Yiddish tales

YIDDISH TALES

YIDDISH TALES

TRANSLATED BY

HELENA FRANK

PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA

PEEPACE

This little volume is intended to be both companion
and complement to "Stories and Pictures," by I. L.
Perez, published by the Jewish Publication Society of
America, in 1906.

Its object was twofold : to introduce the non- Yiddish
reading public to some of the many other Yiddish
writers active in Russian Jewry, and — to leave it with
a more cheerful impression of Yiddish literature than
it receives from Perez alone. Yes, and we have col-
lected, largely from magazines and papers and un-
bound booklets, forty-eight tales by twenty different
authors. This, thanks to such kind helpers as Mr. F.
Hieger, of London, without whose aid we should never
'have been able to collect the originals of these stories,
Mr. Morris Meyer, of London, who most kindly gave
me the magazines, etc., in which some of them were
contained, and Mr. Israel J. Zevin, of New York, that
able editor and delightful feuilletonist, to whose criti-
cal knowledge of Yiddish letters we owe so much.

Some of these writers, Perez, for example, and Sholom-
Alechem, are familiar by name to many of us already,
while the reputation of others rests, in circles enthu-
siastic but tragically small, on what they have written

6 PEEFACE

in Hebrew.1 Such are Berdyczewski, Jehalel, Frisch-
mann, Berschadski, and the silver-penned Judah Stein-
berg. On these last two be peace in the Olom ho-Emess.
The Olom ha-Sheker had nothing for them but struggle
and suffering and an early grave.

The tales given here are by no means all equal in
literary merit, but they have each its special note, its
special echo from that strangely fascinating world so
often quoted, so little understood (we say it against
ourselves), the Russian Ghetto — a world in the pass-
ing, but whose more precious elements, shining, for all
who care to see them, through every page of these
unpretending tales, and mixed with less and less of
what has made their misfortune, will surely live on,
free, on the one hand, to blend with all and everything
akin to them, and free, on the other, to develop along
their own lines — and this year here, next year in Je-
rusalem.

The American sketches by Zevin and S. Libin differ
from the others only in their scene of action. Lerner's
were drawn from the life in a little town in Bessarabia,
the others are mostly Polish. And the folk tale, which
is taken from Joshua Meisach's collection, published
in Wilna in 1905, with the title Ma'asiyos vun der
Baben, oder Nissim ve-Niflo'os, might have sprung from
almost any Ghetto of the Old World.

1 Berschadski's " Forlorn and Forsaken," Frischmann's
' Three Who Ate," and Steinberg's " A Livelihood " and
" At the Matzes," though here translated from the Yiddish
versions, were probably written in Hebrew originally. In
the case of the former two, it would seem that the Yiddish
version was made by the authors themselves, and the same
may be true of Steinberg's tales, too.

We sincerely regret that nothing from the pen of
the beloved "Grandfather" of Yiddish story-tellers in
print, Abramowitsch (Mendele Mocher Seforim), was
found quite suitable for insertion here, his writings
being chiefly much longer than the type selected for
this book. Neither have we come across anything ap-
propriate to our purpose by another old favorite, J.
Dienesohn. We were, however, able to insert three
tales by the veteran author Mordecai Spektor, whose
simple style and familiar figures go straight to the
people's heart.

With regard to the second half of our object, greater
cheerfulness, this collection is an utter failure. It has
variety, on account of the many different authors, and
the originals have wit and humor in plenty, for wit and
humor and an almost passionate playfulness are in the
very soul of the language, but it is not cheerful, and we
wonder now how we ever thought it could be so, if the
collective picture given of Jewish life were, despite its
fictitious material, to be anything like a true one. The
drollest of the tales, "Gymnasiye" (we refer to the
originals), is perhaps the saddest, anyhow in point of
actuality, seeing that the Eussian Government is plan-
ning to make education impossible of attainment by
more and more of the Jewish youth — children given
into its keeping as surely as any others, and for the
crushing of whose lives it will have to answer.

Well, we have done our best. Among these tales are
favorites of ours which we have not so much as men-
tioned by name, thus leaving the gentle reader at liberty

to make his own. TT „

Jd. r .

