And there, of course, was the fear of what “they” would say.
“They” being the Jews more than the Christians; for the Christians would say anything in any case; and, as much as one might care for their opinion, there was nothing one could do to influence it.
“They look at us,” he thought, “like we think about the Etruscans: a strange people about whom we know nothing.
“The brand of religion you practice”—he framed his pronouncement in his mind—“can only be called furtive.
“You are backstreet Jews.”
He saw, in his mind, their reaction—the reaction of his fellow Jews, as he preached to them—mild and wondering, waiting, as if there were to be a predicate; “you are backstreet Jews,” and as they found there was none, they looked away, catching one another’s eyes to comment, as on an announcement that fire was hot.
“Furtive Jews.
“And in Leviticus it threatens desolation to the land if the Jews do not follow their commandments. And it says that in that desolation the land will enjoy those Sabbaths that the arrogant denied it. Could that not be applied,” he thought, “—as I’m sure it was applied, and could say if I knew the Talmud, if I knew the Commentators—to the weekly Sabbath? He Who Does Not Keep the Sabbath being brought low and, so, forced to rest?”
He hated the set of his face when he had had and was conscious of having had what he felt was a profound thought.
For his face relaxed and his eyes looked down and aside, and when he felt his face so conform, when he was conscious that he had been taken, for a moment, away from himself, he was pleased.
He felt his face, in this attitude, betrayed his new approach to wisdom, and he suspected that it made him handsome. Momentarily handsome, and he hated himself for the suspicion and for his enjoyment of it.
“Who am I to approach wisdom, and how can it be wisdom if it is, on the instant, perverted into vanity. How weak I am. How sickeningly weak I am.
“Even, as I do, even to feel superior to the …” He wagged his head from one side to the other, thinking, “the relatives … Who am I to feel this superiority?”
“Now: study,” he thought. “As they say, ‘Who rises refreshed from his prayers, his prayers have been answered.’ I wished for a Breguet watch. In a gold case. With my initials worked on the case. And I spoke of it. And my wife bought it for me. The happiness of my possession was marred by the thought that I had angled for it. For it was not a surprise, rather an anticipated fulfillment or disappointment, so how could I look to it without feelings of either greed or anger? I contrived it. I suffered for it. Did the watch keep better time than the Illinois? Or than the dollar Ingersoll? Yes. And then so what? For whenever I looked at it, what could I think, save, ‘This is the watch I pestered a woman for’?
“‘Of such, and of such quality,’ I would look at it and think, ‘that it never can decay. This is the watch I will have till I die. This is, in effect, my watch, and I pushed for it and I achieved it and now it is mine.’
“And now it is gone. They might have told me not to wear it to the jail. My wife might have had it. She might have had it now, and enclosed it in a glass bell on a stand. On an easel. Or hanging, yes …” He congratulated himself for not shrinking from the thought. “All right, the word is ‘gallows,’ and a watch, like anything else, can be suspended. And why, in the name of Christ, should I have worn it at the trial? And why have glanced at it, those how many times a day? For what?
“And yet. And yet. And, God knows, yet I could not help myself—as if there were going to be an end of it. When there was never an end of it. And yet I wore that watch. As if the chain were armor.
“And I wore it on the Sabbath. And I worked on the Sabbath, and I broke the Sabbath. What does it excuse me that thousands also did, that my relatives did, or that we never kept the Sabbath. Since our family—”
He looked up at the sound of the wooden door down the corridor, the old green door to the guard’s station, as it opened.
He nodded. Out there were the stove and the coffeepot and the deal table.
And the room was clean and pleasant.
He wondered if the guards knew how pleasant it was.
There was an odor to it. There was a smell of coffee, and he imagined he could almost smell the leather of the new briefcase—and hear it squeak—as his lawyer came down the corridor.