“Must one get something ‘out of it’ to do what is right?”
“Ah, may the ghost take the whole lot of you!” Yossl said, with a wave of his hand, and walked away. He felt sure that this young woman and his son were in love, and he was shocked for the sake of Miriam, Makar’s divorced wife, as well as for his own.
He made for a slushy narrow lane, but turned back, retracing his steps in the direction of the house which was the Good Jew’s headquarters, as also the home of Miriam. It was the house of her uncle, Arye Weinstein, the richest Pietist in Zorki.
The Good Jew occupied two expensively furnished rooms which were always kept sacred to his use. They were known as “the rabbi’s chambers” and although the Righteous Man visited Zorki only once a year, nobody was ever allowed so much as to sit down in his easy chair. One day, when Weinstein caught his little girl playing in the “rabbi’s bed room” with a skull-cap which the holy man had left there, he flew into one of the savage fits of temper for which he was dreaded, and slapped the child’s face till it bled. The rabbi’s chambers were never swept or dusted until a day or two before his arrival, and then half a dozen people worked day and night to make things worthy of the exalted guest. The “rabbi’s parlour” opened into a vast room, by far the largest in the house, which on Saturdays was usually turned into a synagogue, and was known in town as “Weinstein’s salon.”
Miriam was a very bright, quick-witted little woman, but she was not pretty—a pale, sickly, defenceless-looking creature of the kind who have no enemies even among their own sex. Her separation from Makar was only a nominal affair, in fact, the divorce having been brought about against the will of the young couple by her iron-willed uncle, who had succeeded in embroiling Yossl with his son as well as with himself soon after the true character of Makar’s visits to Pani Oginska’s house had been discovered; but Makar and Miriam had become reconciled, through a letter from him, and they had been in secret correspondence ever since. Yossl never lost hope of seeing them remarried, and, in order to keep the memory of his son fresh in Miriam’s mind, he had obeyed the Good Jew and made peace with the wealthy Pietist.
Yossl was in charge of the town’s weight-house and was commonly known as “Yossl the weight-house man.” When Feivish (Makar’s real first name) was old enough to be started on the Talmud, he left the weight-house to his wife, devoting himself to the spiritual education of the boy. Every time they sat down to the huge book he would pin the edge of Feivish’s shirt to his collar, leaving the child’s back bare to the strap in his hand. Whenever his wife protested he would bring her to terms by threatening to tell the Good Jew that she would have her son brought up as a dunce. He was going to make a “fattened scholar” of him. He was going to fatten him on divine Law by main force, even as his wife fattened her geese for Passover. He was going to show those fish-blooded, sneering Oppositionists that they had no monopoly of the Talmud. Often during his lesson a distracted look would come into Feivish’s dark little eyes, and Yossl’s words fell on deaf ears. Then it was that the thong would descend on the bare back. Feivish never cried. As the blow fell, he would curl himself up with a startled look, that haunted Yossl for hours after. Feivish turned out to be a most ardent Pietist. Once, for example, in a very cold wintry night, after the Good Jew had crossed a snow-covered lawn, Feivish, in a burst of devotion, took off his boots and “followed in the foot-steps of the man of righteousness” barefoot.
For four years the young couple lived happily, their only woe being the death of both children that had been born to them. But the Good Jew said “God will have mercy,” and Feivish “served his Lord with gladness.” But this did not last. Feivish was initiated into the world of free thought, and gradually the fervent Pietist was transformed into a fervent atheist. It was during that period that he first met Pavel and that his wife’s despotic uncle extorted a divorce from him.
While Yossl was twitting the red-headed Oppositionist in front of Weinstein’s house, Bathsheba, a daughter-in-law of the man of substance, a plump, black-eyed beauty of the kind one’s mind associates with a Turkish harem, beckoned Miriam aside, in one of the rooms within, offering her a piece of cake.