LONDON, MABCH, 1911

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The Jewish Publication Society of America desires to
acknowledge the valuable aid which Mr. A. S. Freidus,
of the Department of Jewish Literature, in the New York
Public Library, extended to it in compiling the bio-
graphical data relating to the authors whose stories ap-
pear in English garb in the present volume. Some of the
authors that are living in America courteously fur-
nished the Society with the data referring to their own
biographies.

The following sources have been consulted for the
biographies: The Jewish Encyclopaedia; Wiener, His-
tory of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century;
Pinnes, Histoire de la Litterature Judeo-Allemande, and
the Yiddish version of the same, Die Geschichte vun
der jiidischer Literatur; Baal-Mahashabot, Geklibene
Schriften; Sefer Zikkaron le-Sofere Yisrael ha-hayyim
ittanu ka-Yom ; Eisenstadt, Hakme Yisrael be-Amerika ;
the memoirs preceding the collected works of some of
the authors; and scattered articles in European and
American Yiddish periodicals.

CONTEISTTS

PREFACE 5

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 8

REUBEN ASHEB BRAUDES

The Misfortune 13

JEHALEL (JUDAH LOB LEWIN)

Earth of Palestine 29

ISAAC LOB PEBEZ

A Woman's Wrath 55

The Treasure 62

It Is Well 67

Whence a Proverb 73

MORDECAI SPEKTOR

An Original Strike 83

A Gloomy Wedding 91

Poverty 107

SHOLOM-ALECHEM (SHALOM RABIKOVITZ)

The Clock 115

Fishel the Teacher 125

An Easy Fast 143

The Passover Guest 153

Gymnasiye 162

ELIEZEB DAVID ROSENTHAL

Sabbath 183

Yom Kippur 189

ISAIAH LERNEB

Bertzi Wasserfiihrer 211

Ezrielk the Scribe 219

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber 236

JUDAH STEINBERG

A Livelihood 251

At the Matzes 259

DAVID FRISCHMANN

Three Who Ate 269

MICHA JOSEPH BERDYCZEWSKI

Military Service 281

10 CONTENTS

ISAIAH BERSCHADSKI

Forlorn and Forsaken 295

TASHBAK (ISRAEL JOSEPH ZEVIN)

The Hole in a Belgel 309

As the Years Roll On 312

DAVID PINSKI

Reb Shloimeh 319

S. LIBIN (ISRAEL HUBEWITZ)

A Picnic 357

Manasseh 366

Yohrzeit for Mother 371

Slack Times They Sleep 377

ABRAHAM RAISIN

Shut In 385

The Charitable Loan 389

The Two Brothers 397

Lost His Voice 405

Late 415

The Kaddish 421

Avrdhom the Orchard-Keeper 427

HIBSH DAVID NAUMBERG

The Rav and the Rav's Son 435

METEB BLINKIN

Women 449

LOB SCHAPIRO

If It Was a Dream 481

SHALOM ASCH

A Simple Story 493

A Jewish Child 506

A Scholar's Mother 514

The Sinner 529

ISAAC DOB BERKOWITZ

Country Folk 543

The Last of Them 566

A FOLK TALE

The Clever Rabbi 581

GLOSSARY AND NOTES . 589

EEUBEN ASHER BEAUDES

Born, 1851, in Wilna (Lithuania), White Russia; went to
Roumania after the anti-Jewish riots of 1882, and published
a Yiddish weekly, Yehudit, in the interest of Zionism; ex-
pelled from Roumania; published a Hebrew weekly, Ha-
Zeman, in Cracow, in 1891; then co-editor of the Yiddish
edition of Die Welt, the official organ of Zionism; Hebrew
critic, publicist, and novelist; contributor to Ha-Lebanon
(at eighteen), Ha-Shahar, Ha-Boker Or, and other periodi-
cals; chief work, the novel " Religion and Life."

THE MISFORTUNE

Pumpian is a little town in Lithuania, a Jewish town.
It lies far away from the highway, among villages
reached by the Polish Eoad. The inhabitants of Pum-
pian are poor people, who get a scanty living from the
peasants that come into the town to make purchases,
or else the Jews go out to them with great bundles
on their shoulders and sell them every sort of small
ware, in return for a little corn, or potatoes, etc.
Strangers, passing through, are seldom seen there, and
if by any chance a strange person arrives, it is a great
wonder and rarity. People peep at him through all
the little windows, elderly men venture out to bid him
welcome, while boys and youths hang about in the
street and stare at him. The women and girls blush
and glance at him sideways, and he is the one subject of
conversation : "Who can that be ? People don't just set
off and come like that — there must be something behind
it." And in the house-of -study, between Afternoon and
Evening Prayer, they gather closely round the elder
men, who have been to greet the stranger, to find out
who and what the latter may be.

