VII THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER

NO man of another race than my own spoke kindly to me after I had developed some sense of race consciousness. “Little Jew” was the mildest term in which I was addressed, and it ranged to the cruel “Christ-Killer”—a rather questionable term to apply to a seven-year-old lad, who could not have looked very ferocious, with his blue eyes and his shock of curly blond hair. I knew I was guiltless of the last appellation, even if I understood its meaning, which I doubt; but I was quite sure I was a little Jew and every time I was called that, it hurt, as if I were smitten by a lash. I cannot help wincing yet when the word Jew is applied to me; I suppose it hurt because it was meant to. It is the mental attitude of the other man which makes me sensitive, rather than the name itself, which was one to conjure with through many a Golden Age.

One man—the only man who took me for just the boy I was and treated me as such—was the miller; and because he treated me kindly, and heroically controlled the rush of the mill-race and the turning of the mighty water-wheels, I placed him in my mind next to Jehovah in power. Whenever I try to visualize heaven, I invariably see the miller’s bleached face (which looked like one of the rolls baked from his flour) smiling at me from amongst the crowd of saints and I seem to hear him saying, as he used to say: “Hello, little fellow, come in and see my little girl and talk German to her.” That is just how he greeted me one day when decorously lifting my cap and saying in good German, “Guten Morgen, Herr Müller,” I passed tremblingly over the bridge, underneath which the water rushed tumultuously, ready to do the miller’s bidding in turning the huge wheels. What connection the wheels had with the endless clatter within I did not yet know; other mysteries were to disclose themselves first. There were the pigeons in their nests, and he lifted me high towards them and laughed when my outstretched hand was quickly withdrawn; for a mother bird did not like my intrusion. There was his hunting dog, which jumped at me and nearly frightened me out of my wits, but who merely wanted to tell me in his dog fashion that, as far as he was concerned, he had no race prejudices. And we were close friends—this dog and I—even related, later, for one of its young became my own—the only pet of my childhood.

I have some definite impressions of a peculiar, large living-room, which seemed rocked by the rattling mill. I can recall certain pictures on the wall, for the Jewish home was devoid of such ornaments and these were the first secular pictures I had seen. There were German battles and portraits of Bismarck and the Prussian king. Four or five lads, sons of the miller, stood about and seemed to delight in my presence. All of them looked bleached, like the miller, and Martha, the only daughter, was of the same type; but lovely to me as a fairy, with her long, flaxen hair which hung heavily below her waist. Her rather pale and delicate face and her large, blue eyes fascinated me.

That living-room became the birthplace of my Germanic ideals—there I first heard the name of Bismarck, for the miller was a German to the core, and from him I heard wonderful anecdotes about Frederick the Great. There also I read with Martha the love-songs of Heine, Schiller and Goethe, declaiming them to her, no doubt, in the most sentimental manner. Out of it all grew a love life, so mystic and beautiful that I think of it every time the spring comes and I smell the faint tree odours in the early April days. Martha was about five years older than I, but she was more than twice as old in her physical and mental maturity, and I watched her growth with ill-concealed jealousy. The rounding of her form into womanhood caused me excruciating suffering. In frightful rage I once tore from her one of Schiller’s most sentimental ballads, which some young sprig had copied for her, and I forbade her to read it. I do not remember what she said or did but she was so gentle and sweet about it that I was heartily ashamed of myself.

I felt her slipping away from me and almost gone, when one night she went to a ball at the “Aristocratic Club.” Through one of the windows to which I had climbed I watched her dancing, and was twice thrown down by some Gentile lads, who expressed themselves quite freely as to the business a little Jew had looking in at Gentile folks’ balls. I had a deep impression that dancing as I saw it was not right. I cannot explain what I felt. I certainly was too young to see any immorality in it; but my intuitions were so strong that afterwards I felt as if Martha had either done a great wrong or that she had been grievously wronged. I think I must have inherited deep puritanic tendencies; for the orthodox Jew is puritanical, and although my mother allowed my sisters to dance, I know that she did not give her permission until after a great struggle. Once, I scarcely know how old I was, certainly not more than five, my sister was going to a ball in a rather décolleté gown, and her bare neck and arms so offended me that I forbade her going. When she dragged me away from the door to which I barred her way, I scratched her arm so badly that she had to remain at home. I have good reason to remember that event, for my older brother beat me so badly for the cowardly act that I did not sleep all night and had opportunity to repent. I did not embrace the opportunity for I felt that I had suffered in a good cause.

The miller’s daughter was lost to me in more than one way. Young snobs hung about when I came to call and “snubbed” me until I had no more courage to return. I suppose a year or more had passed since I had called on her, when I heard a rumour that she was ill. She had caught cold at a dance, I overheard the women say, and they were feeding her on raw eggs and a certain drink called chocolate, and that was a sign of wasting disease. One day her younger brother, a boy of about my own age, called for me. He said that his sister was dying and wished to see me. My beloved mother, who had smiled many a time over my devotion to the miller’s daughter, and had never opposed my visiting her but rather encouraged it on account of the German I spoke there, knew the solemnity of the occasion and saw to it that I was properly attired on this my last visit. The mill wheels were silent, the only time that I ever knew them so. The pigeons and rabbits were there, more numerous than ever, and the miller’s hunting dog, dear old friend that he was, greeted me fondly. The miller for once was not dusty from flour and his face did not resemble a penny roll. He looked like a crushed man and when he saw me, his huge breast laboured as if the pent-up pain were ready to burst it. He made some inarticulate sounds as if he were trying to weep and could not. It was the first time I had seen a man suffer great heart agonies, and it tortured me. They led me into Martha’s bedroom. How wasted she was! Her blue eyes seemed strangely aglow, her nose so much larger than I had ever thought it, and her poor emaciated fingers picked at the bedclothing which covered her. I do not remember what she said, whether she spoke of living or dying. I just felt the pressure of the pain, and before they led me away I threw myself by her bed crying, and then a strange thing happened; her burning lips were upon my hot forehead, and her poor, thin fingers moved through my hair. I felt as if it were spring time again, as if we were looking for the fragrant violets which grew by the mill-race; and the sweet odour of trees seemed to fill the air.

I left the room bathed in hot tears, those very hot, scalding tears, which come from the very depths of one’s being, and as I went crying through the streets, a hoyden, a woman of ill repute—the lowest of the low—caught me and asked: “Little boy, why are you crying?” Then she too kissed me on the forehead. Truly, the very good and the very bad have no race prejudice.