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Georges Ohnet - "Serge Panine, v3"

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Books: The Rise of David Levinsky

A >> Abraham Cahan >> The Rise of David Levinsky




The long and short of it was that Mrs. Chaikin became enthusiastic
for my Division Street shop, and the next day her husband took
two hours off to accompany me to a nondescript woolen-store on
Hester Street, where we bought fifty dollars' worth of material

The rent for the shop was thirty dollars a month. One month's rent
for two sewing-machines was two dollars. A large second-hand
table for designing and cutting and some old chairs cost me
twelve dollars more, leaving me a balance of over two hundred
dollars

Before I went to rent the premises for our prospective shop I had
withdrawn my money from the savings-bank and deposited it in a
small bank where I opened a check account

"Once I am to play the part of a manufacturer it would not do to
pay bills in cash," I reflected. "I must pay in checks, and do so like
one to the manner born."

At this the magic word "credit" loomed in letters of gold before
me. I was aware of the fascination of check-books, so, being
armed with one, I expected to be able to buy things, in some
cases, at least, without having to pay for them at once. Besides,
my bank might be induced to grant me a loan. Then, too, one
might issue a check before one had the amount and thereby gain a
day's time. There seemed to be a world of possibilities in the long,
narrow book in my breast pocket. I was ever conscious of its
presence. I have a vivid recollection of the elation with which I
drew and issued my first check (in payment of thirty dollars, the
first month's rent for our prospective cloak-factory). Humanity
seemed to have become divided into two distinct classes--those
who paid their obligations in cash and those who paid them in
checks. I still have that first check-book of mine

CHAPTER V CHAIKIN made up half a dozen sample garments. I
took them to the department store to which the Manheimer
Brothers catered, but the buyer of the cloak department would not
so much as let me untie my bundle. He was a middle-aged man
(women buyers were rare in those days), an Irish-American of
commanding figure. After sweeping me with a glance of cold
curiosity, he waved me aside. My Russian name and my
appearance were evidently against me. I tried the other
department stores --with the same result. The larger business
world of the city had not yet learned to take the Russian Jew
seriously as a factor in advanced commerce. The buyer of the
cloak department in the last store I visited was an American Jew,
a fair-complexioned little fellow, all aglitter with neatness. At first
he took an amused interest in me. When I had unpacked my goods
and was about to show him one of Chaikin's jackets he checked
me

"Suppose we gave you an order for five hundred," he said, with a
smile; "five hundred jackets to be delivered at a certain date."

"I would deliver it," I answered, boldly. "Why not?"

"I don't know why. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. How
can we be sure you would?" Before I had time to answer he asked
me how long I had been in the country.

When I told him, he complimented me on my English. I was sure it
meant business. I was thrilled

"Have you got a shop?" he further questioned. "How many hands
do you employ?"

"Seventy-five."

He sized me up. "Where is your place?"

"On Division Street."

"Well, well! What is your rating?" I did not know what he meant.
So, for an answer, I made a new attempt to submit the contents of
my bundle for his inspection. At this he made a gesture of disgust
and withdrew. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead

I had heard of the existence of small department stores in various
sections of the city, so I went in search of them

I found myself in the vicinity of the City College. As I passed that
corner I studiously looked away. I felt like a convert Jew passing a
synagogue

It was a warm day. My pack seemed to grow heavier with every
block I walked, and so did my heart. I was perspiring freely; my
collar wilted. All of which did anything but make me look as "a
man who paid his bills in checks." At last, walking up Third
Avenue I came across a place where there was quite a large
display of jackets in the windows. Upon my opening the door and
announcing my mission, two jaunty young fellows invited me in
with elaborate courtesy, almost with anxiety. My heart leaped for
joy. I fell to opening my bundle. The two young men inspected
every jacket, went into ecstasies over each of them, and then
asked me all sorts of irrelevant questions until it dawned upon me
that I was being made game of. It appeared that the father of the
two young men, the proprietor of the store, manufactured his own
goods, for wholesale as well as for retail trade

I received much better treatment in a store on Avenue B, but my
goods proved too high for that neighborhood. As if to atone for
this, the proprietor of this store, a kindly Galician Jew, gave me a
list of the minor department stores I was looking for, and some
valuable suggestions in addition

My dinner that day consisted of two ring-shaped rolls which I
bought in a Jewish grocery-store and which I ate on a bench in
Tompkins Square

The day passed most discouragingly. It was about 7 o'clock when,
disheartened to the point of despair, I dragged my wearied limbs in
the direction of my "factory." When I got there I found my partner
waiting for me--not alone, but in the company of his wife

"Well?" she shrieked, jumping to meet me

"Splendid!" I replied, with enthusiasm. "It looks even better than I
expected. I could have got good orders at once, but a fellow must
not be too hasty. You have got to look around first--find out who
is who, you know."