Fifty or sixty years ago, when what I am about to tell
you happened, communication between Pumpian and
the rest of the world was very restricted indeed: there
were as yet no railways, there was no telegraph, the

2

14 BRAUDES

postal service was slow and intermittent. People came
and went less often, a journey was a great undertaking,
and there were not many outsiders to be found even in
the larger towns. Every town was a town to itself,
apart, and Pumpian constituted a little world of its
own, which had nothing to do with the world at large,
and lived its own life.

Neither were there so many newspapers then, any-
where, to muddle people's heads every day of the week,
stirring up questions, so that people should have some-
thing to talk about, and the Jews had no papers of their
own at all, and only heard "news" and "what was going
on in the world" in the house-of- study or (lehavdil!)
in the bath-house. And what sort of news was it then?
What sort could it be ? World-stirring questions hardly
existed (certainly Pumpian was ignorant of them) :
politics, economics, statistics, capital, social problems,
all these words, now on the lips of every boy and girl,
were then all but unknown even in the great world,
let alone among us Jews, and let alone to Reb
Nochumtzi, the Pumpian Eav !

And yet Reb Nochumtzi had a certain amount of
worldly wisdom of his own.

Reb Nochumtzi ,was a native of Pumpian, and had
inherited his position there from his father. He had
been an only son, made much of by his parents (hence
the pet name Nochumtzi clinging to him even in his old
age), and never let out of their sight. When he had
grown up, they connected him by marriage with the
tenant of an estate not far from the town, but his
father would not hear of his going there "auf Kost,"

THE MISFORTUNE 15

as the custom is. "I cannot be parted from my
Nochumtzi even for a minute," explained the old Eav,
"I cannot bear him out of my sight. Besides, we study
together." And, in point of fact, they did study to-
gether day and night. It was evident that the Rav was
determined his Nochumtzi should become Rav in
Pumpian after his death — and so he became.

He had been Rav some years in the little town, re-
ceiving the same five Polish gulden a week salary as
his father (on whom be peace!), and he sat and
studied and thought. He had nothing much to do in the
way of exercising authority: the town was very quiet,
the people orderly, there were no quarrels, and it was
seldom that parties went "to law" with one another
before the Rav; still less often was there a ritual
question to settle: the folk were poor, there was no
meat cooked in a Jewish house from one Friday to
another, when one must have a bit of meat in honor of
Sabbath. Fish was a rarity, and in summer time people
often had a "milky Sabbath," as well as a milky week.
How should there be "questions" ? So he sat and studied
and thought, and he was very fond indeed of thinking
about the world !

• It is true that he sat all day in his room, that he had
never in all his life been so much as "four ells" outside
the town, that it had never so much as occurred to him
to drive about a little in any direction, for, after all,
whither should he drive? And why drive anywhither?
And yet he knew the world, like any other learned man,
a disciple of the wise. Everything is in the Torah,
and out of the Torah, out of the Gemoreh, and out of

16 BEAUDES

all the other sacred books, Eeb Nochumtzi had learned
to know the world also. He knew that "Eeuben's ox
gores Simeon's cow," that "a spark from a smith's ham-
mer can burn a wagon-load of hay," that "Eeb Eliezer
ben Charsum had a thousand towns on land and a thou-
sand ships on the sea." Ha, that was a fortune ! He
must have been nearly as rich as Eothschild (they knew
about Eothschild even in Pumpian!). "Yes, he was a
rich Tano and no mistake!" he reflected, and was
straightway sunk in the consideration of the subject of
rich and poor.

