But she turned down the first side street, dully conscious that she did not wish to meet her uncle, or any one—that, for a little space, all she desired was to be quite alone, that she might have time to forget the dread vision Paul Stein’s words had brought to her—the vision of a lonely form, of a bearded face, dead and upturned to a cold, white moonlight.
For several minutes, long as infinity, her darkened senses could hold nothing else, and it only faded when the gripping, never wholly absent memory of Philip May’s voice, calling her as out of the whole world, resumed its despotic sway. Over and again she had striven to banish from her life the memory of its passionate longing, though, at the same moment, came the recollection of how she had responded to it. It confounded reason. Had he had no provocation? Were not existing circumstances extenuating? What right had the Past to him—the Past with its—
Fifth commandment!
She raised her head as to a living voice—answered by the rebuke of Life. The flash of eternal truth smote her relentlessly. Fifth commandment—the far-seeing care of the man-of-God for the old! Heavy tears welled to her eyes at thought of the yearning old father, Joseph May, lying silent with his stilled griefs. The tie of blood—so Titan-strong in the Jew—was that the Middle Pillar upon which the House stood?139 She tried to beat back the swarming, lashing thoughts. And yet—and yet, came the passionate rebuttal, this sentimental care, this forever turning of the eyes backward for fear of treading on some outworn tradition, this tyrannous claim upon free will—was not that the power which impeded union, which, first suffocating, would finally stamp out individuality, and hold forever in leash the dream of barriers down, straining at the heart of life?
“I cannot understand it,” her tortured soul complained, tossed from sentiment to reason, striving to seize life by the forelock, demanding the answer which is only given when life is slipping through the fingers.
Alas! the answer did not lie with her. She recognized the futility of her struggle, and gave in at last. For her there remained only one comprehensible cry forevermore, and she lifted her woman soul to that, finding the common factor which reduces all to one denomination. She moved on, strong in surrender, prisoner to an unsought love for a man who was presently going out of her life as silently as he had entered it.
And his going away—she did not exalt it to any heroism—it was only, as Paul had said, common decency; but the silence of it, the loneliness of it, these were the smiting, possessive powers of it over a nature and love like Jean Willard’s. She ached in her helpless wistfulness. If she could have stretched out her hand to him, have seen him only once, to—
But, the test was granted, as, abruptly turning the corner, she came face to face with Philip May.
She stood still and held out her hand, looking straight and truly into his stern face.
“You were going without saying good by to us,” she explained, gently. “Was it quite fair?”
He commanded his bewilderment. “I thought so,” he said, quietly.
She tried again. “I—I wanted to ask you to take good care of some of my friends.”
“I shall remember. I think I know at least one.” His lips parted in a faint smile of understanding.
“And of yourself,” she added, in undaunted misery.
“Thank you.” He waited for her further pleasure.
She stood looking beyond.
“I shall not forget your order,” he repeated, and raised his hat in leave-taking, noticing her uncertainty of manner.
“I—” She raised her saddened eyes suddenly to his. The blood rushed responsively over both their faces.
“Which way are you going?” he demanded, on impulse.
“Anywhere—up this hill, I think.”
He turned and walked with her.
“You are very kind,” he said, with desperate control.
“No, no.”
“I could almost find it in me to speak to you. By heaven, I will—you have given me the chance!” But the leap of hope died down the next minute, leaving an inevitable memory in its stead.
They walked on silently for a space, as though weighted by the stillness of the dying day, removed by its pensive hold from all the world besides, they too alone, mounting the hilly, almost deserted streets.
He spoke abruptly. “Perhaps I misinterpret you,” he said. “I don’t want you to mistake me. I am still the same derelict you arraigned last year—egoist—”
She turned her head swiftly. “Forget that,” she sharply commanded.
“I have not changed,” he reiterated, harshly, “in spite of the lesson. I still stand stolidly by my first principles. But this is nothing to you.”
“It is very much to me.” She looked before her to the hill horizon.
A pale intensity of purpose settled over his features.
“I hated the badge of difference,” he gave forth between his teeth, holding back half, explaining, not pleading, according to his nature.
“Yes.”
“I had a dream of fusion with—my kind.”
Her lips set in sad understanding.
“I considered myself neither fakir nor fool.”140
“I know.”
