"Oh, the flesh-pots of Egypt. Even the vegetarians cannot forget them," remarked my companion. "They who led the strikes among the sweat-shop workers in the course of time became heartless capitalist bosses; and there were Anarchists, who wanted to abolish all laws, who became lawyers and went into politics. One by one many of the promising young men of the Ghetto broke their promises and left the uplifting movements they brought into existence. Some died, some married for love of money, some took wives unto themselves, some became lawyers and doctors, some dentists, some wire-pullers, some went into politics, and some moved to Brooklyn. Compromise? They all hated that word and then—they compromised.
"Recently I have been thinking of three particular stages of the game—this grim and gruesome little game called life," said Keidansky. "The first is when we sternly demand the truth, the second when we ask for justice, and the third—when we beg for mercy—
"There you are with your eternal questions. It was Zolotkoff who once called the Jew, bent and bowed by his sorrows and fearful of the future—it was he who called the Jew a living interrogation point. You just reminded me of the simile. But no; I cannot tell you at which of the three stages I have arrived. I am at all and at none. What I really want I never ask for, because I hardly know what it is, and cannot formulate the demand. If I knew just what they were, perhaps I wouldn't want these things. Yet sometimes I think if I could play, if I could play the violin, I would express these starved longings and stifled yearnings. I could not only tell, but in the expression perhaps find what I want. In words I cannot do it; they are so formal, definite, rough. The other day my friend, the violinist, came and played for me. 'I'll tell you a story,' he said, and he took his violin and played—a beautiful, thrilling story. The Unknowable was revealed for a moment; and it occurred to me then that if I could play, I, too, might perform the miracle of expression, which proves the divinity of music. As it is, I cannot tell my desires; and yet I want but little here below and I don't want anything up above—"
"You don't mean to renounce your part of the world to come?" I asked.
"I don't know that it is coming to me," said Keidansky. "Besides I am a little bit 'shy' on the world to come. I am afraid it is fashioned too much on the style of this one, and down here, you know, I am sometimes tired of everything. The entire panorama is so farcical, the whole game so monotonous, and our heroics are so ludicrous. The valetudinarians make me sick. I am weary of 'The Book of Jade,' and clever people are awful bores. Yes, I am somewhat afraid of the second story they call the other world, for it may really come, and history might repeat itself, even up there.
"The mortal fear of oblivion makes one crave for immortality; but, perhaps, one life is enough. No matter how sinful, or how saintly, a human being has been, one world is sufficient of a punishment. Virtue is its only reward; evil is its own punishment. The life beyond—is beyond. Let it stay there.
"Promises of Heaven and threats of the Midway do not move me so much now, for the chances are that they are one and the same thing, and this is the only place we are sure of and ought to make the most of. There is some good down here in spite of the reformers. The good is right beside the evil, and we can seldom tell the difference. The saint and the sinner often exchange pulpits and each proves the imperfection of the other. Paradise is right next door to Purgatory; in fact, you want to be careful when you are around that way lest you enter the place you weren't sent to. We ought to make the most of it, I say, and I know I am right, because I have been condemned by a number of orthodox rabbis."
"You contradict yourself," I said.