Mrs. Chaikin looked crestfallen. "So you did not get any orders at
all?"

"What's your hurry?" her husband said, pleadingly. "Levinsky is
right. You can't sell goods unless you know who you deal with."

The following two days were as barren of results as the first. Mrs.
Chaikin had lost all confidence in the venture. She was becoming
rather hard to handle

"I don't want Ansel to bother any more," she said, peevishly. "You
know what the Americans say, 'Time is money.' Pay Ansel for his
work and let us be 'friends at a distance.'"

"Very well," I said, and, producing my check-book, I asked, "How
much is it?"

The sight of my check-book acted like a charm. The situation
suddenly assumed brighter colors in Mrs. Cbaikin's eyes

"Look at him! He thought I really meant it," she grinned,
sheepishly

Every night I would go to bed sick at heart and with my mind half
made up to drop it all, only to wake in the morning more resolute
and hopeful than ever. Hopeful and defiant. It was as though
somebody--the whole world--were jeering at my brazen-faced,
piteous efforts, and I was bound to make good, "just for spite."

I learned of the existence of "purchasing offices" where the buyers
of several department stores, from so many cities, made their
headquarters in New York. Also, I discovered that in order to keep
track of the arrivals of these buyers I must follow a daily paper
called Hotel Reporter (the ordinary newspapers did not furnish
information of this character in those days). A man who
manufactured neckties in the same ramshackle building in which I
hoped to manufacture cloaks volunteered to let me look at his
Reporter every day. This man was naturally inclined to be
neighborly, but I had found that an occasional quotation or two
from the Talmud was particularly helpful in obtaining a small
favor from him

I knocked about among the purchasing offices with bulldog
tenacity, but during the first few days my efforts in this direction
were as futile as in the case of the New York stores. Meanwhile,
time was pressing. So far as out-of-town buyers were concerned,
the "winter season" was drawing to a close. All I could see were
some belated stragglers. One of these was a man from the Middle
West, a stout, fleshy American with quick, nervous movements
which contradicted his well-fed, languid-looking face

He shot a few glances at my samples, just to get rid of me, but he
liked the designs, and I could see that he found my prices
tempting

"How soon will you be able to deliver five hundred?" he snarled

"In three weeks."

"Very well--go ahead!" And speaking in his jerky, impatient way,
he went on to specify how many cloaks he wanted of each kind

I left him with my heart divided between unutterable triumph and
black despair. Five hundred cloaks! How would I raise the money
for so much raw material? It almost looked like another practical
joke

By this time I was more than sure that the Chaikins had a
considerable little pile, but to turn to them for funds was
impossible. It would have let my cat out of the bag. I sought credit
at Claflin's and at half a dozen smaller places, but all in vain. I
could not help thinking of Nodelman's "credit face." Ah, if that
kind of a face had fallen to my lot! But it had not, it seemed. It
looked as if there were no hope for me

Finally I took the necktie man into my confidence, the result being
that he unburdened himself of his own financial straits to me

One afternoon I was moping around some of the side-streets off
lower Broadway in quest of some new place where I might try to
beg for credit, when I noticed the small sign-board of a
commission merchant. Upon entering the place I found a
fine-looking elderly American dictating something to a
stenographer. When the man had heard my plea be looked me over
from head to foot.

I felt like a prisoner facing the jury which is about to announce its
verdict

At last he said: "Well, you look pretty reliable. I guess I'll trust you
the goods for thirty days."

It was all I could do to restrain myself from invoking benedictions
on his head and kissing his hands as my mother would have done
under similar circumstances

"So I do have a 'credit face'!" I exclaimed to myself, gleefully

When I found myself in the street again I looked at my reflection
in store windows, scanning my "credit face."