“I said to myself, I am an individual, not a class.”
“I understand.”
“I said to myself, ‘What have I to do with Ghettoes?’”
She did not answer.
“I felt the warm, free sun of the present burning and quickening within me. I was strong and forward-looking. I decided I would not be fate’s social cripple linked by an invisible chain to a slavish past. I resolved to break the chain.”
She stood a moment before crossing the street and looked sadly up at him.
“I discovered you can never break the chain.”
The passionless words chimed fatally with the perfect stillness about them. They walked on under the weight of their finality, closer together, more apart from the rest of the world, for their stern meaning.
He bent his set, fighting face fully toward her. “I discovered there are other—closer—more binding links riveting us to the chain. For I succeeded in pulling at the chain—till my father fell.”
She had always demanded that any wrong-doer be punished—she had always agonized over the pain of any one’s punishment. She pressed her quivering lips close, keeping herself doggedly down.
“That is all,” he announced.
“Hush.” She could not bear his harsh reticence.
“Understand me—it has not made me any gladder to be a Jew than I was before—even though I know that the thought of the unfettered Jew is the same as that of the unfettered Christian, even though I have been taught that breed is stronger than creed—and even though I know that the Jew is no longer a religion apart—only a race apart.”
He raised his hat a moment as though it burned his brow. “I have never thanked God that I am different from other men,”141 he said, grimly, looking beyond her face for a second. Then he came back with a start to its pale beauty.
“I’m not worth thinking about, or troubling you about,” he said, thickly. “I had no hope of ever seeing you again—never of speaking to you, surely. This solitude with you has unmanned me. Forgive the intrusion if you can. You have been generosity itself in listening to me.”
“I am not generous,” she said, bitterly. “I am just a moral prig.”
The gleam of a tender smile shot into his eyes. “You are an idealist,” he began, gently. “All this apart, I could never reach the sky-line of your requirements, although I can look up to it as other men look up to their heaven.” He paused, his eyes lingering upon her; then he continued softly, “I have heard—have seen—much argument—but you—you are the only argument I know which makes me ready to stand by that for which you are the loyal—my only—torch-bearer. I have even thought that perhaps the ancient tyranny which still constrains us has endured—was only love-in-wisdom having you in design. Ah, you see, I cannot help myself—you have become my religion—if you are Jewish, must I not too be Jew?”
He tried to smile away his loss of control. But his hand groped toward her, only stopping, through force of memory, before it touched her.
“Does it pain you very much to know I love you?” he asked, quietly.
The voices of evening seemed suddenly hushed, awaiting her answer. She raised her eyes to his.
They walked on together over the hill.
* * * * *
In all beautifully risen San Francisco there is no prettier view than where she, sitting on her western hills, the sun in her eyes, gazes over the silvery waters of the bay curving out to meet the Golden Gate. In all her history, never did the meeting waters seem more fraught with meaning, and power, and high emprise, than toward five o’clock of the afternoon of May 25, 1898. For hours, the crowds here on the heights, on balconies, on housetops, as on the lower water front, had stood patient, breathless, many thus keeping silent tryst with those whose ship they had promised to watch till it should sink beyond the line of vision.
Just at five the signal came in the booming and banging of guns, the mad shrieking of whistles, the clang and clamor of bells. It brought the heart of the city to its throat in a prolonged sobbing, deafening cheer. Around the cove came the gay dancing flotilla, resplendent in fluttering bunting and flags and pennants, in the midst of which, black with humanity and war-paint, proudly breasting wind and billows, rode the pioneer fleet of invasion—the City of Peking in the lead, closely followed by the Australia and City of Sidney.142 It was the Peking, however, which carried the California First, and most of the watching eyes grew dim following her. Past volleying Alcatraz sped the inspiring pageant, past Fort Mason and the downs, past the white city of tents and the Presidio sending soldierly farewell, past the old fort, out through the open Gate, and so straight into the sunset.143 The sun shot down in a silver vapor. The vanishing ships were figures of mist.
In the press of the crowd near the mansion which lifts its terra-cotta beauty to the blue jewel above, two school-girls, standing hand in hand, began softly singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic.144
An old gentleman standing near reverently raised his hat. The girl beside him stood gazing after the mist-shapes—that look of yearning in her face which seeing eyes call prayer.