The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories. Gibbon Perceval

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СКАЧАТЬ smiled. "I had little sisters," she answered inconsequently.

      "Yes?" said Truda. "I had nothing—not even a little sister."

      The new sensation remained with her that night, for the baby slumbered peacefully in her arms; and several times she awoke to bend above it and wonder, with happiness and longing, over the miracle of that little dependent life cast away on the shores of the world. By morning its companionship had so wrought in her that she could have given the manager a clear answer if he had come again to ask what she proposed to do with the child in the event of no one claiming it. But he did not come. Instead, there came a big red-haired young Jew, asserting that he was the child's uncle.

      Truda was at breakfast in her room when he arrived and was shown in; opposite to her at the table, the baby was making the most of various foods. It greeted him with shouts and open welcome; no further proof was needed to establish his claim. Truda, delicate and fragile in a morning wrapper, a slender vivid exotic of a woman, shaped as though by design to the service of art, looked up to scan him. He stood just within the door, his peaked cap in his hand, great of stature, keen- faced, rugged, with steady eyes that took her in unwinkingly. The pair of them made a contrast not the less grotesque because in each there was strength. For some moments neither spoke, while the baby gurgled happily.

      Truda sighed. "She knows you," she said. "She is a dear little thing."

      The Jew nodded. "She is dear to us," he said. "And we are very grateful to you, Excellency."

      He was still watching her with a shrewd scrutiny, as though he made an estimate of her worth.

      "That was her mother?" asked Truda. "The dead woman in the street, I mean?"

      "Yes," answered the man. "That was her mother. Her father went the same way six months ago, but in another street."

      Truda's lips parted, but she said nothing.

      "Ah, perhaps your Excellency does not understand?" suggested the man.

       The cynical humor in his face had no resemblance to mirth. "They were

       Jews, you see—Jews."

      "Judenhetze?" asked Truda. She had heard of old of that strange fever that seizes certain peoples and inflames them with a rabid lust for Jewish blood.

      "Yes," answered the Jew. "That is what they call it. But a local variety. Here it is not sudden passion, but a thing suggested to the mob, and guided by police and officers. It is an expedient of politics."

      He spoke with a restraint that was more than any, emphasis.

      "And therefore," he went on, "the kindness of your Excellency is the greater, since you saved the child not from law-breakers, but from authority itself."

      "I have done nothing," said Truda. "The child is a dear little thing.

       I—I wish she were mine."

      "She, too, is a Jew," said the other.

      "I know," answered Truda. The steadiness of his gaze was an embarrassment by now. She flushed a little under it.

      "I am wondering," she said, "if nothing can be done. I think—I believe—that the world does not know of this persecution. Perhaps I could say a word—in some high quarter——"

      "Why should you concern yourself?" asked the Jew evenly. "Why should you take this trouble?"

      "Why?" Truda looked up at him, doubtful of his meaning.

      He nodded. "Why?" he repeated. "It cannot be good for Truda

       Schottelius to stand on the side of Jews?"

      "What do you mean?" demanded Truda.

      He continued to look at her steadily, but made no answer. She rose from her chair and took one step towards him; then paused. A tense moment of silence passed, and Truda Schottelius sighed.

      "How did you know?" she asked, in a matter-of-fact tone.

      The big young man smiled. "How did I know that you, too, were a Jew—is that what you mean?" Truda nodded. "Ah, Excellency, there is an instinct in this thing, and, besides, who but a Jew is a great artist nowadays? Believe me, there is not one of us from whom you could hide it."

      "Is it as plain as that?" asked Truda.

      "As plain as that," he replied. She laughed frankly, meeting his eyes with unabashed mirth, till he perforce smiled in sympathy.

      "Then," she cried, "what, does it matter? Here I am, a Jewess. I cannot hide it. The first Jewish baby that cries for me wins me over; and there are worse things—yes, many worse things—than being knocked on the head by a drunken Christian. You didn't know that, did you?"

      "I do not doubt what you say," he answered.

      "You do not doubt!" repeated Truda, with quick contempt. "I tell you it is so, and I know. Yes!" For a moment her face darkened as though with memories. "But," she went on, "I have a place. I have a name. What I say will be heard."

      "Yes," said the Jew simply. "What you say will be heard."

      She nodded two or three times slowly. "Wait!" she said. "I know the Governor of this place; he is by way of being a friend of mine. And beyond him there are greater men all easy of access—to me. And beyond them is the sentiment of Europe, the soft hearts of the world, easiest and nearest of all. I tell you, something can be done; presently there will be a reckoning with these gentle Christians."

      She had stirred him at last. "And you will acknowledge that you are a

       Jewess?" he asked.

      She laughed. "I will boast of it," she cried. "And now, this is the time to take the baby away, while I am nerved for sacrifices. Soon I shall have nothing left at all."

      The young Jew looked over to the child, who was getting new effects out of a spoon and a dish of jam. "The child is in good hands," he said. "We shall know she is safe with you."

      "Ah!" Truda turned to him with a light in her wonderful eyes. "I shall not fail you, if it were only for this."

      "I am sure you will not fail your own people," he answered; "you do not come of traitors."

      He patted the baby's cheek with a couple of big fingers and turned to the door.

      "You do not come of traitors," he repeated, and then Truda was alone again with the child. But she did not go to it at once, to make sure of its company. She stood where the Jew had left her, deep in thought. And the manner of her thinking was not one of care; for the first time she seemed to taste a sense of freedom.

      Of the wrath and bewilderment of her manager there is no need to speak; a long experience of famous actresses and singers had not exhausted that expert's capacity for despair. His pessimism gained some color that evening, when Truda had to face a house that was plainly willing to be unsympathetic; applause came doubtfully and in patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of what was СКАЧАТЬ