He knew from the holy books that to be rich is a
pure misfortune. King Solomon, who was certainly
a great sage, prayed to God: Eesh wo-Osher al-titten
li! — "Give me neither poverty nor riches!" He said
that "riches are stored to the hurt of their owner,"
and in the holy Gemoreh there is a passage which says,
"Poverty becomes a Jew as scarlet reins become a white
horse," and once a sage had been in Heaven for a short
time and had come back again, and he said that lie had
seen poor people there occupying the principal seats in
the Garden of Eden, and the rich pushed right away,
back into a corner by the door. And as for the books
of exhortation, there are things written that make you
shudder in every limb. The punishments meted out to
the rich by God in that world, the world of truth, are
no joke. For what bit of merit they have, God rewards
them in this poor world, the world of vanity, while
yonder, in the world of truth, they arrive stript and
naked, without so much as a taste of Kingdom-come !

THE MISFORTUNE 17

"Consequently, the question is," thought Reb
Nochumtzi, "why should they, the rich, want to keep
this misfortune? Of what use is this misfortune to
them? Who so mad as to take such a piece of misfor-
tune into his house and keep it there ? How can anyone
take the world-to-come in both hands and lose it for the
sake of such vanities ?"

He thought and thought, and thought it over again :

"What is a poor creature to do when God sends him
the misfortune of riches? He would certainly wish to
get rid of them, only who would take his misfortune
to please him? Who would free another from a curse
and take it upon himself ?

"But, after all ... ha?" the Evil Spirit muttered
inside him.

"What a fool you are !" thought Reb Nochumtzi again.
"If" (and he described a half-circle downward in the
air with his thumb), "if troubles come to us, such as an
illness (may the Merciful protect us!), or some other
misfortune of the kind, it is expressly stated in the
Sacred Writings that it is an expiation for sin, a torment
sent into the world, so that we may be purified by it,
and made fit to go straight to Paradise. And because
it is God who afflicts men with these things, we cannot
give them away to anyone else, but have to bear with
them. 'Now, such a misfortune as being rich, which is
also a visitation of God, must certainly be borne with
like the rest.

"And, besides," he reflected further, "the fool who
would take the misfortune to himself, doesn't exist !

18 BKAUDES

What healthy man in his senses would get into a sick-
bed?"

He began to feel very sorry for Reb Eliezer ben
Charsum with his thousand towns and his thousand
ships. "To think that such a saint, such a Tano, one of
the authors of the holy Mishnah, should incur such a
severe punishment !

"But he stood the trial! Despite this great misfor-
tune, he remained a saint and a Tano to the end, and
the holy Gemoreh says particularly that he thereby
put to shame all the rich people, who go straight to
Gehenna."

Thus Eeb Nochumtzi, the Pumpian Rav, sat over the
Talmud and reflected continually on the problem of
great riches. He knew the world through the Holy
Scriptures, and was persuaded that riches were a terrible
misfortune, which had to be borne, because no one would
consent to taking it from another, and bearing it for
him.

Again many years passed, and Reb Nochumtzi grad-
ually came to see that poverty also is a misfortune, and
out of his own experience.

His Sabbath cloak began to look threadbare (the
weekday one was already patched on every side), he had
six little children living, one or two of the girls were
grown up, and it was time to think of settling them, and
they hadn't a frock fit to put on. The five Polish gulden
a week salary was not enough to keep them in bread,
and the wife, poor thing, wept the whole day through :
"Well, there, ich wie ich, it isn't for myself — but the
poor children are naked and barefoot."

THE MISFORTUNE 19

At last they were even short of bread.

"Nochumtzi ! Why don't you speak?" exclaimed his
wife with tears in her eyes. Nochumtzi, can't you hear
me? I tell you, we're starving! The children are
skin and bone, they haven't a shirt to their back, they
can hardly keep body and soul together. Think of a
way out of it, invent something to help us !"

And Reb Nochumtzi sat and considered.

He was considering the other misfortune — poverty.

"It is equally a misfortune to be really very poor."

And this also he found stated in the Holy Scriptures.

It was King Solomon, the famous sage, who prayed
as well: Resh wo-Osher al-titten li, that is, "Give me
neither poverty nor riches." Aha ! poverty is no advan-
tage, either, and what does the holy Gemoreh say but
"Poverty diverts a man from the way of God"? In
fact, there is a second misfortune in the world, and
one he knows very well, one with which he has a
practical, working acquaintance, he and his wife and his
children.

And Reb Nochum pursued his train of thought :

"So there are two contrary misfortunes in the world :
this way it's bad, and that way it's bitter! Is there
really no remedy ? Can no one suggest any help ?"

