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lavish Periodical Carter
CLIFTON AVENUI • CINCINNATI 20, OHIO
PAGE THREE
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After Strange Gods
By ELMA EHRLICH LEVINGER
(Copyright, 1921, by lima Ehrlich Levinger. All rights reserved.)
As Marianna Raphela, to use the figure clad in its expensive simpl I ity,
name by which she was known the well-kept luxuriant hair and brill-
throughout the American and Europ- iant eyes; his thoughts flew back to
e an press, guided her smart little a scrawny little girl with tangled hair,
electric acress the bridge which spans clad in ill-fitting garments, playing
Chicago's river, she smiled a trifle with him in a certain dingy court not
ironically at the errand which had far from Jefferson street. He tossed
brought her out of her bed at the un- his head impatiently and dismissed
Now, fresh the dream playmates back to the past
godly hour of eleven.
from her bath, clad in the expensive whence he summoned them.
simplicity of her Paris garments, the , ',jou have beeonie a great singer,"
popular prima donna half regretted he said at last. "Sometimes I read
the sentimentality that had drawn her about you in the papers. Once--three
back to the little whole near Jetier- years ago I went down to the Audi-
son street. "If I did have a religious torium to hear you sing. I did not
spasm, why didn't I go to one of the eat much for several days that I
South Side Temples for the Rosh might buy a ticket," he added simply.
Ilashona services?" she asked herself,
Hating herself for her cold-blooded
but she did not turn back.
detachment, the star realized how
Over the streets of that section of prettily her press agent could phrase
the city which Chicago reporters al- the story: humble Ghetto dweller
ways call "the Ghetto" brooded a denying himself bread to hear the
strangely peaceful hush. Marianna, great singer. lint all she said was:
with her sensitive artist's instinct, felt And you liked me?"
it and drove very slowly past the
"It was not you, he answered slow-
closed shops. Those poor fish-,nitiiMly, "only a strange woman in glitter-
gers and dealers in second-hand ing clothes. And you sang things
clothing could afford to close for the I did not understand. You belonged
fall holidays, she reflected, but last to a different world."
"But that was only while I was
night she had sung as usual even if it
did happen to be one of the great •inging," she expla ined patiently
festal days of her people. Her people! enough. What she herself often
She shrugged her handsome shoulders termed her vicious sentimentality'
impatiently; how foolish the words made her voice very gentle, her bril-
sounded from the lips of one who hunt eyes tender. "Often after my
never failed to declare herself a per- work is over—for it is really hard
feet cosmopolitan, a citizen of the work to sing and act although it
world. looks so simple to you, Jacob—after-
Yet the world she had deserted al- wards when I can rest, 1 think of
most twenty years ago was drawing other things. How I used to live down
her back into an almost forgotten here and go to school with brother and
past. Yes, that bleakly ugly building You and play afterwards with the
was the school she had hated so as other children. And once I sang at
she journeyed laboriously from the , at school entertainment. Do you re-
primary grade to the graduating class, member?"
each blackboard-lined room a gloomy
"You wore a white dress,' ,-he an-
prison; that little store with the swered unexpectedly, "and your hair
smeary windows was the one where was tied with red ribbon. And you'
her mother always sent her for the sang a song about flowers and the
Friday fish; there was the same old country.
I had never seen green
grocery on the corner. She tried to things growing in all my life before,
picture herself, a big-eyed youngster but I could see the fields and the
in shabby, ill-fitting clothes, passing' flowers in them while you sang."
her dreamy way down these narrow
"That was the day the rich visitor
ateets, but failed.
"Isolde" and from the South Side spoke to me,"
"Ilrunhilde" and "Elsa" were far Marianna said thoughtfully.
"She
more real to her than that frowsy promised to arrange for singi
ng les-
dream-child. 'sons for me; she said that some day .
But her memory had not played her I might become a great singer and
false and the trim little electric sped travel all over the world like a
unerringly to its destination, the o
shabby old schule not far from Jeffer-
"You told me after school," Jacob
son street. Suddenly Marianna wish-
reminded her, "and you said: 'I
ed she had not driven her car to the
don't want to be a queen; I just want'
very door of the schule; her father,
to marry you when I grow up.' "
she remembered, never rode on a Sab-
Something like a blush stained the
bath or Yomtov. And Marianna's good
"Don't
taste was revolted at the idea of of- woman's face and throat.
fending other Jews as pious as he children say the funniest things?"
who might be watching her from the she commented, her voice high and
doors of the synagogue. ; artificial.
Then she realized that there was
"Did you ever marry?"
no one to see her impious approach;
"Yes. One of my teachers over in
the doors were closed and through Paris. Ile was not a Jew. We were
them came the rise and fall of a divorced the year I came to America,
mighty tide, the sound of men and for my debut." Her voice had grown
women chanting and praying, a voice, sharp and cold like steel; somehow
high and powerful, rising above them she looked ten years older as a cer-
all. A sudden picture dimmed her tain grey look settled over her anima.:
eyes and left them wet; her father,', ted face.
•
g:
the ehazan, wrapped in his praying, "So as soon as you became success-I
shawl, leading the congregation. But
ful you deserted him just as you did
she knew that it was not his voice
your parents and—your friends,"
she heard now; the only letters she
people said Jacob mercilessly.
had received since leaving her
The grey look was gone; her eyes
had been the two curt scrawls from
her brother, informing her of her' flashed angrily. "How could I ever
rise
in the world if I never left Jeff-1
parents' death.
"I will remember
to Say Kaddish arson street," she cried . fiercely.
m
for them," he had written bitterly. 'What did you want me to ' do—give
And now, for some reason she herself up my chance of developing my voice
could not have explained the emend- I and marry you and have a half doz..
pated woman envied him the privilege en children like my mother and be
of performing what she had long con- glad if I could raise two? I'd be an
sidered an alien rite without meaning , old woman now and what would I
to a worshipper of the strange gods have for all my troublea and worries?"
