Israels: A Bit of Biography

“ IF I were rich — a thing I never shall be — I should chuck up the whole thing to-morrow.” The speaker was a man in middle life, — Dante’s five and thirty, — pale-faced and nervous, the sort of man who lives by ploughing and harrowing his own brains. He was a fairly successful journalist and writer. At this moment he lay back, tired, in an easy chair at his club.

The other man, also in an easy chair, also tired, also a journalist, looked up lazily, watching the blue smoke of his cigar.

“Have you ever reflected,” he asked, “what you would do instead ?”

“A score of times.”

“Do you know, I never have. It has never occurred to me that I could, by any possibility, become rich. In fact, I know I can’t.”

“Nor can I. It is quite as impossible for me. That constitutes the chief charm of thinking it out.”

“I don’t quite understand, but I suppose you have more imagination than I have.”

“I have plenty of imagination of a kind. But I have to be the hero of my own imaginings. I don’t run to a novel or a play.”

“You could live a drama, but you could n’t get one acted by other people.” The voice indicated banter. “In other words, you are a strictly subjective genius.”

The middle-aged man — he was a good deal the younger of the two — did not like banter. “ I am not a genius at all,” he answered shortly. “Would you pass me a light!”

“ H’m; I’m not so sure,” said the elder man, complying. “Well, tell me, Kortum, if you came into a fortune to-morrow, what would you do? Chuck up all the writing; get away from the treadmill, — naturally; — and then ?”

“I should live absolutely and entirely for myself henceforth.”

“In these altruistic days that sounds frankly refreshing. You mean you would spend all your money in having an unmitigated good time?”

“Yes.”

“Like the once famous Jubilee Plunger!”

“No, not a bit like that. My enjoyments, as you can realize, Hackner, if you choose, would be largely intellectual. Not only so. They would also be sensuous.”

“ Invite me, please.”

“You willfully misunderstand. My chief delight would be to escape at once, and forever, from this gray town, from this chill country, from the whole bleak, ugly North. I should never again, during this brief life, leave sunshine and orange groves, blue seas and oriental color. That, I admit, is merely sensuous — up to a point. For there is more artistic enjoyment in a month of Spain or Italy than in a cycle of — Cathay.”

“You know the South?”

“Know it? — no. I have glimpsed at it, — twice, in a tourist’s trip, — seen its possibilities, as a hungry boy at a pastry-cook’s window. Seen just enough to keep a craving at my heart, forever. Oh. what’s the use of talking! I say, is n’t this a beastly glum hole, this murky native city of ours ? Would n’t you be precious glad to escape from it?”

“Well, I don’t know,” replied the elder man, musingly watching his rings of smoke. “ It is a beastly place, but I suppose I’ve got past wanting to leave it.”

“Not I; every year makes it worse, and the horrible grind. However, this sort of talk is n’t much good. I’m out of sorts to-night. Something’s happened to upset me. A fellow had much better simply play the game.”

The gray-haired man looked kindly at the black-haired one. “At your age,” he said, “there’s always a chance of something turning up.”

“Oh, no. And it’s a poor sort of chap who hopes for that! Besides, we once had an only chance and lost it. That’s as much as would fall to the lot of any man.” He shook himself together. “ Please don’t think, Hackner, that I’m the sort of fool who goes through life grumbling, and playing in a lottery, or helping old bodies over crossings in hopes of a legacy. You know me better than that.”

“ I know you better than that, dear boy. It was I that set you building your castles in the air. I assure you I built plenty in my day, if not on the impossible chance of a fortune; but my castles, like many an older one, are — ruins. I am sorry something has occurred to put you out.”

“Oh, it’s nothing; only, I suppose it was that set me talking about money. You know the rich paper-manufacturer, Ostlar ?”

“By sight. I hear he is very ill.”

“He is dying. I met his doctor this morning. He can’t live through the night, the doctor said.”

“Well, I suppose he is one of the richest men in the city. His mills and his money will go to some distant relatives, Heaven knows where.”

