Ghetto Tragedies. Israel Zangwill
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Название: Ghetto Tragedies
Автор: Israel Zangwill
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066221331
isbn:
He sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that the organ had ceased, and that some preacher's recitative had begun instead. When he looked up again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague, as through a mist. He passed his hand over his clouded brow. Of a sudden a sentence of the recitative pierced sharply to his brain:—
"Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."
O God of Israel! Then it was the last chance! He sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony: "No, no, she must not marry him! She must not!"
All heads turned toward the shabby old man. An electric shiver ran through the church. The bride paled; a bridesmaid shrieked; the minister, taken aback, stood silent. A white-gloved usher hurried up.
"Do you forbid the banns?" called the minister.
The old man's mind awoke, and groped mistily.
"Come, what have you to say?" snapped the usher.
"I—I—nothing," he murmured in awed confusion.
"He is drunk," said the usher. "Out with you, my man." He hustled Daniel toward the side door, and let it swing behind him.
But Daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spectators outside. He hung miserably about the vestibule till the Wedding March swelled in ironic triumph, and the human outpour swept him into the street.
XI
His abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled Schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not elicit that anything had happened.
In the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage items, paused on a big-headed paragraph.
"I FORBID THE BANNS!"
STRANGE SCENE AT A CHALK FARM CHURCH.
When she had finished the paragraph and read another, the first began to come back to her, shadowed with a strange suspicion. Why, this was the very church—? A Jewish-looking old man—! Great heavens! Then all this had been mere pose, self-sacrifice. And his wits were straying under the too heavy burden! Only blind craving for her own happiness could have made her believe that the mental habits of seventy years could be broken off.
"Well, father," she said brightly, "you will be losing me very soon now."
His lips quivered into a pathetic smile.
"I am very glad." He paused, struggling with himself. "If you are sure you will be happy!"
"But haven't we talked that over enough, father?"
"Yes—but you know—if a quarrel arose, he would always throw it up—that—"
"Nonsense, nonsense," she laughed. But the repetition of the old thought struck her poignantly as a sign of maundering wits.
"And you are sure you will get along together?"
"Quite sure."
"Then I am glad." He drew her to him, and kissed her.
She broke down and wept under the conviction of his lying. He became the comforter in his turn.
"Don't cry, little Schnapsie, don't cry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Alfred is a good man, and I am sure, even if you quarrel, he will never throw it—" The mumbling passed into a kiss on her wet cheek.
XII
That night, after a long passionate vigil in her bedroom, little Schnapsie wrote a letter:—
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