Other Things Being Equal

Chapter XVII

Monday night had come. As Ruth half hid a pale yellow bud in her heavy, low-coiled hair, the gravity of her mien seemed to deepen. This was partially the result of her father’s expressive countenance and voice. If he had smiled, it had been such a faint flicker that it was forgotten in the look of repression that had followed. In the afternoon he had spoken a few disturbing words to her:

“I have told your mother that Dr. Kemp is coming to discuss a certain project and desires your presence. She intends to retire rather early, and there is nothing to prevent your receiving him.”

At the distantly courteous tone she raised a pair of startled eyes. He was regarding her patiently, as if awaiting some remark.

“Surely you do not wish me to be present at this interview?” she questioned, her voice slightly trembling.

“Not only that, but I desire your most earnest attention and calm reasoning powers to be brought with you. You have not forgotten what I told you to consider, Ruth?”

“No, Father.”

She felt, though in a greater degree, as she had often felt in childhood, when, in taking her to task for some naughtiness, he had worn this same sad and distant look. He had never punished her nominally; the pain he himself showed had always affected her as the severest reprimand never could have done.

She looked like a peaceful, sweet-faced nun in her simple white gown, that fell in long straight folds to her feet; not another sign of color was upon her.

A calmness pervaded her whole person as she paced the softly lighted drawing-room and waited for Kemp.

When he was shown into the room, this tranquillity struck him immediately.

She stood quite still as he came toward her. He certainly had some old-time manners, for the reverence he felt for her caused him first of all to raise her hand to his lips. The curious, well-known flush rose slowly to her sensitive face at the action; when he had caught her swiftly to him, a sobbing sigh escaped her.

“What is it?” he asked, drawing her down to a seat beside him. “Are you tired of me already, love?”

“Not of you; of waiting,” she answered, half shyly meeting his look.

“I hardly expected this,” he said after a pause; “has your father flown bodily from the enemy and left you to face him alone?”

“Not exactly. But really it was kind of him to keep away for a while, was it not?” she asked simply.

“It was unusually kind. I suppose, however, you will have to make your exit on his entrance.”

“No,” she laughed quietly; “I am going to play the role of the audience to-night. He expressly desires my presence; but if you differ—”

He looked at her curiously. The earnestness with which she had greeted him settled like a mask upon his face. The hand that held hers drew it quickly to his breast.

“I think it is well that you remain,” he said, “because we agree at any rate on the main point,—that we love each other. Always that, darling?”

“Always that—love.”

The low, sweet voice that for the first time so caressed him thrilled him oddly; but a measured step was heard in the hall, and Ruth moved like a bird to a chair. He could not know that the sound of the step had given her the momentary courage thus to address him.

He arose deferentially as Mr. Levice entered. The two men formed a striking contrast. Kemp stood tall, stalwart, straight as an arrow; Levice, with his short stature, his stooping shoulders, and his silvery hair falling about and softening somewhat his plain Jewish face, served as a foil to the other’s bright, handsome figure.

Kemp came forward to meet him and grasped his hand. Nothing is more thoroughly expressive than this shaking of hands between men. It is a freemasonry that women lack and are the losers thereby. The kiss is a sign of emotion; the hand-clasp bespeaks strong esteem or otherwise. Levice’s hand closed tightly about the doctor’s large one; there was a great feeling of mutual respect between these two.

“How are you and your wife?” asked the doctor, seating himself in a low, silken easy-chair as Levice took one opposite him.

“She is well, but tired this evening, and has gone to bed. She wished to be remembered to you.” As he spoke, he half turned his head to where Ruth sat in a corner, a little removed.

“Why do you sit back there, Ruth?”

She arose, and seeing no other convenient seat at hand, drew up the curious ivory-topped chair. Thus seated, they formed the figure of an isosceles triangle, with Ruth at the apex, the men at the angles of the base. It is a rigid outline, that of the isosceles, bespeaking each point an alien from the others.

There was an uncomfortable pause for some moments after she had seated herself, during which Ruth noted how, as the candle-light from the sconce behind fell upon her father’s head, each silvery hair seemed to speak of quiet old age.

Kemp was the first to speak, and, as usual, came straight to the point.

“Mr. Levice, there is no use in disguising or beating around the bush the thought that is uppermost in all our minds. I ask you now, in person, what I asked you in writing last Friday,—will you give me your daughter to be my wife?”

