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For one thing, many of the Sons of Antomir, and others who came to their synagogue to hear the new singer, people who had mostly lived in poverty and ignorance at home, now had a piano or a violin in the house, with a son or a daughter to play it, and had become frequenters of the Metropolitan Opera House or the Carnegie Music Hall; for another, the New York Ghetto was full of good concerts and all other sorts of musical entertainments, so much so that good music had become all but part of the daily life of the Jewish tenement population; for a third, the audiences of the imported cantor included people who had lived in much larger European cities than Antomir, in such places as Warsaw, Odessa, Lemberg, or Vienna, for example, where they had heard much better cantors than Goldstein.

The cantors, in all the dignity of their white surplices, went on in somewhat uncertain voices, and the reed stop itself seemed hoarse, as if the instrument had been weeping; the priest, however, raised his hand to command silence and went and stood on the chancel steps, when everybody was silent at once.

Nevertheless those who think the author of Monsieur de Cantors timid and insipid are only short-sighted critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of The Dangerous Age to re-read La Crise. They will observe many points of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter.

In a series of photographic pictures, Smolenskin reproduces in detail the ways and exploits of all the bohemians of the ghetto, from the beggars up to the peripatetic cantors, their moral shortcomings, their spitefulness, and their insolence. Impelled by the wish to acquire an education, and perhaps also put a roof over his head, Joseph finally enters a celebrated Yeshibah.

And as the cantors and the pious folk at worship sang Tantum ergo the Host was borne out through the gate at the east end of the choir to the Lady altar. To Paul it seemed as if the full meaning of the Roman Catholic faith was borne upon him for the first time.

And there was the organist playing away at his raised seat in the body of the church, as if in a pew, visible to the naked eye of all; while two cantors in copes clapped pieces of wood together as a signal for the congregation to kneel or rise.

Celebrant and sung with the same impressive chant as on Palm-Sunday by three cantors wearing the alb, a black maniple and stole: they used formerly to recite it bare-footed. At those words "And bowing down his head he gave up the ghost" all kneel to adore their Redeemer.

The priest, who was not praying now, walked hurriedly behind them; the cantors and the musician with the "serpent" had disappeared by a narrow street, so as to get off their surplices without delay; and the sailors hurried along in groups. One thought prompted their haste, and made their mouths water. A good breakfast was awaiting them at "The Poplars."

The Squire beckoned to the priest to bear with him he himself knew best. "Further, remove none of the mourning draperies from the rooms, let everything remain as it was at the time of her burial. Let the selfsame cantors come from Debreczen and sing over me the same chants, and no other. Just what they sang over her, and the selfsame youths must do it. All those chants were so dear to me."

The people behind him, gradually grew calmer. The cantors, in all the dignity of their white surplices, went on in somewhat uncertain voices, and the serpent itself seemed hoarse, as if the instrument had been weeping; the priest, however, raised his hand, as a sign for them to be still, and went and stood on the chancel steps, when everybody was silent, immediately.