Summary
A peddler’s cart, rattling over cobblestones like a heartbeat, carries Julius Binswanger from the clamorous ghettos of lower Manhattan to the drowsy orchards of Newton, where time itself seems to drowse beneath horse-chestnut shade. In this sylvan backwater he transmutes tinware into gold, his palms leathering into parchment that records every bargain; yet the town’s elm-shaded serenity is only a fragile diorama. Fifteen springs later, department-store plate glass and nickel streetcars have sliced through the idyll, and Julius—now bearded in iron-gray—watches his once-crowded storefront echo like an emptied synagogue. His Pearl, bright as a newly-minted coin, loves Max Teitlebaum, whose silk-cuffed swagger smells of Broadway champagne; his Izzy, impatient as a kettle drum, dreams of window displays lit by electricity rather than Sabbath candles. The mother, Becky, quietly gathers her children’s restlessness like loose buttons into her apron, persuades the patriarch to fold their world into trunks and return to the velvet roar of the Wellington Hotel. There, amidst chandeliers that drip like stalactites of money, Julius feels the pavement pulse beneath him, a hostile Torah scroll. Rejecting Izzy’s schemes, he crashes into insolvency, uncaps a vial of sleeping powder like Hamlet contemplating Yorick’s skull—only to learn that Max seeks no dowry, only partnership, and that love can be a lien against despair. The family, re-configured, trains back toward Newton, but the town they left is no longer the town they re-enter; memory itself has become itinerant.
Synopsis
Julius Binswanger, a poor Jewish immigrant, moves his family from New York City to the small town of Newton, where he becomes prosperous as a peddler; fifteen years later, great changes have transformed the community, and Binswanger finds difficulty in competing with the city trade. Since his daughter, Pearl, is in love with Max Teitlebaum, a wealthy New Yorker, and because his children chafe at small-town life, Binswanger, with the help of their mother, is persuaded to move back to New York. Fast life at the Hotel Wellington, where Max Teitlebaum resides, appalls Julius; yet, he rejects his son Izzy's commercial ideas. Business troubles multiply, and when Izzy requests a loan to take over the business with Max, Julius passionately announces his bankruptcy and plans to take an overdose of sleeping powder. Max, however, explains to Pearl that he will ask no dowry from her and wishes to form a partnership with her father. Becky announces the good news to Julius, Max and Pearl are happily united, and the family returns home.
