All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form
Art direction by Emanuele Ragnisco instagram.com/emanueleragnisco
Cover design by Ginevra Rapisardi
Cover photo: Noémie Rabinovitch, 1941
ISBN 9781609458393
Anne Berest THE POSTCARD
Translated from the French by
Tina Kover
THE POSTCARD
My mother lit her first lung-charring cigarette of the morning, the one she enjoyed most, and stepped outside to admire the whiteness blanketing the entire neighborhood. At least ten centimeters of snow had fallen overnight.
She stayed outside smoking for a long time despite the cold, enjoying the otherworldly atmosphere of the garden. It was beautiful, she thought, all that blankness, that erasing of colors and blurring of edges.
Suddenly she heard a noise, muffled by the snow. The postman had just dumped the mail on the ground at the foot of the mailbox. My mother went to collect it, putting her slippered feet down carefully so as not to slip.
Cigarette still clamped between her lips, its smoke dissipating in the freezing air, she made her way quickly back to the house to thaw fingers numbed by the cold.
She flipped through the stack of envelopes. There were the usual holiday cards, most of them from her university students, a gas bill, a few pieces of junk mail. There were also letters for my father, from his colleagues at the National Centre for Scientific Research and the PhD candidates he supervised, all wishing him a happy new year.
All very typical for early January. Except for the postcard. Slipped in among the other envelopes, unassuming, as though it had hidden itself deliberately.
What caught my mother’s attention right away was the handwriting, strange and awkward, like no handwriting she had ever seen before. Then she read the four names, written in the form of a list.
Ephraïm
Emma Noémie
Jacques
They were the names of her maternal grandparents, her aunt, and her uncle. All four had been deported two years before she was born. They died in Auschwitz in 1942. And now, sixty-one years later, they had reappeared in our mailbox. It was Monday, January 6, 2003.
Who could have sent me this terrible thing? Lélia wondered.
My mother felt a jolt of fear, as if someone were threatening her, someone lurking in the darkness of the past. Her hands began to tremble.
“Look, Pierre! Look what I found in the mail!”
My father took the postcard and examined it closely, but there was no signature, no explanation.
Nothing. Just those four names.
At my parents’ home in those days, one picked the mail up off the ground, like ripe fruit fallen from a tree; our mailbox had gotten so old that it was like a sieve nothing stayed inside but we liked it that way. It never occurred to any of us to get a new one; that wasn’t how our family solved problems. You simply lived with things, as if they deserved the same respect as human beings.
When the weather was bad, the letters would get soaked, their ink running and the words becoming permanently indecipherable. Postcards were the worst, bare like those teenage girls who run around with exposed arms and no coat in wintertime.
If the author of the postcard had used a fountain pen to write to us, their message would have been obliterated. Had they known that? The names were written with a ballpoint pen.
The following Sunday, Lélia summoned the whole family: my father, my sisters, and me. Sitting around the dining-room table, we passed the card from hand to hand. None of us spoke for a long time which was unusual for us, especially during Sunday lunch. Normally, in our family, there’s always someone with something to say, and they always want to say it right now. But on that day, no one knew what to think about this message that had shown up out of the blue.
The postcard itself was nothing special, just a touristy postcard with a photo of the Opéra Garnier on the front, the kind sold by the hundreds in tobacco shops and kiosks all over Paris.
“Why the Opéra Garnier?” my mother asked.
No one knew the answer.
“The postmark is from the Louvre post office.”
“You think they could give us more information there?”
“It’s the biggest post office in Paris. It’s huge. What do you think they’ll be able to tell you?”
“Was it mailed from there for a reason, do you think?”
“Yeah. Most anonymous letters are sent from the Louvre post office.”
“It’s not recent. The card itself must be ten years old at least,” I observed.
My father held it up to the light and looked at it carefully for a few moments before declaring that the photograph dated from the 1990s. The print’s chroma, with its saturated magentas, as well as the absence of advertising panels around the Opéra Garnier, confirmed my hunch.
“I’d even say it’s from the early ’90s,” my father clarified.
“How can you be so sure?” my mother asked.
“Because in 1996 the green and white SC10 buses, like the one in the middle ground of this picture, were replaced by RP312s. With a platform. And their engines in the rear. ”
No one was surprised by my father’s knowledge of Parisian bus history. He’d never driven a car, much less a bus, but his career as a researcher had led him to learn countless details on a myriad of subjects as varied as they were specialized. My father invented a device that calculates the moon ’ s influence on Earth’s tides, and my mother has translated treatises on generative grammar for Chomsky. Both of them know an unimaginable number of things, almost all of which are completely useless in everyday life most of the time. But not that day.
“Why write a postcard and then wait ten years to send it?”
My parents continued their musings. But I couldn’t have cared less about the postcard itself. No it was the names that were calling to me. These people were my ancestors, and I knew nothing about them. I didn’t know which countries they’d traveled to, what they’d done for a living,
how old they’d been when they were murdered. I couldn’t have picked them out of a photo lineup.
I felt a wave of shame.
After lunch, my parents put the postcard away in a drawer, and we never talked about it again. I was twenty-four years old, my mind full of my own life, of other stories to be written. I erased the recollection of the postcard from my memory, though I kept hold of the vague intention to ask my mother, one day, about our family’s history. But the years slipped by, and I never took the time to do it.
Until ten years later, when I was about to give birth.
My cervix had dilated too early, so I was on bedrest to keep the baby from arriving prematurely. My parents had suggested that I spend a few days at their house, where I wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Suspended in a state of anticipation, my thoughts turned to my mother, my grandmother, and the whole line of women who had given birth before me. It was then that I felt a pressing need to hear the story of my ancestors.
Lélia led me into her study, where she spends most of her time. The little room always reminded me of a womb, its air thick with cigarette smoke, its walls lined with books and filing cabinets and bathed in the pale winter sunlight that streamed through windows overlooking the Parisian banlieue. I settled myself beneath the bookshelf and the ageless objects on it, all those memories blanketed with a film of dust and cigarette ash, as my mother retrieved a black-speckled green archive box from among twenty identical ones. As a teenager, I’d known that these neat rows of boxes contained the relics of our family’s dark past. They’d made me think of little coffins.
My mother reached for a pen and a sheet of paper like all retired professors, she views everything as a teaching opportunity, even parenting. Lélia’s students at Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis adored her. Back in the good old days, when she could smoke in the classroom, she used to do something that fascinated her linguistics students: with rare dexterity, she could finish an entire cigarette without the ash dropping to the floor, keeping the thin gray cylinder between her fingertips. No need for an ashtray, she’d set the worm of ash down on her
desk, delicately, and light up another one. It was a skill that demanded respect.
“I should warn you, ” she began now, “that what I’m about to tell you is a blended story. Some of it is obviously fact, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide how much of the rest comes from my own personal theories. And of course, any new documentation could flesh out those conclusions, or change them completely.”
“Maman,” I said. “I don’t think cigarette smoke is very good for the baby’s brain development.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I smoked a pack a day during all of my pregnancies, and in the end, I don’t think you three turned out so bad.”
Her answer made me chuckle. Lélia took advantage of the pause to light another cigarette. Then she began to tell me about the lives of Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie, and Jacques. The four names on the postcard.
BOOK I
PROMISED LANDS
CHAPTER 1
Just like in all the Russian novels,” my mother began, “it started with a pair of star-crossed lovers. Ephraïm Rabinovitch was in love with Anna Gavronsky, whose mother, Liba Gavronsky, born Yankelevich, was a cousin of the family. But the Gavronskys didn’t approve of Ephraïm and Anna’s love.”
Seeing that I was already completely lost, Lélia paused. Cigarette wedged in the corner of her mouth, squinting against the smoke, she began rummaging in the archive box.
“Hold on, let me read you this letter; it’ll make things clearer. It was written in Moscow in 1918, by Ephraïm’s older sister.”
Dear Vera,
My parents’ troubles continue to pile up. Have you heard about the mess between Ephraïm and our cousin Aniouta? If not, I can only tell you in complete confidence even though it seems that some in the family are aware of it already. Simply put, An and our Fedya (he turned twenty-four two days ago) have fallen in love they’ve gone utterly mad with it and it’s upset us all terribly. Auntie doesn’t know about it, and it would be utterly catastrophic if she found out. They see her all the time, and they’re in agony. Our Ephraïm adores Aniouta, but I’ll admit, I’m not sure I believe her feelings are sincere. Well, that’s the news from us. Sometimes I’m completely fed up with the whole thing. Must stop writing now, my dear. I’m going to post this letter myself, to make sure it doesn’t go astray.
