4
An unfinished letter from Hannah to her husband.
Good luck to you, my dear, faithful husband, good luck to you!
Here's good news from us, and may I ever hear the like from you. Amen, may it be His will! We are, indeed, as you say, united for all time, in this world and the other!
I let you know, first, dear husband, that my brother Menachem Mendil and his wife Eva Gütel (may they live to see the days of the Messiah!) forgave me everything, and sent for me in a lucky hour to their daughter's wedding—Beile-Sasha's wedding.
It was a very fine one, fine as fine can be! Praise God that I was found worthy to see it! There was every kind of meat, birds and beef; and fish—just fish, and stuffed fish—and all sorts of other dishes, beside wine and brandy—something of everything.
And the whole thing was such a success—so elegant! And I myself cooked the meat, stuffed the fish, made the stew, sent up the dinner, and also saw to the marketing beforehand.
I was house-mistress! I was waitress! I did not go merely to enjoy myself!
I sold my stock of onions, made myself a dress of sorts, and went to my relations, agreeably to their wish, a whole week before the wedding; because there was no one to do the work; the bride was taken up with her clothes, she spent the time with the tailor, the shoemaker, and even the jeweller up to the very last minute.
And poor Eva Gütel, my sister-in-law, has a cough. And they say her liver is not what it should be.
So I was everybody—before the wedding and after the wedding, only not at the wedding, during which I felt very tired and done up. I sat in a corner and cried for joy, because I had been counted worthy to marry my brother's child, and—because she had such an elegant wedding! And I was not turned out in a hurry when it was over, either.
Directly after it, my sister-in-law, health and strength to her, started to consult a doctor in Lublin as to which doctor she ought to see in Warsaw.
Then she left for Warsaw and went the round of all the celebrated doctors. Thence she travelled to some other place to drink the waters—mineral waters they are called—and during the whole six months of her absence, I was mistress of the house.
May the Almighty remember it to them for good and reward them!
There was no cook—I did the cooking. And I drank delight out of it as from a well!
In the first place, I had no time for thinking and brooding, and was thereby saved from going mad, or even melancholy! And where, indeed, should I have found it?
Business, thank heaven, was brisk. The public-house is always full and the counter strewn with the gold and silver of Jews and Gentiles, lehavdîl.
And my sister-in-law Eva Gütel's stuffed fish are celebrated for miles round, and there the people sit and eat and drink.
And if ever I began to think, and wanted to think, Beile-Sasha, long life to her, soon reminded me of where I was! And she has sharp eyes, bless her, nothing escapes them!
And so it went merrily on—and I was so overjoyed at being house-mistress there that once I spat blood—but only once.
Menachem Mendil saw it, and he told me to be sure and behave as if nothing had happened, because, if people knew of it, they would avoid his house. Yössil the inn-keeper over the way would soon cry: Consumption! and there would be an end of it, and grass growing down our side of the street.
But Beile-Sasha is the cleverer of the two, she soon discovered that it was not consumption, but that I had swallowed a fish-bone, and it scratched my throat, and so, that I should not suffocate, she gave me a blow between the shoulders to loosen it, and, all for love's sake, such a blow that the fish-bone went down—only my bones ached a bit.
But all's well that ends well—and Eva Gütel has come back from drinking the waters!
She has come back, thank God, in the best of health and spirits—a sight for sore eyes!—and she has brought presents, the most beautiful presents, for herself, for her husband, for her daughter and her son-in-law—lovely things! But there was nothing for me; she said that I, heaven forbid, was no servant to be given presents and wages. Had I not been house-mistress?
Had not Eva Gütel herself told me fifty times that I was mistress, and could do as I liked?
And no sooner was Eva Gütel back, than she discovered that Menachem Mendil had not been near the Rebbe the whole time, and she wrung her fingers till the bones cracked, and immediately sent me out to the market-place to hire a conveyance.
Menachem Mendil drove to the holy man that same day.
And next morning, Eva Gütel gave me some good advice, which was to make up my bundle and go—because she was there again and had Beile-Sasha to help her. I should be fifth wheel to the cart and might go mad from having nothing to do. She advised me to go back whence I came or to stay in the place and do as I thought best. She would not be responsible, either way.
I had slept my last night in her house.
The next one I spent walking the streets with my bundle under my arm.
You see, my dear husband, that I am doing very well. You need send me no more money, as you used to do. You had better give it to Leeb the reader to buy you a Talmud, or to Genendil-Sophie to buy you some shirts. And mind she tries them on you herself, to see how they fit—is it not America?
You see, my dear, good husband, I harbor no more unjust suspicions. I never say now that Genendil stole either the spoon or my husband. I know it is not her fault, and I am convinced that His blessed Name only meant to do us a kindness when He brought you and Leeb the reader together on the ship, so that he should take care of you—it is all just as you wrote. There is only one thing that will never be as you think. You may jump out of your skin, but you will never send for the child, to take it away from me to America. Because our child, for your sake and for that of your pious forefathers, has been gone this long time; it has been hidden somewhere in the burial ground, in a little room without a door, without a window. You may cry to heaven, but you shall not know where its little bones lie! No tombstone, nothing to mark it—nothing at all! Go, look for the wind in the fields!
Askerah[131] has taken it under her wing.
And since you have such a wonderful memory, and remember everything I said and everything I did, I will tell you a story which you may recollect. It is a story about a shawl I did not know what to do with. Should I put it on and run for the doctor for the child, or stop up the broken pane with it to keep the snow from blowing in, or wrap it round the child, because the poor thing was suffocating with its throat? And it was cold, bitterly cold. I ran to and fro several times, from the window to the cradle, to the door, and back from the door to the window—I tell you, I ran! I think, my dear husband, you will not forget that moment, because, as you say, we are bound one to the other, you to me and both of us to the child, and now the child is not there, we two may as well go, too. Well, what will Genendil say? To tell the truth, I have decided to let my hair grow and dress as they dress in America, and do you know that, beside this, I have a sweet voice and can chant all the prayers, and now, since I have been at my brother Menachem Mendil's, I have heard drunken peasants sing all sorts of songs—and I have learned them and I sing every whit as well as Genendil, if not better; and at night, when I slept under the open sky, the Queen of Sheba came and taught me to dance—and a whole night long I danced with the Queen of Sheba in the eye of the moon.
