In Those Days: The Story of an Old Man

by Judah Steinberg

Then I noticed that Anna was watching Marusya's bed. I saw she was
afraid Marusya might overhear what was not intended for her ears.
She put on her night robe, came to my bed, and began in a whisper:
"Are you sleeping? Get up, my boy, wake up!"

I did "wake up," and put on a frightened appearance. "What did you cry about?" she asked. "I dreamt something terrible." "What did you dream about" I kept silent. "Tell me, tell me!" she insisted. "I saw my mother in a dream." "Is she alive yet?" I told a lie. I said my mother was long dead. "And what did she tell you?" "She said that . . . ." "Tell me, tell me!" "I cannot repeat that in Russian." "Then say it in Yiddish." I looked with make-believe surprise at Anna. "She said: 'I shall come to Anna at night and choke her, if she doesn't give up abusing you.'" At this Anna turned red. I continued: "And she said also, 'Anna ought to have pity on Jewish children, because she is a Jewess herself.'" . . . .

My scheme worked well. Anna began to treat me in an entirely different way, and my position in the house not only improved, but became the opposite of what it had been. At times, when no one was around, she even spoke Yiddish to me. Apparently she liked to remain alone in the house with me and chat with me. You must know, her position in the village was all but agreeable. She had very few acquaintances; and she would have been better off without any. When she happened to have visitors, a mutual suspicion at once became apparent, in their behavior and their talk. There was much more flattery, much more sweetness of speech than is common among people. One could see that each spoke only to hide her innermost thoughts. Every conversation ended as it began: with gossip about women who were not zealous enough in matters of church attendance. And when it came to that, Anna invariably blushed, simply because she was afraid she might blush. Then, feeling the blood coming to her face, she would try to hide her confusion, and would chatter away ceaselessly, to show how punctual she was herself in church matters. On taking leave, Anna's friends would exchange significant glances, and Anna would have been either too stupid or else too wise not to notice the sting of those sly looks.

As to Peter, he treated Anna fairly well; and when they happened to quarrel, it was mostly her own fault. One night—it was long after I had found out Anna's secret—I happened to be sleepless, and I overheard Anna talking angrily to Peter. She was scolding him for having forgotten to prepare oil for the lamp before the ikon of some saint. It was that saint's day, and Khlopov had either forgotten or neglected it. He was very careless in church matters, and Anna never got tired of taking him to task for it. This time she didn't leave off nagging him, till he lost patience, and said: "Were I really as religious as you want me to be, I should have taken to wife a woman who—well, who is a real Christian herself." Perhaps Peter never meant to insult Anna by reminding her of that which she wished to forget. Or perhaps Peter thought he had offered a valid excuse. But Anna was offended and turned around crying.

The trouble with Anna was that she was very sensitive. That was a trait of hers. When she heard something said about herself, she never was satisfied with the plain meaning of what was said, but tried to give the words every other possible meaning. Every chance remark she happened to overhear she took to be meant for herself. Well, this same sensitiveness one may find in most of the Cantonists. For instance, in the regiment of General Luders, in which I served once, we had many Tatars, some Karaites, and a goodly number of Jews. To all appearances there was no trouble; but let one soldier call another "Antichrist," and every Jew in the regiment would get excited. The Tatars and the Karaites rather liked to call their comrades Antichrist, even if they happened to be Christians. But it was only the Jews whom the word set a-shivering. It is as I tell you—the Jew is painfully sensitive. Well, to cut my story short, Anna did not have a happy time of it. She was all alone, surrounded though she was by many people. She became taciturn in spite of herself. And this is a great misfortune when it happens with womenfolk. Women are naturally great talkers, and you may do them much harm, if you do not give them a chance to talk. So I became her crony as soon as I discovered her secret. Then she tried to make up for the many years of silence by chattering incessantly. In her long talks she often said things she had denied before. Once she told me that she felt a longing to see her relations and townspeople. But the next time she said that she hated them mightily. Very likely she did not hate them. We all dislike that which has caused us pain and harm. So Anna disliked her relations for having caused her remorse, homesickness, and perhaps shame. Once her tongue was loosed, she did not stop until she had poured out the proverbial nine measures given to woman as her share of the ten measures of speech in the world. She spoke Yiddish even in the presence of Marusya and of Jacob, who used to visit me once in a while. By and by Anna began to treat him in a very friendly way. Only Marusya avoided him, and never spoke a word to him. She simply hated him.

Thus in time the house of Anna became something like a Jewish settlement, or rather like some sort of a Klaus, especially when Pater was away from home. We all used to gather there, and talk Yiddish, just as in a Klaus. For under Anna's roof we felt perfectly free. She became a mother to the homeless Cantonists. Even marusya took to jabbering a little Yiddish. Jacob began to feel that the leadership of our little community was passing into the hands of Anna, and he became jealous. He did not see that the very fact that he too was falling under her spell was influencing our community greatly, and that thus he was stamping it with his own character.

Anna liked him more than she did any one of us. Moreover, she respected him. At times it looked as if she were somewhat afraid of him.

Now you must know that at bottom Anna had never deserted her religion. Instead, she carried the burdens of both religions; to the fear of the Jewish hell she seemed to have added the fear of the Christian hell. I suspect that she was still in the habit of reciting her Hebrew prayer before going to sleep. She also believed in dreams. In this respect all women are the same. Of course, she had her dreams, and Jacob thought himself able to interpret them; he used to seek her company for that purpose.

So we all began to feel very much at home in Anna's house.

Once it happened that Peter entered the house at a moment when we were all so much absorbed in our Yiddish conversation that we did not notice his presence. He sat down quietly among us and took part in our talk, smiling in his usual manner. He asked us some questions, and we answered him. Then we asked him something, and he answered us in pure, good Yiddish, as if there were nothing new or surprising about it. At last Marusya awoke, and exclaimed with glad surprise: "Papa, can you speak Yiddish too?" We all shuddered, as if caught stealing. Peter's smile broadened, covering the whole of his face.