With love,
Sara
“So if I understand what’s going on here, Ephraïm was forced to give up his first love.”
“And another fiancée was quickly found for him: Emma Wolf.”
“The second name on the postcard.”
“Exactly.”
“Was she also a distant relative?”
“No. Emma came from Lodz. She was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Maurice Wolf, who owned several textile factories, and her mother was called Rebecca Trotsky no relation to the revolutionary.”
“How did Ephraïm and Emma meet? Lodz must be a thousand kilometers from Moscow.”
“Far more than a thousand! Either the families used the services of the synagogue chadkhanit the matchmaker or Ephraïm’s family was Emma’s kest-eltern. ”
“Her what?”
“Kest-eltern. It’s Yiddish. How can I explain it . . . Do you remember what I told you about the Inuktitut language?”
Lélia had taught me, when I was little, that the Inuits have fifty-two words for snow. Qanik is falling snow, aputi is fallen snow, aniou is snow they melt for water, and so on and so on.
“Well, in Yiddish, there are various terms that mean ‘family,’” my mother continued. “There’s one word for the nuclear family, and another for in-laws, and a third term that means ‘those who are considered to be like family’ even when there’s no blood tie. And then there’s a basically untranslatable term, something like ‘foster family’ di kest-eltern. ‘Host family,’ you might say, because traditionally, when parents sent a child away to university, they looked for a family who would provide lodging and meals for that child.”
“And the Rabinovitches were Emma’s kest-eltern. ”
“Yes. Now relax. Just listen. It’ll all make sense in the end, don’t worry. ”
Very early in his life, Ephraïm Rabinovitch broke away from his parents’ religion. As a teenager, he became a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and declared to his mother and father that he didn’t believe in God. Deliberately provocative, he made a point of doing
everything forbidden to Jews on the holiday of Yom Kippur: smoking cigarettes, shaving, eating, and drinking.
In 1919, Ephraïm was twenty-five. He was a modern young man, slim and fine-featured. If his skin had been fairer and his mustache not so black, he could have passed for an ethnic Russian. A brilliant engineer, he’d just earned his degree despite the numerus clausus in effect, which limited the number of Jews admitted to university to 3% of total enrollment. He wanted to be part of the great wave of progress sweeping the nation and had great ambitions for his country and for the Russian people, his people, whom he hoped to join in the Revolution.
Being Jewish meant nothing to Ephraïm. He considered himself a socialist, first and foremost. He lived in Moscow, led a Moscow lifestyle. He agreed to marry in the synagogue only because it was important to his future wife. But, he warned Emma, theirs would not be an observant household.
Tradition dictates that, on his wedding day, the groom must smash a glass with his right foot after the ceremony, a gesture representing the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. After this, he makes a vow. Ephraïm’s vow was to erase the memory of his cousin Aniouta from his mind forever. But, looking at the shards of glass littering the floor, he felt as if it were his heart lying there, broken into a thousand pieces.
CHAPTER 2
On Friday, April 18, 1919, the young newlyweds left Moscow and traveled to the dacha owned by Nachman and Esther Rabinovitch, Ephraïm’s parents, fifty kilometers from the capital. Ephraïm had agreed to celebrate Pesach, the Jewish Easter, only because his father had insisted with uncharacteristic vehemence and because his wife was pregnant. This was the perfect opportunity to announce the news to his brothers and sisters.
“Was Emma pregnant with Myriam?”
“Your grandmother. Yes.”
On the way, Ephraïm confided to his wife that Pesach had always been his favorite holiday. As a child he had loved its mystery, the strangeness of the bitter herbs and salt water and honeyed apples on a platter in the middle of the table. He’d loved it when his father explained to him that the sweetness of the apples was meant to remind Jews to be wary of ease and comfort.
“In Egypt,” Nachman insisted, “the Jews were slaves meaning, they were fed and housed. They had a roof over their heads and food on the table. Do you understand? It’s freedom that is unreliable, that is gained through pain. The salt water we put on the table on the evening of Pesach represents the tears of those who broke loose from their chains. And the bitter herbs remind us that the life of a free man is inherently painful. Listen carefully, son the instant you feel the touch of honey on your lips, ask yourself: of what, of whom, am I a slave?”
Ephraïm knew that his revolutionary soul had been born at that very moment, listening to his father’s words.
That evening, arriving at his parents’ dacha, he hurried to the kitchen to breathe in the bland but unique scent of the matzos, unleavened flatbreads baked by Katerina, the elderly cook. Suddenly emotional, he took her wrinkled hand and pressed it against his young wife’s belly.
“Look at our son, ” Nachman said to Esther, watching the scene. “Proud as a chestnut-seller showing off his wares to everyone who passes. ”
The parents had invited all the Rabinovitch cousins on Nachman’s side and all the Frant cousins on Esther’s. Why so many people? wondered Ephraïm, toying with a silver spoon that shone brightly from being scoured for hours with ashes from the fireplace.
“Have they invited the Gavronskys, too?” he asked his younger sister Bella, worriedly.
“No,” she assured him, carefully concealing the fact that both families had agreed to avoid a face-to-face meeting between Emma and Cousin Aniouta.
“But why are they having so many cousins over this year? Are they planning some sort of announcement?” pressed Ephraïm, lighting a cigarette to hide his anxiety.
“Yes, but don’t ask me. I can’t say anything about it until dinner.”
On the evening of Pesach, it’s traditional for the patriarch to read aloud from the Haggadah, the story of Moses leading the Hebrew people out of Egypt. When the prayers had concluded, Nachman rose and tapped his knife against his glass.
“I’ve chosen to read these final words from the Book,” he said, addressing the whole table: Rebuild Jerusalem, the holy city, speedily in our days, and bring us up into it. This is because, in my role as head of the family, I must warn you. ”
“Warn us about what, Papa?”
“That it’s time to go. We must all leave the country. As quickly as possible.”
“Leave?” his sons repeated incredulously.
Nachman closed his eyes. How to convince his children? How to find the right words? It was as if there were an acrid tinge to the air, like a cold wind blowing to signal a coming freeze: invisible, almost nothing, and yet
it was there. It had come to him in nightmares first, nightmares shot through with memories of his boyhood, when, on some Christmases, he’d been hidden behind the house with the other children from drunken men who’d come to punish the people who killed Christ. They’d gone into the houses and raped the women and killed the men.
The violence had calmed down somewhat when Tsar Alexander III, intensifying the state’s anti-Semitism, had enacted the May Laws, stripping Jews of most of their liberties. Nachman had been a young man when everything was suddenly forbidden to Jews attending university, traveling from one region to another, giving Christian first names to their children, putting on theater productions. These humiliating measures had mollified the Russian people, and for some thirty years now, the bloodshed had lessened. Nachman’s children had never known the terror of Christmas Eve, of a mob rising from its dinner tables filled with the urge to kill.
But for the past few years now, Nachman had noticed a smell of sulfur and decay returning to the air. The Black Hundreds, an extreme-right monarchist group led by Vladimir Purishkevich, were gaining strength in the shadows, the Tsar’s former courtier spreading rumors of a Jewish conspiracy. He was only waiting for the right moment to come back. And Nachman didn’t believe for a moment that the new Revolution fomented by his children would banish old hatreds.
“Yes. Leave. Listen to me well, my children,” Nachman said calmly.
“Es’shtinkt shlekht drek. It stinks of shit.”
His words caused the clinking of forks against plates to cease abruptly. The children stopped chattering. Silence fell. Finally, Nachman could speak.
“Most of you are young married people. Ephraïm, you will soon be a papa for the first time. You have spirit, bravery your whole life ahead of you. Now is the time to pack your bags.”
Nachman turned to his wife and squeezed her hand. “Esther and I have decided to go to Palestine,” he continued. “We’ve bought a piece of land near Haifa, where we will grow oranges. Come with us. I’ll buy land for all of you there.”
“Nachman you aren’t really going to settle in the land of Israel?”
The Rabinovitch children had never imagined that anything like this could be possible. Before the Revolution, their father had belonged to the first guild of merchants, which meant that he was among those rare Jews who had the right to travel freely around the country. It was an unheardof privilege for Nachman to be able to live as a Russian in Russia. He had risen to an enviable position in society and now he wanted to abandon it for exile on the other side of the world, in a desert country with a hostile climate, and grow oranges? What a bizarre idea! He couldn’t even peel a pear without the cook’s help.
