as the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress i was making was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several times i fancied i detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its advancing stages with a sort of hopeless [29]fear. my anxiety about him and his family grew from day to day, but i could not see any possible way of helping him. he was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. once i gave him a few shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the ghetto sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned me the balance—about two-thirds.
i happened to have sold an english landscape to sir asher aaronsberg, the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of middleton, then up in town in connection with his parliamentary duties, and knowing how indefatigably he was in touch with the london jewish charities, i inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist quarriar. sir asher was not very encouraging. the man knew no trade. however, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer the questions, he would see what could be done. i saw that the details were duly filled in—the ages and sex of his five children, etc.
but the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was to repatriate the man. 'return to russia!' cried israel in horror.
occasionally i inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to him. but he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. now and again came a fitful gleam of light. his second daughter would be given a week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms on the top floor. but that [30]was only when there was an extra spasm of activity. his half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.
at last one day i found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that was carefully worked out in all its details. the scheme was certainly a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible conditions.
briefly his scheme was this. in the innumerable tailors' workshops of his district great piles of cuttings of every kind and quality of cloth accumulated, and for the purchase of these cuttings a certain competition existed among a class of people, known as piece-sorters. the sale of these cuttings by weight and for cash brought the master-tailors a pleasant little revenue, which was the more prized as it was a sort of perquisite. the masters were able to command payment for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount he had advanced was exhausted. quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be able to employ his daughters too. the whole family would find occupation in sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven again into the cheaper woollen materials. through the recommendation of his countrymen, there were several tailors who had readily agreed to give him the preference. his own landlord in particular had promised to befriend him, and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate at some inconvenience, since he might have had ready [31]money for them. moreover, his friends had introduced him to a very respectable and honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, teach him, and allow his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put down twenty pounds! his friends would jointly advance him eight on the security of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other twelve.
this promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, and i hastened, somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the professional philanthropist, who had been so barren of ideas, with my intention to set up quarriar as a piece-sorter.
'ah,' sir asher replied, unmoved. 'then you had better employ my man conn; he does a good deal of this sort of work for me. he will find quarriar a partner and professor.'
'but quarriar has already found a partner.' i explained the scheme.
'the partner will cheat him. twenty pounds is ridiculous. five pounds is quite enough. take my advice, and let it all go through conn. if i wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an amateur. by the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell conn i gave them. i don't believe the money'll do any good, and conn will lose his respect for me.'
my interest in piece-sorting—an occupation i had never even heard of before—had grown abnormally, and i had gone into the figures and quantities—so many hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings, sorted into lots, and sold at various prices—with as thorough-going an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to depend upon it.
[32]i confess i was now rather bewildered by so serious a difference of estimate as to the cost of a partnership, but i was inclined to set down sir asher's scepticism to that pessimism which is the penalty of professional philanthropy.
on the other hand, i felt that whether the partnership was to cost five pounds or twenty, quarriar's future would be safer from kazelias under the auspices of sir asher and his conn. so i handed the latter the five pounds, and bade him find quarriar a guide, philosopher, and partner.
with the advent of conn, all my troubles began, and the picture passed into its third and last stage.
i soon elicited that quarriar and his friends were rather sorry conn had been introduced into the matter. he was alleged to favour some people at the expense of others, and to be not at all popular among the people amid whom he worked. and altogether it was abundantly clear that quarriar would rather have gone on with the scheme in his own way without official interference.
later, sir asher wrote to me direct that the partner put forward by the quarriar faction was a shady customer; conn had selected his own man, but even so there was little hope quarriar's future would be thus provided for.
there seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of quarriar sounding underneath, but i found comfort in the reflection that to sir asher my model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance, whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he was something infinitely more human.
spring was now nearing; i finished my picture early [33]in march—after four months' strenuous labour—shook hands with my model, and received his blessing. i was somewhat put out at learning that conn had not yet given him the five pounds necessary to start him, as i had been hoping he might begin his new calling immediately the sittings ended. i gave him a small present to help tide over the time of waiting.
but that tragic face on my own canvas remained to haunt me, to ask the question of his future, and few days elapsed ere i found myself starting out to visit him at his home. he lived near ratcliffe highway, a district which i found had none of that boisterous marine romance with which i had associated it.
the house was a narrow building of at least the sixteenth century, with the number marked up in chalk on the rusty little door. i happened to have stumbled on the jewish passover. quarriar was called down, evidently astonished and unprepared for my appearance at his humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as i climbed up after him. on the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, intercepted us, introduced himself in english (which he spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his attic.
he was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness and vigour—a marked contrast to quarriar's drooping, dignified figure standing silently near by, and radiating poverty and suffering all the more in the little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved walnut cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed [34]birds. effusively the master-tailor painted himself as the champion of the poor fellow, and protested against this outside partnership that was being imposed on him by the notorious conn. he himself, though he could scarcely afford it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. but of course he didn't see why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should benefit by this goodness of his. he discoursed to me in moved terms of the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms upstairs. and all the while quarriar preserved his attitude of drooping dignity, saying no syllable except under special appeal.
the landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub for the benefit of the high-born visitor, and we all clinked glasses, the young master-tailor beaming at me unctuously as he set down his glass.
