One of the younger men in the crowd was Makar. Seated in a snug corner, with his reading-desk tilted against his breast, he was sincerely absorbed in a passage on the slaying of cattle. The treatise is one of the most intricate in the Talmud, and he had taken it up as he might a game of chess. The lower part of his face was buried in the sloping surface of a huge long book, the handle of a tin candlestick hooked to the top of the folio. The flame of a guttering candle threw a stream of light upon his dusky high forehead and heavy black eyebrows. Slightly rocking the desk, he intoned the Chaldaic text and the Yiddish interpretations, listening to his own sing-song as one listens, at some distance, to a familiar voice.
Rabbi Rachmiel, Clara’s father, was studying quietly in a corner, in peaceful ignorance of the mad hunt that was going on for his daughter at this moment. That this red-bearded little man was the father of the Nihilist girl who had brought about his escape Makar had not the least idea.
After bidding Clara good-bye on the evening of his rescue, he had taken the first cab he came across, getting off at Cucumber Market, as directed. After zig-zagging about for five minutes, he was going to hail another cab, but checked himself because the man proved to be the same who had brought him to Cucumber Market. A boy stopped to look at him, whereupon he made up his mind that the official cap which he wore (and which had been expected to give him the appearance of a teacher in a government school for Jews) scarcely went well with his face, and that it must be this cap of his which had attracted the boy’s attention. He therefore went to a capmaker’s shop and bought an ordinary cap, such as is worn by the average old-fashioned Jew, explaining to the artisan that it was for his father, who had his size. This part of the town he knew well, for it was in the centre of the Jewish quarter, not many minutes’ walk from his former lodgings. The Old Synagogue was in the same neighbourhood, and it flashed upon him to seek temporary refuge in the celebrated house of worship and learning. Living in such a place was like hiding in the depths of the Fourth Century—the age of the Talmud, which was still the soul of the Ghetto, still the fountain-head of the spiritual and intellectual life of the orthodox Jew. He would be in his native element there, at any rate, and would certainly feel more comfortable than amid the imposing interiors of a noblewoman’s mansion. On his way to the synagogue he twisted the hair at his temples till he looked as he used to, before he left Zorki. As to his shave, he prepared an explanation: he was subject to a species of skin disease that made shaving unavoidable.
The assistant beadle at the Old Synagogue was a man with a luxurious white beard. He was not learned in the Talmud himself, but he had served in the great “house of study” so long that he was familiar with the titles of the various volumes and sections in the same way as an old servant at a medical college is familiar with anatomical nomenclature. He danced attendance on every diligent scholar, and was the terror of every boy who romped or talked “words of daily life” over his holy book. He was in charge of the synagogue library and the candle supply. His salary was no larger than that of a street labourer, yet he had the appearance of a stern, prosperous merchant.
When Makar first applied for a book and a candle the assistant beadle cast a knowing look at his smooth-shaven face, and then, handing him the volume, said:
“You are in the army, aren’t you?”
“How do you know, by my shaved face?” Makar asked, sadly.
The assistant beadle smiled assent. The skin-disease story proved unnecessary.
“There is many a Talmudist among soldiers nowadays,” the old man said. “To think of a Child of Law having to live in military bondage, to wear a uniform, to shave and to handle a gun!” He regarded Makar as a martyr. When he saw him reading his book in a pleasing, absorbed sing-song, he paused and watched him with a look of paternal admiration.
“Do you belong here?” he asked later.