He listened to me attentively, and a melancholy smile played about his mouth.
"Peace and calm, Herr Kreisphysikus, are to be found only after pain has been gotten rid of in life. But to get rid of pain you must have it first. I have had much pain, much pain, and great Tzores; and now when sitting here so quietly, you know—believe me—Herr Kreisphysikus, you by and by become accustomed to that other peace, without end, and you think of it without dread or horror. Sometimes you even—well, we won't speak of it, Herr Doktor. Praised be God for having bestowed such a long life on me. My wife has been dead twenty years and—"
I waited in a state of tense expectation that he would say something about his son; but he hesitated for only an instant and continued:
"We lived together thirty-three years. Do you know what that means, Herr Kreisphysikus, if she looked down on and despised her husband in the very first year of her marriage? Because he wasn't so fine as she, merely an immigrant from Galicia? Because his Mishpocheh were poor people, and his father wasn't a wholesale dealer, but merely a peddler, and because he didn't know French? Even though I showed them later that I knew something and was something, and even though all the others appreciated me, in the eyes of Madame Eichelkatz I always remained a creature of a lower order, an intruder, an upstart. And she never forgave her father for having made me his son-in-law. The better I succeeded in business, and the wealthier we grew, the prouder and more arrogant she became. I was good enough to earn a living, and she had no fault to find with my business career; but as to the trouble I took to cultivate my mind, she paid no attention to that. For her I always remained Simon Eichelkatz from Tarnow, an employee in her father's business, a person with an absurd name and no manners, whom she had married at her father's wish and command. 'How did you happen to marry such a husband?' the Oberstleutnant Von Boddin once asked her, while standing in front of the shop door. 'It's a genuine mésalliance.' I was standing behind the counter, and I felt that what the Oberstleutnant was saying was a great insult to me, even though I didn't know the meaning of the word. But I couldn't go and knock him down. Now could I, Herr Kreisphysikus? I, a Jew, and he an Oberstleutnant? But I made a mental note of the word, and I kept repeating it to myself: mésalliance, mésalliance. Then, the next Shabbes, after Mairev, I went to the Herr Rabbiner and asked him what it meant. When he explained it to me, I all of a sudden became real quiet and thought to myself, why the Herr Oberstleutnant after all is perfectly right. It was a mésalliance. A failure of a marriage, I tell you, Herr Doktor, and it didn't get any better through the birth of our son in the second year. As long as her father, Joseph Böhm, was alive, she had a little consideration; but after his death that stopped. She sought company of her own. She associated with the Goyim, with the Frau Rechnungsrat and the Frau Kanzleirat, and more such aristocratic Shnorrers, who accepted many a little favor here and there from their well-to-do friend. Then came the misfortune with the Oberstleutnant and the officers, who had their sport with the handsome Jewess. She became more and more conceited and foolish; she was ashamed of her husband; and one day she had visiting cards engraved with 'Madame Eichelkatz, née Böhm.' The name stuck to her in the Khille. They began to despise her and to pity me."
It had gotten late. I had another professional visit to pay, and I took leave of my old friend. I am looking forward eagerly to his future revelations. As I crossed the Ring past the shops, I suddenly saw, in my mind's eye, an industrious man, humbled by his lot, standing behind the counter, and before the door a handsome woman. And I murmured to myself: "Madame Eichelkatz, née Böhm."
October 23.
Late this afternoon I hunted up my old friend in the expectation that he would continue the story of his life. Mention had been made of his son, though only en passant, and I cherished the secret hope that Simon Eichelkatz would return to him now that he had once begun to pour out his heart to me. But to-day he didn't say anything bearing on what had gone before. When I entered, I found him in a gay mood; and before I crossed the threshold he called out to me:
"It occurred to me to-day that I wanted some time or other to tell you a Maaseh, which is half funny, half sad."
And he only recounted anecdotes. Not one word about the events in his life—only the story of the great dearth and famine. Simon Eichelkatz was right; it is a tragi-comic history.
"It was a year of famine after the war of '59; sickness everywhere; bad harvests, bad business; the potatoes rotting in the ground on account of heavy rains and floods. Herr Kreisphysikus, to understand the misery of the people thoroughly, you must live through such a year here.