The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

Some of the worshippers gesticulated merely because it was “correct form”; others did so from force of habit, or by way of fighting off the intrusion of worldly thoughts; still others for the same reason for which one yawns when others do. But all these formed a small minority. The bulk of the Pietists present, including several people of questionable honesty in business matters, were honestly convulsed with a contagion of religious rapture. The invisible proximity of the Man of Righteousness, the sight of the door that concealed his holy presence, keyed them up to the highest pitch of exaltation. Their ears followed the “master of prayers” at the Stand, but their minds beheld the Good Jew of Gornovo. All hearts converged at the mysterious spot behind that door. That which sounded and looked like a pandemonium of voices and gestures was in reality a chorus of uplifted souls with the soul of the concealed man of God for a “master of prayers.”

Weinstein was slapping the wall with both hands. His large figure was enveloped in the costliest praying-shawl in the room. All that was seen of him were two wrists overgrown with red hair. Now and then he would face about and fall to striding up and down meditatively. He was a well-fed, ruddy-necked Jew of fifty with a sharp hooked nose sandwiched in between two plump florid cheeks, and a small red beard. His unbuttoned coat of a rich broadcloth reached down to his heels; his trousers were tucked into the tops of well-polished boots. Once or twice an unkempt, underfed little man in a tattered shawl and with a figure and gait which left no doubt that he was a tailor by trade, barred Weinstein’s way, snapping his fingers at him; then the two took to pacing the room together, shouting and chuckling in rapturous duet as they moved along, as is written: “Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing,” or “Because thou servedst not thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies.” That the little tailor did not enjoy an “abundance of all things” was evident from his pinched face and broken shoes. He did not rank high enough in his trade to have even Weinstein’s clerk for a customer, yet at the Pietist gatherings he addressed Weinstein himself by the familiar diminutive of his first name and sometimes helped to spank him or to pelt him with burrs out of his “gladness of heart.”

Yossl Parmet—Makar’s father—was tiptoeing about the crowded room, smiling and whispering fondly, as though confiding glad news to himself, but his heart was not in his prayer. He was thinking of his son and the young woman who had come to plead for him. Indeed, Yossl’s piety had deserted him long since. He clung to the Pietists for the sake of the emotional atmosphere that enveloped it and from his sincere admiration of the Good Jew’s personality rather than from faith. He was fond of Miriam and his heart was now torn between jealousy in her behalf and anxiety about his son.

The services over, silence fell upon the congregation. The Pietists were folding up their shawls, or eyeing the floor expectantly. The minutes were passing slowly. The stillness seemed to be growing in intensity. Presently a song broke from somebody in a corner. It was a song without words, a new tune especially composed for the occasion. Like most “Gornovo melodies” it was meant to be gay, and like all of them it was pervaded by the mixed sadness of the Exiled People and the brooding, far-away plaint of their Slavic neighbours. There is a mingling of fire and tears in the Pietist “hop.” It isn’t without reason that the most rabid Oppositionist of Lithuania will sing them on the Rejoicing of the Law.

The others in the room had never heard the song before, yet several of them fell to at once, seizing the tune by intuition. The rest joined in gradually, until the whole assemblage was united in chorus. The import of this kind of singing while the Good Jew is in the privacy of his room is a plea that he may issue forth and grace the crowd with his presence and “some law.” They went through the tune again and again, gathering zest as they mastered its few simple bars. The melody seemed to be climbing up and down, or diving in and out; expostulating with somebody as it did so, bewailing somebody or something, appealing in the name of some dear event in the past or future. Unable to tell definitely what their tune was saying or doing, the singers craved to see the speechless song, to make out the words it seemed to be uttering, and because that was impossible their hearts were agitated with objectless sympathy and longing, and the rabbi was forgotten for awhile. They pitied the unknown man who seemed to be climbing or diving all the more because it was in their own voices that his incomprehensible words were concealed.

Little by little, however, as the novelty of the air wore off, the consciousness that they were beseeching the Man of Righteousness to come out to them blent with their yearning sympathy for their melody. They ardently believed that the Good Jew’s soul had ascended on the wings of his ecstasy to the Divine Presence. All eyes were on his door. An indescribable ring of solemnity, of awe, of love and of prayer came into their voices. Their faces were transfixed with it. The melody was pouring out its very heart to the holy man.

Suddenly it all died away. The door flew open and, preceded by a stout “supervisor,” appeared an elderly man with a flabby-lipped mouth and a hooked little nose. He wore a long-skirted coat of black silk with a belt of the same material wound several times round his waist, and a round cap of sable and velvet. The crowd fell apart in breathless excitement. As he advanced through the lane thus formed he was flushed and trying to conceal his embarrassment in a look of grief. He seated himself at a long table and shut his eyes. Now and then he heaved a sigh, swaying his head silently, with absorbed mien. He was supposed to be in a trance of lofty meditation, abandoned to thoughts and feelings which were to bear his soul to heaven.

The crowd was literally spellbound. Yossl Parmet was pale with unuttered sobs. He was perhaps the only man in the room who perceived that the holy man was ill at ease, and this gave him a sense of the Good Jew’s childlike purity which threw him into a veritable frenzy of reverence. More than thirty years the master of multitudes and still blushing! When Yossl was a young man he had changed his Good Jews several times. He had adored them all, but he had not liked them. His soul had found no rest until he moved to Zorki and met this Good Jew of Gornovo. Then he felt himself in the presence of absolute sincerity, of unsophisticated warmth of heart. This Good Jew was a naïve man, timid and unassertive. He had an unfeigned sense of his own supernatural powers, and was somewhat in awe of them. He felt as though there was another, a holier being within him and he feared that being in the same way as one possessed fears the unholy tenant of his soul.

Finally the Good Jew opened his eyes and began to speak. It was a simple sermon on a text taken at random from the Bible before him, but his listeners sought a hidden meaning, a mystical allusion, in the plainest of his words or gestures. Yossl could have instructed him in every branch of holy lore, yet he seized upon the exposition thirstily. In the first place, he had seen Good Jews who were even less at home in the Law than the Good Jew of Gornovo was, so that he felt grateful to him for not being a downright ignoramus. In the second place, he knew that he actually believed his own words to be inspired.

A few minutes after the sermon the Good Jew beckoned Yossl to a seat by his side. Makar’s father accepted the invitation in a quiver of obsequious gratitude.