And you, my dear Shmùel Mösheh, have made a bad bargain, for I am better than Genendil. Because I remember quite well that she had two moles, one on the left ear and one on the right cheek—and rather a crooked nose. And I, you know, have a perfectly clear skin, without a mole anywhere. You thought that only Genendil could sing and dance every Friday night, and let her hair grow, that other people were not up to that! But I am not angry with you, heaven forbid! Hold to her! It is enough for me to have the child's grave. I shall go and build myself a little house there, and sit in it through the night till the cock crows. I shall talk to the child, very low and softly, about his father Shmùel Mösheh, and that will delight him! And if you come yourself, or send anyone, to fetch the child, I shall scratch out his eyes with my nails, because the child is mine, not Genendil's—may her name and her remembrance perish, and may you and she.....
———
The letter is unfinished; it was found together with the other letters in the pocket of the mad Hannah.
XXI
IN THE POND
Once upon a time there was a pond. It had a corner to itself, and lay quite apart from the rest of the field where beasts were wont to graze and herd-boys to fling stones.
A high bank, set with briars, screened it from the wind, and it had a slimy, shiny green covering, in which the breeze tore a hole once in twelve months. In the pond there dwelt (according to the order of nature) a colony of quite small worms which fed on still smaller ones.
The pond was neither long nor wide, not even deep, and if the little worms could neither discover a bottom nor swim to shore, they had only the thick slime and the water-weeds and the fallen twigs to thank for it.
The geography of the pond was in its infancy.
Conceit, on the other hand, flourished, and fancy had it all her own way beneath the green covering—and the two together sat spinning and weaving.
And they wove between them a legend of the beginning of things, a truly worm-like tradition.
The pond is the great sea, and the four streams of Paradise flow into it. Hiddekel brings gold (that is the slime in which they find their nourishment), and the other three bring flowers (the water-weeds among which they play hide-and-seek on holidays), pearls (frog-pawn), and corals (the little orange fungi on the rotting twigs).
The green cover, the slimy cap on the surface of the pond, is the heaven stretched out over the ocean, a special heaven for their own particular world. Fragments of egg-shell, which have fallen into it, play the part of stars, and a rotten pumpkin does duty for the sun.
The chance stones flung into the pond by the herd-boys are, of course, hailstones flung by heaven at the head of sinners!
And when their heaven opened, and a few beams of the real sun penetrated to a wormy brain, then they believed in hell!
But life in the pond was a pleasant thing!
People were satisfied with themselves and with one another.
When one lives in the great sea, one is as good as a fish oneself.
One worm would call another "Tench," "Pike;" "Crocodile" and "Leviathan" would be engraved on tombstones.
"Roach" was the greatest insult, and "Haddock" not to be forgiven, even on the Day of Atonement.
Meanwhile, astronomy, poetry, and philosophy blossomed like the rose!
The bits of egg-shell were counted over and over again, till everyone was convinced of the absurdity of the attempt.
Romantic poets harped on the Heavenly Academy in a thousand different keys.
Patriots were likened to the stars, stars to ladies' eyes, and the ladies themselves to Paradise—or else to Purgatory! Philosophy transferred the souls of the pious to the rotten pumpkin.
In short, nothing was wanting!
Life had all the colors of the rainbow. In due time a code of law was framed with hundreds of commentaries, they introduced a thousand rules and regulations, and if a worm had the slightest desire to make a change, he had but to remember what the world would think, blush, regret, and do penance!
Once, however, there was a catastrophe! It was caused by a herd of swine. Dreadful feet crashed through the heaven, stamped down the slime, bruised the corals, made havoc of the flowers, and plunged the entire little "world" back into chaos.
Some of the worms were asleep under the slime (and worms sleep fast and long).
These escaped.
When they rose out of the mud, the heavens had already swum together again and united; but whole heaps of squeezed, squashed, and suffocated worms were lying about unburied, witnesses in death of the past awful event!
"What has happened?" was the cry, and search was made for some living soul who should know the cause of the calamity.
But such a living soul was not easy to find!
It is no light thing to survive a heaven!
Those who were not stamped upon had died of fright, and those who were not killed by fright had died of a broken heart.
The remainder committed suicide. Without a heaven, what is life?
One had survived, but, when he had declared to them that the heaven they now saw was a new heaven, fresh, as it were, from the shop, and that the former heaven had been trodden in of beasts; when he asserted that a worm-heaven is not eternal—that only the universal heaven is, perhaps, eternal—then they saw clearly that his mind had become deranged.
He was assisted with the deepest compassion, and conveyed to an asylum for lunatics.
XXII
THE CHANUKAH LIGHT
My top-coat was already in my hand, and yet I could not decide: to go, or not to go—to give my lesson! O, it is so unpleasant outside, such horrible weather!—a mile's trudge—and then what?
"Once more: pakád, pakádti"[132]—once more: the old house-master, who has got through his sixty and odd years of life without knowing any grammar; who has been ten times to Leipzig, two or three times to Dantzig; who once all but landed in Constantinople—and who cannot understand such waste of money: Grammar, indeed? A fine bargain!
Then the young house-master, who allows that it is far more practical to wear ear-locks, a fur-cap, and a braided kaftan, to consult with a "good Jew," and not to know any grammar ... not that he is otherwise than orthodox himself ... but he is obliged, as a merchant, to mix with men, to wear a hat and a stiff shirt; to permit his wife to visit the theatre; his daughter, to read books; and to engage a tutor for his son....
