“And your pictures? Do your pictures count for nothing?”
“Oh!” cried Elias, with a sudden outburst of passion, “don't talk to me of my pictures. I should like to burn every stitch of canvas that I have ever put my hand to, and spoiled for better purposes. I have burned all that remained in my possession. As long as I live, I shall never touch a brush again.”
From which it would appear that our hero had wrought himself into a very unenviable, frame of mind.
To narrate at length what followed would be melancholy; and it would be superfluous. Tillie and Elias became engaged. Their engagement was cele-brated by three redoubtable dinners—one at the Sternbergs', one at the Kochs', and one at the dark house on Stuyvesant Park. Their wedding was set down for the following January. Then, according to the regular Jewish custom, for three successive Sunday afternoons, they were “at home” at the residence of the prospective bride. Hither flocked scores, even hundreds, of their friends, and offered their congratulations—their friends, and their friends' friends, and the friends of all relatives and connections, far and near. Much wine was drunken at these receptions, much cheese-cake eaten, much tobacco smoked; and oh, what a quantity of talk, in what a variety of accents, from best to worst, roused cacophonic echoes in the walls and ceiling! Among our New York Jews, it may be said with material literalness, a subtle chain of countless rings the next unto the farthest brings. If one had wished to obtain a bird's-eye-view of the metropolitan Jewish world, to behold in indiscriminate procession all sorts and conditions of Jews and Jewesses, one could not have done better than arrive early and remain till the end of one of these Sunday afternoons. Old and young, good and bad, wise and foolish, rich and poor, savage and civilized; fat Jews and lean Jews, shabby Jews and shoddy Jews, gentlemanly Jews and rowdy Jews; petty tradesmen, banker princes, college professors, commercial travelers, doctors, lawyers, students, musicians: all came, accompanied by their wives and their children, their parents, and their parents-in-law, and their brothers and sisters-in-law, to add their quota to the great jubilation. And such a lot of hand-shaking as there was transacted among them, to be sure; for, at a congratulation-party of this description, you must not only shake hands with the betrothed couple and their immediate family, but likewise with each of your fellow-guests, pronouncing, as you do so, the shibboleth: “Congratulate you,” or, “Gratulire.” Then, as has been said, there was an unceasing flow of wine, tobacco smoke, and talk; and the place sounded like a stock exchange or bedlam.
This sort of thing—sitting for joy, it is sometimes called—may be sufficiently amusing for a while; but three successive Sundays of it are rather too much; and Elias and Tillie were both heartily glad when at last it was over.
Tillie, all smiles and blushes and animation, was the happiest of happy little persons. Over and above the generous settlement he was to make for her at her marriage, Mr. Koch had drawn a check to her order for no less dazzling a sum than two thousand dollars, the proceeds of which she and her mother were now very busy spending for her trousseau. Elias could not help catching something of her good spirits. He could not remain quite dejected or impassive in the presence of such an exuberant joy as hers. He began to be fonder of her than ever, even, he sometimes told himself, to love her after a fashion; but it was a neutral, passionless sort of love, and had its source, not in impulse, but in habit. He looked forward with a certain mild pleasure to his union with her, and was mildly thankful that he had followed the rabbi's counsel. They were not much alone together, he and she; and when they were, their deportment was far enough from lover-like. He, indeed, seldom opened his mouth, save to answer a question, or to utter a sympathetic oh or ah; but listened to Tillie's vivacious descriptions of the dresses she was having made, or sat silent in the bay-window, and watched the boats sail by on the river, while she played his favorite music to him. He took her and her mother to the theater as often as either expressed a desire to go, and tried heroically not to yawn or appear bored. He escorted them, also, to a good many dancing parties, and dinner parties, as well as to the famous Advance Club ball, where Tillie excited a vast deal of admiration as an ear of corn, and just narrowly missed the prize, getting instead an honorable mention.
