a sudden commission recalled barstein to town before he could even pay his after-dinner call. but the seed sown in his soul that evening was not to be stifled. this seed was nothing less than the idea of a national revival of his people. he hunted up his old prayer-books, and made many discoveries as his modern consciousness depolarized page upon page that had never in boyhood been anything to him but a series of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as possible, when their meaning was not still further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune. 'i might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the roman empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its aspiration for its old territory. and this mystery of race and blood, this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate in mabel aaronsberg.
he did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her all day long. she appeared all over his studio in countless designs in clay. but from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out from the slums and small synagogues of the east end strange forlorn figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. it was from one of these figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of zion, whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads, and had even materialized into a national movement.
[100]he joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. he was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. hucksters and cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he could, with far greater command of talmudic quotation, while their knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally superior. but throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he retained his inner exaltation. he had at last found himself and found his art. he fell to work upon a great michel-angelesque figure of the awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection. it was sent for exhibition to a zionist congress, where it caused a furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book, and even postcard. some of them were setting out for palestine to start a school of arts and crafts.
barstein began to think of joining them. meantime the bohemian circles which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been wondering what had become of him. his new work in the exhibitions supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet him reported dolefully that he was a changed man. gone was the light-hearted and light-footed dancer of the paris pavement. silent the licentious wit of the neo-pagan. this was a new being with brooding brow and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his dream. never had bohemia known such a transformation.