“I will answer you as I did in writing. Have you considered that you are a Christian; that she is a Jewess?”

“I have.”

It was the first gun and the answering shot of a strenuous battle.

“And you, my child?” he addressed her in the old sweet way that she had missed in the afternoon.

“I have also done so to the best of my ability.”

“Then you have found it raised no barrier to your desire to become Dr. Kemp’s wife?”

“None.”

The two men drew a deep breath at the sound of the little decisive word, but with a difference. Kemp’s face shone exultantly. Levice pressed his lips hard together as the shuddering breath left him; his heavy-veined hands were tightly clinched; when he spoke, however, his voice was quite peaceful.

“It is an old and just custom for parents to be consulted by their children upon their choice of husband or wife. In France the parents are consulted before the daughter; it is not a bad plan. It often saves some unnecessary pangs—for the daughter. I am sorry in this case that we are not living in France.”

“Then you object?” Kemp almost hurled the words at him.

“I crave your patience,” answered the old man, slowly; “I have grown accustomed to doing things deliberately, and will not be hurried in this instance. But as you have put the question, I may answer you now. I do most solemnly and seriously object.”

Ruth, sitting intently listening to her father, paled slowly. The doctor also changed color.

“My child,” Levice continued, looking her sadly in the face, “by allowing you to fall blindly into this trouble, without warning, with my apparent sanction for any relationship with Christians, I have done you a great wrong; I admit it with anguish. I ask your forgiveness.”

“Don’t, Father!”

Dr. Kemp’s clinched hand came down with force upon his knee. He was white to the lips, for though Levice spoke so quietly, a strong decisiveness rang unmistakably in every word.

“Mr. Levice, I trust I am not speaking disrespectfully,” he began, his manly voice plainly agitated, “but I must say that it was a great oversight on your part when you threw your daughter, equipped as she is, into Christian society,—put her right in the way of loving or being loved by any Christian, knowing all along that such a state of affairs could lead to nothing. It was not only wrong, but, holding such views, it was cruel.”

“I acknowledge my culpability; my only excuse lies in the fact that such an event never presented itself as a possibility to my imagination. If it had, I should probably have trusted that her own Jewish conscience and bringing-up would protest against her allowing herself to think seriously upon such an issue.”

“But, sir, I do not understand your exception; you are not orthodox.”

“No; but I am intensely Jewish,” answered the old man, proudly regarding his antagonist. “I tell you I object to this marriage; that is not saying I oppose it. There are certain things connected with it of which neither you nor my daughter have probably thought. To me they are all-powerful obstacles to your happiness. Being an old man and more experienced, will you permit me to suggest these points? My friend, I am seeking nothing but my child’s happiness; if, by opening the eyes of both of you to what menaces her future welfare, I can avert what promises but a sometime misery, I must do it, late though it may be. If, when I have stated my view, you can convince me that I am wrong, I shall be persuaded and admit it. Will you accept my plan?”

Kemp bowed his head. The dogged earnestness about his mouth and eyes deepened; he kept his gaze steadily and attentively fixed upon Levice. Ruth, who was the cause of the whole painful scene, seemed remote and shadowy.

“As you say,” began Levice, “we are not orthodox; but before we become orthodox or reform, we are born, and being born, we are invested with certain hereditary traits that are unconvertible. Every Jew bears in his blood the glory, the triumph, the misery, the abjectness of Israel. The farther we move in the generations, the fainter grown the inheritance. In most countries in these times the abjectness is vanishing; we have been set upon our feet; we have been allowed to walk; we are beginning to smile,—that is, some of us. Those whose fathers were helped on are nearer the man as he should be than those whose fathers are still grovelling. My child, I think, stands a perfect type of what culture and refinement can give. She is not an exception; there are thousands like her among our Jewish girls. Take any intrinsically pure-souled Jew from his coarser surroundings and give him the highest advantages, and he will stand forth the equal, at least, of any man; but he could not mix forever with pitch and remain undefiled.”

“No man could,” observed Kemp, as Levice paused. “But what are these things to me?”