"My father, of course, knows best! But one must move with the times!" He cannot make up his mind to be left in the lurch by the times! "I only beg of you," he said to me, "don't make an unbeliever of the boy! I will give you," he said, "as much as would pay for a whole lot of grammar, if you will not teach him that the earth goes round the sun!"
And I promised that he should never hear it from, me, because—because this was my only lesson, and I had a sick mother at home!
To go, or not to go?
The whole family will be present to watch me when I give my lesson.
She also?
She sits in the background, always deep in a book; now and again she lifts her long, silken lashes, and a little brightness is diffused through the room; but so seldom, so seldom!
And what is to come of it?
Nothing ever can come of it, except heart-ache.
"Listen!" My mother's weak voice from the bed recalls me to myself. "The Feldscher says, if only I had a pair of warm, woollen socks, I might creep about the room a little!"
That, of course, decides it.
Except for the lady of the house, who has gone to the play, as usual without the knowledge of her father-in-law, I find the whole family assembled round the pinchbeck samovar. The young house-master acknowledges my greeting with a negligent "a good year to you!" and goes on turning over in his palm a pack of playing cards. Doubtless he expects company.
The old house-master, in a peaked cap and a voluminous Turkish dressing-gown, does not consider it worth while to remove from his lips the long pipe with its amber mouthpiece, or to lift his eyes from off his well-worn book of devotions. He merely gives me a nod, and once more sinks his attention in the portion appointed for Chanukah.
She also is intent on her reading, only her book, as usual, is a novel.
My arrival makes a disagreeable impression on my pupil.
"O, I say!" and he springs up from his seat at the table, and lowers his black-ringed, little head defiantly, "lessons to-day?"
"Why not?" smiles his father.
"But it's Chanukah!" answers the boy, tapping the floor with his foot, and pointing to the first light, which has been placed in the window, behind the curtain, and fastened to a bit of wood.
"Quite right!" growls the old gentleman.
"Well, well," says the younger one, with indifference, "you must excuse him for once!"
I have an idea that she has become suddenly paler, that she bends lower over her book.
I wish them all good night, but the young house-master will not let me go.
"You must stay to tea!"
"And to 'rascals with poppy-seed!'"[133] cries my pupil, joyfully. He is quite willing to be friends, so long as there is no question of "pakád, pakádti."
I am diffident as to accepting, but the boy seizes my hand, and, with a roguish smile on his restless features, he places a chair for me opposite to his sister's.
Has he observed anything? On my side, of course, I mean....
She is always abstracted and lost in her reading. Very likely she looks upon me as an idler, or even worse ... she does not know that I have a sick mother at home!
"It will soon be time for you to dress!" exclaims her father, impatiently.
"Soon, very soon, Tatishe!" she answers hastily, and her pale cheeks take a tinge of color.
The young house-master abandons himself once more to his reflections; my pupil sends a top spinning across the table; the old man lays down his book, and stretches out a hand for his tea.
Involuntarily I glance at the Chanukah light opposite to me in the window.
It burns so sadly, so low, as if ashamed in the presence of the great, silvered lamp hanging over the dining-table, and lighting so brilliantly the elegant tea-service.
I feel more depressed than ever, and do not observe that she is offering me a glass of tea.
"With lemon?" her melancholy voice rouses me.
"Perhaps you prefer milk?" says her father.
"Look out! the milk is smoked!" cries my pupil, warningly.
An exclamation escapes her:
"How can you be so ...!"
Silence once more. Nothing but a sound of sipping and a clink of spoons. Suddenly my pupil is moved to inquire:
"After all, teacher, what is Chanukah?"
"Ask the rabbi to-morrow in school!" says the old man, impatiently.
"Eh!" is the prompt reply, "I should think a tutor knew better than a rabbi!"
The old man casts an angry glance at his son, as if to say: "Do you see?"
"I want to know about Chanukah, too!" she exclaims softly.
"Well, well," says the young house-master to me, "let us hear your version of Chanukah by all means!"
"It happened," I begin, "in the days when the Greeks oppressed us in the land of Israel. The Greeks—" But the old man interrupts me with a sour look:
"In the Benedictions it says: 'The wicked Kingdom of Javan.'"
"It comes to the same thing," observes his son, "what we call Javan, they call Greeks."
"The Greeks," I resume, "oppressed us terribly! It was our darkest hour. As a nation, we were threatened with extinction. After a few ill-starred risings, the life seemed to be crushed out of us, the last gleam of hope had faded. Although in our own country, we were trodden under foot like worms."
The young house-master has long ceased to pay me any attention. His ear is turned to the door; he is intent on listening for the arrival of a guest.
But the old house-master fixes me with his eye, and, when I have a second time used the word "oppressed," he can no longer contain himself:
"A man should be explicit! 'Oppressed'—what does that convey to me? They forced us to break the Sabbath; they forbade us to keep our festivals, to study the Law, even to practice circumcision."
"You play 'Preference'?" inquires the younger gentleman, suddenly, "or perhaps even poker?"
Once more there is silence, and I continue: "The misfortune was aggravated by the fact that the nobility and the wealthy began to feel ashamed of their own people, and to adopt Greek ways of living. They used to frequent the gymnasiums."
She and the old gentleman look at me in astonishment.[134]
"In the gymnasiums of those days," I hasten to add, "there was no studying—they used to practice gymnastics, naked, men and women together—"
The two pairs of eyes lower their gaze, but the young house-master raises his with a flash.
"What did you say?"
I make no reply, but go on to speak of the theatres where men fought wild beasts and oxen, and of other Greek manners and customs which must have been contrary to Jewish tradition.