“Or perhaps to charity?” said Kortum.

“Possibly. One never heard of his having any relations. And it is quite in accordance with the present craze for vast philanthropic bequests.”

“I hate,” said Kortum, “this parade of charity now-a-days. What a sickening thing is all our philanthropic notoriety, in the papers after death, and on the platforms before. I am burning to write a series of articles on it, showing the people up. Any villain nowadays can earn universal respect by large public donations; any fool can make himself interesting by talking about the poor. And the meanest of all are those who wait to disgorge some of their ill-gotten gains till they’re dead.”

“ ’T is easiest for those that have nothing to disgorge — or to leave behind them, to any one.”

Kortum remembered that his companion was a married man with a family. He edged away from what might become delicate ground.

“The public like articles abusing the rich,” he said. “ That’s the strange thing about our time; they like them, because they think they’re deserved. Never, I suppose, not even in Juvenal’s day, has money been so entirely the one thing desired, and desirable. In the Rome of the Decline, in the Byzantine corruption, there were always a great many superstitions, and a good many class distinctions, left; we have absolutely nothing but the greed, and the recognition, of gold. Yet, at the same time, even in my day, since I was a boy, there has come up an uncomfortable feeling that the new religion is a base religion, — that great wealth is a thing to be ashamed of; — the very wealthy themselves are ashamed of it and try to apologize, as it were, by making some sort of philanthropic stir. I mean the intellects among them; of course there are plenty of hereditary fools that just fool along.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” said the other thoughtfully, a little comforted about his own property, as Kortum perhaps had intended he should be.

“Now, if I were rich,” continued Kortum, “I should resist all that modern affectation. It would n’t touch me. I should use my money, as intended, rationally, for myself.”

“That’s why you don’t get it.”

“That, if correct, — which it is n’t (look around you!), — would only prove what a blind idiot is Fortune. Spending money is a far better way of diffusing it than giving it, far more beneficial to the community. All this talk about charity, luxury, the simpler life, is rubbish, economically and socially unsound.”

“Old Ostlar made all his money for himself, and kept it to himself, and now he is leaving it behind him,” moralized the older man, the poorer man, the man with children.

“What we need,” said Kortum, not heeding him, “is to get away from all this maudlin controlling of each others’ actions. The whole world just now is conscience to its neighbor. We want to get back to ‘Every man for himself, and the State to see fair play.’”

“Well, that’s a generous attitude, at any rate, in a man as — un-wealthy as yourself. The social conscience of most of us have-nots is just wanting to get at the haves.”

Kortum laughed. “I treat of these things theoretically,” he said. “ As a matter of fact, I am really quite happy as I am. The work’s interesting enough, though one abuses it, and I’ve always a spare coin for a cigar or a drink, to a friend. Yes, I’m happy enough. I should be awfully bored, say, with a large business, or as a thieving lawyer, or in a dozen other positions that one sees men happy in. A thousand a year and Italy; that’s my ideal. Old Ostlar set me thinking about rich and poor.”

“But why should the thought of him put you out ? ”

Kortum reflected a moment. “Why should n’t I tell you ? It’s really of little importance. You were saying he had no known relatives. But you’ve heard, I suppose, of his friend ?”

“No. Who was he?”

“Dear me, I thought everybody knew about that business. How we exaggerate our own importance. Well, it’s long ago. For the first quarter of a century of their lives, Ostlar and my father, living side by side in the same village, and then working together in the same foreign surroundings, were inseparable comrades. At the age of fifteen they ran away from home to the same ship. They slept together in the same berth, atop of each other; they used to lie under, alternate nights. As a grown man, Ostlar fell violently in love with a young woman; he worked long for her, got engaged to her; then my father stole her away from him. I’m afraid my father — did n’t behave very well. But my mother was worth it. She told Ostlar she could n’t love any one but my father. He never spoke to either of them again, or took any farther notice of them. They tried several times to make up, but he never answered.”

“Probably he could n’t trust himself. It was better so,” said Hackner, with a sympathetic whiff of his pipe.

