Comrade Yetta

His new political faith separated him from the friends who had made things easy for him. But it brought him new ones a-plenty who, if poorer, were truer. He had been compelled to leave college. But he had already developed a marked talent for the kind of journalism the East Side appreciates, less "newsy," but decidedly more literary than the output of the English papers. He found a place on the Forwaertz where, for a bare living wage, he wrote columns about history and science and the drama. It was an afternoon paper, so he had his evenings free to study. He had taken the night course in the New York Law School. It had been a desperate struggle which he could not have won through except for a talent at reducing work to a routine and for one of those marvellous constitutions – like Yetta's – which seem the special heritage of their race, a physical and nervous endurance, which is probably explained by agelong observance of the strict dietary regulations of Moses.

He was not an attractive person to look at. His face was heavily lined and lumpy. His short, stocky body had been twisted by much application to desk work. His right shoulder was noticeably higher than his left.

Nor was his type of mind attractive. It was too utilitarian to admit of any graces. He was twenty-five years old, and, since the days of enthusiasm when he had become a Socialist, he had imposed on himself an iron rule. He had not given himself a vacation, he had not read any book, had not consciously done anything in these five years, which did not seem to him useful. With the same merciless singleness of purpose which had marked Jake Goldfogle's struggle to become rich, Isadore Braun had driven himself in the acquisition of abilities, which would make him a more forceful weapon in the fight for Socialism.

He had led his classes in the Law School. He had spurred himself on to immense effort, not because he wanted to sit on the Supreme Bench, but because he saw that the workers were in sore need of competent, sympathetic legal representatives. He believed that the Socialists were the most enlightened element in the great army of industrial revolt. He held that they should be a sort of "general staff," guiding and advising the Labor Unions – the rank and file of the army. His only idea in entering the bar was to act as attorney for the unions. If he had been offered a large retainer to settle a will or draw up a business contract, he would have been surprised and would have refused on the ground that he was too busy. He had volunteered his services as legal adviser to the Woman's Trade Union League.

He still drew his meagre salary from the Forwaertz, but he wrote less frequently on general subjects and had specialized on the labor situation. He kept to the newspaper work, not only because it gave him a small income, but even more because it gave him an audience. Almost every Yiddish-speaking workman in the city knew his name. He was a concise and forceful speaker, and now that he no longer attended night school he was on the platform, preaching Socialism, four or five nights a week.

This manner of life had had its inevitable and unwholesome result. For years he had been so intensely occupied with details that he had had no time to think broadly, to criticise, and develop the fundamentals of his faith. At twenty he had accepted the philosophy of Socialism; he had not had time to think about it since. He was rapidly becoming a narrow-minded fanatic. It was a strange, but common paradox. Having spent five years in the fight for Socialism, he could not have given a more coherent, a maturer statement of his beliefs than at first. All his associates held the same creed, but they discussed only its detailed application. Like himself they were – with very few exceptions – slaves to, rather than masters of, the Great Idea.

His only non-Socialist friends were Mabel Train and Walter Longman. When he first took up the work of the Woman's Trade Union League, he had had a sweeping contempt for "bourgeois reformers." Gradually Mabel had forced him to abandon his hostility and at last to give her a high degree of respect. He was unable to understand her. But it was equally impossible for him to withhold his admiration for her consistency of purpose, her dogged persistence in a far from pleasurable career, her great ability, and her strong, straight intellect. He knew no other woman who was more steadfast than Mabel. But why? What were her motives? She was not a Socialist. She explained casually that she did not have time for more than Labor Unions. He could understand devotion to a great philosophical principle, but he could discover no coherent system of thought back of Mabel's unquestioned devotion.

He was a frequent visitor at the flat. But it never occurred to him to make a social call. For Eleanor he had no manner of use, a feeling which she entirely reciprocated. While he tried to pretend to a polite interest in "interior decoration," she made no pretence at all of caring for Socialism. And as soon as the business, which had caused him to come, was finished he found himself ill at ease, even with Mabel. On the basis of their common work, the organization of labor and the conduct of strikes, they had a delightfully frank and free friendship. But on any other ground he felt constraint. He never discussed Socialism with her, and this was strange, as he was an ardent proselyter. Back of her offhand explanation that she was too busy to occupy herself with the party, he felt the existence of a point of view entirely different from his own. In reality he was afraid to open this subject with her; he was afraid of her brilliant vision and her incisive, railing style of argument. He had gotten out of the habit of discussing the broad foundations of Socialism; he would be off his accustomed ground. He told himself that she was a woman, and if she got the better of him in repartee, she would think that she had demolished Socialism.

Through Mabel, he had met Longman, and if she did not fit into his theory of life, Walter was an even greater exception. His easy-going, rather lazy brilliance was always startling Isadore and making him angry. Here was an exceptionally able man, who was keenly alive to the rottenness of the present order, but who took only a languid interest in righting it. What a power he might be! Instead he spent his time on the deadest of dead pasts and in an inconsequential way dallied – "diddled," Isadore called it – with philosophy. He could not think of Longman's manner of life without raging; it was such despicable waste. He ought to have despised him, but he could not help liking him. Having no bond of common work with Longman, as he had with Mabel, he found himself more often in his rooms than in her flat.

Yetta, somewhat abashed by the glorious clothes of her hostesses, found Isadore's unkempt appearance a decided relief. His hair, black, curly, wiry, looked as if it had not been brushed for a decade. The spotless linen, the gilt shades of the candles, the bewildering assortment of forks and spoons, the white-aproned French maid, all rather dizzied her. It was indeed comforting now and then to glance up at the familiar East Side face across the table.

