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"Mad! Mad!" said Pinchas, tapping his brow significantly; "mad, the old snuff-and-pepper-box." He smiled at the recollection of his latest phrase. "These scholars stagnate so. They see not enough of the women. Ha! I will go and see my actress." He threw out his chest, puffed out a volume of smoke, and took his way to Petticoat Lane. The compatriot of Rachel was wrapping up a scrag of mutton.
'She play "Ophelia"! She would not dream of such a thing. She is a saucy soubrette; she belongs to vaudeville. 'All right. I have warned you. 'You don't think there is really a danger! Pinchas was pale and shaking. 'The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and wives, unfortunately, live and play together, said the old dramatist drily.
Pinchas was dithyrambic, sublime, with audacities which only genius can venture on. He was pungently merry over Imber's pretensions to be the National Poet of Israel, declaring that his prosody, his vocabulary, and even his grammar were beneath contempt.
All night he wrote the play at railway speed, like a night express puffing out volumes of smoke as he panted along. "I dip my pen in their blood," he said from time to time, and threw back his head and laughed aloud in the silence of the small hours. Pinchas had a good deal to do to explain the next day to the actor-manager where the fun came in.
He beat against them with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell. Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor Pinchas till the first night and the third act of the Yiddish 'Hamlet. He had reconciled himself to his extrusion from rehearsals. 'They fear I fire Ophelia, he told the café. But a final blow awaited him.
No, let us fight to get back our country ve vill not hang our harps on the villows of Babylon and veep ve vill take our swords vid Ezra and Judas Maccabaeus, and " "One thing at a time, Pinchas," said Simon Wolf. "At present, we have to consider how to distribute these food-tickets.
I vill never ask another favor of you in all my life. Ve are already like brothers hein? I and you, the only two men " "Yes, yes," interrupted Raphael, "it shall appear next week." "God bless you!" said Pinchas, kissing Raphael's coat-tails passionately and rushing without.
But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet, whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery.
By good fortune I assisted at the foundation of the Holy Land League, now presided over by Gideon, the member for Whitechapel. I was moved to tears by the enthusiasm; it was there I made the acquaintance of Strelitski. He spoke as if inspired. I also met a poverty-stricken poet, Melchitsedek Pinchas, who afterwards sent me his work, Metatoron's Flames, to Harrow. A real neglected genius.
"I vill give you from the Pierian spring bucketsful," said Pinchas in a flush of generosity. "Thank you, I shall be much obliged," said Raphael, heartily, "for I don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as Mr. Sampson suggests." He flung his arms out and drew them in again. It was a way he had when in earnest. "Then, I should like to have some foreign news. Where's that to come from?"
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