“I dare say. But you know, he grew into a dreadful old curmudgeon; his temper was awful. All his work-people hated him, I believe. When I was born, they — my parents — asked him to let bygones be bygones and come and stand godfather. That was the only time he ever took any notice, or made any reply.”

“What did he do ?” asked the other with interest.

“Sent them the will, torn across, which he had made, before his engagement, in his early days, by which he left the little he then possessed to my mother, or to my father, if she died without heirs.”

Hackner, the worn man with the kindly eyes, looked straight in front of him, and, as the silence deepened, he remarked: “It was hardly judicious, perhaps, however well-meant — that asking him to be your godfather.”

“I suppose not. But, you see, I seem to have missed, somehow, being, either by my mother or my father, old Ostlar’s ultimate heir.”

“In rather a topsy-turvy manner — don’t you think ? ”

Kortum broke into a peal of merriment. “Well, yes. I did n’t mean to be literal. Talking of money, do you know, the Chief told me the other day he was going to raise my salary ?”

“He ought to have done it long ago. They have been underpaying you for years.”

“Do you think so? I’m so glad you think so! If it has to be one or the other — and I suppose it mostly has — I for one would much rather be underthan over-paid. At least” — and again he laughed — “I would much rather have my friends, my colleagues, take that view. ”

And then they talked on of “ the shop,” as they called it, the office of the great morning and evening daily, with its incessant worry, through most hours of the twenty-four. They talked on, as men do who have great part of their life in common; dozens of petty interests cropping up along the road, as they talked on.

“Please, sir, you ’re wanted at the telephone,” said a noiseless waiter at Kortum’s elbow.

“Nine o’clock!” cried Hackner, at the same time, rising. “Dear me, I must hurry home.”

Kortum had taken up a review. “It’s only my landlady,” he said, “wanting to know whether she must still keep my dinner. I had told her I should dine at home to-night. Just speak to her, as you go down, will you? that’s a good fellow! and tell her I shan’t dine at all.”

“ For a man who is going to live in luxury some day, you are wonderfully abstemious at present,” said Hackner.

“I should go to my dinner fast enough, if it were a particularly good one.” He settled himself in his deep leather chair. “It is the thought that one will never be able to command a very much better meal which is so depressing; it keeps one from enjoying this.”

“ Fie, Kortum! And just now you were saying you were contented.”

Kortum looked up from his Quarterly, with the shine in his dark eyes that every one who knew him liked. “Are you always consistent?” he said. “Besides, if I may say so, I should n’t care about ordering the banquet unless I could get somebody to share it.” He had not read many pages — of an article on “ Labour Colonies in Rumania ” — when Hackner once more stood between him and the light.

“It’s not your landlady who wants you,” he said, “but Rosberg,the lawyer.”

“Well, what does he want? I don’t know him. I suppose I must go.” Kortum rose.

“He asked whether you could come round to see him. I said you would, unless I telephoned afresh.”

“I don’t know where he lives. Somewhere on the Heerengracht?”

“ Yes. He gave the number — 87. Well, good-night. I must get home to my wife.”

“Good-night. I suppose it is some tiresome charity business. But they won’t get me on to any more of their committees. I had enough of the last.”

Meditating on the follies and iniquities of charity bazaars, concerts, and balls, Hans Kortum started for the Heerengracht. It was a bitterly cold winter evening. The east wind whistled along the blackness of the gloomy streets. People hurried past, wrapped close, as if eager to get away from the weather. At a corner a child held out its hand. “Get away,” said Hans, “it’s very wrong to beg.” The child ran beside him, whining. “ Get away,” he said, “it’s very wrong to give to beggars.” The child ran beside him, whining. He gave it a silver piece. He turned on to the Heerengracht, which is a sombre, a stately, a cold canal. He passed one of the biggest mansions upon it, and looked up at the dead stone front. “Old Ostlar’s house,” he said to himself. “I must be getting near the lawyer’s number. He looked under the next street-lantern — 99. He retraced his steps. 87 was old Ostlar’s.

