The goose girl being at the base of supplies, I did not suffer hunger nor did I feel any homesickness, for there was much to be seen and my mind was diverted. When the pilgrims formed to go home, however, I began to realize that I had run away and that most likely the consequences would be equally unpleasant whether I kept on running away or returned home. Probably I decided that running away was not such fun as I anticipated and that my brother had been punished enough by my absence, for I remember being seated by the goose girl homeward bound when the band began to play, first solemnly as is fitting for a well-behaved brass band when it returns from a pilgrimage; then it quickened its action and played a military march quite out of keeping with the occasion. Besides the healing waters at Maria’s Bosom, wine flowed freely and the musicians were evidently in a happy mood after their libations.
The driver of the wagon where I sat with the goose girl was not at all cordial when he discovered me among the jugs of water that were being carried back to the sick.
“How much are you going to pay me, you little Jew, for taking you home?” he demanded. The word Jew in the Slavic language is Schid, and it had a contemptuous, menacing sound. I protested that I was not a Schid and before I knew it, he took me by the back of the neck and threw me from the wagon; then he whipped his horses while I, limping and crying, started in pursuit, which I soon saw to be fruitless, as the procession moved rapidly away from me.
Seated in the ditch by the road, wishing with all my heart, no doubt, that I had not run away, I heard the rumbling of a cart and horse. Looking up, I discovered on the cart my Uncle Isaac, my guardian, who had evidently started in search of me. My uncle was not on the best terms with my mother, for she was not satisfied by the way in which he administered our estate, and he was even less satisfied by the unorthodox way in which he thought she was bringing me up—her youngest and very much spoiled child. In consequence I did not like him and was always afraid of him; for he had an unpleasant habit of frequently stopping me on the street and partially undressing me, to see if my mother had not forgotten to put on the sacred fringes which every Jewish boy must wear close to his body.
“Where have you been?” he cried, when he saw me.
“I have been visiting the Mother of God,” I replied.
Then I remember being lifted onto the cart most ungently, and my uncle’s telling me that if my mother had brought me up right, I would not be running after the idols of the Gentiles. He prophesied a dire end to my existence and promised that from this time forth, he would take my religious training into his own hands.
I do not distinctly recall what happened when I reached home, but I can still see my mother with a candle in her hand taking me down from the cart, rejoiced to see me back; later, as she herself undressed me and discovered on my back the marks of my brother’s punishment, I could hear her weeping as I fell into a long and troubled sleep.
The next day I had to begin the study of the Hebrew alphabet, my uncle being the teacher, and a hard one indeed. Moreover, he strictly forbade my playing with the Gentile children, an injunction which I did not always obey. But inasmuch as they now called me Schid, in spite of my sharing my bread and butter with them more lavishly than ever, I gradually forsook their haunts. The next spring I no more made whistles, or scourges at Easter time; neither did I follow the goslings to the pasture or sit beside the goose girl under the beech tree by the chapel.
It was a new period in my life. The days began and ended differently and all things bore a changed aspect. Every evening and every morning I had to meet my uncle in the synagogue for prayers. He was the most pious man in the community, a descendant of Abraham Bolsover, the fragrance of whose piety still lingers in local history. My uncle had penetrated into the very heart of rabbinical Judaism. He knew much of the Talmud by heart, he could recite the prayers for all the holy days, even those for the Day of Atonement, without once looking at the prayer-book; and whenever the synagogue was without an official reader he filled the place.