"The Greeks thought nothing of all this; they were bent on effacing every trace of independent national existence. They set up an altar in the street with an 'Avodeh zoroh,'[135] and commanded us to sacrifice to it."
"What is that?" she asks in Polish.
I explain; and the old man adds excitedly:
"And a swine, too! We were to sacrifice a swine to it!"
"And there was found a Jew to approach the altar with an offering.
"But that same day, the old Maccabeus, with his five sons, had come down from the hills, and before the Greek soldiers could intervene, the miserable apostate was lying in his blood, and the altar was torn down. In one second the rebellion was ablaze. The Maccabees, with a handful of men, drove out the far more numerous Greek garrisons. The people were set free!
"It is that victory we celebrate with our poor, little illumination, with our Chanukah lights."
"What?" and the old man, trembling with rage, springs out of his chair. "That is the Chanukah light? Come here, wretched boy!" he screams to his grandson, who, instead of obeying, shrinks from him in terror.
The old man brings his fist down on the table, so that the glasses ring again.
"It means—when we had driven out the unclean sons of Javan, there was only one little cruse of holy olive-oil left...."
But a fit of coughing stops his breath, and his son hastens up, and assists him into the next room.
I wish to leave, but she detains me.
"You are against assimilation, then?" she asks.
"To assimilate," I reply, "is to consume, to eat, to digest. We assimilate beef and bread, and others wish to assimilate us—to eat us up like bread and meat."
She is silent for a few seconds, and then she asks anxiously:
"But will there always, always be wars and dissensions between the nations?"
"O no!" I answer, "one point they must all agree—in the end."
"Humanity. When each is free to follow his own bent, then they will all agree."
She is lost in thought, she has more to say, but there comes a tap at the door—
"Mamma!" she exclaims under her breath, and escapes, after giving me her hand—for the first time!
———
On the next day but one, while I was still in bed, I received a letter by the postman.
The envelope bore the name of her father's firm: "Jacob Berenholz."
My heart beat like a sledge-hammer. Inside there were only ten rubles—my pay for the month that was not yet complete.
Good-bye, lesson!
XXIII
THE POOR LITTLE BOY
(Told by a "man" on a "committee")
"Give me five kopeks for a night's shelter!"
"No!" I answer sharply and walk away. He runs after me with a look of canine entreaty in his burning eyes, he kisses my sleeve—in vain!
"I cannot afford to give so much every day...."
The poor, I reflect, as I leave the soup-kitchen, eat their fill quickly....
The first time I saw the dirty, wizened little face with the sunken eyes, darkly-burning, sorrowful, and yet intelligent eyes, it went to my heart.
I had not even heard his request before an impulse seized me and a groschen flew out of my pocket into his thin little hands. I remember quite well that my hand acted of its own accord, without waiting to ask my heart for its pity, or my reason whether with a pension of forty-one rubles, sixty-six kopeks a month, I could afford to give five kopeks in charity.
His entreaty was an electric spark that fired every limb in my body and every cell in every limb, and my reason was not informed of the fresh outlay till later, when the little boy, with a hop, skip, and a jump, had left the soup-kitchen.
Busy with my own and other people's affairs, I soon forgot the little boy.
And yet not altogether. Somewhere inside my head, and without my knowing anything about it, there must have been held a meeting of practical thoughts.
Because the very next evening, when the little boy stopped me again, the same little boy with the broken, quavering accents, and asked me once more for a night's shelter and bed, the following considerations rose up from somewhere, ready prepared, to the surface of my mind:
A boy seven or eight years old ought not to beg—he ought not to hang about soup-kitchens; feeding on scraps, before the plates are collected and removed, would make a vagabond of him, a beggar—he would never come to any good if he went on like that.
My hand had found its way into my pocket, but I caught it there and held it fast.
Had I been "pious," I should have reasoned thus: "Is the merit I shall acquire really worth five kopeks? Should I not gain just as much by repeating the evening prayers? or by giving a hoarse groan during their recital?"
Not being "pious," I thought only of the boy's good: "My five kopeks will only do him harm and make a hopeless beggar of him." And I gave them to him after all!
My hand forced its way out of my pocket, and this time I did not even try to hold it back. Something pained me in the region of my heart, and the tears were not far from my eyes. Once more the little boy ran joyfully out of the soup-kitchen, my heart grew light, and I felt a smile on my face. The third time it lasted longer—much longer.
I had calculated betimes that my means will not allow of my giving every day in charity. Of course, it is a pleasure to see the poor little wretch jump for joy, to notice the gleam of light in his young eyes, to know that, thanks to your five kopeks, he will not pass the night in the street, but in the "refuge," where he will be warm, and where, to-morrow morning, he will get a glass of tea and a roll. All that is a pleasure, certainly, but it is one that I, with my income, cannot allow myself—it is out of the question.
Of course, I did not say all that to the little boy, I merely gave him some good advice. I told him that if he begged he would come to a bad end—that every man (and he also must some day grow into a man) is in honor obliged to work—work is holy, and he who seeks work, finds, and such-like wise things out of books, that could not make up to the little boy for the night-refuge, that could not so much as screen him till daylight from the rain and the snow.
And all the while there he stood and kissed my sleeve, and lifted his eyes to mine, on the watch for some gleam of pity to prove that his words were not as peas thrown against a wall.
And I felt all the time that he was not watching in vain, that my cold reasonings were growing warmer, that his beseeching, dog-like eyes had a power I could not withstand, and that I must shortly surrender with my whole battery of reproofs and warnings.
So I resolved as follows: I will give him something, and then tell him once and for all that he is not to beg any more, tell him sharply and decidedly, so that he may remember.
I had not enough in coppers, so I changed a silver coin and gave him five kopeks.
"There—but you are not to come begging from me again, do you hear?"
Whence the "from me?"