He rang; the bell sounded away into the hollow stillness with a foolishly persistent clang. The whole front of the house was dark. After a wait there approached a feeble shuffling; bolts were drawn back and, by the light of a flickering candle, an old woman appeared, in a great, empty marble hall.

“This — this is not Mr. Rosberg’s?” said Kortum lamely. “ Could you direct me where he lives?”

“It’s all right, sir,” replied the old crone, in a shrill voice. “Are you Mr. Kortum ? Come in. He is waiting to speak to you.” And she flung open a heavy oak door, and stood aside.

Hans Kortum entered a lofty diningroom, the walls of which were covered with Italian landscapes above oaken wainscoting in the Dutch manner of the eighteenth century. Unlike the hall, this handsome room was well lighted, by Japanese bronze oil lamps, and on one half of the broad table silver and glass had been laid out for a meal. A decanter of wine stood there, and the lawyer had helped himself to its contents.

“Yes,” said Rosberg, a little old notary, with a brisk, impertinent manner. “I had to speak to you at once, and it is best we should meet here. Old Ostlar is dead. Did you know him ? ”

“No,” replied Kortum.

“So much the simpler. Well, he has left you all his money.”

“Good heavens!”

“You may well say so. So should I, if Providence had ever acted so well by me, but it has n’t. He has made you not only his sole heir, but his executor. I have the will here,” — he leaned with his hand on a long blue document. “There are one or two things you must do tonight, and do here. That’s why I asked you to come round.”

“ Can I read the will ? ” asked Hans.

“ By all means. Shall I read it to you ? ”

“I think, if you don’t mind, I should like to read it by myself.”

“By all means,” replied the lawyer, offended. “Well, yes; he says a thing or two, — but I daresay you will understand. Would you like to do everything else by yourself too ? ”

“Is there anything very special ? ”

“Well, perhaps not to-night. There will be formalities to-morrow. But he wishes you to stay in the house to-night.” The lawyer replenished his glass. “It is perhaps hardly a festive occasion. Still, you must allow me to drink to your good fortune, Mr. — ”

“Oh, not to-night! Not here!” cried Hans.

The lawyer emptied his glass in silence. Then he said: “It’s a very fair claret,” wished Kortum a curt “good-night,” and took his leave.

Hans sat down in the nearest chair, — a fine old bit of flowered Utrecht velvet, and stared round, like a man demented. In the deadly silence he gazed at the splendid room, and then at the bit of blue paper, which, the lawyer had said, gave all this to him. All this? A great deal more. He was one of the richest men in the town.

Then he thought of the dead man lying upstairs, with whom he had never exchanged a word in his life, whom he only knew by sight. He supposed he must go and see him now, for the last time — near at hand, for the first; — a curious thrill of unwillingness ran through him. The lawyer had said there were things he must do at once. He drew the document towards him.

It was simply worded. It said that Hans Kortum’s mother had been the hope and the joy and the ruin of Ostlar’s life. He could not forgive her, and he could not leave off loving her. He told this to her son. And after her death, her husband being dead also, — only a few years ago, — the old man had made this will, leaving all he possessed to her only child.

He asked Hans to come immediately upon the news of his death into the house no Kortum had ever entered, and not to leave it, till after the funeral. “I have lived alone; I shall die alone,” he wrote. He was evidently anxious that his heir should protect the remains and see that they were treated decently. Moreover, he asked him to burn, unread, within twelve hours, a parcel of letters, and to place on the dead breast, before it was cold, a portrait and a lock of hair.

Kortum rang at once. The old woman conducted him to the death-chamber. It was a sombre room, with green hangings. He stood looking at the cold yellow face. In an escritoire he found the things, as described; he recognized the girl-portrait of his mother. At the moment when he took the keys from the dead man’s table he felt that the change in his own life came true. By the light of his solitary candle he crept downstairs again. He remembered now that old Ostlar had taken over this whole house, with all the furniture, in a bankruptcy which he himself had brought about. He had lived in it with the old charwoman-housekeeper and a slavey.

