The Collected Stories

understand. He seemed to be considering. His face sagged; he looked dusty, crumpled, unshaved. Clumps of hair protruded from his ears and nostrils. He smelled of medicine. After a while he said in German, “I expected her here in New York. Why did she go to California?”
    “For business. Fraulein Seligman-Braude was a business lady. It concerned a big sum—millions—and here in America they say, ‘Business before and later pleasure.’ She was hurrying back to meet you. But it wasn’t destined to be.” Liebkind Bendel delivered this in one breath and his voice became shrill. “She told me everything. She worshipped you, Dr. Walden, but man proposes and God imposes, as they say. Eighty healthy people—young women and tiny babies—in the primes of their lives—”
    “May I ask you who you are?” Dr. Walden said.
    “A friend, a friend. This young man is a Yiddish writer.” Liebkind Bendel pointed at me. “He writes in Yiddish papers and all the rest of it—
feuilletons
and what have you. Everything in the mother language so that plain people should enjoy. We have many
landsleit
here in New York, and English is a dried-up tongue for them. They want the juiciness from the old country.”
    “Ja.”
    “Dr. Walden, we have rented a hotel room for you,” Liebkind Bendel said. “My sympathy to you! Really, this is tragic. What was her name?—Fraulein Braude-Seligson was a wonderful woman. Gentle, with nice manners. Beautiful also. She knew Hebrew and ten other languages. Suddenly something breaks in a motor, a screw gets loose, and all this culture is finished. That is what man is—a straw, a speck of dust, a soap bubble.”
    I was grateful to Dr. Walden for his dignified behavior. He did not weep, he did not cry out. He raised his brows and his watery eyes, full of red veins, stared at us with astonishment and suspicion. He asked, “Where can I find the men’s room? The trip has made me sick.”
    “Right there, right there!” Liebkind Bendel shouted. “There is no lack of toilets in America. Come with us, Dr. Walden—we just passed the washroom.”
    Liebkind Bendel lifted one valise, I the other, and we led Dr. Walden to the men’s room. He looked questioningly at us and at his luggage. Then he entered the washroom and remained there for quite a long time.
    I said, “He behaved like a fine man.”
    “The worst is over. I was afraid that he might faint. I am not going to forsake him. Let him stay in New York as long as he wants. Perhaps he will write for
Das Wort
after all. I would make him the main editor and all of that. Friedel is tired of it. The writers ask for royalties and send angry letters. If they find a misprint or a single line is missing, your life is in danger. I will give him thirty dollars a week and let him sit and scribble. We could publish the magazine half in German, half in Yiddish. You two together could be the editors. Friedel would be satisfied to be the editorial—how do you call it?—superintendent.”
    “You told me yourself that Dr. Walden hates Yiddish.”
    “Today he hates it, tomorrow he will love it. For a few pennies and a compliment you can buy all these intellectuals.”
    “You shouldn’t have told him that I am a Yiddish writer.”
    “There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. In the first place I shouldn’t have been born, in the second place I shouldn’t have married Friedel, in the third place I never should have begun this funny comedy, in the fourth place … Since I haven’t mentioned your name, he will never find you. It’s all because of my admiration for great men. I always loved writers. If a man had something printed in a newspaper or a magazine, he was God. I read the
Neue Freie Presse
as if it were the Bible. Every month I received
Haolam,
and there Dr. Walden published his articles. I ran to lectures like a madman. That is how I met Friedel. Here is our Dr. Walden.”
    Dr. Walden seemed shaky. His face was yellow. He had forgotten to button his fly. He stared at us and muttered. Then he said, “Excuse me,” and he went back into the washroom.
    IV

    Dr. Walden had asked for my address and telephone number, and I gave him both. I could not cheat this learned man. The day after his arrival in New York, Liebkind Bendel left for Mexico City. Lately he was always flying to Mexico. I suspected he had a mistress there, and most probably business, too. In a strange way, Liebkind Bendel combined the roles of merchant and art