As far as I knew, I had no such words in my mind, anyway I certainly did not intend to say them, and perhaps I would gladly have given a few kopeks not to have done so! I felt a sudden chill at my heart, as if I had torn away a bit of covering and left a part of it naked. But it was all over like a flash. My stern face, the hard metallic ring of my voice, my outstretched right hand and outward-pointing left foot had done their work.
I had a great attraction for that little boy! He stood there as if on hot coals, he wanted to run off so as to get earlier to the lodging house, and yet he stayed on and listened, growing paler and paler, while a tear trembled on his childish lashes.
"There! and now don't beg any more," I wound up, "do you hear? This is to be the very last time."
The little boy drew a deep breath and ran away.
To-day, to-day I have given him nothing—I will not break my word. I will know nothing of "evasions,"[136] a given word is precious. One must be firm, otherwise there would be an end to everything.
I think over again what I have just been saying, and feel quite pleased with myself. I cannot afford to give five kopeks in charity every day, and yet that was not the reason. It was the boy's own good I was thinking of, indeed, the good of all! What is the use of unsystematic charity—and how can there be system without a strict rule?
With the little boy I had spoken simple Yiddish, with myself, somewhat more learnedly. As I left the soup-kitchen, I reflected: The worst microbe in the body of the community is begging. The man who will not work has no right to eat, and so on.
I had no sooner shut the door of the soup-kitchen behind me than my feet sank deep into the mud, I ran my head against a wall, and then plunged into the dark night. There was a dreadful wind blowing, the flames of the gas lamps trembled as with cold, and their flickering shine was reflected a thousandfold in the puddles in the street, so that the eyes were dazzled. It wails plaintively, as though a thousand souls were praying for Tikun,[137] or a thousand little boys for five kopeks for a night's shelter.... Bother that little boy!...
It would be a sin to drive a dog into the street on such a night, and yet the poor little boy will have to sleep out of doors.
But what can I do?
I have given him something three times—does that go for nothing?
Let somebody else give him five kopeks for once!
I have done quite enough, coming out to the soup-kitchen in this weather, with my sick chest and a cough, and without a fur coat. Were I "pious," it would have been self-interest on my part. I should have done it with a view to acquiring merit, I should have hastened home, turned into bed, and gone to sleep, so that my soul might quickly fly to heaven and enter the good deed to her account.
The good deed is the "credit," and the "debit" a fat slice of Leviathan.
I, when I went to the soup-kitchen, had no reward in view, it was my kind nature that prompted me.
As I walked and praised myself thus, my heart felt warm again. If other people had been praising me, I must needs have been ashamed, and motioned them away with my hand, but I can listen to myself without blushing, and I should perhaps have gone on praising myself and have discovered other amiable traits in my character, had I not stepped with my half-soles—heaven knows, I had worn away the other half on the road to the soup-kitchen—stepped with my half-soles right into the mud.
"Those who are engaged in a religious mission come to no hurt!..." but that is probably on the way out. On the way home, when the newly-created angel is hastening heavenward, one may break one's neck.
My feet are wet, and I feel chilled all through. I know to a certainty that I shall catch cold, that I have caught cold already. Presently I shall be coughing my heart out, and I feel a sting in my chest. A terror comes over me. It is not long since I spent four weeks in bed.
"It's not a thing to do," I say to myself by way of reproach; "no, certainly not! It's all very well as far as you are concerned, but what about your wife and child? What right have you to imperil their support?"
If the phrase had been a printed one, and I the reader of it with my pencil in my hand, I should have known what to do—but the phrase was my own.
I feel more and more chilled, and home is distant, and my goloshes are full of water, cold and heavy. The windows of a confectioner gleam brightly in front of me—it is the worst in all Warsaw—their tea is shocking—but since there is no choice!
I rush across the street and plunge into a warm mist. I order a glass of tea and take up a comic paper.
The first illustrated joke that caught my eye was like a reflection of the state of things outside. The joke was called: "Which has too much?"
The weather in the picture is the weather out of doors.
Two persons are advancing toward each other on the pavement. From one side comes a stout, middle-aged woman, well-nourished, in a silk dress, a satin cloak, and a white hat with feathers. She must have started on her walk, or to make a visit, in fine weather, and now she has been caught by the rain. Her face is one of dismay. She dreads the rain and the wind, if not for herself, at least for her hat. She hastens—drops of perspiration appear on her white forehead—she hastens, but her steps are unsteady: both her hands are taken up. In the left she holds the end of her silken train, already spattered with mud, and in the right, a tiny silk parasol that scarcely covers the feathered hat on her head. She only requires a larger umbrella. To make up for that she has enough and to spare of everything else, her face is free from care, it tells only of an abundance of all good things.
Coming to meet her is a little girl, all skin and bone. She has perhaps long and beautiful hair, but no time to attend to it. It is matted and ruffled, and the wind tears round and round and seizes whole locks with which he whips her narrow shoulders. She wears a thin, tattered frock, and the wind clings round her, seeking a hole through which to steal into her puny body.
On her feet she wears a pair of top boots—of mud. She also walks unsteadily, first, because she is meeting the wind, and, secondly, because her hands, too, are taken up.
In her left one she carries a pair of big boots, a man's boots (her father's most likely), taking them to be mended. I need not suppose that they are going to the inn to be pawned for a bottle of brandy, because of the split soles.
Her father has probably come home tired out with his work, her mother is cooking the supper, and she, the eldest daughter, has been sent out with the boots. They must be ready by to-morrow morning early—she hurries along—she knows that if her father does not get his boots by to-morrow, there will be no fire in the oven all day. She pants—the great boots are too heavy for such a little child. But the weight in her right hand is heavier, for she carries an immense journeyman's umbrella—and she carries it proudly—her father has trusted her with it!