And Reb Nochumtzi began to pace the room up and
down, lost in thought, bending his whole mind to the
subject. A whole flight of Bible texts went through
his head, a quantity of quotations from the Gemoreh,
hundreds of stories and anecdotes from the "Fountain
of Jacob," the Midrash, and other books, telling of rich
and poor, fortunate and unfortunate people, till his

20 BRAUDES

head went round with them all as he thought. Sud-
denly he stood still in the middle of the room, and began
talking to himself :

"Aha! Perhaps I've discovered a plan after all!
And a good plan, too, upon my word it is ! Once more :
it is quite certain that there will always be more poor
than rich — lots more ! Well, and it's quite certain that
every rich man would like to be rid of his misfortune,
only that there is no one willing to take it from him —
no one, not any one, of course not. Nobody would be so
mad. But we have to find out a way by which lots and
lots of people should rid him of his misfortune little by
little. What do you say to that? Once more: that
means that we must take his unfortunate riches and
divide them among a quantity of poor ! That will be a
good thing for both parties : he will be easily rid of his
great misfortune, and they would be helped, too, and the
petition of King Solomon would be established, when
he said, 'Give me neither poverty nor riches.' It would
come true of them all, there would be no riches and no
poverty. Ha? What do you think of it?. Isn't it
really and truly an excellent idea?"

Reb Nochumtzi was quite astonished himself at the
plan he had invented, cold perspiration ran down his
face, his eyes shone brighter, a happy smile played on
his lips. "That's the thing to do !" he explained aloud,
sat down by the table, blew his nose, wiped his face, and
felt very glad.

"There is only one difficulty about it," occurred to
him, when he had quieted down a little from his excite-
ment, "one thing that doesn't fit in. It says particu-

THE MISFORTUNE 21

larly in the Torah that there will always be poor people
among the Jews, 'the poor shall not cease out of the
land.' There must always be poor, and this would make
an end of them altogether! Besides, the precept con-
cerning charity would, Heaven forbid, be annulled, the
precept which God, blessed is He, wrote in the Torah,
and which the holy Gemoreh and all the other holy
books make so much of. What is to become of the
whole treatise on charity in the Shulchan Aruch ? How
can we continue to fulfil it ?

But a good head is never at a loss ! Reb ISTochumtzi
soon found a way out of the difficulty.

"Never mind !" and he wrinkled his forehead, and
pondered on. "There is no fear! Who said that even
the whole of the money in the possession of a few
unfortunate rich men will be enough to go round?
That there will be just enough to help all the Jewish
poor? No fear, there will be enough poor left for the
exercise of charity. Ai wos ? There is another thing : to
whom shall be given and to whom not? Ha, that's a
detail, too. Of course, one would begin with the
learned and the poor scholars and sages, who have to
live on the Torah and on Divine Service. The people
can just be left to go on as it is. No fear, but it will
be all right !"

At last the plan was ready. Reb Nochumtzi thought
it over once more, very carefully, found it complete
from every point of view, and gave himself up to a
feeling of satisfaction and delight.

"Dvoireh !" he called to his wife, "Dvoireh, don't cry !
Please God, it will be all right, quite all right. I've

22 BRAUDES

thought out a plan. . . A little patience, and it will
all come right !"

"Whatever? What sort of plan?"

"There, there, wait and see and hold your tongue!
No woman's brain could take it in. You leave it to
me, it will be all right!"

And Reb Nochumtzi reflected further :

"Yes, the plan is a good one. Only, how is it to be
carried out? With whom am I to begin?"

And he thought of all the householders in Pumpian,
but — there was not one single unfortunate man among
them ! That is, not one of them had money, a real
lot of money; there was nobody with whom to discuss
his invention to any purpose.

"If so, I shall have to drive to one of the large
towns !"

And one Sabbath the beadle gave out in the house-of-
study that the Rav begged them all to be present that
evening at a convocation.

At the said convocation the Rav unfolded his whole
plan to the people, and placed before them the happi-
ness that would result for the whole world, if it were
to be realized. But first of all he must journey to a
large town, in which there were a great many unfor-
tunate rich people, preferably Wilna, and he demanded
of his flock that they should furnish him with the
necessary means for getting there.