In the dining-room he found the old woman placing several dishes, cold, all of them, — an aspic, a French pâté, a fruit jelly, — a luxurious, if somewhat peculiar repast. " He said I was to get them from the pastry-cook’s for you,” remarked the old woman. “ He told me to spend twenty florins on them. He must have been wandering in his mind. But I done it. He never spent five on a meal for himself in his life.”

Something rose up in Hans Kortum’s throat and choked him for a moment. It was all the mourning old Ostlar had.

Hans ate some of the good things, and that cleared his mind wonderfully. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed the situation.

Well, he was rich now, suddenly rich beyond his wildest dreams. A little too rich, he was afraid, but he must not mind that. He could do all he had ever wanted to do. And he had written his last unwilling article. Oh, joy! he had written his last unwilling article.

Within a fortnight he would leave for Italy, would leave all his old murky world behind him, would leave, and begin a new life. At last he would enjoy, to the full, his long pent-up love for all that is beautiful. Here, in this Northern city, everything was ugly. Oh, yes, of course, there were a few beautiful pictures in the Museum, and you could occasionally hear very beautiful music. But that does not make life beautiful. The city itself was monstrous, the streets, the shops, the clothes, the factories, — everything he could think of, — the faces, the climate (winter and summer), the ideals, the conversations, the money-making, the vulgar newspapers. Especially the newspapers. All life was a persistent nightmare of ugliness and vulgarity. In a fortnight he would be away from it all.

His eyes rested on the temples and nymphs of the painted landscape around him. The walls of the room were a blaze of sunlight and a maze of revelry. In this way the old seventeenth century Dutchmen endeavored to escape from the gray platitude of their daily lives. Soon he would be amidst the real thing. Dear me, these Italian landscapes were very well done. So well, they really might be Moucherons. He took up a lamp to examine them. What a sensuous delight of color and movement! What happiness! What a joy of living, unknown in these latitudes! He wondered, — were they Moucherons? Admirably done.

And, suddenly, a desire seized him to discover what other treasures the house possessed, that had now become his. What was behind those two finely carved folding-doors ? He flung them open, and stood, lamp in hand, on the threshold of a white and gold Louis XV saloon. The furniture and hangings were dark blue and silver silk. Against the walls hung a number of pictures in gilt frames. Modern art, as he saw at a glance. He advanced towards the nearest. An Israels! The great living Dutch painter of pathos in humble life. A poor woman by an empty cradle in the gray sorrow of the lonely room.

He went on quickly to the next. A fisherwoman by her open door, looking out to the stormy sea. An Israels. A very fine one. Full of subdued anguish, and stress in sea and sky. The next. Two old peasants, in the dull, drab cottage, at their all too scanty meal. Under this a title, “ Their daily crust.” He stood looking at it a long time; as he turned away his eyes were soft. He remembered now having heard that the man on whom Ostlar had foreclosed had been a great art connoisseur, and had wasted his money buying pictures. Why, every one of these paintings must now be worth many thousands of pounds!

Another large picture arrested him as he turned. A splendid thing. A sick child in the cupboard-bedstead at the side. In the middle father and mother, by the table, his pockets inside out, a few coppers on the board. And near to this another sadly simple, impressive scene. A young man, neat and poor, in front of a closed door, in the dark drizzle, turning away, looking straight at you with despair in his eyes; — under this also a name, though unnecessary: “No Work.” The whole room seemed to be hung with Israels; the pinched poverty stared out too terribly, against the heavy gilding and brocade.

He went back to the dining-room and sat for a long time thoughtful, his head between his hands. He must spend the whole night in this house, by the dead man’s will. He had no wish to go to bed; he knew he would not sleep. When he lifted his face his eyes were still full of the pictures in the dark room behind him. He did not see the Italian landscapes. “It is a beautiful emotion!” he said, and laughed at himself. And he went back to the pictures again, and spent another hour with them.