Nachman picked up a small pencil and moistened its tip between his lips. His eyes still fixed on his children and grandchildren, he added, “Now, I’m going to go around the table. And I want each of you every one of you, do you hear me? to give me a destination. I will go and buy steamer tickets for everyone. You must leave the country within the next three months; is that understood? Bella, I’ll begin with you it’s simple; you ’ re coming with us. I’ll write it down: Bella, Haifa, Palestine. Ephraïm?”
“I’ll wait to see what my brothers say. ”
“I could picture myself in Paris,” piped up Emmanuel, the youngest brother, leaning back in his chair nonchalantly.
“Avoid Paris, Berlin, Prague,” Ephraïm advised seriously. “All the respectable places in society have been occupied for generations in cities like that. You’ll never establish yourself. You’ll be seen as either too clever or not clever enough.”
“I’m not worried; I’ve already got a fiancée waiting for me there,” retorted Emmanuel, to make the rest of the table laugh.
“My poor boy,” sighed Nachman, irritated. “You’ll lead the life of a pig. Stupid and brief.”
“I’d rather die in Paris than in the damned middle of nowhere, Papa!”
“Ach!” Nachman snapped, shaking a fist at his son. “Yeder nar iz klug un komish far zikh: Every idiot believes himself to be intelligent. I’m not joking here. Go. If you don’t want to follow me, try America,” he added, sighing. “That would be very good, too.”
Cowboys and Indians. America. No, thank you, thought the Rabinovitch children. Its landscapes were too remote, impossible to picture. At least they knew what Palestine looked like, because it was described in the Bible. A bunch of rocks.
“Look at them,” said Nachman to his wife, gesturing to their children. “Just a bunch of veal chops with eyes! Think for a moment! There is nothing for you in Europe. Nothing. Nothing good, at any rate. But in America, in Palestine, you’ll find work easily!”
“Papa, you always worry for nothing. The worst thing that can happen to you here is your tailor turning socialist!”
It was true that, looking at Nachman and Esther, sitting side by side like two plump little cakes in a pastry-shop window, it was hard to imagine them as farmers in a foreign land. Esther was still girlishly pretty despite her snow-white hair, which she wore in a low knot. Still stylish, with her dainty cameo brooches and pearl necklaces. Nachman still wore his trademark three-piece suits, custom-made by the best French couturiers in Moscow. His beard was white as cotton, his only whimsical touch the polka-dotted ties he matched to his pocket handkerchiefs.
Exasperated by his children, Nachman got up from the table now, the vein in the side of his neck throbbing so furiously that it seemed on the point of bursting all over Esther’s beautiful tablecloth. He would have to go and lie down to calm his racing heart. Before closing the dining-room door, Nachman asked them all to think carefully, concluding, “You must understand something. One day, they’ll want us all to disappear.”
After this dramatic exit, the conversation around the table resumed cheerfully, lasting until late into the night. Emma sat down at the piano, the stool pushed back slightly to accommodate her bulging belly. The young woman had been educated at the prestigious National Conservatory of Music. She had wanted to be a physicist, but the numerus clausus had put an end to that dream. It was her fervent hope that the baby she was carrying would live in a world where he, or she, would be able to study whatever they chose.
Lulled by the snippets of his wife’s music drifting in from the lounge, Ephraïm talked politics with his brothers and sisters at the fireside. The evening had been so pleasant, the siblings uniting in gentle mockery of their father. The Rabinovitches had no way of knowing that these were the last hours they would all spend together as a family.
CHAPTER 3
Emma and Ephraïm left the family dacha the next day, everyone parting in a good mood, promising to see one another again before the summer.
Gazing out the window of their carriage at the scenery sliding past, Emma wondered if her father-in-law was right, if perhaps it wouldn’t be better for them to move to Palestine. Her husband’s name was on a list. The police might come to their home to arrest him at any time.
“What list? Why was Ephraïm wanted by the police? Because he was Jewish?”
“No, not at that time. I told you; my grandfather was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks began to eliminate their former comrades-in-arms, including the Mensheviks and the revolutionary socialists.”
So, back in Moscow, Ephraïm was forced to hide. He found a place to hole up near his apartment so he could at least visit his wife from time to time.
On one evening when he had done just that, he wanted to bathe before leaving. To drown out the sound of water splashing in the kitchen washbasin, Emma had sat down at the piano, plunking hard on the ivory keys. She trusted neither their neighbors nor the informers that seemed to be lurking everywhere.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. A succession of quick hard raps. Commanding. Authoritative. Emma went to the door, one hand on her swollen belly.
“Who is it?”
“Emma Rabinovitch? We’re looking for your husband.”
Emma made the officers wait in the corridor just long enough for Ephraïm to stow his things and crawl into a hiding place they’d made, the false bottom of a wardrobe, behind stacks of blankets and household linens.
“He’s not here.”
“Let us in.”
“I was having a bath. Let me dress.”
“Send your husband out,” ordered the police, whose patience was wearing thin.
“I haven’t heard from him for over a month.”
“Do you know where he’s hiding?”
“No. I have no idea.”
“We’ll break down the door and turn this house inside-out.”
“Well, if you find him, tell him I said hello!”
Emma opened the door and thrust her protruding belly at the officers.
“Look you see the state he’s left me in!”
The police trooped into the apartment. Spotting Ephraïm’s hat lying on an armchair in the living room, Emma pretended to be overcome by faintness, dropping into the chair, feeling the hat crumple beneath her weight. Her heart thumped in her chest.
“Your grandmother Myriam hadn’t even been born yet, but she had just experienced, physically, what it means to have terror fill the pit of one ’ s stomach. Emma’s organs clenched around the fetus.”
As the officers completed their search, the young woman remained imperturbable.
“I don’t believe I’ll come with you, ” she said, her face pale, “ as I’m afraid my waters might break. You’d have to help me give birth.”
The police left, cursing pregnant wives. After several endless minutes of silence, Ephraïm emerged from his hiding place and found his wife curled in agony on the carpet in front of the fireplace, gripped by cramps so painful that she couldn’t stand. Fearing the worst, Ephraïm promised Emma that, if the baby survived, they would leave Moscow and go to Riga, in Latvia.
“Why Latvia?”
“Because it had just become an independent country one where Jews could settle without being subject to laws restricting their commercial activity.”
CHAPTER 4
Your grandmother, Myriam Mirotchka, as the family called her was born in Moscow on August 7, 1919, according to the papers issued by the Refugee Office in Paris. The actual date was uncertain, however, because of the difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, so Myriam would never know the exact day of her birth.
She came into the world in the bright and gentle warmth of Leto, the Russian summer. She was practically born in a suitcase as her parents prepared to depart for Riga. Ephraïm had investigated the profitability of trading in caviar and was confident that he’d be able to establish a thriving business. To finance their new life in Latvia, Ephraïm and Emma had sold everything they possessed: the furniture, dishes, carpets. Everything but the samovar.
“The one in the living room?”
“Yes. That samovar has crossed more borders than you and I put together.”
The Rabinovitches left Moscow in the middle of the night by horse and cart, traveling the empty country roads to the border under cover of darkness. The journey was long and difficult nearly a thousand kilometers but it would get them out of reach of the Bolshevik police. Emma entertained little Mirotchka by whispering stories to her when she grew fretful in the evenings, pushing aside her blankets to show her the world above the sides of the cart: “They say that night falls, but that’s not true; look how the night rises up slowly from the earth . . . ”
At twilight on the last day, a few hours before they reached the border, Ephraïm suddenly became aware of an odd sensation: his horse’s burden seemed suddenly lighter. Turning, he saw that the cart was gone.
When the cart had come loose, Emma hadn’t cried out for fear of drawing attention. Now she waited as her husband doubled back, hardly knowing what frightened her more the Bolsheviks or the wolves but Ephraïm came for them, of course, and their wagon reached the border before sunrise.
“Look,” Lélia said. “After Myriam died, I found papers in her desk. Bits of old writings, letters that’s how I found the story of the cart. She ends it like this: ‘Everything is always all right in the pre-dawn, in that gray hour before sunrise. Once we reached Latvia we spent several days in prison due to administrative formalities. My mother was still nursing me, and I have nothing but sweet memories of her milk, with its taste of rye and buckwheat, from those days.’”