The child needs a lot of things: in winter, warmth—winter and summer, clothing, and all the year round, enough to eat. By way of compensation, there is excess in the size of her umbrella. I am sure that at this moment the rich lady with the parasol envies her.
The little half-starved girl with the merry, roguish eyes, although the wind threatens to upset her every minute, smiles at me from out the picture:
There, you see, we have our pleasures, too!
As to that lady, I am laughing at her!
On paying for my unfinished glass of tea, however, I am again reminded of my little beggar boy.
He has no umbrella at all, no home awaits him, not even one with dry potatoes without butter, no little bit of a bed at the foot of father's or mother's.
Even the unhappy lady would not find anything to envy him for.
What made me think of him again? Aha, I remember! It flashed across me that for the ten kopeks which I paid for the scarcely-tasted tea, the poor little boy would have had a half-portion of soup or a piece of bread and a corner to sleep in. Why did I order the tea? At home the samovar is steaming, somebody sits waiting for me with a "ready" smile, on the table there is something to eat.
I was ashamed not to order tea. Well, there is something in that, I say to console myself.
There is an even stronger wind blowing outside than before. It tears at the roofs as if it were an anti-Semite, and the roofs, Jews.
But the roofs are of iron, and they are at home.
It descends with fury on the lamps in the street, but they remain erect like hero-sages at the time of the Inquisition.
It sweeps down on the pavement, but the flags are set deep in the earth, and the earth does not let go of her dwellers so easily. Then he raises himself in anger up, up into the height, but the heavens are far, and the stars look down with indifference—or amusement.
The passers in the street bend and bow themselves and huddle together to take up as little room as possible, turn round to catch their breath, and pursue their certain way.
But the poor, helpless little boy, I think of him with terror, what will become of him?
All my philosophy has deserted me, and all my pity is awake.
If it were my child? If I thought my own flesh and blood were in the grip of this wind? If my child were roaming the streets to-night? If, even supposing that later on he had managed to beg a groschen, he were going, in this hurricane, toward Praga[138]—over the Vistula, over the bridge?
And just because he is not mine, is he any the less deserving? Does he feel the wind less, shiver the less with cold, because his parents are lying somewhere in a grave under a tombstone? I lose all inclination to go home. I feel as if I had no right to a warm room, to the boiling samovar, to the soft bed and, above all, to the smile of those who are awaiting me.
It seems to me that "murderer" or some such word must be written on my forehead, that I have no business to be seen by anyone.
And once more I begin to think about "piousness."
"Why the devil am not I 'pious'?" I mutter. "Why need I have been the worse for believing that the One who dwells high above all the stars, high above the heavens, never lets our world out of His sight for a single instant? That not for a single instant will He forget the little boy? Why need he lie so heavy on my heart? Why cannot I leave him frankly and freely to the great heart of the universe? He would trouble me no more, I should feel him safe under the great eye of the cosmos—the eye, which, should it withdraw itself for an instant, leaves whole worlds a prey to the devil; the eye which, so long as it is open, assures to the least worm its maintenance and its right? As it is, I, with my sick chest, and my wet feet, and in this weather, must go back to the soup-kitchen and look for that little boy. It is a disgrace and a shame!"
Wherein the shame and the disgrace consisted, why and before whom I felt ashamed, to this day I do not know. And yet, on account of the shame and the disgrace, I did not take the shortest way back to the soup-kitchen, but I went round by several streets.
At last I arrived.
The first room, the dining-room, was empty.
The Gehenna of day-time is cooling down, the steam rises higher and higher from the damp floor, and creates a new "heaven" and a new "firmament" between the waters below (from off the feet of the poor people) and the waters above (the drops formed by the vapor). Here and there the drops come raining through.
Thanks to a little window, I can see into the kitchen.
The drowsy cook with the untidy head leans with her left hand on the great kettle and lifts the big soup-spoon lazily to her mouth.
The second, the kitchen-maid, is shredding macaroni for to-morrow noon. She, too, looks sleepy. The superintendent is counting meal tickets distributed by the committee.
There is no one else visible. I cast a look under the tables—no trace of the little boy. I am too late!
"But at least," I think, as I leave the kitchen, "nobody saw me!"
Suddenly I remember that I have been walking the streets for several hours.
Whatever is the matter with me? I mutter, and begin to pace homeward.
I am quite glad to find everyone asleep.
I throw off my goloshes in the entrance, steal up to my room and into bed.
But I had a bad night. Tired out, chilled, and wet through, it was long before I ceased coughing and got warm—a continual shiver ran through my bones. I did not get really to sleep till late in the morning, and then my dreams began to torment me in earnest.
I started out of sleep bathed in cold perspiration, sprang out of bed, and went to the window. I look out; the sky is full of stars—the stars look like diamonds set in iron—they roll on so proudly, so calmly, and so high.
There is a tearing wind blowing at the back—the whole house shakes.
I went back to bed, but I slept no more, I only dozed. My dreams were broken, but the little boy was the centre of them all.
Every time I saw him in a new place: there he lies asleep out in the street—there he crouches on some steps in an archway—once, even, devils are playing ball with him—he flies from hand to hand through the air—later on I come across him lying frozen in a rubbish-box.
I held out till morning and then I flew to the soup-kitchen.
He is there!
Had I not been ashamed, I should have washed the grime off his face with tears of thankfulness. Had I not been afraid of my wife, I should have led him home as my own child. He is there—I am not his murderer!
Well!
And I held out a ten kopek piece.
He takes it wondering; he does not know what a kindness he has done me.
Long life to him!
And next day, when he begged me for another groschen, I did not give it him, but this time I uttered no word of reproof—what is more, I went away ashamed, not satisfied with myself.
I can really and truly not afford it, but my heart is sore: why can I not afford it?
———
My grandfather, on whom be peace, was not so far wrong when he used to say:
"Whoever is not pious, lives in sorrow of heart and dies without consolation."