'i love company,' he cried, with no apparent consciousness of impudent familiarity.
i returned, however, to my central interest in life—the piece-sorting. it occurred to me afterwards that possibly i ought not to have insisted on such a secular subject on a jewish holiday, but, after all, the landlord had broached it, and both men now entered most cordially into the discussion. the landlord started repeating his lament—what a pity it would be if quarriar were really forced to accept conn's partner—when quarriar timidly blurted out that he had already signed the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received the promised capital from conn, nor spoken over matters with the partner provided. the landlord seemed astonished and angry at learning this, pricking up his [35]ears curiously at the word 'signed,' and giving quarriar a look of horror.
'signed!' he cried in yiddish. 'what hast thou signed?'
at this point the landlord's wife joined us in the parlour, with a pretty child in her arms and another shy one clinging to her skirts, completing the picture of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into greater shadow the attic to which i shortly afterwards climbed my way up the steep, airless stairs. i was hardly prepared for the depressing spectacle that awaited me at their summit. it was not so much the shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses, a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of passover cakes, as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and flushing before their important visitor. the wife-and-mother was dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were squat, with tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely suggestive of caucasian peasants, while the sightless eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness.
how little my academic friends know me who imagine i am allured by the ugly! it is only that sometimes i see through it a beauty that they are blind to. but here i confess i saw nothing but the ghastly misery and squalor, and i was oppressed almost to sickness as much by the scene as by the atmosphere.
'may i open a window?' i could not help inquiring.
the genial landlord, who had followed in my footsteps, rushed to anticipate me, and when i could breathe more freely, i found something of the tragedy that had been swallowed in the sordidness. my eye [36]fell again on the figure of my host standing in his drooping majesty, the droop being now necessary to avoid striking the ceiling with his kingly head.
surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would have detracted from the splendour of the tragedy. israel stood there, surrounded by all that was mean, yet losing nothing of his regal dignity—indeed the man of sorrows.
ere i left i suddenly remembered to ask after the three younger children. they were still with their kind benefactor, the father told me.
'i suppose you will resume possession of them when you make your fortune by the piece-sorting?' i said.
'god grant it,' he replied. 'my bowels yearn for that day.'
against my intention i slipped into his hand the final seven pounds i was prepared to pay. 'if your partnership scheme fails, try again alone,' i said.
his blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. his womankind remained shy and dumb.
when i got home i found a telegram from the parsonage. my father was dangerously ill. i left everything and hastened to help nurse him. my picture was not sent in to any exhibition—i could not let it go without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. when, some months later, i returned to town, my first thought—inspired by the sight of my picture—was how quarriar was faring. i left the studio and telephoned to sir asher aaronsberg at the london office of his great middleton business.
'that!' his contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'smashed up long ago. just as i expected.'
[37]and the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated triumphantly. i was much upset, but ere i could recover my composure sir asher was cut off. in the evening i received a note saying quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from russia for illicit sale of spirits. he had only two, at most three, elderly daughters; the three younger girls were a myth. for a moment i was staggered; then all my faith in israel returned. those three children a figment of the imagination! impossible! why, i remembered countless little anecdotes about these very children, told me with the most evident fatherly pride. he had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made on her return home from her first morning at the english school. impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of the moment. no; i could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not demanded anything. and then i remembered that tragic passage describing how these three little ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly soul, hid themselves when their father came to see them, fearing to be reclaimed by him to hunger and cold. if quarriar could invent such things, he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of starvation i could recall no better touch.
i went to sir asher. he said that quarriar, challenged by conn to produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further questions. i found myself approving of his conduct. 'a man ought not to be insulted by such absurd charges,' i said. sir asher merely smiled and took up his usual [38]unshakable position behind his impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism.
i wrote to quarriar to call on me without delay. he came immediately, his head bowed, his features care-worn and full of infinite suffering. yes, it was true; the piece-sorting had failed. for a few weeks all had gone well. he had bought cuttings himself, had given the partner thrust upon him by conn various sums for the same purpose. they had worked together, sorting in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which his partner kept the key. so smoothly had things gone that he had felt encouraged to invest even the reserve seven pounds i had given him, but when the cellar was full of their common stock, and his own suspicions had been lulled by the regular division of the profits—seventeen shillings per week for each—one morning, on arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he found the place locked, and when he called at the partner's house for an explanation, the man laughed in his face. everything in the cellar now belonged to him, he claimed, insisting that quarriar had eaten up the original capital and his share of the profits besides.
'besides, it never was your money,' was the rogue's ultimate argument. 'why shouldn't i profit, too, by the christian's simplicity?'
conn blindly believed his own man, for the transactions had not been recorded in writing, and it was only a case of quarriar's word against the partner's. it was the latter who in his venomous craft had told conn the younger children did not exist. but, thank heaven! his quiver was not empty of them. he had blissfully taken them home when prosperity began, but now that he was again face to face with starvation, [39]they had returned to his hospitable countryman, nathan beck.