“The next few sentences are virtually unreadable,” I observed.
“That was the onset of her Alzheimer’s. I’ve spent hours trying to puzzle out what’s hiding behind some grammatical error or other. Language is a maze, and the mind can get lost in it.”
“I knew that story about the hat that absolutely had to be hidden from the police,” I said. “Myriam wrote it down for me when I was little, in the form of a fairy tale. She called it ‘The Tale of the Hat.’ But I didn’t know it was a real family story. I thought she’d made it up. ”
“Those slightly sad little stories your grandmother always wrote for you on your birthday they were all episodes from her life. They’ve been real treasures for me, as I’ve tried to piece together certain events in her childhood.”
“But the rest of it how have you managed to tell the whole story in so much detail?”
“I started from almost nothing, just a few things I found after your grandmother’s death: photos with indecipherable scribbling on the back and some bits and pieces she wrote down on scraps of paper. Gaining access to the French archives in the early 2000s and eyewitness accounts at Yad Vashem, as well as accounts from survivors of the camps, are what allowed me to recreate these lives. Not all the documentation is reliable, though; it can lead you down some strange paths. Sometimes the French government made administrative errors. Only cross-checking everything
in painstaking detail, with the help of archivists, allowed me to substantiate facts and dates.”
I looked up at the shelves and shelves of books overhead. My mother’s archive boxes, which used to frighten me, suddenly appeared to hold the mysteries of a body of knowledge as vast as a continent. Lélia had traveled through history as if she were going from country to country, gathering records and recollections of journeys that had brought landscapes to life within her, landscapes it now fell to me to visit in my turn. Pressing a hand to my belly, I silently entreated my daughter to listen as carefully as I would to the rest of the story, to this tale that was both old and deeply relevant to her brand-new life.
CHAPTER 5
In Riga, the little family settled in a pretty wooden house at Alexandra isl., No. 60/66 dz 2156. Emma adapted quickly and was readily accepted by the local community. She was full of admiration for her husband, whose caviar business rapidly took off.
“My husband has a true entrepreneurial spirit and wonderfully good business sense, ” she wrote proudly to her parents in Lodz. “He’s bought me a piano, so I can whip my lazy fingers into shape again. He gives me all the money I could need, and he’s also encouraging me to give piano lessons to the little girls in the neighborhood.”
Ephraïm’s success in the caviar trade soon allowed the couple to buy a little dacha in Bilderlingshof, where many of Latvian society’s best families holidayed, and a German nurse was hired to assist Emma in her household duties.
“This way you’ll be able to work more, ” Ephraïm said. “Women should be independent.”
Emma took advantage of her new leisure time to make regular visits to the great synagogue in Riga, famous for its cantors and even more so for its choirs. She only went there to recruit new students, she assured her husband, not to pray. Arriving one day just as services were concluding, she was surprised to hear Polish spoken. There were members of old Lodz families in the congregation, and, with them, she could feel the community atmosphere of her home city. It was like finding a few scattered crumbs of her childhood.
It was the gossiping housewives at the synagogue who informed Emma that Cousin Aniouta had married a German Jew and was now living in Berlin.
“Don’t mention it to your husband, though, whatever you do. You must never revive the memory of your former rival,” warned the rebbetzin, the
rabbi’s wife, whose unofficial role was to counsel the wives of the congregation.
Ephraïm, for his part, had received highly encouraging news from his parents. Their orange grove was prospering, and Bella had gotten a job as wardrobe mistress for a theater in Haifa. The brothers, now scattered all over Europe, had found good situations for themselves all except the youngest, Emmanuel, who was determined to become a film star in Paris. “He has yet to land a role,” his older brother Boris had written. “He’s already thirty years old, and I’m worried for him. But thirty is still young, and I’m hoping he’ll get a break. I’ve watched him perform, and he’s good. I think he’ll do all right in the end.”
Ephraïm acquired a camera, to immortalize the sight of Myriam’s little face. He dressed his daughter up like a doll, buying her the most luxurious clothes, the finest ribbons for her hair. In her pure white gowns, the little girl was the Princess of the Kingdom of Riga, a proud and confident child, fully aware of her importance in the eyes of her parents and thus of the whole world.
People passing the Rabinovitch home on Alexandra Street invariably heard the sound of a piano, and the neighbors, rather than complaining, enjoyed the music. And so the weeks passed happily, the family’s life suddenly one of ease. One evening during Pesach, Emma asked her husband to set out the traditional Seder plate.
“Please,” she said. “You don’t have to read the prayers, but at least tell her about the exodus from Egypt.”
Eventually, Ephraïm agreed and showed Myriam how to arrange the egg, the bitter herbs, the chopped apples with honey, the salted water, and a lamb shank bone in the center of the plate. Abandoning himself to the theme of the evening, he told his daughter the story of Moses, exactly the way his father used to do.
“How is this night different from all the other nights? Why do we eat bitter herbs? Sweetheart, Pesach reminds us that the Jewish people are a free people but that this freedom has a price. Sweat and tears.”
For Pesach dinner, Emma had baked matzohs using the recipe given to her by Katerina, her mother- and father-in-law’s old cook, so that her husband could experience again, just briefly, that delicious blandness
from his childhood. Ephraïm was in a jolly mood that night, making his daughter laugh by imitating her grandfather:
“Chopped liver is the best remedy for life’s problems,” he said in Nachman’s Russian accent, taking a big bite of chicken liver pâté.
But suddenly, amid the laughter, Ephraïm felt a pang in his heart. Aniouta. His cousin’s face flashed through his mind; he imagined her, at that very moment, celebrating Pesach with her own family, a husband and perhaps a baby, bent over the prayer book at a candlelit table. How beautiful maturity must have made her, he thought. Even more beautiful. A shadow passed over his face. Emma noticed it immediately.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Do you think we should have another child?”
Ten months later, Noémie the Noémie from the postcard was born in Riga, on February 15, 1923. This little sister, come to unseat Myriam from the throne of only-childhood, looked just like her mother, with a face round as the moon.
Ephraïm used some of the profits from his caviar business to buy a space in which he set up an experimental laboratory, where he hoped to invent new machines. He spent entire evenings explaining the principles of his inventions to Emma, his eyes shining with enthusiasm.
“Machines will be a revolution. They’ll free women from the burden of housework. Listen to this: ‘Within the family, the husband belongs to the middle class, while the woman is a member of the working class.’ Don’t you agree with that?” asked Ephraïm, still a devoted reader of Karl Marx despite the fact that he was now the owner of a thriving business.
“My husband is like electricity,” Emma wrote to her parents, “traveling all over, bringing the light of progress wherever he goes. ”
But Ephraïm the engineer, the progressivist, the cosmopolitan, had forgotten that an outsider will always be an outsider. He’d made the terrible mistake of believing that he could rely on happiness in any one place. The following year, in 1924, a tainted barrel of caviar plunged his small business into bankruptcy. Bad luck, or the work of a jealous rival? These immigrants arriving in their wagon had become too successful, too quickly. Overnight, the Rabinovitches became persona non grata in the Riga
of the goys. Their neighbors in Binderling Court demanded that Emma stop disrupting the peace and quiet of the street with her students’ comings and goings. The gossips at the synagogue wasted no time in telling her that the Latvians had now targeted her husband and would harass him until he had no choice but to leave. They would have to pack their bags again. But where would they go?
Emma wrote to her parents, but the news from Poland wasn’t good either. Her father, Maurice Wolf, seemed anxious about the strikes breaking out all over the country.
“You know I’d love to have you near me more than anything, my dear,” he wrote. “But I mustn’t be selfish, and, as a father, it’s my duty to tell you that you and your husband and the children should probably think about going even farther away. ”
Ephraïm sent a telegram to his younger brother Emmanuel, but unfortunately the latter was staying in the Parisian apartment of some painter friends, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, who had a little boy of their own. Ephraïm then wrote to Boris, the older brother now living in Prague, like many other members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party but the political situation was highly unstable, and Boris advised the Rabinovitches against settling there.
Ephraïm was out of money and out of options. Sick at heart, he sent a telegram to Palestine:
“We’re on our way. ”
CHAPTER 6
Getting to the Promised Land meant going south from Riga in a virtually straight line for two and a half thousand kilometers. Traveling across Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary, then taking a ship from Constanza, in Romania. The journey would take forty days as long as it had taken Moses to reach Mount Sinai.
