Crescent City Read Online Free PDF Page B

where a mass of humanity had gathered on the open deck below. They were mostly young men—immigrants, with here and there a clustered family: restless children, fathers in peasant clothing, women carrying infants. They were taking their allotted daily hour of air. Those above watched in silent curiosity; those below did not once glance up.
    “Poor creatures! I hope,” remarked the doctor, “they don’t carelessly set fires with their cooking down there. I worry about that.”
    “It gets cold below,” David said. “Either that or hot as a stove. I could hardly breathe in the heat one day when I was there.”
    “You were down there?” Ferdinand asked sharply. “What were you doing?”
    “I brought them something to eat.”
    “To eat! They have food.”
    “It’s not fit to eat, Papa. Even their water smells foul. Last week their meat was maggoty and they had to throw it overboard. It’s not fair, you know! The captain promised these people decent food, but he makes them buy potatoes from him when they run out. They’re thirsty and hungry. Up here in the cabinswe get fresh meat and oranges from the Azores. It’s not fair.”
    Dr. Carvalho murmured gently, “A great many things in this world aren’t and never will be.”
    In earnest protest the boy’s forehead wrinkled. “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be!” he cried. “I asked one of the sailors how many people there were down there in that little space. Four hundred! They’re all crammed in. Two double rows of bunks, one above the other. There’s a narrow aisle between. You can hardly squeeze through. And the space is only five and a half feet high. If you’re tall like me, you have to stoop to walk.”
    Ferdinand interrupted. “You’re not to go down again, do you hear? They’ve got rats and dysentery. God knows what diseases you might have caught or given to the rest of us.”
    “Your father is right,” Dr. Carvalho said. “Where the air is fetid, fever breeds. That’s well known.”
    David was distressed. “But I promised to bring some oranges! I’ve had them every day; surely I can share a few, can’t I?”
    “Lower your voice before you bring disgrace on us,” Ferdinand said, for David’s voice had risen. The French bankers and their wives were staring.
    “I haven’t said anything disgraceful. I was only saying what I believed.”
    With conspicuous tact Dr. Carvalho moved away. And Ferdinand continued, “Your manners need mending. Jews especially need better manners, and it’s time you learned some, David.”
    Anger mounted; the father’s face flushed and his lips quivered; the son faced the father.
    “Jews? Why should we especially cringe?”
    “I’m not asking you to ‘cringe,’ as you put it. I’monly asking you not to make a spectacle of yourself and of us.”
    David persisted. Something in him wanted to avoid his father’s anger. Something else drove him to goading. “But why? Why should just Jews have better manners? You still haven’t told me.”
    “Because.” Ferdinand spoke in a low, agitated tone. “Because to be Jewish is to be judged, to be a victim. Heine—you’ve read Heine?”
    “Yes, I have. I’ve read his poems.”
    “Well. He himself said that to be a Jew is a misfortune. Heine said that. Read it for yourself.”
    “And you agree with him, Papa?”
    “Certainly I agree. Look around you. It’s only common sense.”
    The boy felt as if he had been bruised. “Yet you gave money to the synagogue at home.”
    Ferdinand shrugged. “For old times’ sake. For your mother’s sake. I never go to the synagogue.”
    “You’re a Christian, then?”
    “Certainly not. I would never convert. What do you take me for? It’s simply that—it’s just that—none of it means that much to me. None of it. And least of all that foolishness of the dietary laws; you think God cares what you put in your stomach? That any man who eats pork is an evil man?”
    “I don’t think that at all, Papa. For