'you are sure you could absolutely produce the little ones?'
he looked grieved at my distrusting him. my faith in his probity was, he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. i dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined that the man's good name should be cleared. the crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly sanctioned. again i wrote to my friend. as usual, sir asher replied kindly and without a trace of impatience. would i get some intelligible written statement from quarriar as to what had taken place?
so, at my request, quarriar sent me a statement in quaint english—probably the landlord's—alleging specifically that the partner had detained goods and money belonging to quarriar to the amount of ￡7 9s. 5d., and had assaulted him into the bargain. when the partner was threatened with police-court proceedings, he had defied quarriar with the remark that mr. conn would bear out his honesty. quarriar could give as references, to show that he was an honest man and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by conn was well known as a swindler. though he was starving, quarriar refused to have anything further to say to conn. quarriar further referred to his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. but being afraid of conn, and not inclined to commit [40]himself in writing, the landlord would give his version verbally.
against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as made by the partner. quarriar, according to this, had received the five pounds direct from conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two separate sums of one pound each (of which he returned to quarriar thirty-three shillings from sales), while quarriar only gave him as his share of the profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each week that had been arranged.
the partner insisted further that he had never handled any money (of which quarriar had always retained full control), and that all the goods in the cellar at the time of the quarrel were only of the value of ten shillings, to which he was entitled, as quarriar still owed him thirty-three shillings. moreover, he was willing to repeat in quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to tell. as to the children, he challenged quarriar to produce them.
in vain i attempted to grapple with these conflicting documents. my head was in a whirl. it seemed to me that no judicial bench, however eminent, could, from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom of this matter. the arithmetic of both parties was hopelessly beyond me. the names of the witnesses introduced showed that there must be two camps, and that certainly quarriar was solidly encamped amid his advisers.
the whole business was taking on a most painful [41]complexion, and i was torn by conflicting emotions and swayed alternately by suspicion and confidence.
how sift the false from the true amid all this tangled mass? and yet mere curiosity would not leave me content to go to my grave not knowing whether my model was apostle or ananias. i, too, must then become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. was there a black rag, and was there a white, or were both rags parti-coloured? to take only the one point of the children, it would seem a very simple matter to determine whether a man has five daughters or two; and yet the more i looked into it, the more i saw the complexity. even if three little girls were produced for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for me to tell whether they really were the model's. nor was it open to me to repeat the device of solomon and have them hacked in two to see whose heart would be moved.
and then, if israel's story was false here, what of the rest? was kazelia also a myth? did the second daughter ever go to hamburg? was the landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the attics to be emptied of any comforts? where were the silver candlesticks? these and other questions surged up torturingly. but i remembered the footsore figure on the brighton pavement; i remembered the months he had practically lived with me, the countless conversations, and as the man of sorrows rose reproachful before me from my own canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his dignity and probity returned unbroken.
i called on sir asher—i had to go to the house of commons to find him—and his practical mind quickly [42]suggested the best course in the circumstances. he appointed a date for all parties—himself, myself, conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring—to appear at his office. but, above all, quarriar must bring the three children with him.
on getting back to my studio, i found quarriar waiting for me. he was come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. he was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend conn and sir asher, might turn against him. even his landlord had threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to pay his rent the last week or two.
i told him he might expect a letter asking him to attend at sir asher's office, that i should be there, and he should have an opportunity of facing his swindling partner. he welcomed it joyfully, and enthusiastically promised to obey the call and bring the children. i emptied my purse into his hand—there were three or four pounds—and he promised me that quite apart from the old tangle, he could now as an expert set up as a piece-sorter himself. and so his kingly figure passed out of my sight.
the next document sent me in this cause célèbre was a letter from conn to announce that he had made all arrangements for the great meeting.
'sir asher's private room in his office will be placed at the disposal of the inquiry. the original application form filled up by quarriar clearly condemns him. the partner will be there, and i have arranged for quarriar's landlord to appear if you [43]think it necessary. i may add that i have very good reason to believe that quarriar does not mean to appear. i fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the appointment.'
i at once wrote a short note to quarriar reminding him of the absolute necessity of appearing with the children, who should be even kept away from school.
i reproduce the exact reply:
'dear sir,
'referring to your welcome letter, i gratify you very much for the trouble you have taken for me. but i'm sorry to tell you that i refuse to go before the committee according you arranged to, as i received a letter without any name threatening me that i should not dare to call for the committee to tell the truth for i will be put into mischief and trouble. it is stated also that the same gentleman does not require the truth. he helps only those he likes to. so i will not call and wish you my dear gentleman not to trouble to come. therefore if you wish to assist me in somehow is very good and i will certainly gratify you and if not i will have to do without it, and will have to trust the almighty. so kindly do not trouble about it as i do not wish to enter a risk, i remain your humble and grateful servant,
'israel quarriar.
'p.s.—last wednesday a man called on my landlord and asked him some secrets about me, and told him at last that i shall have to state according i will be commanded to and not as i wish. i enclose you herewith the same letter i received, it is written in [44]jewish. please not to show it to anyone but to tear it at once as i would not trust it to any other one. i would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. but my life is dearer. so you should not trouble to come. i fear already i gratify you for kind help till now, in the future you may do as you wish.'