“Nothing; but to Ruth, much. That is part of the bar-sinister between you. Possibly your sense of refinement has never been offended in my family; but there are many families, people we visit and love, who, though possessing all the substrata of goodness, have never been moved to cast off the surface thorns that would prick your good taste as sharply as any physical pain. This, of course, is not because they are Jews, but because they lack refining influences in their surroundings. We look for and excuse these signs; many Christians take them as the inevitable marks of the race, and without looking further, conclude that a cultured Jew is an impossibility.”

“Mr. Levice, I am but an atom in the Christian world, and you who number so many of them among your friends should not make such sweeping assertions. The world is narrow-minded; individuals are broader.”

“True; but I speak of the majority, who decide the vote, and by whom my child would be, without doubt, ostracized. This only by your people; by ours it would be worse,—for she will have raised a terrible barrier by renouncing her religion.”

“I shall never renounce my religion, Father.”

“Such a marriage would mean only that to the world; and so you would be cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they rightfully belong to where they are not wanted.”

“Sir,” interrupted Kemp, “allow me to show you wherein such a state of affairs would, if it should happen, be of no consequence. The friends we care for and who care for us will not drop off if we remain unchanged. Because I love your daughter and she loves me, and because we both desire our love to be honored in the sight of God and man, wherein have we erred? We shall still remain the same man and woman.”

“Unhappily the world would not think so.”

“Then let them hold to their bigoted opinion; it is valueless, and having each other, we can dispense with them.”

“You speak in the heat of passion; and at such a time it would be impossible to make you understand the honeymoon of life is made up of more than two, and a third being inimical can make it wretched. The knowledge that people we respect hold aloof from us is bitter.”

“But such knowledge,” interrupted Ruth’s sweet voice, “would be robbed of all bitterness when surrounded and hedged in by all that we love.”

Her father looked in surprise at the brave face raised so earnestly to his.

“Very well,” he responded; “count the world as nothing. You have just said, my Ruth, that you would not renounce your religion. How could that be when you have a Christian husband who would not renounce his?”

“I should hope he would not; I should have little respect for any man who would give up his sacred convictions because I have come into his life. As for my religion, I am a Jewess, and will die one. My God is fixed and unalterable; he is one and indivisible; to divide his divinity would be to deny his omnipotence. As to forms, you, Father, have bred in me a contempt for all but a few. Saturday will always be my Sabbath, no matter what convention would make me do. We have decided that writing or sewing or pleasuring, since it hurts no one, is no more a sin on that day than on another; to sit with idle hands and gossip or slander is more so. But on that day my heart always holds its Sabbath; this is the force of custom. Any day would do as well if we were used to it,—for who can tell which was the first and which the seventh counting from creation? On our New Year I should still feel that a holy cycle of time had passed; but I live only according to one record of time, and my New Year falls always on the 1st of January. Atonement is a sacred day to me; I could not desecrate it. Our services are magnificently beautiful, and I should feel like a culprit if debarred from their holiness. As to fasting, you and I have agreed that any physical punishment that keeps our thoughts one moment from God, and puts them on the feast that is to come, is mere sham and pretence. After these, Father, wherein does our religion show itself?”

“Surely,” he replied with some bitterness, “we hold few Jewish rites. Well, and so you think you can keep these up? And you, Dr. Kemp?”

Dr. Kemp had been listening attentively while Ruth spoke. His eyes kindled brightly as he answered,—

“Why should she not? If all her orisons have made her as beautiful, body and soul, as she is to me, what is to prevent her from so continuing? And if my wife would permit me to go with her upon her holidays to your beautiful Temple, no one would listen more reverently than I. Loving her, what she finds worshipful could find nothing but respect in me.”

Plainly Mr. Levice had forgotten the wellspring that was to enrich their lives; but he perceived that some impregnable armor encased them that made every shot of his harmless.

“I can understand,” he ventured, “that no gentleman with self-respect would, at least outwardly, show disrespect for any person’s religion. You, Doctor, might even come to regard with awe a faith that has withstood everything and has never yet been sneered at, however its followers have been persecuted. Many of its minor forms are slowly dying out and will soon be remembered only historically; this history belongs to every one.”