The audience did not take long to reflect, they agreed
to the Rav's proposal, collected a few rubles (for who
would not give their last farthing for such an important
object?), and on Sunday morning early they hired him

THE MISFORTUNE 23

a peasant's cart and horse — and the Rav drove away
to Wilna.

The Rav passed the drive marshalling his arguments,
settling on what he should say, and how he should
explain himself, and he was delighted to see how, the
more deeply he pondered his plan, the more he thought
it out, the more efficient and appropriate it appeared,
and the clearer he saw what happiness it would bestow
on men all the world over.

The small cart arrived at Wilna.

"Whither are we to drive ?" asked the peasant.

"Whither? To a Jew," answered the Rav. "For
where is the Jew who will not give me a night's
lodging?"

"And I, with my cart and horse?"

The Rav sat perplexed, but a Jew passing by heard
the conversation, and explained to him that Wilna is
not Pumpian, and that they would have to drive to a
post-house, or an inn.

"Be it so!" said the Rav, and the Jew gave him the
address of a place to which they should drive.

Wilna! It is certainly not the same thing as Pum-
pian. Now, for the first time in his life, the Rav saw
whole streets of tall houses, of two and three stories,
all as it were under one roof, and how fine they are,
thought he, with their decorated exteriors!

"Oi, there live the unfortunate people!" said Reb
Nochumtzi to himself. "I never saw anything like
them before ! How can they bear such a misfortune ?
I shall come to them as an angel of deliverance !"

24 BRAUDES

He had made up his mind to go to the principal
Jewish citizen in Wilna, only he must be a good scholar,
BO as to understand what Reb Nochumtzi had to say to
him.

They advised him to go to the president of the
Congregation.

Every street along which he passed astonished him
separately, the houses, the pavements, the droshkis and
carriages, and especially the people, so beautifully got
up with gold watch-chains and rings — he was quite
bewildered, so that he was afraid he might lose his
senses, and forget all his arguments and his reasonings.

At last he arrived at the president's house.

"He lives on the first floor." Another surprise!
Reb Nbchumtzi was unused to stairs. There was no
storied house in all Pumpian ! But when you must,
you must ! One way and another he managed to arrive
at the first-floor landing, where he opened the door, and
said, all in one breath :

"I am the Pumpian Rav, and have something to say
to the president."

The president, a handsome old man, very busy just
then with some merchants who had come on business,
stood up, greeted him politely, and opening the door of
the reception room said to him :

"Please, Rabbi, come in here and wait a little. I
shall soon have finished, and then I will come to you
here."

Expensive furniture, large mirrors, pictures, softly
upholstered chairs, tables, cupboards with shelves full
of great silver candlesticks, cups, knives and forks, a

THE MISFORTUNE 25

beautiful lamp, and many other small objects, all of
solid silver, wardrobes with carving in different designs ;
then, painted walls, a great silver chandelier decorated
with cut glass, fascinating to behold! Reb Nochumtzi
actually had tears in his eyes, "To think of anyone's
being so unfortunate — and to have to bear it !"

"What can I do for you, Pumpian Rav?" inquired the
president.

And Reb Nochumtzi, overcome by amazement and
enthusiasm, nearly shouted:

"You are so unfortunate !"

The president stared at him, shrugged his shoulders,
and was silent.

Then Reb Nochumtzi laid his whole plan before him,
the object of his coming.

"I will be frank with you," he said in concluding his
long speech, "I had no idea of the extent of the mis-
fortune ! To the rescue, men, save yourselves ! Take
it to heart, think of what it means to have houses like
these, and all these riches — it is a most terrible misfor-
tune ! Now I see what a reform of the whole world my
plan amounts to, what deliverance it will bring to all
men!"

The president looked him straight in the face: he
saw the man was not mad, but that he had the limited
horizon of one born and bred in a small provincial town
and in the atmosphere of the house-of -study.

He also saw that it would be impossible to convince
him by proofs that his idea was a mistaken one; for
a little while he pitied him in silence, then he hit upon
an expedient, and said :

26 BEAUDES

"You are quite right, Eabbi! Your plan is really
a very good one. But I am only one of many, Wilna
is full of such unfortunate people. Everyone of them
must be talked to, and have the thing explained to him.
Then, the other party must be spoken to as well, I
mean the poor people, so that they shall be willing
to take their share of the misfortune. That's not such
an easy matter as giving a thing away and getting rid
of it."

