SOME REALISTS
S. LIBIN
S. Libin holds the place among prose writers that Morris Rosenfeld does among poets. Like Rosenfeld, he has been a sweat-shop worker, and, like him, writes about the sordid conditions of the life. The shop, the push-cart pedler and the tenement-house mark the range of his subjects; but into these unsightly things he puts constant feeling and an unfailing pathos and humor. As in the case of Rosenfeld, there are tears in everything he writes; but, unlike Rosenfeld, he also smiles. He is a dark, thin, little man, as ragged as a tramp, with plaintive eyes and a deprecatory smile when he speaks. He is uncommonly poor, and at present sells newspapers for a living and writes an occasional sketch, for which he is paid at the rate of $1.50 or $2.00 a column by the Yiddish newspapers. He is able to produce these little articles only on impulse; and, consequently, altho he is one of the more prolific of the sketch-writers of the quarter, writes for relief rather than for income. Some of his contemporaries, with greater constancy to commercial ideals, have partly given up unremunerative literature for the position of newspaper hacks; but Libin, remembering his sweat-shop days, does not like a "boss," and is under the constant necessity of relieving his feelings by his work.
Libin lives with his wife and child in a tenement-house in Harlem, where he has continually before his eyes the home conditions which form the subject of so many of his sketches. This little man, who looks like the commonest kind of a sweat-shop "sheeny," has the simplest and sincerest interest in domestic things. With great pride he pointed out to the visitor his one-year-old baby, who lay asleep on a miserable sofa, and talked of it and of his wife, who has also been a worker in the shops, with greater pleasure even than of his sketches, which, however, he writes with joy and solace. He wept when he spoke of his child that died, and he has written poems in prose about it which weep, too. In the story of his life which he told, a common, ignorant Jew was revealed, a thorough product of the sweat-shop—a man distinguished from the proletarian crowd only by a capacity for feeling and by a genuine talent. He was born in Russia twenty-nine years ago, and came to New York when he was twenty-two years old. For four years he worked as a cap-maker in shops which were then more wretched than they are now, from sixteen to seventeen hours a day. While at his task he would steal a few minutes to devote to his sketches, which he sent to the Arbeiter-Zeitung. Cahan recognized in Libin's misspelled, illiterate, almost illegible manuscript a quality which worthily ranked it with good realistic literature. Since then Libin has written extensively for the Zukunft, a monthly now defunct; the Truth, published at one time by the poet Winchevsky in Boston, and for the New York daily Vorwärts, to which he still contributes.
HE IS TIRED, DISTRESSED AND IRRITATED
One of his sketches, the "New Law," about a column and a half long, expresses one aspect of the life led by a sweat-shop family. A tailor, going to the shop one morning, as usual, finds the boss and the other workers in a state of excitement. They have just heard about the new law limiting the day in the shop to ten hours and forbidding the men to do any work at home. This to them is a serious proposition, for, as they are paid by the piece, they need many hours to make enough to pay their expenses. The tailor goes home earlier than usual that night, about ten o'clock, with the customary bundle of clothes for his wife and children to work over. He is tired, distressed and irritated at the thought of the law. He finds his wife and ten-year-old daughter half asleep, as usual, but yet sewing busily. They, too, are pale and tired, and near them on the lounge is a sleeping baby; on the floor another. The little girl tries to hide her drowsiness from her father, and works more busily than ever.
"Why are you back so early?" asks his wife.
"Pretty soon," he replies morosely, "I'll be back still earlier."
"Is work slack again?" she asks, her cheek growing paler.
"It's another trouble, not that," he says. "It's a new law, a bitter law." To his little daughter he adds: "Sleep, child, you will soon have time to sleep all day."
His ignorant wife does not understand.
"A new law? What is that? What does it mean?" she asks.
"It means that I can work only ten hours a day."
Then they calculate how much money he can make in ten hours. Now he works nineteen hours, and they have nothing to spare. Under the new law he will be idle seven or eight hours a day. What will they do? She thinks the boss must be responsible for the terrible arrangement, for does not all trouble come from the boss? He is irritated by her simplicity, and she begins to weep. The little girl is overjoyed at the thought that she will no longer have to work, but tries to conceal her pleasure. The laborer, moved by his wife's tears, endeavors to comfort her.
"Ah," he says, "it's only a law! Two years ago there was one like it, but the work went on just the same." But she continues to weep until their evening meal is ready, when the children are aroused from their sleep to obey "the supper law," Libin concludes in a spirit of tragi-comedy.
HE WAS BEWITCHED BY MATHEMATICS
"She Got Her Prize" is the title of a sketch in which unexhilarating comedy predominates. A laborer borrows some clothes to go to a party. In his absence his wife sells a number of rags to the old-clothes man, who innocently takes off her husband's only suit, carelessly put near the bundle he was to carry away. The husband does not notice the loss until the next day, when he has nothing to wear, cannot go to the shop, and so loses his job. "Betty" is the story of a girl who falls sick just before the day set for her wedding, and is taken to the hospital. The sketch pictures her in bed, reading a farewell letter from her lover who has deserted her. "Misery" is a prose poem, written by Libin when his child died. It has no plot, is merely the outcry of a simple, wounded heart, telling of pain, longing and wonder at the sad mystery of the world. A pleasing rhythm runs through the Yiddish, and as the author read it aloud it seemed, indeed, like a "human document." "A Child of the Ghetto," one of the longest and most detailed of all, is full of the sad, tho gently satiric, quality of Libin's art. The author meets a pedler on Ludlow Street, who recognizes him as the man who once saved his life by attracting to himself the snow-balls of a number of urchins who had been plaguing the pedler one cold winter day. They have a chat, and the author asks the ragged push-cart man how he is getting on in the world. The pedler replies that all of his class have their troubles—the fruit quickly spoils, and the "bees" (policemen) come around regularly for some of the "honey." But he has a sorrow all to himself. His oldest son is a mathematician, and no good. When in the Jewish school in Russia the little fellow had learned to figure, and had been figuring ever since. His father had found, much to his disappointment, that in America also the boy would have to spend some time in school. The "monkey business" of learning had ruined the child. He was bewitched by mathematics and studied all day long. Sent successively to a sweat-shop, a grocery, to tend a push-cart, he proved thoroughly incapable of learning any trade; was absent-minded and constantly calculating, and always lost his job. And his old father bemoaned the misfortune all day long as he sold his bananas on Ludlow Street.