“We’ll stop in Lodz to see my parents. I want my family to meet our daughters,” Emma told her husband.
Crossing the Lodka river, Emma found herself once again in the home city she had missed so much. The din of the traffic, a mixture of trolleys, cars, and droshkys rattling noisily along the streets, terrified the children but warmed Emma’s heart.
“Every city has its very own smell, you know,” she said to Myriam. “Shut your eyes and inhale.”
Myriam closed her eyes and breathed in the lilac-and-asphalt-scented air of the Baluty quarter, the odors of soap and oil in the streets of Polesie, the aromas of cholent wafting from kitchens, and everywhere the cloth dust generated by the city’s famous textile factories, drifting out of open windows. As they made their way through the working-class Jewish neighborhoods, Myriam saw for the first time those men dressed all in black like flocks of forbidding birds, with their dark beards and sidelocks bouncing like springs next to each ear, their tzitzit draped over their long rep shirts, their large fur hats. Some of them wore mysterious black cubes phylacteries on their foreheads.
“What are those?” asked Myriam, who, at the age of five, had never been inside a synagogue.
“These are religious men, ” Emma replied, her voice respectful. “Scholars of the holy texts.”
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CHAPTER XV.
It is of course taken for granted that the elopement of Miss Glossop was the only subject of conversation all the rest of the day at Neverden and Smatterton; and everybody was mightily shocked at it, save and except the worthy magistrate of Neverden Hall. Sir George Aimwell laughed at his lady’s fears, and Lady Aimwell scowled indignation at her lord and master for his flippant manner of treating so serious a subject. Sir George was very well satisfied that his young kinswoman was in the way to become a countess, and Lady Aimwell was indignant at the disgrace brought upon Neverden Hall by such irregular proceedings.
Indeed the truth is, that no turn of affairs whatever could give satisfaction to Lady Aimwell. For even on the supposition that a marriage should take place, and that Miss Glossop should become Lady Spoonbill, that success on the part of the young lady would be a mortifying mode of disappointing Lady Aimwell’s predictions; and any other termination would be reproachful to Sir George.
This mortification, which was so deeply felt by her ladyship, was greatly increased if not altogether occasioned by the confident manner in which she herself had spoken of her own ability to manage young people and to subdue the rebellious. It was not however quite so easy as her ladyship had imagined. And very probably Lady Aimwell is not the first person who has been so disappointed, and very probably Lady Aimwell will not be the last person to be so disappointed. So far will we venture to carry our assertion on this topic, that we do verily believe, that were it possible to collect together into one comprehensive mass the experience of all individuals in every age of the world, from the creation down to the present hour, and were it possible to convey to such a mind as that of Lady Aimwell a knowledge of all the disappointments experienced by those who have thought themselves wiser than the rest of the world, that knowledge would produce no effect whatever
in abating conceit or diminishing confidence. Let us leave Sir George and Lady Aimwell to grumble at each other till they are tired.
The effect produced on the feelings of Mr Darnley by the elopement of Miss Glossop, is of more importance to our narrative than the disagreements and grumblements at Neverden Hall. After the departure of Mr Glossop and the other visitors whom the elopement had brought to the rectory, Mr Darnley retired to his study for the purpose of meditation. Now when a very obstinate and positive mind is really shaken in its obstinacy and moved from its perverseness, that movement is a mighty and effectual movement. And when, combined with obstinacy, there is a high degree of pride, then the resolution or change of mind is magnificent and highly thought of. And when, in addition to pride and obstinacy, there is a conscientious and moral feeling, and no admixture of essential illhumour and malignity, then the change of views and revolution of thought is acknowledged with candour and almost with penitence.
To some such state of mind as this was Mr Darnley the elder brought by reflecting on the events of the morning, and by recollecting and comparing the several observations and remarks which had been made on the elopement of Miss Glossop. There came into his mind in the very first statement of the affair a thought of the very wide difference between the characters of Miss Glossop and Miss Primrose. The recollection of Penelope’s early life came back to him again with the thought of those pleasing manners which he had so much admired when she was too young to think of artifice or concealment. He recollected the time when he had thought most highly of her, and had regarded her as giving promise of many virtues, and indicating a development of strong features of moral beauty and integrity. Then also did he recollect how very plain and simple an explanation his son had given of those passages in the young lady’s history, by which the first feelings of alienation were roused. He thought also of the good understanding and good feelings of his own beloved and only son; and he could not upon serious reflection and cool deliberation think it very likely that Robert Darnley was altogether deceived. He knew that his son had discernment, and principles of decided integrity; he therefore
became more willing to think that the young man’s attachment was not infatuation.
Thus thinking, and thus experiencing a total revolution in his feelings towards Penelope Primrose, the reverend rector of Neverden next bethought himself that it was an act of duty on his part to avow this change of thought and feeling. Nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would have wriggled and shuffled out of this difficulty by some mean, roundabout, underhand, contemptible artifice; they would almost, if not altogether, have told many lies and have made many trumpery excuses, to avoid the acknowledgment that they had been wrong. But Mr Darnley was too proud for anything of that kind. So long as he thought that he was right, he was proudly and firmly stubborn; but when he found that he had been in an error, he was willing to retract. He thought it no degradation to acknowledge it, even to his own son.
Mr Darnley therefore sent for the young man into the study, and began by saying, though with much pomp of manner and dignity of bearing, “Robert, this is a strange affair of Miss Glossop’s elopement. Had you any suspicion of any acquaintance between this young woman and Lord Spoonbill?”
“I had merely heard,” replied the young man, “that Miss Glossop had been at the castle, and had met Lord Spoonbill, and that his lordship was very much struck with her beauty and accomplishments.”
There was something ironical in the tone with which this sentence was uttered, and the dignified rector himself smiled and said: “Beauty and accomplishments! And may I ask you to whom you were indebted for this information concerning Lord Spoonbill’s admiration of Miss Glossop’s beauty and accomplishments?”
“My informant, sir,” replied the young gentleman, “was Sir George Aimwell.”
The rector of Neverden smiled again, and said, “As good a judge of beauty and accomplishments as Lord Spoonbill himself.”
Assuming then a more serious look and a graver tone of voice, the reverend divine continued—“Robert, I fear that I have acted unjustly towards an excellent young woman.”
There was a symptom of a tear in the eye of the father when the young gentleman, who immediately understood the full meaning of the sentence, hastily and warmly grasped his father’s hand, and said, “No, sir, you never act unjustly; you may have been misinformed.”
“You are generous in putting the most liberal construction on the fact; but I shall not be satisfied till I have made a suitable recantation of my error. I have certainly inflicted pain, but my intentions were not evil.”
“I beg, sir,” interrupted the young gentleman, “that you will not distress me by such concessions. If your opinion of Miss Primrose has experienced a favorable change, the knowledge of that fact will abundantly counterbalance all the unpleasantness that is past.”
“But,” replied Mr Darnley the elder, “I must see Miss Primrose herself as soon as possible, and must ask her forgiveness of my erroneous apprehensions.”
To this proposal also the young gentleman made objection as before. But it was part of the reverend gentleman’s pride to acknowledge himself in an error, when he found that he had been misled. It was a pleasure to him to be able to contemplate with complacent approbation the condescension of his acknowledgments. That, indeed, is the genuine enjoyment of pride, that it can find peculiar gratification even in the exercise of humility.
And though the day was then too far advanced for Mr Darnley to go to Smatterton, he resolved upon paying an early visit on the following morning to Mr Primrose and his daughter. In this resolution the rector of Neverden felt himself composed and happy, and as a burden was thereby removed from his mind, he was cheerful, and then the restraint which had chained up the tongues of his family was broken, and they talked—oh, how they did talk!
The breaking up of a long, long frost, the first blossomings of spring, and the revelling song of the birds, the traveller’s home and fire-side, and wife, and children, after a weary journey, and a long anxious absence, are all very delightful in their way, yet they are faint images of the joy that fluttered and danced on the lightened bosoms and enlightened countenances of the family of the rector of Neverden.
Ever since the return of Robert Darnley from India, there had been an unpleasant and awkward restraint in the family, by the virtual prohibition of all mention of that topic which formerly had been the most agreeable and delightful of all topics. They had all been very partial to Penelope, and had admired and loved her cordially, till that wicked and profligate young hereditary legislator had so cruelly interrupted the correspondence between Robert Darnley and his young friend. And then all the family, except Robert Darnley himself, began to think unkindly and unjustly of the young woman; and then they began to find out defects and imperfections which they had never seen, thought of, or suspected before.
