and altogether things were in a most encouraging condition
"What is the use worrying along like that?" she said. "You deceived me from the start. You made me believe you had a lot of money, while you were really a beggar. Yes, you are a beggar, and a beggar you are bound to stay. A beggar and a swindler—that's what you are. You have fooled me long enough.
You can't fool me any longer. So there!"
Her husband was still employed by the German firm, attending to the needs of our growing little factory surreptitiously every evening and on Sundays. The day seemed near when it would pay him to give all his time to our shop. And he was aware of it, too; to some extent, at least. But Mrs. Chaikin ordained otherwise
I attempted to present the actual state of affairs to her, but broke off in the middle of a sentence. It suddenly flashed upon my mind that it might all be to my advantage. "A designer can be hired," I said to myself. "The business is progressing rapidly. To make him my life partner is too high a price to pay for his skill. Besides, having him for a partner actually means having his nuisance of a wife for a partner. It will be a good thing to get rid of her." I consulted Max, as I did quite often now. Not that I thought myself in need of his advice, or anybody else's, for that matter. Success had made me too self-confident for that. I played the intimate and ardent friend, and this was simply part of my personation. To flatter his vanity I would make him think his suggestions had been acted upon and that they had brought good results. As a consequence, he was developing the notion that my success was largely due to his guidance, a notion which jarred on me, but which I humored, nevertheless
"Do you know what's the matter?" he said, sagely. "Mrs. Chaikin must have found another partner for her husband. Some fellow with big money, I suppose."
"You are right, Max," I said, sincerely. "How stupid I am."
"Why, of course they have got another partner. Of course they have," he repeated, with elation. "So much the better for you. Let them go to the eighty black years. Don't run after him. Just do as I tell you and you'll be all right, Levinsky. My advice has never got you in trouble, has it?"
"Indeed not. Indeed not," I answered
Max's blindness to what was going on between Dora and myself was a riddle to which I vainly sought a solution. That this cynic who charged every man and woman with immorality should, in the circumstances, be so absolutely undisturbed in his confidence regarding his wife seemed nothing short of a miracle. When I now think of the riddle I see its solution in a modified version of the old rule concerning the mote in thy neighbor's eye and the beam in thine own eve. Your worst pessimist is, after all, an optimist with regard to himself. We are quick to recognize the gravity of ill health in somebody else, yet we ourselves may be on the very brink of death without realizing it. It is a special phase of selfishness. We are loath to connect the idea of a catastrophe with our own person. Max, who saw a mote in the eye of everybody else's wife, failed to perceive the beam in the eye of his own
As for Sadie, who lived in the same house now, and who visited Dora's apartment at all hours, she was too silly and too deeply infatuated with her friend to suspect her of anything wrong
I idolized Dora. It seemed to me that I adored her soul even more than I did her body. I was under her moral influence, and the firmness with which she maintained the distance between us added to my respect for her. And yet I never ceased to dream of and to seek her moral downfall
I had extended my canvassing activities to a number of cities outside New York, my territory being a semicircle with a radius of about a hundred and fifty miles. I had long since picked up some of the business jargon of the country and I was thirstily drinking in more and more
"What do you think of this number, Mr. So-and-so?" I would say, self-consciously, to a merchant, as I dangled a garment in front of him.
"You can make a run on it. It's the kind of suit that gives the wearer an air of distinction."
If I heard a bit of business rhetoric that I thought effective I would jot it down and commit it to memory. In like manner I would write down every new piece of slang, the use of the latest popular phrase being, as I thought, helpful in making oneself popular with Americans, especially with those of the young generation. But somehow a slang phrase would be in general use for a considerable time before it attracted my attention. The Americans I met were so quick to discern and adopt these phrases it seemed as if they were born with a special slang sense which I, poor foreigner that I was, lacked.
That I was not born in America was something like a physical defect that asserted itself in many disagreeable ways—a physical defect which, alas! no surgeon in the world was capable of removing
Other things that I would enter in my note-book were names of dishes on the bills of fare of the better restaurants, with explanations of my own. I would describe the difference between Roquefort cheese and Liederkranz cheese, between consommé Celestine and consommé princesse; I would make a note of the composition of macaroni au gratin, the appearance and taste of potatoes Lyonnaise, of various salad-dressings. But I gradually picked up this information in a practical way and really had no need of my culinary notes. I had many occasions to eat in high-class restaurants and I was getting to feel quite at home in them
Max's conjecture regarding Chaikin was borne out. The talented designer had given up his job at the Manheimer Brothers' and opened a cloak-and-suit house with a man who had made considerable money as a cloak salesman, and as a landlord for a partner. When Max heard of it he was overjoyed
"I tell you what, Levinsky," he said, half in jest and half in earnest. "Let the two of us make a partnership of it. I could put some money into the business."
I reflected that when I approached him for a loan of four hundred dollars, on my first visit at his house, he had pleaded poverty
"I could do a good deal of hustling, too," he added, gravely.
"Between the two of us we should make a great success of it."
I gave him an evasive answer. I must have looked annoyed, for he exclaimed: "Look at him! Look at him, Dora! Scared to death, isn't he?" And to me: "Don't be uneasy, old chap! I am not going to snatch your factory from you.
But you are a big hog, all the same. I can tell you that. How will you manage all alone? Who will take care of your business when you go traveling?"
"Oh, I'll manage it somehow," I answered, making an effort to be pleasant.
"Chaikin was scarcely ever in the shop, anyhow."