“You have been disillusioned, and you speak severely,” said Cyril, with great sweetness. “I am thankful I never took the trouble to set up ideals, when I see how other people suffer in seeing theirs overthrown. But why don’t you blame the tyranny of centuries, which has reduced the Jews to this lamentable condition? You know the old excuse, that because the Jew has been allowed to deal with nothing but money, he has come to think that nothing but money exists.”
“But the Jew has allowed himself to be degraded.”
“Oh, come, I see disappointment has made you merciless. Perhaps you may be induced to modify the rigour of your judgments before long. I shall be interested to see what you think of Herschel Rubenssohn, the Ghetto poet, when we meet him in Palestine. He was the pet of London society a year ago, and now he is a bonâ fide colonist.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE CHURCH MILITANT AND ORTHODOX.
It was at a newly-established colony of Scythian Jews in the neighbourhood of Hebron that the travellers found Herschel Rubenssohn, roughly clad and labouring with his own hands like one of the fellahin. He had turned his back deliberately upon the days when English hearts had thrilled in response to his rehearsal of the tragedy of his race, and the Anti-Semites of the Continent had been lashed to frenzy by his cutting sarcasm. The pen was laid aside, and the poet was intent on the best methods of cultivating olives, and on finding new species of vines unaffected by the diseases which attacked those native to the country. Even these lowly tasks could not be performed in peace, for he was called upon incessantly to quell the disputes which arose among the pale-faced, gaberdined and ringleted denizens of the Ghetto who were his fellow-colonists. It was his duty, also, to act as interpreter for them with the Roumi authorities, and to mediate in the many misunderstandings that broke out between them and the peasants who worked for them. Cyril’s invitation to dinner he accepted with unfeigned pleasure, confessing that when he left London he had little expected ever to regard an opportunity of donning evening dress as an occasion of rejoicing. The momentary return to the old life, which he had so often contemned, after the manner of poets, as false and hollow, was a keen delight to him, and Mansfield found it hard to believe that the vague-eyed man of the world, who knew his London so thoroughly, could be one and the same with the industrious toiler of the morning. Presently, however, the curious effect produced by the contrast of the sunburnt face with the whiteness of the forehead where the hat had shaded it attracted his attention. Looking more closely at the guest, he saw that his delicate hands were roughened and blistered within, and he conceived a growing admiration for the man who had voluntarily left a life of ease for one of toil, purely in the hope of setting an example to his nation.
But this admiration was not fated to endure very long. As Rubenssohn grew accustomed to the company in which he found himself, the vagueness left his eyes. In Cyril he discovered one who appealed to a different side of his nature, and a mocking spirit took possession of him. Mansfield and the melancholy Paschics listened with bated breath while the guest embarked upon a career of destruction, sparing neither the beliefs common to mankind generally nor those of his own people. He ridiculed with the utmost impartiality the ideas of love and immortality, the tyranny of the Law, and the Messianic hopes of Rabbi Schaul. The keen arrows of his wit played round each subject in turn, disclosing with cruel certainty the weak spot or the flaw. He made no attempt to deny the degradation of his people, and in Mansfield’s view he proposed no remedy for it. He believed in the Jewish race, it seemed, and he accorded a qualified toleration to Judaism on account of its services in the preservation of the race, but his Judaism possessed neither prophecies nor the hope of a Messiah, and existed independently of any religious sanctions. Its ecclesiastical system had been evolved naturally enough during the progress of the race, and ascribed, as other nations ascribed their religions, to the guidance of a higher power. Freedom, toleration, a more natural mode of life, these things would in his view raise the Jews far above the level of other nations, and then the old fetters which had held the race together might safely be shaken off. Mansfield thought of the prosperous Jews whom he had met at Alexandria, and who enjoyed all these blessings already, and his heart rose in revolt against Rubenssohn’s philosophy. If this was to be the end, if the Jews had remained a separate people merely that in the end of the ages they might be better fed, clothed, housed, than the nations, throwing aside callously the prophecies which had cheered them and the faith that had sustained them in their sorrows, if they were to be bereft at once of hope and of religion, then the heaviest of their former woes would be a lighter curse than their new prosperity.