That is a curious faculty which some persons possess of finding the virtues and vices in clusters. So that, in an individual whom they regard with a favorable eye, they can see nothing but what is good, and if by any one single change whatever, a revolution of feeling takes place in the mind, then all that was good becomes bad. The family at Neverden had been habituated to admire everything that Penelope Primrose said or did; but when they regarded her as having renounced her connexion and intimacy with the family, then were they greatly indignant and mightily censorious, and everything that she did, or thought, or said, became altogether stark naught.
But who shall blame them? Is not this the almost universal feeling; of mankind? It is in this country most especially and peculiarly so. Every man’s own sect or party contains all that is wise and virtuous, while folly and vice are the lot of the rest of mankind. What does the Quarterly Review mean by “the wise and the good,” but Tories and high churchmen? When Cobbett wrote Peter Porcupine, he was one of the wise and good, and if he would become Peter Porcupine again, he would be again one of the wise and good.
We will not however dwell very copiously upon the recollection of the unfriendly feelings which they of Neverden rectory once entertained towards Miss Primrose. They themselves have forgotten those feelings and have recanted their unkind expressions; and as for Penelope herself, there was too much joy in her heart to admit of a moment’s hesitation to forgive and forget. This is pleasant. And very pleasantly did the day pass and close at Neverden rectory; but it did not close quite so early as it had been wont to do. For, in consequence of the long suspension of social and pleasing family chat, there was an arrear of prate to be paid off; and every individual of the family had something new or extraordinary to say.
But most of all was Robert Darnley himself full of talk, because he was the personage on whose account the long wearisome silence had been inflicted upon the family. And though he had much to say concerning India, his mother and sisters were ready to pass that over, and reserve it for a future occasion, so that they might hear from him an account of his visits to Smatterton rectory, and a narration of the particulars which led to the cessation of the correspondence, and caused the unpleasant misunderstanding. Something of this the young ladies had already heard from Penelope herself, but it was only Robert Darnley who could inform them of the confession of Nick Muggins and the full measure of Lord Spoonbill’s iniquity. And they were all astonished at what they heard; and they knew not which to admire most, the virtues of their brother or the wickedness of Lord Spoonbill.
Mr Darnley the elder also, when he heard with a proper temper and a patient ear the narrative which his son gave of the events of the few preceding months, and when he recollected how much of this he had heard before, and that without paying due regard or attention to it, then was he indeed and truly sorry. He did most sincerely regret that he had wilfully and obstinately closed his mind to evidence. In this recollection he did not feel the pride of humility, but the real and actual self-abasement of humiliation. How strange it is and yet how true, that a man, not wanting in understanding, whose business it has been for twenty, thirty, or perhaps forty years, to give advice and direction to others, should, in the evening of his days and
in that season when the judgment is most cool, stand in need of lessons himself! So it was in the present case, and Mr Darnley felt it so, and he resolved silently and internally that he would not again so give way to moroseness and ill-humour.
This reflection however, which occupied for a while the mind of Mr Darnley, did not abate or diminish the pleasantness of the evening at Neverden rectory.
CHAPTER XVI.
Early on the following morning Mr Darnley the elder, accompanied by his son, proceeded to the rectory of Smatterton. And considering that the excursion on which the rector was going was one of humility, retractation, and penance, his aspect was cheerful and gay. But he felt confident of a welcome reception, and had an inward consciousness that he should be rather regarded as conferring a favour than as soliciting forgiveness.
His anticipations of a most cordial and welcome reception were presently realized. There was a freedom and openness of manner about Mr Primrose that finely contrasted with the reserve and pompous artificialness of Mr Darnley. The hand of greeting was held out, and the whole demeanour of Mr Primrose was such as to exclude any very regular and set apology from the lips of the rector of Neverden.
But unless Mr Darnley had said something by way of acknowledgment, he felt that he should lose the reputation and praise and glory of confessing himself to have been in the wrong. Therefore he began with mighty earnestness of manner to say; “Mr Primrose, you probably did not expect this visit from me, but——”
Then Mr Primrose hastily and cheerfully interrupted him, saying, “My good friend, I am most happy to see you. We will have no apologies; we are very sure that you have been only misinformed. I am glad to shake hands with you, and so will be Penelope.”
At these words Penelope made her appearance, and Mr Darnley formally and graciously advanced to meet her. And he held out his hand to meet her with an unusual degree of condescension, and with that dignified kind of smile that looked rather more like granting than asking pardon. But in such matters Penelope was not fastidious, and she took the proffered hand as graciously and cordially as it was offered; and she made a lowly, reverential, and graceful curtsey. And
though this was the usual mode in which Penelope greeted those whom she respected, yet there appeared to Mr Darnley a more than usual degree of humility and gracefulness in the young lady’s manner on the present occasion. And this thought touched him deeply, and he extended his other hand as if to prohibit and prevent such an undeserved homage; and he was beginning to speak, and there was in the tone of his voice that which reminded Penelope of former days and of the great agitations of mind through which she had passed, and there came before the eye of her memory the form of her deceased benefactor Doctor Greendale; and there was also great joy rushing into her spirit at the thought of reconciliation to old acquaintances and the revival of friendships, and thus trembling, she needed support, and she would have fallen to the ground, but Mr Darnley caught her in his arms, and she wept gently but audibly, and Mr Darnley found no power to speak.
The heart of the rector of Neverden was deeply affected at this interview, and most unexpectedly so, for he had not anticipated such purely kind and graceful feeling. He had supposed that his errors would be pleasingly and readily pardoned, but he had not expected that he should meet with such powerful and contagious emotion. So he felt self-reproach more keenly than he expressed it; and his studied condescension availed him not, and his set speeches were dispersed. And it does not unfrequently happen that, when there is a studied preparation or deliberate anticipation of what shall be said and how it shall be spoken, all this preparation comes to nought, and the anticipation is disappointed, if not totally reversed.
We think it not impossible or unlikely that many a young gentleman, ambitious of fame as a public speaker, has heard with comparative contempt the efforts of others, and has anticipated with what greater eloquence he himself will speak when it shall come to his turn; and yet when it has come to his turn, he has made sad work of it, and has forgotten his rhetoric and mislaid his figures, and has turned his metaphors the wrong end upwards.
It is very certain that Mr Darnley found himself disappointed. Yet his disappointment was not altogether of an unpleasant nature; for, though he felt upon reflection a greater degree of regret than he had
anticipated, he also experienced in the mode of his reception at Smatterton a greater pleasure than he had expected.
The more powerful emotions of the first meeting soon subsided, and they were succeeded by miscellaneous talk of divers kinds; but the more prominent topic was the elopement of Miss Glossop. The rumour of course had soon been spread through the village of Smatterton, and as Mr Pringle had now no longer need of secresy, he had also talked with Mr Primrose concerning the information received from Zephaniah the critic. And they were all amazed at the wickedness of Lord Spoonbill. When also Mr Darnley understood from the narration which he had received from his son, the pains which Lord Spoonbill had taken to withdraw the affections of Penelope from him on whom they had been so worthily fixed, he could not refrain from strong expressions of indignation and contempt.
And though Mr Darnley had been in the first instance disappointed in the expression and utterance of all that he would have said, he could not but take an opportunity of apologizing to Miss Primrose for having ever suspected her of an attachment to a person of such principles, or want of principle, as Lord Spoonbill.
Penelope very readily replied; “I must not hear anything from you, sir, like apology. It was not at all surprizing, considering all the circumstances, that you should entertain an unfavorable opinion of me. And if that had been true, which appeared to be so, it was not to be expected that you should have acted otherwise.” Speeches of this nature were peculiarly agreeable and acceptable to Mr Darnley; and though he did love homage and compliment most fervently, yet he was always grateful for the incense, and he thoroughly and heartily enjoyed it.
To throw away compliments and fine speeches upon those who do not regard and value them, is mortifying; but nothing of this kind was thrown away upon Mr Darnley, the rector of Neverden. So he began to see fresh beauties and hitherto undiscerned excellences in the mind of Penelope Primrose, and he repeated again and again the expression of his deep and sincere regret at the misunderstanding
which had suspended his acquaintance with so worthy and excellent a person.