Younger than Libin, less mature and less devoted to his art, with a very limited amount of work done; simpler and more naïve, if possible, than the older man, is Levin, a typesetter in the office of Vorwärts. His sketches are swifter and shorter than those of Libin, more effective and dramatic in form, with greater conventional relief of surprises and antitheses, but they have not so much feeling and do not manifest so high a degree of realistic art. In contrast with Libin, who aims only for the quiet picture of ordinary life, Levin seeks the poignant moment in the flow of daily events. With more of a commercial attitude toward his work, Levin is, consequently, in more comfortable circumstances. Like Libin, he has worked in the shops, is uneducated and has married a tailor girl. Like Libin, again, he takes his subjects from the sweat-shop, the tenement house and the street. He is a handsome, ingenuous young fellow of twenty-two years. Only eight of these have been spent in America, yet in this short time he has worked himself into the life of Hester and Suffolk streets to such an extent that his short sketches give most faithful glimpses of various little points of human nature as it shapes itself on the east side.
HE LEAVES HER WITH THE CART AND RUNS TO THE TENEMENT-HOUSE
"Where Is She?" is a striking and typical incident in the career of a push-cart pedler. The itinerant seller of fruit is doing some hard thinking one day in Hester Street. He is worried about something, and does not display the activity necessary for a successful merchant of his class. A vivid picture of the street is given—the passers-by, the tenement-houses, the heat. He knows that his business is suffering, but his thoughts dwell, in spite of himself, with his wife, who is about to be confined, perhaps that very day. Yesterday she had done the washing, but on this day, for the first time, remained in bed. But he must go to the street, as usual. Otherwise, his bananas would spoil. He worries, too, about the condition of his children, left without the care of their mother. A woman crosses the street to inspect his bananas. Perhaps a buyer, he thinks, and concentrates his attention. She selects the best bananas, those that will keep the longest, and asks the price. "Two for a cent," he says. "Too much," she replied. "I will give you two cents for five." That is less than they cost him, and he refuses, and she goes away, and then he is sorry he had not sold. Just then his little daughter runs hatless, breathless up to him. "Mamma," she says, and weeps. She can say no more. He leaves her with the cart and runs to the tenement-house, finds his little boy playing on the floor, but his wife gone. He rushes distractedly out, looks up the stairs, and sees clothes hanging on a line on the roof, where he goes and finds his wife. She had left the bed in order to dry the wash of the day before, and was unable to return. He carries her back to bed and returns to his push-cart.
"Put Off Again" is the story of a man and a girl who try to save enough money from their work in the sweat-shop to marry. They need only a couple of hundred dollars for clothes and furniture, and have saved almost that sum when a letter comes from the girl's mother in Russia: her husband is dead after a long illness, and she needs money. The girl sends her $70, and the wedding is put off. The next time it is the girl's brother who arrives in New York and borrows $50 to make a start in business. When they are again ready for the wedding, and the day set, the young fellow quarrels with the sweat-shop boss, and is discharged. That is the evening before the day set for the wedding, and the young man calls on the girl and tells her. "We must put it off again, Jake," she says, "till you get another job." They cling to each other and are silent and sad.
A sketch so simple that it seems almost childish is called "The Bride Weeps." It is a hot evening, and the people in the quarter are all out on their stoops. There are swarms of children about, and a bride and groom are embracing each other and watching the crowd. "Poor people," says the bride reflectively, "ought not to have children." "What do you know about it?" asks the groom, rather piqued. Their pleasure is dampened, and she goes to bed and wets her pillow with tears.
"Fooled," one of the most interesting of Levin's sketches, is the tale of an umbrella pedler. It is very hot in the Ghetto, and everybody is uncomfortable, but the umbrella pedler is more uncomfortable than any one else. He hates the bright sun that interferes with his business. It has not rained for weeks, and his stock in trade is all tied up in the house. He has no money, and wishes he were back in Russia, where it sometimes rains. He goes back to his apartment and sits brooding with his wife. "When are you going to buy us some candy, papa?" ask the children. Suddenly his wife sees a cloud in the sky, and they all rush joyfully to the window. The sun disappears, and the clouds continue to gather. The wife goes out to buy some food, the children say, "Papa is going to the street now, and will bring us some candy"; and the pedler unpacks his stock of umbrellas and puts on his rubber boots. But the clouds roll away, and the hated sun comes out again, and the pedler takes off his boots and puts his pack away. "Ain't you going to the street, papa?" ask the children sorrowfully. "No," replies the pedler, "God has played a joke on me."
Libin and Levin, altho they differ in the way described, are yet to be classed together in essentials. They are both simple, uneducated men who write unpretentious sketches about a life they intimately know. They picture the conditions almost naïvely without comment and without subtlety. Libin, in a way to draw tears, Levin with the buoyant optimism of healthy youth, notice the quiet things in the every-day life of the Yiddish quarter that are touching and effective.