“Certainly. Let us, however, stick to the point in question. You are a man who has absorbed the essence of his religion, and cast off most of its unnecessary externals. You have done the same for my—for your daughter. This distinguishes you. If I were to say the characteristic has never been unbeautiful in my eyes, I should be excusing what needs no excuse. Now, sir, I, in turn, am a Christian broadly speaking; more formally, a Unitarian. Our faiths are not widely divergent. We are both liberal; otherwise marriage between us might be a grave experiment. As to forms, for me they are a show, but for many they are a necessity,—a sort of moral backbone without which they might fall. Sunday is to me a day of rest if my patients do not need me. I enjoy hearing a good sermon by any noble, broad-minded man, and go to church not only for that, but for the pleasure of having my spiritual tendencies given a gentle stirring up. There is one holiday that I keep and love to keep; that is Christmas.”

“And I honor you for it; but loving this day of days, looking for sympathy for it from all you meet, how will it be when in your own home the wife whom you love above all others stands coldly by and watches your feelings with no answering sympathy? Will this not breed dissension, if not in words, at least in spirit? Will you not feel the want and resent it?”

Dr. Kemp was silent. The question was a telling one and required thought; therefore he was surprised when Ruth answered for him. Her quiet voice carried no sense of hysteric emotion, but one of grave grace.

She addressed her father; each had refrained from appealing to the other. The situation in the light of their new, great love was strained and unnatural.

“I should endeavor that he should feel no lack,” she said; “for so far as Christmas is concerned, I am a Christian also.”

“I do not understand.” Her father’s lips were dry, his voice husky.

“Ever since I have been able to judge,” explained the girl, quietly, “Christ has been to me the loveliest and one of the best men that ever lived. You yourself, Father, admire and reverence his life.”

“Yes?” His eyes were half closed as if in pain; he motioned to her to continue.

“And so, in our study, he was never anything but what was great and good. Later, when I had read his ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ I grew to see that what he preached was beautiful. It did not change my religion; it made me no less a Jewess in the true sense, but helped me to gentleness. To me he became the embodiment of Love in the highest,—Love perfect, but warm and human; human Love so glorious that it needs no divinity to augment its power over us. He was God’s attestation, God’s symbol of what Man might be. As a teacher of brotherly love, he is sublime. So I may call myself a christian, though I spell it with a small letter. It is right that such a man’s birthday should be remembered with love; it shows what a sweet power his name is, when, as that time approaches, everybody seems to love everybody better. Feeling so, would it be wrong for me to participate in my husband’s actions on that day?”

She received no answer. She looked only at her father with loving earnestness, and the look of adoration Kemp bent upon her was quite lost.

“Would this be wrong, Father?” she urged.

He straightened himself in his chair as if under a load. His dark, sallow face seemed to have grown worn and more haggard.

“I have always imagined myself just and liberal in opinion,” he responded; “I have sought to make you so. I never thought you could leap thus far. It were better had I left you to your mother. Wrong? No; you would be but giving your real feelings expression. But such an expression would grieve—Pardon; I am to consider your happiness.” He seemed to swallow something, and hastily continued: “While we are still on this subject, are you aware, my child, that you could not be married by a Jewish rabbi?”

She started perceptibly.

“I should love to be married by Doctor C——.” As she pronounced the grand old rabbi’s name, a tone of reverential love accompanied it.

“I know. But you would have to take a justice as a substitute.”

“A Unitarian minister would be breaking no law in uniting us, and I think would not object to do so; that is, of course, if you had no objection.” The doctor looked at him questioningly. Levice answered by turning to Ruth. She passed her hand over her forehead.

“Do you think,” she asked, “that after a ceremony had been performed, Dr. C—— would bless us? As a friend, would he have to refuse?”

“He would be openly sanctioning a marriage which according to the rabbinical law is no marriage at all. Do you think he would do this, notwithstanding his friendship for you?” returned her father. They both looked at him intently.

“Ah, well,” she answered, throwing back her head, a half-smile coming to her pale lips, “it is but a sentiment, and I could forego it, I suppose. One must give up little things sometimes for great.”

“Yes; and this would be but the first. My children, there is something radically wrong when we have to overlook and excuse so much before marriage. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;’ and why should we add trouble to days already burdened before they come?”

“We should find all this no trouble,” said Kemp; “and what is to trouble us after? We have now the wherewithal for our happiness; what, in God’s name, do you ask for more?”

“As I have said, Dr. Kemp, we are an earnest people. Marriage is a step not entered into lightly. Divorce, for this reason, is seldom heard of with us, and for this reason we have few unhappy marriages. We know beforehand what we have to expect from every quarter. No question I have put would be necessary with a Jew. His ways are ours, and, with few exceptions, a woman has nothing but happiness to expect from him. How am I sure of this with you? In a moment of anger this difference of faith may be flung in each other’s teeth, and what then?”