The Chaikins took it for granted that I had paid for the goods on
the spot

Things brightened up at our "factory." I ordered an additional
sewing-machine of the instalment agent and hired two
operators--poor fellows who were willing to work fourteen or
fifteen hours a day for twelve dollars a week. (The union had
again been revived, but it was weak, and my employees did not
belong to it.) As for myself, I toiled at my machine literally day
and night, snatching two or three hours' sleep at dawn, with some
bundles of cut goods or half-finished cloaks for a bed. Chaikin
spent every night, from 7 to 2, with me, cutting the goods and
doing the better part of the other work. Mrs. Chaikin, too, lent a
hand. Leaving Maxie in the care of her mother, she would spend
several hours a day in the factory, finishing the cloaks

The five hundred cloaks were shipped on time. I was bursting with
consciousness of the fact that I was a manufacturer--that a big firm
out West (a firm of Gentiles, mind you!) was recognizing my
claim to the title.

I was American enough to be alive to the special glamour of the
words, "out West."

Goods in our line of business usually sold "for cash," which meant
ten days.

Ten days more, then, and I should receive a big check from that
firm. That would enable me to start new operations. Accordingly,
I went out to look for more orders

Whether my first success had put new confidence in me, or
whether my past experiences had somewhat rounded off my rough
edges and enabled me to speak to business people in a more
effective manner than I could have done before, the proprietor of
a small department store on upper Third Avenue let me show him
my samples. My prices made an impression on him. My cloaks
were five dollars apiece lower than he was in the habit of paying.
He looked askance at me, as though my figures seemed too good
to be true, until I found it the best policy to tell him the
unembellished truth.

"The big manufacturers of whom you buy have big office
expenses," I explained. "They make a lot of fuss, and you've got to
pay for it. My principle is not to make fuss at the retailer's
expense. Our office costs us very, very little. We are plain people.
But that isn't all. Your big manufacturer pays for union labor, so
he takes it out of you. Now, we don't bother about these things.
We get the best work done for the lowest wages.

The big men in the business wouldn't even know where hands of
this kind could be got. We do."

I took my departure with an order for three hundred cloaks,
expecting to begin work on them as soon as I received that check
"from out West." Things seemed to be coming my way.

As I sat in an Elevated train going down-town I figured the profits
on the two orders and pictured other orders coming in. I beheld
our little factory crowded with machines, I heard their bewitching
whir-r, whir-r. Chaikin would have to leave the Manheimers, of
course

In the afternoon of the sixth day, when I called at one of the
purchasing offices I have mentioned, I received the information
that the firm whose check I was awaiting so impatiently had
failed! CHAPTER VI THE failure of the Western firm seemed to
nave nipped my commercial career in the bud. The large order I
had received from its representative was apparently to be the
death as well as the birth of my glory. In my despair, I tried to
make a virtue of necessity. I was telling myself that it served me
right; that I had had no business to abandon my intellectual
pursuits. I was inclined to behold something like the hand of
Providence in the bankruptcy of that firm. At the same time I was
casting about in my mind for some way of raising new money
with which to pay the kindly commission merchant, get a new bill
of goods from him, and fill my new order.

When I explained the matter to Mrs. Chaikin she was on the brink
of a fainting spell

"You're a liar and a thief!" she shrieked. "There never was a
Western firm in the world. It's all a lie. You sold the goods for
cash."

Her husband knew something about firms and credit, so I had no
difficulty in substantiating my assertion to him

"It's only a matter of days when I shall get the big check that is
coming to me," I assured them. I went on to spin a long yarn, to
which she listened with jeers and outbursts of uncomplimentary
Yiddish

One day I mustered courage and called on Mrs. Chaikin. I did so
on an afternoon when her husband was sure to be at work,
because I had a lurking feeling that, being alone with me, she
would be easier to deal with

When she saw me she gasped. "What, you?" she said. "You have
the nerve to come up here?"

"Come, come, Mrs. Chaikin," I said, earnestly. "Please be seated
and let us talk it all over in a business-like manner. With your
sense, and especially with your sense for business. you will
understand me."