All these regrets Penelope endeavoured to abate or disperse, by proving to Mr Darnley’s very great satisfaction that he had not been at all deserving of blame, but that under all the circumstances he had acted with the profoundest wisdom and according to the strictest and purest moral principles.
How pleasant a thing is penitence, and how agreeable is confession when, upon the acknowledgment that we have done wrong, we have the satisfaction to hear that what we considered wrong proves to be altogether right and good, and when, instead of meeting with rebukes and reluctant forgiveness, apologies are furnished for our transgressions with a sophistry more ingenious than our own self-love can form them withal.
So greatly delighted was Mr Darnley with his reception at Smatterton, so many new beauties did he discover in Penelope, and so many unsuspected good qualities did he discern in Mr Primrose, that in the ardour of his reconciliation he would insist upon it that an early day should be fixed for a festive meeting at Neverden rectory; and he was so impatient, that he would have the following day appointed for that purpose, without once considering whether or not it might be convenient to Mrs Darnley to provide an entertainment for a party at so short a notice.
Having made this engagement, Mr Darnley and his son took their departure from Smatterton, and it occurred to the elder gentleman that it would be proper for him to make a call of sympathy and condolence on Lady Aimwell. And if Sir George Aimwell had not been the great man of the parish, it would also have occurred to the reverend gentleman that it would be proper to give the magistrate a gentle rebuke for having so neglected the charge committed to him, as to suffer the young lady to elope from his house. But to a mind so susceptible of impression from the majesty of rank and the dignity of high birth and large fortune, it appeared altogether a species of high treason to admonish roughly or reproachfully an opulent baronet and an unpaid magistrate.
We cannot think of unpaid magistrates without reverence and gratitude; for, when we think how dear is law and how expensive the protection of property, it is quite delightful to know that we may have some sort of law for nothing. As to the quality of that gratuitous law, we cannot say much; all the beauty of it is, the fact that it is gratuitous—it costs nothing!
When Mr Darnley reached Neverden Hall, he found Lady Aimwell reading Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, and the worthy baronet amusing himself with a volume of the Newgate Calendar. For, though the magistrate was not what is called a great reader, he used now and then, when it was not shooting season, to amuse himself with a book. As Mr Darnley entered the room, the baronet laid down his book, and her ladyship lifted up her head. And the baronet spoke first, saying;
“Good morning, Mr Darnley, I am glad to see you. So you find us both at our books—one at law, and the other at gospel. By the way, did you ever read the Newgate Calendar? It is the most entertaining book I ever read.”
Mr Darnley did not make a full and immediate reply to all that the worthy baronet said; but merely returned his greeting, and then addressed himself to Lady Aimwell, and expressed a hope that her ladyship was not the worse for her alarm on the preceding day.
This hope thus expressed, and this allusion to the transgression of Miss Glossop, was designed by Mr Darnley as a very, very gentle hint to Sir George Aimwell. For the worthy rector of Neverden could not think of going farther in the way of reproof than merely by an indefinite hint, which the great man might or might not apply, according as might suit his convenience or taste.
The baronet however, whether regarding it as a rebuke or not, immediately directed his conversation to Mr Darnley on that topic, and said, “Ay, this is an unpleasant affair, this elopement; it would have been better and more regular if Lord Spoonbill had proceeded in the ordinary mode of courtship and arrangement; but his lordship, you know, is peculiarly situated. I mentioned the subject to Colonel
Crop, and he satisfied me that it was absolutely impossible, under existing circumstances, that any other steps could be taken.”
“But are you quite sure, Sir George, that Lord Spoonbill will marry the young woman? Has not Miss Glossop placed herself in a very awkward situation by this proceeding?”
“Marry her!” replied the baronet; “to be sure he will. I told the colonel that I would have no negociations on any other ground.”
At this information Mr Darnley started, and was actually astonished beyond his ordinary powers of self-government; and forgetting for a moment the dignity of baronet and magistrate, he directed a look of a reproachful character towards the unpaid one, and exclaimed, “Surely, Sir George, you would never suffer Colonel Crop to enter your house a second time after suggesting in your hearing any other ground of negociation?”
“I believe,” said the baronet with very great composure, “that the colonel was not aware that there was any relationship in the case between my family and that of the young lady.”
The virtuous indignation of Mr Darnley was more strongly excited; but his recollection came to his aid, and he subdued his anger as well as he could; but was most heartily disgusted with the lowmindedness of the magistrate, when he replied in answer to some more observations, “Ay, ay, you gentlemen of the cloth have nicer notions of morality than men of the world.”
In this conversation Lady Aimwell took little or no part; but her ladyship was very well pleased that Mr Darnley had been so bold as to give the baronet a little rebuke, and the baronet was not altogether satisfied with himself that he had suffered the silly girl to listen to Colonel Crop, and to receive messages from Lord Spoonbill under such circumstances. It is superfluous to say, that the unpaid magistrate had not a very nice perception of propriety to suffer such proceedings, especially since he knew, or might have known, the weakness of the young lady’s character.
CHAPTER XVII.
It is the character of history to pass over in silence years of peace, and to dwell copiously on seasons of war or scenes of discord. Seeing then that our friends at Neverden and Smatterton are now peacefully reconciled, and all is proceeding with them smoothly and calmly, we will turn our attention to the fugitives, and follow the gallant one and the lovely one on their perilous and ill-advised excursion.
It will however be necessary to present our readers with two letters, one from Colonel Crop to Lord Spoonbill, and one from Lord Spoonbill to Colonel Crop; and we beg to caution all editors, publishers, and proprietors of “Polite Letter-writers,” against pirating these letters for the purpose of enriching and rendering more attractive their said books on the subject of letter-writing. The first letter of the two is as follows:
“M L ,
“Your lordship’s letter came to hand. In answer to which I have the honor to say, that the lady is disposed to accompany me to town, whenever it shall please your lordship.
“I have the honor to be, My Lord, Your Lordship’s most obedient, &c.”
In answer to this his lordship replied:
“M C ,
“You are the best fellow in the world. Take it for granted that your fortune is made. Come as soon as you can. Bring the dear angel to Erpingham’s cottage, and send me word immediately on your arrival.
“Yours,
ever faithfully, S .”
This last letter arrived the very day before that on which Miss Glossop was destined to return home. Happy therefore was the gallant colonel when, by means of a stolen interview with the young lady, he learned from her that she was prepared to take her flight as early as possible on the following morning. Preparations were accordingly made; and at six o’clock in the morning, as already recorded, the young lady, accompanied by her military guardian, forsook the beautiful plains of Neverden and the splendid towers of Smatterton.
A journey is pleasant and animating. There is something in rapidity of movement quite inspiring. It cheers the dejected spirits. It enlivens the stupid, and clears away the vapours from the stagnant soul. It decidedly brightens the wits. Hence we find that jockies are so very keen and knowing; the rapidity with which they are carried along is the cause of their shrewdness. Hackney-coachmen are stupid people, and waggoners are stupider still. As slow movements are unfavourable to the wits, so are they also depressing to the spirits. And we think that it was an additional punishment to the rogues that were formerly hung at Tyburn, that they were condemned to be slowly dragged through the streets. For though no man is ever in a great hurry to be hanged, yet, to have been galloped over the stones at a good round pace would not have been half so dismal as to crawl along at a snail’s pace. Furthermore it may be remarked, that whenever gentlemen ride or drive furiously, it is a symptom that they are either melancholy or stupid, and that by worrying horses to death they are endeavouring to cheer their own spirits or to brighten their wits. And once more it is also worthy of remark, how prodigiously stupid some men are, seeing that though they frequently travel most rapidly, and ride and drive most furiously, and leap over hedges and ditches, floundering, galloping, roaring, tearing and shrieking after hares and foxes; yet, after all, they remain as stupid as hackneycoachmen, who have never moved more rapidly than at the rate of five miles in an hour. This paragraph may be omitted in the reading if the reader thinks it too profound.
The rapidity of movement produced an agreeable effect on the travellers of whom we are speaking. For Miss Glossop was in remarkably high spirits, and the colonel was so animated as to talk incessantly for the first five minutes of the journey, and, when he had finished, Miss Glossop talked incessantly all the rest of the way.