XXIV
UNDERGROUND
A big underground lodging room full of beds.
Freude, the tatterdemalion, has been asleep for some time on her chest, in her corner between the stove and the wall.
To-day she went to bed early, because to-morrow is fair-day in a neighboring town, and she will have to be astir betimes in order to drive there with the grease. But she lies uneasy—there is trouble and worry in store.
She had arranged with the driver to take her, Freude, and the small barrel, and now, just as she was going to sleep, it occurred to her that it would be better to take the big one.
She tosses from side to side on her couch.
"Plague take a woman's tongue!" she mutters then, exclaiming against herself:
"The small barrel! Whatever for? To please the driver? Driver be blessed! Can't he give his horses a few more oats for once?"
Grumbling thus over the stupidity of a woman's tongue, she has just managed to doze off. From beneath the counterpane appears a red kerchief that falls dangling round about her face and her pointed red and blue nose.
She breathes heavily, and presses one bony hand to her old heart. Who knows what she is dreaming? Perhaps that the driver has broken his word, and she is left for a whole year without Parnosseh.
The opposite corner belongs to Yoneh the water-carrier.
The wife and two children sleep in one bed, and Yoneh with the elder Cheder boy in another.
Now and then a sigh issues from the beds. Here also people have lain down in sorrow.
The little Cheder boy has been crying for money to pay the rabbi his fee.
And the eldest daughter was left without a situation. She had been doing well, as servant to a couple without children. Suddenly her mistress died. So she came home—she could not stay on alone with the widower.
There were a few rubles owing to her in wages—they would have been just enough to pay the rabbi—but the widower says it is no concern of his, his wife never mentioned it, and he doesn't know—he never mixes himself up with the affairs of women.
They quarrelled a little before going to sleep. The mother advised going to the Jewish court, the daughter was in favor of writing a petition either to the natchàlnik[1] or to the mirovòi.[139]
Yoneh will not hear of doing one or the other.
The widower will take his revenge, and get Yoneh a bad name among the householders: "He has only to snap his fingers and there's an end of me!" How many water-carriers are there already loafing about with nothing to do since they started the new water-supply?
Beril, the porter, all by himself in an upper bed, is snoring away like a broken-winded horse. The two children sleep together in another place. His wife is a cook, and this evening she has a wedding supper on hand.
Here, too, rest is broken.
Beril has an ache going through his bones, one after the other, and the eldest son sighs frequently in his sleep. He works in a lime-kiln and has burnt his foot.
Further on lies another snorer alone in a bed: Tzirel, the street-seller. In the second bed sleep all three children. Her husband is a watchman. No sooner has he come in than she will go out, with bread and fresh rolls.
We are already in the third corner, where stands another—this time an iron bedstead.
A flushed, unhealthy-looking woman's head is set off by a bundle of rags that serve as pillow.
Her prematurely parched lips open frequently, and a heavy sigh escapes them. Her husband's profession is a hard one, and he has no luck. Last week, at the risk of his life, he conveyed away a copper kettle and buried it in the sand outside the town—and it was discovered. Who knows what he will bring home to-night? Perhaps he is already in jail. It is three weeks since she set on to boil so much as a kettleful of water—and they are clamoring for the rent.
"A hard life and no luck!" sigh the parched lips. "And one has to be on one's guard against neighbors. They are always asking: 'What is your husband's trade? What keeps him out so late?'"
Over all the beds flickers a pale light from the centre of the room. It rises from between four canvas walls that bound the kingdom of a young married couple.
Treine, the young housewife, is still awake. She has only been married two months, and she is waiting for her husband, who will presently return from the house-of-study.
The oil lamp is burning and throws pale patches on to the blackened ceiling. A few feeble rays come through the rents in the canvas walls and dance upon the beds with the poor, worn-out faces.
In Treine's kingdom all is brighter and cleaner.
Between the two beds, on a little white table, lies a prayer-book flanked by two little metal candle-sticks, her wedding gifts. Wedding garments hang on the wall, also a Tallis bag with the Shield of David embroidered on it.
But there are no chairs in the kingdom. Treine sits on one of the beds, making a net to hold the onions which are lying beside her, scattered over the sheet. The soup for supper is keeping hot under the bed-clothes.
The door of the big room opens softly. Treine's cheeks flush, she lets the net fall out of her hands, and springs off the bed. But then she remains standing—it would never do before all the neighbors. One of them might wake, and she would never hear the last of it. The neighbors are bad enough as it is, especially Freude. Freude cannot understand a wife not beginning to scold her husband the very next day after the wedding. "Just you wait," she says, the old cat, "you'll see the life he'll lead you—when it's too late." Freude leaves her no peace.
"A husband," she says, "who is not led by the nose is worse than a wolf. He sucks the marrow out of your bones, the blood out of your veins!"
It is ten years now since Freude had a husband, and she has not got her strength back yet. And Freude is a clever woman, she knows a lot.
"Anything that he has a right to," she says, "fling it out to him as you would a bone to a dog, and—"
Treine has time to recollect all this, because it is some minutes before Yössele manages to steal on tiptoe past all the beds. Every step he takes echoes at her heart, but as to going out to meet him—not for any money. There—he nearly fell! Now he is just outside the partition walls. She breathes again.
"Good evening!" he says in a low voice, with downcast eyes.
"A good year to you!" she answers lower still. Then: "Are you hungry?" she asks.
"Are you? Wait."
He slips out between the partitions and returns with washed and dripping hands.
She gives him a towel.
On a corner of the table there is some bread and some salt and the now uncovered soup.
He sits down on his bed, on the top of all the bed-clothes, she on hers, with the onions.
They eat slowly, talking with their eyes—what about, do you think?—and with their lips about the way to earn a living.
"Well, how are you getting on?"
