CHAPTER III[ToC]
BOTH THEIR HOUSES
Among the mediæval customs which were preserved in the Pale when the rest of the world had long forgotten them was the use of popular sobriquets in place of surnames proper. Family names existed only in official documents, such as passports. For the most part people were known by nicknames, prosaic or picturesque, derived from their occupations, their physical peculiarities, or distinctive achievements. Among my neighbors in Polotzk were Yankel the Wig-maker, Mulye the Blind, Moshe the Six-fingered; and members of their respective families were referred to by these nicknames: as, for example, "Mirele, niece of Moshe the Six-fingered."
Let me spread out my family tree, raise aloft my coat-of-arms, and see what heroes have left a mark by which I may be distinguished. Let me hunt for my name in the chronicles of the Pale.
In the village of Yuchovitch, about sixty versts above Polotzk, the oldest inhabitant still remembered my father's great-grandfather when my father was a boy. Lebe the Innkeeper he was called, and no reproach was coupled with the name. His son Hayyim succeeded to the business, but later he took up the glazier's trade, and developed a knack for all sorts of tinkering, whereby he was able to increase his too scanty earnings.
Hayyim the Glazier is reputed to have been a man of fine countenance, wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman, active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or turban on her shaven head. On Sabbaths and holidays she went to the synagogue with a long, straight mantle hanging from neck to ankle; and she wore it with an air, on one sleeve only, the other dangling empty from her shoulder.
Hayyim begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Pinchus, my father. It behooves me to consider the stuff I sprang from.
Joseph inherited the trade, good name, and meagre portion of his father, and maintained the family tradition of honesty and poverty unbroken to the day of his death. For that matter, Yuchovitch never heard of any connection of the family, not even a doubtful cousin, who was not steeped to the earlocks in poverty. But that was no distinction in Yuchovitch; the whole village was poor almost to beggary.
Joseph was an indifferent workman, an indifferent scholar, and an indifferent hasid. At one thing only he was strikingly good, and that was at grumbling. Although not unkind, he had a temper that boiled over at small provocation, and even in his most placid mood he took very little satisfaction in the world. He reversed the proverb, looking for the sable lining of every silver cloud. In the conditions of his life he found plenty of food for his pessimism, and merry hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests danced, laughed, and rejoiced.