There is something so peculiarly pathetic in the phrase, “Ah! little did he think,” &c., that we cannot pass by the suitable occasion here afforded for the introduction of such phraseology. Though by the way it is not perhaps any great addition to a calamity that a man does not long beforehand anticipate it, and thereby suffer from anticipation more pain perhaps than he endures from the reality. To proceed however with our pathetics.
Ah! little did Lord Spoonbill think, while he was looking forward to a rapturous meeting with his adored and beloved and angelic Penelope, whom he loved as dearly as Werter loved his Charlotte; little did his lordship think what an insufferable blockhead was Colonel Crop not to remember Penelope Primrose, or not to distinguish between her and Arabella Glossop. And little did his lordship think what a pert, forward hussey was this said Arabella, that from so slight an acquaintance and with so great facility she should throw herself into the arms of a comparative stranger!
To change the scene again. Ah! little did Arabella Glossop think, when journeying up to London, delighted in her escape from the tyranny of Lady Aimwell, and pleased to have eluded the vigilance of her father, while she was gabbling and chattering with all the boisterous impertinence of high spirits, and looking forward to a proudly blushing meeting with her superfine hereditary legislative admirer—little did she think, poor creature, that she was not the young lady that his lordship expected! And now we are on the subject of little thinking, we may as well add that Colonel Crop thought as little as either Miss Glossop or the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill.
The journey was performed in safety, and the precious couple of fugitives arrived in London two hours before Mr Glossop. According to direction, the gallant colonel conducted his charge immediately to
the cottage which Lord Spoonbill had purchased of his fantastic friend Erpingham. The time of their arrival at this beautiful and secluded retreat, was about noonday. The day was brilliantly fine and the scene was beautiful. But the young lady was rather surprized to find herself in so very small a villa; and she expressed her surprize to her gallant conductor, who informed her that the nobility frequently occupied such cottage-like retreats in the vicinity of London, and that it was absolutely necessary that the marriage should be perfectly private; and that therefore his lordship had chosen this secluded retirement. And much more to the same purpose did the gallant colonel say to the young lady in explanation of the comparatively humble abode to which he had brought her.
Now Miss Glossop was a great blockhead for making any such remarks, seeing that she had been informed that Lord Spoonbill was so peculiarly situated that he could not at present publicly avow his marriage, and therefore if he did marry it must be private, and that a splendid mansion was not consistent with privacy. But the fact is that, enamoured as Miss Glossop might have been with Lord Spoonbill’s own sweet self, there was some little addition to the tender passion by means of the splendor and magnificence with which lordships are generally surrounded.
Lord Spoonbill was presently informed of the interesting fact of the young lady’s arrival, and his lordship lost no time in hastening to greet his beloved one. All the way that he rode he was meditating sweet speeches and fascinating looks, and he was wondering to himself how the lovely one would look, and whether she would meekly and gracefully, as was her usual mode of meeting those whom she respected, bend with a humble curtesy and wait the encouraging voice of her right honorable lover, before she should raise her fine dark eyes and greet her enamoured admirer, or whether tenderness would gain the advantage over reverence, and she should throw herself gently into her lover’s arms.
Ah! little did he think, we might say again. But the anticipation which he enjoyed through means of his ignorance, was a pleasure far beyond any which a knowledge of the truth could have afforded him.
And should any kindred spirit here sympathize with his lordship, and feel a trembling anxiety on account of the miserable disappointment which he is now doomed to suffer, let such an one think how blest he was in ignorance. And should such kindred spirit burn with indignation against the prince of blunderers, that paragon of boobies, that climax of nincompoops, the gallant and convenient Colonel Crop, let such indignation coolly subside at the thought, that but for the said colonel’s stupidity the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill would not have enjoyed these delightful day-dreams, this rapturous revelling of hope. For, had the colonel addressed his message to Penelope Primrose instead of to Arabella Glossop, he would have found that his prospect of success was so infinitely little, that he must have retired without hope and have resigned his commission.
As Lord Spoonbill approached the house, his agitation increased and his thoughts were in greater confusion. He was blessing Colonel Crop as one of the most valuable officers in the army, and he was fully resolving that the gallant colonel should ere long rise to higher dignity.
With these delightful anticipations his lordship drew nigh to that secret retreat where he expected to find his heart’s dearest treasure. And while his lordship was enjoying his thoughts in the rapturous revelling of hope, Miss Glossop was putting on and practising her finest airs and graces, and was in most delectable doubt as to the precise mode in which she should meet the enamoured one. She rehearsed her part in various modes and was pleased with all, but could not tell which she was most pleased with.
At length they met, but not exactly as either of them anticipated. Miss Glossop was reclining on a sofa, but as soon as the door of the apartment was opened, she hastily rose to meet his lordship. Lord Spoonbill did not at the first glance immediately recognize the young lady, for of course he had not the slightest doubt whatever that it was Penelope. But at the very moment when he was holding out his hand to the fair one, and just opening his lips to say something soft and sweet, his eye caught the recollected features of the fantastical miss
who had afforded him so much amusement by her airs and graces when looking over Smatterton castle.
Forthwith there rushed into the mind of the hereditary legislator a thousand conflicting thoughts. It is astonishing that he could find room for so many. Suddenly his hand dropped to his side, and his mouth, that was half-opened ready to speak, was fixed in that unpicturesque position, and the poor man was fastened to the spot in mute astonishment. On the other hand, the fair Arabella, who had been anticipating raptures and ladyships, and routs and feathers, and all manner of foolery, was as petrified as his lordship when she saw how petrified his lordship was, and she wondered what his lordship meant. But his lordship could not have told her had he been so disposed. And then there rushed into Miss Glossop’s mind as many contending thoughts as had rushed into the mind of Lord Spoonbill. This was a very unpleasant position for both parties. It was manifest to both that there was “something wrong,” as it is said when a steam-engine blows up or a tunnel lets in the water.
Of the state of the nation, and especially of the national debt, it is sometimes observed that matters cannot go on so long. The same remark is applicable to the awkward situation of Lord Spoonbill and Miss Glossop; but the difficulty was, who should speak first. Never was Lord Eldon, our late worthy chancellor, so completely in suspense as was Lord Spoonbill on this melancholy and posing occasion. If he had been completely and altogether disappointed, and if Colonel Crop had deceived him with the pretence of having brought up Penelope when he had not done so, that would have been bad enough as a mere negative misfortune; but instead of the lovely and graceful and gentle Penelope, to see the inelegant, vulgar and affected Miss Glossop, who had been once, and that the only time he had ever seen her, more of a laughing-stock than an object of admiration—oh, it was most abominable!
Now the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill was, in his way, a very polite man, and he could not think of deliberately and coolly saying to Miss Glossop, “Pray, how came you here?” And on the other hand, Miss Glossop, though perfectly well disposed to throw herself into his lordship’s arms, could not possibly think of so doing without the
slightest indication on the part of his lordship that such a step would be agreeable to him.
After a few seconds of most indescribable embarrassment, his lordship said in a voice and tone as indescribable as the embarrassment, “The lady, I believe, whom I had the honor of seeing at Smatterton castle a few months ago?”
Arabella trembled and blushed, and replied very softly and with downcast eyes, “The same, my lord.”
Having said this, though in speaking she nearly fainted, she felt herself somewhat relieved, and began to think that now the ice was broken. But what was her astonishment when his lordship merely replied, “Will you be so good as to be seated?”
In obedience to his lordship’s commands the lady took a seat, and his lordship did not, as she expected he would, take a seat at her side, but he abruptly left the room. What can be the meaning of this, thought Miss Glossop; is his lordship so overcome that he cannot speak to me? And then Miss Glossop, being left alone, meditated most perplexedly.
In the mean time Lord Spoonbill went to look after his hopeful negociator, his prince of fine fellows, that ornament to the army, Colonel Crop. And when he found the gallant colonel he was not so mute with astonishment as when he met Miss Glossop; but as soon as he caught sight of the officer, he spoke with hurried agitation and right honorable wrath. His language was not the most decorous and respectful, it was such in fact as could not with propriety make its appearance in print before so fastidious a public as we are now blessed with. Suffice it to say, that his lordship did swear most violently, and did call Colonel Crop by several very unhandsome names. So that the colonel, if he had been given to be very angry and resentful, would have been as angry as his lordship. But the colonel was a good-tempered and quietly-disposed man, and he was seldom angry, especially with a lord, and especially with a lord who kept such an excellent table as Lord Spoonbill. And therefore, in reply to all that torrent of wrath which was too bad to be printed, he