"Please don't flatter me," she demurred, sternly

But I knew that nothing appealed to her vanity so much as being
thought a clever business woman, and I protested: "Flatter you! In
the first place, it is a well-known fact that women have more
sense than men. In the second place, it is the talk of every
cloak-shop that Mr. Chaikin owes his high position to you as
much as to his own ability. Everybody, everybody says so."

I talked of "unforeseen difficulties," of a "well-known landlord"
whose big check I was expecting every day; I composed a story
about that landlord's father-in-law agreed with Mrs. Chaikin that it
had been a mistake on my part to trust the buyer of that Western
firm the goods without first consulting her; and the upshot was
that she made me stay to supper and that pending the arrival of
Chaikin I took Maxie to the Park

The father-in-law of my story was Mr. Even, of course. I had
portrayed him vividly as coming to my rescue in my present
predicament, so vividly, indeed, that my own fib haunted me the
next day. The result was that in the evening I made myself as
presentable as I could, and repaired to the synagogue where he
spent much of his time reading Talmud

I had not visited the place since that memorable day, my first day
in America. I recognized it at once. I was thrilled. The four-odd
years seemed twenty-four

Mr. Even was not there, but he soon came in. He had aged
considerably. He was beginning to look somewhat decrepit. His
dignity was tinged with the sadness of old age

"Good evening, Mr. Even. Do you know me?" I began

He scanned me closely, but failed to recognize me

"I am David Levinsky, the 'green one' you befriended four and a
half years ago. Don't you remember me, Mr. Even? It was in this
very place where I had the good fortune to make your
acquaintance. I'm the son of the woman who was killed by
Gentiles, in Antomir," I added, mournfully

"Oh yes, indeed!" he said, with a wistful smile, somewhat abashed.
He took snuff, looked me over once more, and, as if his memory
had been brightened by the snuff, he burst out: "Lord of the
World! You are that young man! Why, I confess I scarcely
recognize you. Of course I remember it all. Why, of course I
remember you. Well, well! How have you been getting along in
America?"

"Can't complain. Not at all. You remember that evening? After you
provided me with a complete outfit, like a father fixing up his son
for his wedding-day, and you gave me five dollars into the
bargain, you told me not to call on you again until I was well
established in life. Do you remember that?"

"Of course I do," he answered, with a beaming glance at two old
Talmudists who sat at their books close by

"Well, here I am. I am running a cloak-factory."

He began to question me about my affairs with sad curiosity. I said
that business was "good, too good, in fact," so that it required
somewhat more capital than I possessed.

I soon realized, however, that he did not care for me now. My
Americanized self did not make the favorable impression that I
had made four and a half years before, when he gave me my first
American hair-cut

I inquired after his daughter and his son-in-law, but my hint that
the latter might perhaps be willing to indorse a note for me
evoked an impatient grunt

"My son-in-law! Why, you don't even know him!" he retorted, with
a suspicious look at me

I turned it off with a joke and asked about the hen-pecked man.
Mr. Even had not seen him for four years. The other Talmudists
present had never even known him. A man with extremely long
black side-locks who spoke with a Galician accent became
interested. After Mr. Even went to his wonted seat at the east wall,
where he took up a book, this man said to me, with a sigh: "Oh, it
is not the old home. Over there people go to the same synagogue
all their lives, while here one is constantly on the move. They call
it a city.

Pshaw! It is a market-place, a bazar, an inn, not a city! People are
together for a day and then, behold! they have flown apart. Where
to? Nobody knows. I don't know what has become of you and you
don't know what has become of me."

"That's why there is no real friendship here," I chimed in, heartily.

"That's why one feels so friendless, so lonely."

My shop, of course, shut down, and I roamed about the streets a
good deal. I was restless. I continually felt nonplussed, ashamed to
look myself in the face, as it were. One forenoon I found myself
walking in the direction of Twenty-third Street and Lexington
Avenue. The college building was now a source of consolation.
Indeed, what was money beside the halo of higher education? I
paused in front of the building. There were several students on the
campus, all Jewish boys. I accosted one of them. I spoke to him
enviously, and left the place thrilling with a determination to drop
all thought of business, to take the entrance examination, and be a
college student at last. I was almost grateful to that Western firm
for going into bankruptcy

And yet, even while I was tingling with this feeling, a voice
exclaimed in my heart, "Ah, if that Western firm had not failed!"