At midnight a knock came at the dining-room door, startling him. A man entered, evidently an artisan of the most superior class. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the man. “ I understand you are the new master. I arranged with the housekeeper to watch here, while she lay down.”

“ Oh, yes, quite right. But, how do you mean — master? Are you—” Kortum looked dubious — “a servant of —”

The man smiled. “I’ve been foreman at the Paper Mills for thirty years,” he said.

“Oh, of course! The Paper Mills!” exclaimed Kortum.

“Begging your pardon, sir; this is a very important event for all of us, sir. There’s eight hundred hands at the Paper Mills.”

“Eight hundred hands!” exclaimed Kortum.

“ And, if I might be so bold as to say it, sir,”—he paused; then, with an effort: “It’s a very anxious moment for us.” Kortum did not answer. “You ’ll forgive me, sir, if I can’t keep silence. The — Mills will be kept on ? ”

“Doubtless. Of course. I shall sell them.”

“God help us, if that be true!”

“What do you mean ? You ’ll probably get as good a master as you’ve lost.”

The old foreman shook his head. “May I speak, sir, to-night, while there’s time ? ’’

“Speak, if you like,” answered Kortum. “Sit down!” With a respectful movement the old man declined this invitation.

“You can’t sell the Mills, sir, and that’s the truth. You can only close them. My old master was not an easy man to get on with; he was soured, somehow, but he had his soft side, sharp man of business as he was, and he was terribly just. I could get on with him, though I say it myself, and he ’d often talk over matters with me, having been with him all his life, that even the gentlemen in the office did n’t quite know the rights of. Well, sir; he’d made a power of money out of the Mills, but in the last years they did n’t even pay their expenses. 1 It’s my own fault, Brest,’ he would say to me; ‘I can’t put in the new improvements. I’m too old. We must rub on like this now; it is n’t for long.’ He knew he was breaking up.”

“Well, the new man will put in the new improvements. ”

“No, he won’t, sir. There’s too much to do. It would n’t be worth any man’s while to buy the Mills.”

“Then we must close them. I am going to live in Italy.”

“There’s eight hundred hands, sir. And master, he said to me, ‘The new master must work the business up. There’s plenty of ready money to keep it going and put it right.’ He did n’t say who the new master would be, sir, but, ‘He’s a young man,’ he says, ‘and energetic, and he’s chosen an occupation that you have to be quick in, and sharp. And I see his name down in charity committees, so, you see, he cares about the people. He’ll probably have all the new-fangled notions about libraries and pensions, Brest; so he ’ll be a better master than I. I hope and believe he will,’ says master, with such a break in his voice, that I stood up to him. ‘ Why, you’ve kept the Mills going at a loss, for the people, all these years,’ says I. ‘ And what business is that of yours ? ’ says master, — he was like that. ‘Ain’t I one of the richest men in this city ? Did n’t I make all my money out of my Mills ?’ says he. There, sir, now I’ve told you all. God forgive me, if I was wrong.”

“ Did your master tell you to tell me ? ” demanded Kortum, shading his face.

“No, sir — but he did n’t tell me not to tell you.”

“There is no need of the Mills. Why, the pictures in the next room alone must be worth far more money than I shall ever want.”

“ The pictures of the poor people, sir ? ”

“But I could n’t manage mills.”

“There’s very good men in the office, sir. Old master, he had a wonderful gift of selecting men, so I thought we must be all right in his selecting you as his heir. He only turned away one manager once. ‘He’s a genius,’ says he to me, ‘they’re the only sort you can’t use in a business.’ Beg your pardon, are you a genius, sir ? ”

“No. There is n’t a word of all this in the will. He expressly says what he wishes me to do.”

“About the Mills, sir?”

“No, about other matters. Eight hundred hands at the Mills?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is a splendid vocation.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Look here, you had better leave me alone now. I am going to Italy for a couple of months with a friend. After that, I suppose I shall come back here.”

He motioned the man away. Then he went back to the white and gold saloon, and closed the door upon himself and the pictures, passing slowly from one to the other, and harking back.