“You mean you cannot trust me.”

The quiet, forceful words were accompanied by no sign of emotion. His deep eyes rested as respectfully as ever upon the old gentleman’s face. But the attack was a hard one upon Levice. A vein on his temple sprang into blue prominence as he quickly considered his answer.

“I trust you, sir, as one gentleman would trust another in any undertaking; but I have not the same knowledge of what to expect from you as I should have from any Jew who would ask for my daughter’s hand.”

“I understand that,” admitted the other; “but a few minutes ago you imputed a possibility to me that would be an impossibility to any gentleman. You may have heard of such happenings among some, but an event of that kind would be as removed from us as the meeting of the poles. Everything depends on the parties concerned.”

“Besides, Father,” added Ruth, her sweet voice full with feeling, “when one loves greatly, one is great through love. Can true married love ever be divided and sink to this?”

The little white and gold clock ticked on; it was the only sound. Levice’s forehead rested upon his hand over which his silvery hair hung. Kemp’s strong face was as calm as a block of granite; Ruth’s was pale with thought.

Suddenly the old man threw back his head. They both started at the revelation: great dark rings were about his eyes; his mouth was set in a strained smile.

“I—I,” he cleared his throat as if something impeded his utterance,—“I have one last suggestion to make. You may have children. What will be their religion?”

The little clock ticked on; a dark hue overspread Kemp’s face. As for the girl, she scarcely seemed to hear; her eyes were riveted upon her father’s changed face.

“Well?”

The doctor gave one quick glance at Ruth and answered,—

“If God should so bless us, I think the simple religion of love enough for childhood. Later, as their judgment ripened, I should let them choose for themselves, as all should be allowed.”

“And you, my Ruth?”

A shudder shook her frame; she answered mechanically,—

“I should be guided by my husband.”

The little clock ticked on, backward and forward, and forward and back, dully reiterating, “Time flies, time flies.”

“I have quite finished,” said Levice, rising.

Kemp did likewise.

“After all,” he said deferentially, “you have not answered my question.”

“I—think—I—have,” replied the old man, slowly. “But to what question do you refer?”

“The simple one,—will you give me your daughter?”

“No, sir; I will not.”

Kemp drew himself up, bowed low, and stood waiting some further word, his face ashy white. Levice’s lips trembled nervously, and then he spoke in a gentle, restrained way, half apologetically and in strange contrast to his former violence.

“You see, I am an old man rooted in old ideas; my wife, not so old, holds with me in this. I do not know how wildly she would take such a proposition. But, Dr. Kemp, as I said before, though I object, I shall not oppose this marriage. I love my daughter too dearly to place my beliefs as an obstacle to what she considers her happiness; it is she who will have to live the life, not I. You and I, sir, have been friends; outside of this one great difference there is no man to whom I would more gladly trust my child. I honor and esteem you as a gentleman who has honored my child in his love for her. If I have hurt you in these bitter words, forgive me; as my daughter’s husband, we must be more than friends.”

He held out his hand. The doctor took it, and holding it tightly in his, made answer somewhat confusedly,—

“Mr. Levice, I thank you. I can say no more now, except that no son could love and honor you more than I shall.”

Levice bent his head, and turned to Ruth, who sat, without a movement, looking straight ahead of her.

“My darling,” said her father, softly laying his hand on her head and raising her lovely face, “if I have seemed selfish and peculiar, trust me, dear, it was through no lack of love for you. Do not consider me; forget, if you will, all I have said. You are better able, perhaps, than I to judge what is best for you. Since you love Dr. Kemp, and if after all this thought, you feel you will be happy with him, then marry him. You know that I hold him highly, and though I cannot honestly give you to him, I shall not keep you from him. My child, the door is open; you can pass through without my hand. Good-night, my little girl.”

His voice quavered sadly over the old-time pet name as he stooped and kissed her. He wrung the doctor’s hand again in passing, and abruptly turned to leave the room. It was a long room to cross. Kemp and Ruth followed with their eyes the small, slightly stooped figure of the old man passing slowly out by himself. As the heavy portiere fell into place behind him, the doctor turned to Ruth, still seated in her chair.