The synagogue is a gray weather-beaten building, erected long ago, almost in the middle ages. The country people call it the Judenburg (Jews' strong-hold), because the Jews once took refuge in it, and intrenched themselves there, when Prince Czartoryski came to murder and rob them. One of his reasons for doing so was that he wanted sport, and there were no foxes or wild boars to be found in the neighborhood in the hunting season; and another was, that he wanted money. The Jews hid themselves and their property behind the walls and iron bars of the synagogue, and held out until the men of Jagiellnica arrived from their neighboring fortress, and relieved them. At that time the walls of the Judenburg were strong, and the iron-work firm; but the bars are all broken now, or they are lost, and the walls are half in ruins. As if to testify to the importance of the building as a holy refuge, the poorest of the Jews' houses are built round it on three sides. On the fourth side, the sluggish river Lered flows so close to the synagogue that there is only space for two dwellings. One of these is a large new house, painted yellow—an unusual decoration in this vicinity—and the other is a dirty, ruinous cottage clinging forlornly to the bank of the river. The yellow house seems to be shoving its poorer neighbor over the brink, the moldering walls of the hovel hang so directly above the slow sad water. The rich wine-merchant, Manasse Silberstein, used to live with his son in the large house, and a very poor man, Nathan Bilkes, had lived for many years in the hovel.
Nathan had been a dorfgeher (peddler) as long as his strength had lasted, and then he spent a weak lonely old age upon his hardly earned savings, eked out by the charity of the community. He had become prematurely old and weak, like most people of his hard-working, poverty-stricken class.
A dorfgeher means, in the language of his co-religionists, a traveler who gains his livelihood by supplying the surrounding villages with the necessaries of life. On Sundays he tramps out of the town with an enormous pack upon his back, in which is stored all that the heart of a Ruthenian peasant could wish for, except the one thing most desired—for the dorfgeher does not sell schnapps.
Everything else he sells: straw hats, leather belts, boots, clasp-knives, flowers, ribbons, corals, love-philters, stuffs for gowns, spindles, linen, tallow, hardware, images of the saints, charms, wax-candles, needles, linen thread, and newspapers of the last week. He sells everything, and all are his customers—from the cavalry officers, who buy his smuggled cigars, and the pastors and gentry, who buy his fine stuffs, to the poorest peasant. Throughout the whole week he goes from village to village, from house to house—in the height of summer and the depth of winter. He knows everybody, and all know him. If they require his wares they invite him to cross their thresholds; if they want to buy nothing they drive him away, and if he does not go immediately they hound their dogs at him. The peasant and the noble, the chaplain and the young lieutenants, sharpen their wits at his expense; and if their jokes are not always ready, they try their switches and spurs. But he never wearies, and from early morning until late evening he raises his hoarse cry, and haggles and cheats wherever he can. If he can not get money in exchange for his wares, he will take what he can get—skins, grain, chickens, ducks, or eggs. On Friday afternoons he returns to town, and for one whole day he feels himself a man; but on Sunday he becomes nothing but a dorfgeher again....
Nathan Bilkes was a dorfgeher, and the above is a description of his life, which differed in no way from that of others of his trade. His father had found him a wife in due time. She had proved most excellent, but had died soon after her marriage, leaving two children.
The children grew up, strong and beautiful, in the dark cheerless cottage, as one sometimes sees sweet flowers blooming in the midst of rubbish and decay. But their father bewailed their strength and beauty, for these qualities lost them to him. His children so passed out of his life that he grew to look upon them as dead. The son was obliged to become a soldier, because Nathan could not pay the fifty gulden that were required to obtain his release. Bär Blitzer, the broker, had said that it could be done for fifty gulden, but the money was not there. The lad went to Italy with his regiment, and after the battle of Magenta his name was in the official list as "missing." His old father waited long for his return, but he never came back. His daughter, too, died to him. "My Chane," the old man took care to say, "was a beautiful Jewess; but I do not know the heathen (goje) Frau Christine."
The dorfgeher had not foreseen that his daughter would be a source of trouble to him. His Chane had been as obedient as she was lovely, modest, and industrious. She was not alone beloved by her father—she was a universal favorite.
No one grudged her good luck when old Manasse Silberstein sought her hand in marriage for his only son Nathan. It was a great and unexpected good fortune; for these people are strictly divided into classes, and the rich and poor seldom intermarry. This custom is natural; for the only occupation they were permitted to follow was money-making, thus the possession of wealth has been their sole happiness for many generations.
The poor peddler was at first incredulous. Old Manasse was very rich, and had a large grocery business, and a prosperous trade in Hungarian and Moldavian wines. It was a great distinction for the poor girl that his choice fell upon her.