The debt I owed the American commission merchant agonized me
without let-up.

I couldn't help thinking of my "credit face." To disappoint him, of
all men, seemed to be the most brutal thing I had ever done. I
imagined myself obtaining just enough money to pay him; but, as
I did so, I could not resist the temptation of extending the sum so
as to go on manufacturing cloaks. I was incessantly cudgeling my
brains for some "angel" who would come to my financial rescue

The spell of my college aspirations was broken once for all. My
Temple was destroyed. Nothing was left of it but vague yearnings
and something like a feeling of compunction which will assert
itself, sometimes, to this day

The Talmud tells us how the destruction of Jerusalem and the
great Temple was caused by a hen and a rooster. The destruction
of my American Temple was caused by a bottle of milk

The physical edifice still stands, though the college has long since
moved to a much larger and more imposing building or group of
buildings. I find the humble old structure on Lexington Avenue
and Twenty-third Street the more dignified and the more
fascinating of the two. To me it is a sacred spot. It is the sepulcher
of my dearest ambitions, a monument to my noblest enthusiasm in
America



BOOK IX DORA CHAPTER I "HOW about it?" Mrs. Chaikin said
to me, ominously

"About what? What do you mean, Mrs. Chaikin?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. It is no use playing the fool and trying
to make a fool of me."

The conversation was held in our deserted shop on an afternoon.
The three sewing-machines, the cutting-table, and the
pressing-table looked desolate.

She spoke in an undertone, almost in a whisper, lest the secret of
her husband's relations with me should leak out and reach his
employers. She had been guarding that secret all along, but now,
that our undertaking had apparently collapsed, she was
particularly uneasy about it

"I don't believe that store in the West has failed at all. In fact, I
know it has not. Somebody told me all about it."

This was her method of cross-examining me. I read her a clipping
containing the news of the bankruptcy, but as she could not read it
herself, she only sneered. I reasoned with her, I pleaded, I swore;
but she kept sneering or nodding her head mournfully

"I don't believe you. I don't believe you," she finally said, shutting
her eyes with a gesture of despair and exhaustion. "Do I believe a
dog when it barks? Neither do I believe you. I curse the day when
I first met you. It was the black year that brought you to us." She
fell to wringing her hands and moaning: "Woe is me! Woe is me!"

Finally she tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs. In my
despair I longed for somebody to whom I could unbosom myself. I
thought of Meyer Nodelman. A self-made man and one who had
begun manufacturing almost penniless like myself, he seemed to
be just the man I needed. A thought glimmered through my mind,
"And who knows but he may come to my rescue I was going to call
at his warehouse, but upon second thought I realized that the seat
of his cold self-interest would scarcely be a favorable setting for
the interview and that I must try to entrap him in the humanizing
atmosphere of his mother's home for the purpose

The next time I saw him at his mother's I took him up to my little
attic and laid my tribulations before him. I told him the whole
story, almost without embellishments, omitting nothing but
Chaikin's name

"Is it all true?" he interrupted me at one point

I swore that it was, and went on. At the end I offered to prove it all
to his satisfaction

"You don't need to prove it to me," he replied. "What do I care?"
Then, suddenly, casting off his reserve, he blurted out: "Look here,
young fellow! If you think I am going to lend you money you are
only wasting time, for I am not." "And why not?" I asked, boldly,
with studied dignity

"Why not! You better tell me why yes," he chuckled. "You have a
lot of spunk. That you certainly have, and you ought to make a
good business man, but I won't loan you money, for all that."

"Weren't you once hard up yourself, Mr. Nodelman? You have
made a success of it, and now it would only be right that you
should help another fellow get up in the world. You won't lose a
cent by it, either. I take an oath on it."

"You can't have an oath cashed in a bank, can you?"

"Why did that commission merchant take a chance? If a Gentile is
willing to help a Jew, and one whom he had never seen before,
you should not hesitate, either."

"Well, there is no use talking about it," was his final decision

The following day I received a letter from him, inviting me to his
office

His warehouse occupied a vast loft on a little street off Broadway.
Arrived there, I had to pass several men, all in their shirt-sleeves,
who were attacking mountains of cloth with long, narrow knives.
One of these directed me to a remote window, in front of which I
presently found Nodelman lecturing a man who wore a
tape-measure around his neck