"I am glad if you are so happy,"
she followed.
With a timidity the woman of the he told her, a touch of satire coloring
ly was!
his qui et v oice. "The r ich ad
world seldihn experienced she ap- •
queen.'
ht — you have grown up a
proaehed the closed doors and turned ' And a ueen
queen should kick every stone'
the knob. A little bent inn appear- from her path as she rises y
to her
ed in skull cap and talith, his bright throne. Your parents and I were only
P
'
eyes blinking at her curiously above stones,
we
' have no right to com-
t
-,
the heavy beard. To Marianna he.'
sort 0 f
sr
shrugged with
"
seemed to be a creature from another p
v.'
a never
ITI " Y ou v. were
m.
weary
world like the child in shabby gar- Jewish
t
ea. , , so p er a-
i n stoicis
t daughter
S iruil .er at hear
ments she had visioned passing down ' naps it is w
well you broke away form)
the streets of long ago. He stood your people.'
with head cocked a little to one side,
"And you?—Tell me about your
,
waiting for her to speak.
"I came to the services," Marianna, life," she urged. "Have you married?"
"No. Even if I cared to marry,
explained. "Perhaps I ani a little
rAg
late."
' how could I take care of a wife? You
"Have you a ticket?" he asked her know once I had dreams like you—
in broken English. there is not a throne for every one of
"No, but—" she fumbled at her us. I thought I might become a great
gold mesh bag, then stopped ember- writer. Well," drearily . , "I do write
ar- sometimes.
For the 1
widish papers
rasesd. A long forgotten
memory
rested her, her father berating her and they pay me a little—and I give.
brother for the heinous crime Of carry- Hebrew lessons so I do not starve.'
money on the Sabbath. And sometimes I write a poem—to
A young man canoe from one of please myself—and then destroy it.
the rear seats. Not so very young I keep my dreams safe where nobody
either, Marianna decided, after a , can hurt them—as you hurt the
quick glance, although there was dreams of mine." His voice had
something peculiarly boyish in his grown accusing.
"We were only children, I did not
keen dark face, in the gesture with
which he pushed hack the heavy understand—"
"I know," quickly, "I know you
waves of hair, clustering beneath the
rim of his shabby hat. Suddenly her were planning to go away from us.
breath came quickly, a startled I do not blame you. You had already
glance crept into her eyes. Were the gone to strange gods." He looked at
visions of the past growing " IT" - her almost insolently now. "Even if
cal, or did he really stand before her you had not, I would not have married
in the flesh after their separation of you For you never were a true
over twenty years?
daughter of our people."
"Jacob?" she faltered, wondering
She told herself that she was a fool
whether he would recognize her.
to resent the words of this half-
"Yes.
I didn't
to conscious
see you starved Ghetto Jew, yet again the in- •
here,
Miriam."
Ile think
became
Red blood stained her face and
that the old sexton was watching them Itilitroat. She saw with relief that their
curiously. I'll see that they crowd walk had led them hack to the syna-1
you up in the women's gallery if you
really want to come in," he told her, i.ogue and was about to climb the'
"but first let us take a little walk. stairs; but he stopped her.
"You said you woolo get me a
It is a long service you know, and we
can always come back." Ile spoke place," she reminded him.
Ile shook his head sullenly. "Your
simply enough, but her sensitive ear
detected an ironical note beneath his place is not with us, he told her.
"I thought at first you came back
last commonplace statement.
because you were lonely, because you
They walked down the quiet street
wanted us. But you say you are only
together, the old man in the doorway
thinking of us as • sort of show—
regarding them like a benevolent owl
to help you with your play next year.
before he returned to his prayers. That you may act a Jewish daughter
Marianna, whose laugh had always
been the freest, her tongue one of the upon the stage and laugh at us in
wittiest, at certain merry supper par- your heart. I would much rather have
ties after the opera, could not speak. a gentile come to us it he did so in
She did not know how to break the reverence."
Turning swiftly he knocked upon
silence that lay so heavily between
her and the sullen, brooding man who the closed doors. A moment later he
entered, leaving Marianna standing
walked at her side.
"Why did you come here today?" by her car, flushed and angry. With
Ile was the first to speak. Knowing a mocking little laugh she climbed
Jacob as she did, she realized it was into her trim electric. Yes, she had
no conventional question, uttered liven very foolish to come at all.
merely to break the constraint that Thank heavens, she hadn't explained
what had drawn her hack to the
oppressed them.
Embarrassed and ill at ease, she liedGhetto. The strange gods she had
glibly. Not for worlds would she have followed had showered her with gifts;
him know how each year found her why should she turn back to a past
more lonely for the half-forgotten that derided and mocked her?
But that night as her maid brushed
festivals of her people which she had
deserted along with her boyish lover out the singer's luxuriant hair and
may sing in a new placed the jeweled diadem of "Elsa"
years ago.
"I
opera next year," she told 'Jacob, "a upon her head, the girl was puzzled
Jewish one bared on 'Ivanhoe.' I'll to hear her mistress humming strange
have words t.) an unfamiliar melody.
be 'Rebecca,' of course, and so I
"I never heard Madame sing that
been prowling about a bit getting
e
st
.poed
•
little
before," she ventured.
'atmosphere.'" SI-
She
never heard Marianna sing it
confused, suddenly realizing how ,
meaningless the phrases of her pro- again. It was a simple Yiddish lulls-
sound to him. by Marianna had often heard Jewish
fession would
Jacob's mournful eyes took In the mothers sing as she had trotted home
him, the gracious' from school with Jacob at her side.
lovely picture beside
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