Alone, Elias persistently fought shy of himself, persistently shunned self-communion. He dared not open his eyes, and look himself squarely in the face. He knew that it would not be an inspiriting spectacle. His studio he had locked up, with the resolution never to touch his paints any more forever. He sought to escape from himself in reading; and, indeed, he read an astonishing multitude of books upon an astonishing multitude of subjects. But now and then, in spite of his efforts to be blind, the actual Elias Bacharach would loom up big before him, in all his ghastly demoralization; and sick with self-loathing, he would bury his face in his hands, and demand bitterly, impotently, why he had ever been born? what single earthly purpose he was good for? why he could not be abolished utterly forthwith? But these dark moods, or lucid intervals, were commonly of short duration. He was generally able to forget them in a novel. He watched his wedding-day draw near and nearer, without the slightest quickening of the pulse. As I have said, he took a certain insipid pleasure in the thought of his marriage. He fancied it would be rather agreeable than otherwise to have Tillie a constant inmate of his house. She would brighten it up, put a little electricity into its atmosphere, relieve the excessive tedium of life in it. But this pleasure was very mild indeed; the languid pleasure that one might experience at the prospect of becoming the owner of a languidly admired vase or piece of furniture. Yes, he was glad enough that it was going to be his; but he did not care a great deal one way or the other; and as the day approached which was to inaugurate his proprietorship, he felt no flutter of the heart, no accession of eagerness or interest. Tillie's excitement, on the contrary, intensified perceptibly. It had the effect of beautifying her, and of civilizing her. With heightened color and brightened eyes, she was an exceedingly pretty girl, one that any man might have been proud of for his bride. Then, she did not talk half so loudly as she had used to do; and her choice of words, phrases, and figures, underwent a notable modification for the better. The adjectives, grand, ideal, elegant, fearful, and such like, for example, dropped almost entirely out of her daily speech.
Of course, before long, the wedding-presents began to come in. Tillie's delight knew no bounds. Every evening Elias discovered her in an ecstasy over the things that had arrived that day, and joyfully anticipating those that would arrive to-morrow. Some of these presents made the poor fellow groan inwardly. Mr. Blum, for instance, sent an enormous worsted-work picture of Ruth and Boaz, with a charming, though misapplied, inscription cunningly embroidered in gold thread: “Whither thou goest, I will go,” etc. Elias knew that this would have to be hung in a conspicuous place in his house; for, of course, when Mr. Blum came to see them, he would look for it, and, if it wasn't visible, would feel hurt and slighted. Mrs. Blum sent a pair of diamond ear-rings. Tillie at once put them on; and she never afterward appeared without them; so that, from this point, whenever she figures upon these pages, the reader will kindly imagine a lustrous solitaire pendent from each of her tiny ears. They were large and handsome; and Mr. Blum confidentially informed Elias that he had got them at a bargain, but that they had coast him a heap of money all the same.
Neither Mr. Sternberg's parlors, nor Mr. Koch's, were spacious enough to accommodate a tithe of the people who would have to be invited to the wedding; and therefore it was decided to follow the common Jewish practice, and engage for the occasion a public hall. Mr. Koch engaged the hall of the Advance Club.
There, accordingly, in the afternoon of Monday, the seventh of January, 1884, and in the presence of rather more than three hundred witnesses, Mr. Elias Bacharach and Miss Matilda Morgenthau were pronounced irrevocably man and wife; the Reverend Dr. Gedaza, assisted by the Reverend Mr. Lewis, as cantor, officiating. The ceremonies were conducted in the strictest orthodox style. The happy couple stood beneath a silken canopy, supported by four young gentlemen designated by the groom; all the men present covered their heads, some with hats, some with handkerchiefs; the cantor intoned an invocation, a prayer, a benediction; the rabbi put the requisite questions, and got the regulation responses, both in Hebrew; after which, he made a very pretty and touching speech, kissed the bride, and said, “Mrs. Bacharach, accept my heartiest congratulations.” The wine, meanwhile, had been spilled and drunken, and the goblet crushed under the bridegroom's heel. For upwards of an hour afterward, there was a wild clamor of talk; and every body shook hands with Elias, and gave Tillie a kiss. Then they all sat down to dinner. The chazzan chanted a grace. The banqueters fell to. By and by toasts were proposed, and harangues delivered. The dancing began at eleven o'clock, and held out until five the next morning.