"Oh," he sighs, "three pupils already!"
"And that is all we have to depend on?" she asks sadly.
"Ma!" he answers with gentle reproach.
"God be praised!" she is consoling herself and him together.
"God be praised; but that only makes one hundred and twenty rubles," he sighs.
"Well, why do you sigh?"
"Add it up," he answers; "one ruble a week rent, that's twenty-six rubles a season. And then I'm in debt—there were wedding expenses."
"What do you mean?" she asks astonished.
He smiles.
"Silly little thing! My father couldn't afford to give us anything more than his consent."
"Well, what do they come to altogether?" she interrupts.
"Altogether," he goes on, "twelve rubles. That makes thirty-eight. What remains over for food?"
She calculates:
"Eighty-two, I suppose."
"For twenty-six weeks."
"Well, after all," she says, "it's over three rubles a week."
"And what," he asks sadly, "what about wood—and candles—Sabbaths and holidays?"
"Ett, God is faithful," she tries to cheer him, "and I can do something, too. Look, I have bought some onions. Eggs are very cheap. I will buy some eggs, too. In a week or so, perhaps, five dozen eggs will yield a little profit."
"But just calculate," he persists, "what we must spend on firing and lights."
"Why, next to nothing. Perhaps one ruble a week. That leaves us—"
"And Sabbaths and holidays! Child, what are you thinking of?" And the word "child" falls so softly, so kindly, from his lips, that she must needs smile.
"Come, say the Blessing, quick!" she says, "and let other things be till to-morrow. It's time to go to sleep."
Then she feels ashamed, lowers her eyelids, and says as if she were excusing herself:
"You come so late!" with a yawn that is half a sham.
He leans toward her across the little table.
"Silly child," he whispers, "I come in late on purpose, so that we may eat together, do you see? For a teacher, you know, it's not the thing."
"Well, well, say the Blessing!" she repeats, shutting her eyes tighter. He closes his, he wants to say it seriously. But his eyes keep opening of themselves. He presses down his eyelids, but there remains a chink through which he sees her, in a strangely colored light, so that he cannot do otherwise than look at her. She is tired—he feels sorry for her. He sees her trying to sit further back on the bed and letting her head rest against the wall. She will go to sleep like that, he thinks.
"Why not take a pillow?" he would like to say, almost crossly, but he cannot—ahem, ahem—
But she doesn't hear. He hurries through the Blessing, finishes it, stands up, and there remains, not knowing what to do next.
"Treine," he calls, but so low, it could not wake her. He goes up to her bed and bends over her.
Her face smiles, it looks so sweet—she must be dreaming of something pleasant—how beautifully she smiles—it would be a shame to wake her! Only her little head will hurt—öi, what hair she must have had—he has looked at her curls, long, black hair—all shorn now[140]—her cap is a thin embroidered one, with holes—she is a beauty! He smiles, too.
But she must be woke. He bends lower and feels her breath—he draws it in hastily—she attracts him like a magnet—half-unconsciously he touches her lips with his own.
"I wasn't asleep at all!" she says suddenly, and opens a pair of mischievous, laughing eyes. She throws her arms round his shoulders and pulls him down to her. "Never mind," she whispers into his ear, and her voice is very sweet, "never mind! God is good and will help us—was it not He who brought us together? He will not forsake us. There will be firing and lights—there will be enough to live on—it will be all right—everything will be right—won't it, Yössele? Yes, it will!"
He makes no reply. He is trembling all over.
She pushes him a little further away.
"Look at me, Yössele!" it occurs to her to say.
Yössele wishes to obey, and cannot.
"Poor wretch," she says gently, "not accustomed to it yet—ha?"
He wants to hide his head in her breast, but she will not allow him to.
"Why are you ashamed, wretch? You can kiss, but you won't look!"
He would rather kiss her, but she will not allow him.
"Please, look at me!"
Yössele opens his eyes wide, but not for long.
"Oh, please!" she says, and her voice is softer, "silkier" than ever.
He looks. This time it is her lids that fall.
"Just tell me," she says, "only please tell me the truth, am I a pretty woman?"
"Yes!" he whispers, and she feels his breath hot on her cheek.
"Who told you?"
"Can't I see for myself? You are a queen—a queen!"
"And tell me, Yössele," she continues, "shall you be always just as—just the same?"
"What do you mean by that, Treine?"
"I mean," her voice shakes, "just as fond of me?"
"What a question!"
"Just as dear?"
"What next?"
"Always?"
"Always!" he is confident.
"Shall you always eat with me?"
"Of course," he answers.
"And—and you will never scold me?"
"Never."
"Never make me unhappy?"
"Unhappy? I? You? What do you mean? Why?"
"I don't know, Freude says...."
He draws nearer to her. She pushes him back.
"Yössele?"
"What is it?"
"Tell me—what is my name?"
"Treine!"
"Phê!" the small mouth makes a motion of disgust.
"Treinishe," he corrects himself.
She is not pleased yet.
"Treininyu!"
"No!"
"Well then—Treine my life, Treine my crown, Treine my heart—will that do?"
"Yes," she answers happily, "only—"
"What now, my life, my delight?"
"Only—listen, Yössele,—and—" she stammers.
"And what?"
"And when—if you should be out of work any time—and when I am not earning much—then perhaps, perhaps—you will scold."
The tears come into her eyes.
"God forbid! God forbid!"
He forces his head out of her hands, and flings himself upon her parted lips.
———
"Plague take you altogether, head and hands and feet!" a voice comes from beneath the partition. "Honey-mooning, as I'm alive! There's no closing an eye—"
It is the husky, acidly-spiteful voice of Freude, the tatterdemalion.
XXV
BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS
(Between the Rabbi of Brisk and the Rebbe of Byàle)
A Simchas Torah Tale
TOLD BY AN OLD TEACHER