“I had rather be in the wrong with Lady Phil and Princess Soudaroff than in the right with Rubenssohn,” he decided, remembering how often he had listened to the old lady as she expounded her views on the Jewish question and her interpretation of prophecy, Philippa at her side concurring enthusiastically in all that was said. This time, however, he did not confide his feelings to Cyril.
Jerusalem was the next place of interest to be reached, and Mansfield had mapped out for himself a very definite plan for occupying his leisure hours here. He intended to visit all the missionary establishments in and around the city in which Lady Caerleon was interested, and to photograph them and their inmates. Any spare time was to be devoted to views of Jerusalem itself, and by dint of these labours Mansfield hoped to provide a peace-offering which would not be unacceptable to Philippa’s mother, and might even tend to soften her heart towards him. But his plans were interrupted, and his fair project brought to a premature conclusion, owing to the greed of human nature. No sooner was it known that Cyril had arrived in Jerusalem than his lodgings were fairly besieged. Jews, Mohammedans and Christians, Syrians, Levantines, Greeks, Albanians, European adventurers of all nations, crowded to wait upon him. Since the famous revelations of Dr Texelius, so promptly contradicted by the Pannonian official papers, nothing had been said of Count Mortimer as a candidate for the governorship of Palestine, but there appeared to be a general feeling that the future of the country lay in the hands of this unpretending traveller, and the time-servers would not lose their opportunity. Some of them wanted concessions and some contracts, some Government offices and some commissions in the Jewish army or police, some wished merely to gain the general goodwill of the possible ruler, and some were anxious to confer benefits on him, in the shape of invitations to their houses, or gifts of horses, carpets, and works of art, without, of course, the slightest ulterior design. Cyril disappointed them grievously by refusing alike their favours and their requests, assuring them that he was simply an agent of the Syndicate, and Mansfield developed a prickly suspiciousness that made him distrust any one who addressed him civilly. This was the result of an adventure of his own. Pausing in a back street one day to photograph a picturesque archway, he was accosted by a respectable citizen, who invited him into his garden, where was to be seen a piece of ruined wall on which no tourist’s eye had ever lighted. Mansfield accepted the invitation, took two or three photographs, and submitted to be regaled with coffee and sweetmeats, all before he discovered that his host had recognised him, and was anxious to obtain the contract for clothing the army of the Jewish State. Then he rose up and fled, with his faith in humanity sorely shattered, and kept rigidly to the beaten track until he was rejoiced by Cyril’s decision to leave the city for a short time. Business was impossible while the envoy was so persistently mobbed, and it was advisable to pay a flying visit to Jericho, since a sheikh in the neighbourhood of that place had threatened to make himself disagreeable with regard to the fords of the Jordan.
It was clear that Cyril’s movements must be kept to some extent a secret, if he was to conduct the negotiations with the Roumi authorities, for which he had come, without being pursued into the very audience-chamber by the greedy throng of privilege-hunters. Accordingly, he put the matter into the hands of the Chevalier Goldberg’s agent, who secured him quarters for the night at Jericho, in the house of a wealthy Jew, and despatched beforehand all that was necessary for comfort. In this way Mansfield and his employer were able to leave Jerusalem as if for a morning ride, and meeting, when out of sight of the city, the guide and escort provided for them, ride on at once to Jericho. The sight of the huge Scythian hospice, constructed of late years for the accommodation of pilgrims, suggested to Mansfield that their visit might have excited less remark in the place if they had sought a lodging there, but Cyril laughed at the idea.
“I didn’t know you were so anxious to see the last of me,” he said. “The monks would indeed think that their enemy was delivered into their hand, and it would be sheer ingratitude not to prepare a special cup of coffee for his benefit.”