Eleanor, after a few formal politenesses from the head of the table, fell silent, and Mabel began to tell Isadore about the new strike. Once in a while they asked Yetta a question. When the table was cleared and the maid brought coffee – tiny, tiny cups of black coffee – Eleanor went into the parlor and arranged herself with a book beside a green-shaded lamp. And Isadore, taking out some rough sheets of copy paper, began scribbling notes for the article which should tell the East Side on the morrow that a gigantic, rapidly spreading, and surely victorious revolt had broken out in the vest trade. Once Yetta protested that her shop – twelve women – was the only one which had struck. But they laughed aside her objection. At least it was necessary to make it sound big, perhaps it would grow. Then they began drawing up a set of demands for the strikers to submit to their employers. First of all came the "recognition of the Union," and then a long list of shop reforms. About the only one which would be intelligible to those not familiar with the trade was that for a higher rate of pay per piece; the rest involved such technical considerations as the regulation of speed, ventilation, etc. Yetta wanted them to put in a clause demanding the reinstatement of Mrs. Cohen. But Mabel explained that there would be no sense to the demands unless other shops joined the strike, so they could not put in anything which applied only to one.

"But," Yetta insisted, "I guess there's a Mrs. Cohen in every shop."

They argued against her that the unions could not try to right individual wrongs, they could only hope to win conditions which would stop the production of Mrs. Cohens. Although she was unconvinced, Yetta gave in. Isadore hurried off to a meeting.

Eleanor gave him a perfunctory good night without looking up from her book, and Mabel walked down the hallway with him. Yetta felt suddenly forlorn. Eleanor went on reading, ignoring her existence, and Mabel lingered to talk with Isadore at the door.

When Mabel came back, Eleanor looked up from her book and spoke querulously in French.

"I should think you might at least say you are sorry for spoiling our evening."

"It isn't spoilt yet," Mabel replied. "It's only begun."

"Not spoilt for you, perhaps. You never think of me. You solemnly promised to keep this evening free for some music. And at six your stenographer casually calls me up to say that there will be people for dinner. You can't even find time to telephone yourself."

"Now, Nell, don't be cross. If you listened to our talk, you must have seen how important – "

"Oh, everything is more important than I."

"We'll have our music all right. I'll send the little one to bed."

And then changing into English, Mabel told Yetta that she must be very tired after so much excitement, that they had a hard day before them, and that she had best take a piping-hot bath to make her sleep and turn in at once. Yetta did not understand French, but from Eleanor's tone she had guessed the meaning of "de trop." She wanted very much to stay up and talk with Miss Train, but with a pang in her heart, she followed her docilely into a bedroom, watched her lay out a nightgown and bath-robe, and as docilely followed her into the dazzling bath-room.

"Take it just as hot as you can stand it, and then jump right into bed," Mabel said, and kissed her good night.

Before she was half through with her bath, she began to hear the sound of music. And when she had put on the nightgown and wrapped herself in the bath-robe, – her skin had never felt such soft fabrics, – she opened the door noiselessly and stood a moment unobserved in the hallway. In the front room Mabel was sitting at the piano and Eleanor stood beside her, with closed eyes, a violin tucked lovingly under her chin, and swayed gently to the rhythm of the music. It was one of Chopin's Nocturnes. Yetta did not know what a Nocturne was; the best music she had ever heard had been the cheap orchestras at the Settlement and at the Skirt-Finishers' Ball. Neither Eleanor nor Mabel were great musicians; it would have seemed a commonplace performance to most of us, but to the girl in the bath-robe it sounded beautiful beyond words, the most wondrous thing of all the wonderful new world she had so suddenly entered.

She listened a moment and then tiptoed down the hall to her bedroom. She carefully closed the window, which Mabel had as carefully opened, left her door ajar, so she could hear the music, and climbed in between the soft white sheets. She was very tired, the hot bath had quieted her nerves, and it was while they were playing the third piece, something by Grieg, that she fell asleep. Her last conscious thought was a dreamy, wistful wonder if she could ever become a part, have a real share in so gorgeous a life.

For more than an hour they kept at their music. The people who wondered why two so different personalities lived together had never seen them as they played. Neither of them was expert enough to perform in public, but they both passionately loved to make music. Eleanor's ridiculous posing, her querulous jealousy, very often jarred on Mabel's nerves. She sometimes thought of breaking up the household. But there were precious moments when their differences melted away and they enjoyed a rare and perfect harmony. Now and then Mabel escaped from her manifold engagements, and they went together to a concert or the Opera. Even more intense became their intimacy of emotion on the more frequent occasions when – as this evening – they played together. Such moments more than compensated for the daily frictions. To the jealous Eleanor they meant that Mabel's mind was cleansed of all preoccupations, when no one, no fancied duty came between them, when they could forget everything – everything – and be together. To Mabel such intimacies meant escape from all the heart-breaking routine of misery and struggle which was her daily life; they were interludes of unalloyed happiness, white moments in the sad business of living. Somehow the magic of the music soothed and lulled to sleep the great ache of social consciousness. She knew no other way to win forgetfulness from the overwhelming melancholy of Life.

"Nell," Mabel said, putting her arms around Eleanor when at last they were going to bed, "do you want to be nice to me? Try to like this little Yetta. She interests me. And I'd like to have her stay here for a while, if you don't mind."

"At least," Eleanor replied, "she's more decorative than most of your protégées."