Menthol

“ In Mendel, too, this desire for God became active and kindled his creative will. He plunged into his work with a frenzy, but soon recognized that he was committing the old offence and was “overseen.” . . . Yet how shall a man approach his God if not through art?
“Something is lacking!” cried Mendel desperately. “Something is lacking!”
His imagination flew back to that last sublime moment of friendship with Logan, but it lacked warmth. It seemed that he could not take it back into life with him, or that until he had established contact with life its force could not be kindled. ”

“ The poor devil hasn’t learned sense yet. It’s work, work, work with him, all the time. He thinks of nothing but his art, you [Pg 233] know. Never has, ever since he was a boy. . . . He’ll be a very great genius, and I shall be left far behind.”
“Not you,” said Tysoe, “not you. I know no man in whom I have greater faith than you.”
“Do you think him as good as all that?” said Oliver eagerly. “I’m always telling him Kühler’s not a patch on him.”
Meanwhile Mendel had taken refuge in the lavatory, where he shouted and shook and cried with laughter. ”

“ Hence the new teaching and praxis spread rapidly from Switzerland to Germany, Holland and France. While the horrors of the Münster fanaticism, which culminated in 1534, made Anabaptism a byword, and increased the severity of a persecution directed against all Baptists indiscriminately, the reaction against the fatal errors of the Münster experiment increased also the adherents of communities which discarded the sword; thus Menno was brought into their ranks. Each community was independent, united with others only by the bond of love. ”

“ Mendel began by alluding to the sad demise of the beloved Rabbi. He spoke of his great heart, of his benevolence and wisdom, and as his powerful and sympathetic voice rang through the vast synagogue, few were the eyes that were not suffused with tears.
"Friends," he continued, "in an epidemic such as is at present raging in our midst, our thoughts are naturally directed to Adonai, and we implore His mercy. If such a misfortune tends to turn our prayers heavenward, to arouse our humanity towards our suffering fellow-men, then indeed the evil may become a blessing in disguise. ”

“ MR. TILNEY TYSOE LOGAN with Oliver was more startling and exhilarating than before. He was filled with a ferocious energy, and his programme was distended with it.
He said to Mendel:—
“She’s an inspiration. I have found what I was seeking. You have given me the inspiration of art. Through you I shall reach the heights of the spirit. She has given me the inspiration of life, and through her I shall plumb the very depths of humanity. She is marvellous. All the exasperation of modern life is in her, all the impatient brooding on the threshold of new marvels. ”

“ The Vicar's hand fluttered about his chin. "It's such a round-about story," he said.
"No doubt it will be," said Mendham harshly.
The Vicar restrained a movement of impatience.
"I went out to look for a strange bird this [Pg 64] afternoon.... Do you believe in angels, Mendham, real angels?"
"I'm not here to discuss theology. I am the husband of an insulted woman."
"But I tell you it's not a figure of speech; this is an angel, a real angel with wings. He's in the next room now. You do misunderstand me, so...."
"Really, Hilyer—"
"It is true I tell you, Mendham. I swear it is true." ”

“ He could see nothing but Oliver with the grim, haggard face looking over her shoulder. He gulped down a glass of wine. That was better. It made things bearable. He poured out another glass of wine.
“I think there is more in the Futurists than the Cubists,” said the young artist.
“In art,” said Mendel, turning on him savagely, “there is neither past nor present nor future; there is only eternity. You try to make a group out of that, and see how you will get on. ”

“ He was a dying man. But Mendel was alive, never more alive than now, in face of the shadow of death, and he would not think the thoughts of a dying man unless they could be shaped in the likeness of life. He gathered together all his forces, summoned up everything that urged him towards life and towards art, and of his own strong living will plunged after Logan, no longer in obedience to Logan’s frozen purpose, but as a friend giving to his friend the meed that was due to him. ”

“ I do not wish to convey a sense so disrespectful in speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous and brilliant mind, and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man of talent, but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Gœthe as a Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, and read the prophet by the light of his own law, but looks at him from without, and tries him by a rule beneath which he never lived. ”

“ There was a strange dignity in them, yet not a trace of the fine quality of the old faces he loved that looked so sorrowfully out on the world, and through their eyes and through every line seemed to absorb from the world all its suffering, all its vileness, and to transmute [Pg 82] it into strong human beauty. There were some women present, but they made no impression whatever on Mendel, who was entirely occupied with Sir Julius and with resisting the feeling of helplessness with which he was inspired in his presence. ”

“ Not lightly do men let their occupation go; small, then, would be our wonder, did we find the established prophet unconvinced. Yet, is it from misgiving that Mendel had the truth, or merely from indifference, that no naturalist of repute, save Professor Weldon, has risen against him? ”

“ When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat becomes oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous, up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels. ”

“ There is only art.”
“There is nothing else,” answered Mendel, carried away on the impulse of Logan’s spirit and understanding what he meant when he said “we.” Life, the turbulent life of every day, the life of desire, was broken and had fallen away from him, so that he was living without desire, only in his enduring will, which had lost patience with his desires and had destroyed them.
Through Mendel trembled a new and strange elation. He recognized that his friendship with Logan was just beginning, and that he was absolved from all share in the catastrophe, if such there had been. ”

“ Our lot will not improve until the Messiah comes with sword in hand, to deliver us from our enemies. Remember the proverb: 'The heavens are far, but further the Czar.'" [Pg 31]
"But about Mendel?" asked Bensef, suddenly reverting to his original topic, for in spite of his hopeful theories, he did not feel sanguine that he would live to see their realization.
"The matter is not pressing," said the father. "We can think it over, and decide before you return to Kief."
"No, no!" cried Leah; "Mendel must not leave us. Promise to remain, my child!" ”

“ Logan bought more cigars and they walked round to the Oxford and spent the evening in uneasy and flat conversation with two ladies of the town, one of whom said she knew Logan, though he swore he had never seen her before. When they were shaken off, he told Mendel mysteriously that she was a friend of a woman of whom he went in terror, who had been pursuing him for a couple of years.
“Terrible! Terrible!” he said. “Like a wild beast. They’re awful, these prostitutes, when they fall in love. It eats them up, body and soul.” ”

“ She darted a mischievous glance at Mendel, who started under it as though he had been stung. He was horrified at the depth of his dislike of her, and he remembered with disgust her full, coarse bosom exposed as she lay in her calculated swoon. . . . How good it had been while she was gone with that fool Thompson, who suited her so perfectly, that chattering ape, with his talk of Van Gogh and Gauguin and “abstract art,” who stood now coveting her with shining eyes and fatuously smiling lips.
“I’m not good enough for some people,” she said. “When I come into the room there is silence.” ”

“ She wanted recognition, acknowledgment that her vitality was more important than anything else in the world, and she had brought Logan to it. There had been a cold, set purpose in his eyes last night—an intellectual purpose. The equation was worked out. She could have what she wanted, at a price. She could destroy the will and the desire of a man, but not his mind, not his spirit, which would still be obedient to a higher will, and that would break her as she had broken.
Very bare and grim was the waiting-room in which Mendel had to bide until the nurse came for him. ”

“ If you don’t mind we’ll have our names bracketed,—Kühler and Logan. People will believe in two men when they won’t in one. As for three, you’ve only got to look at the Trinity to see what they’ll believe when they get three working together. . . . Oh! I forgot you were a Jew and brought up to believe in One is One and all alone.”
He laughed and gave a fat chuckle as he mimicked the little man in Cluny’s cocking his head on one side and pretending to take in the beauties of Mendel’s work as they were pointed out to him. ”

“ Oliver began to scream at the top of her voice.
“Shut up!” said Logan. “You’ll have us turned out.”
“I don’t care,” she replied. “I don’t care. I can’t stand all this talk about painting.”
“What do you want us to talk about?” said Mendel, tingling with exasperation. “Love? Three men and one woman can’t talk about love.”
“Well, I didn’t come to Paris to sit in a dirty bedroom talking about pictures. I want to go out to see the streets and the shops and the funny people.” ”

“ Oliver came in with a bottle of wine under each arm. She was in very good spirits and looking remarkably handsome.
“Hello, Kühler!” she cried. “How do you like being a success? We’re full of beans. We’re going to take a house. Did Logan tell you?”
“No,” said Mendel. “I hadn’t heard of it.”
[Pg 334]
“Well, it’s true. We’ve done with the slums and being poor and all that. We’re going to have a house and I’m going to have a servant, and I shall have nothing to do all day but eat chocolates and read novels and have people to tea.” ”

“ He saw the woman he wanted and took her and made her his property, and the woman could not but acquiesce, as Oliver had done. In a dozen different ways she acknowledged Logan’s lordship, even in her deliberate efforts to exasperate him. Their relationship seemed to Mendel simple and excellent, and he envied them. How easy his life would become if he could do the same! What freedom there would be in having a woman to throw in her lot with his! It would settle all his difficulties, absolve him from his dependence on his family, and deliver him from the attentions of unworthy women. ”

“ He got up and went padding round the room to the door to put out his boots. "To judge by his manner you would really think he believed this cripple was an angel. Are your shoes out, dear?"
"They're just by the wardrobe," said Mrs. Mendham. "He always was a little queer, you know. There was always something childish about him... An angel!"
The Curate came and stood by the fire, fumbling with his braces. Mrs. Mendham liked a fire even in the summer. "He shirks all the serious problems in life and is always trifling with some new foolishness," said the Curate. "Angel, indeed!" ”

“ Mendel having attained his thirteenth year and acquired due proficiency in the difficult studies of the Jewish law, would become bar-mitzvah; in other words, he would take upon himself the responsibility of a man before God and the world, and acknowledge his readiness to act and suffer for the maintenance of the belief in Adonai Echod—the only God. ”

“ Ille.—"Anger me not, child; thou art a silly, superstitious thing; without God's will, it may well be, but not without the devil's will. Thou hast heard what Luther says of ghosts, and we must believe him. Eh?"
Illa.—"But my Lord Duke and Dr. Joel say quite differently. Ah, father, let me see the blessed angels! Dr. Joel surely has seen them often, and yet no danger befell him."
Ille.—"Anger me not, daughter, I say, for the third time. It is written, 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God;' and is not this tempting Him—setting heaven and hell in an uproar all about a wicked old hag of a witch? ”

“ While Mendel had been wrestling and struggling, he had been put away in cotton-wool, every difficulty that had cropped up had been met, every deep desire had found its outlet in convention. And now that he had set out to be an artist, here was this Jew with years of hard work behind him, and such a familiarity with his medium that he could do more or less as he liked without being held up by shyness or awkwardness. And it was the same in life. Mendel was abashed by nothing, was ashamed of nothing. Life had many faces. ”

“ If I’m good enough for one thing I’m good enough for another. Do you hear that, Logan? He would have turned me out!”
“You leave Kühler alone,” said Logan. “You’ll never understand him, if you try for a thousand years.”
“Turned me out?” muttered Oliver. “Heuh! I like that. He’d turn me out and get another girl in! I’ll not have any of those tricks from you, Logan.”
“You can talk about them when I begin them,” he replied.
She turned from Mendel to Thompson and soon had him soft in her snares.
“She would like to do that with me,” thought Mendel, “and she hates me because she knows she cannot.” ”