"Of course, of course ..." agreed Reb Nochumtzi.

"Look here, Bav of Pumpian, I will undertake the
more difficult part — let us work together! You shall
persuade the rich to give away their misfortune, and
I will persuade the poor to take it ! Your share of the
work will be the easier, because, after all, everybody
wants to be rid of his misfortune. Do your part, and
as soon as you have finished with the rich, I will arrange
for you to be met half-way by the poor. . ."

History does not tell how far the Rav of Pumpian
succeeded in Wilna. Only this much is certain, the
president never saw him again.

JEHALEL

Pen name of Judah Lob Lewin; born, 1845, in Minsk
(Lithuania), White Russia; tutor; treasurer to the Brodski
flour mills and their sugar refinery, at Tomaschpol, Podolia,
later in Kieff; began to write in 1860; translator of Beacons-
field's Tancred into Hebrew; Talmudist; mystic; first
Socialist writer in Hebrew; writer, chiefly in Hebrew, of
prose and poetry; contributor to Sholom-Alechem's Jiidische
Volksbibliothek, Ha-Shahar, Ha-Meliz, Ha-Zefirah, and other
periodicals.

EARTH OF PALESTINE

As my readers know, I wanted to do a little stroke of
business — to sell the world-to-come. I must tell you that
I came out of it very badly, and might have fallen into
some misfortune, if I had had the ware in stock. It
fell on this wise : Nowadays everyone is squeezed and
stifled; Parnosseh is gone to wrack and ruin, and there
is no business — I mean, there is business, only not for
us Jews. In such bitter times people snatch the bread
out of each other's mouths ; if it is known that someone
has made a find, and started a business, they quickly
imitate him; if that one opens a shop, a second does
likewise, and a third, and a fourth; if this one makes
a contract, the other runs and will do it for less — "Even
if I earn nothing, no more will you!"

When I gave out that I had the world-to-come to sell,
lots of people gave a start, "Aha ! a business !" and before
they knew what sort of ware it was, and where it was
to be had, they began thinking about a shop — and there
was still greater interest shown on the part of certain
philanthropists, party leaders, public workers, and such-
like. They knew that when I set up trading in the
world-to-come, I had announced that my business was
only with the poor. Well, they understood that it was
likely to be profitable, and might give them the chance
of licking a bone or two. There was very soon a great
tararam in our little world, people began inquiring
where my goods came from. They surrounded me with
spies, who were to find out what I did at night, what I
3

30 JEHALEL

did on Sabbath; they questioned the cook, the market-
woman ; but in vain, they could not find out how I came
by the world-to-come. And there blazed up a fire of
jealousy and hatred, and they began to inform, to write
letters to the authorities about me. Laban the Yellow and
Balaam the Blind (you know them!) made my boss be-
lieve that I do business, that is, that I have capital, that
is — that is — but my employer investigated the matter,
and seeing that my stock in trade was the world-to-come,
he laughed, and let me alone. The townspeople among
whom it was my lot to dwell, those good people who are
a great hand at fishing in troubled waters, as soon as
they saw the mud rise, snatched up their implements
and set to work, informing by letter that I was dealing
in contraband. There appeared a red official and swept
out a few corners in my house, but without finding a
single specimen bit of the world-to-come, and went away.
But I had no peace even then; every day came a fresh
letter informing against me. My good brothers never
ceased work. The pious, orthodox Jews, the Gemoreh-
Koplech, informed, and said I was a swindler, because
the world-to-come is a thing that isn't there, that is
neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring, and the
whole thing was a delusion; the half-civilized people
with long trousers and short earlocks said, on the con-
trary, that I was making game of religion, so that before
long I had enough of it from every side, and made the
following resolutions: first, that I would have nothing
to do with the world-to-come and such-like things which
the Jews did not understand, although they held them
very precious; secondly, that I would not let myself in

EARTH OF PALESTINE 31

for selling anything. One of my good friends, an
experienced merchant, advised me rather to buy than
to sell: "There are so many to sell, they will compete
with you, inform against you, and behave as no one
should. Buying, on the other hand — if you want to
buy, you will be esteemed and respected, everyone will
flatter you, and be ready to sell to you on credit — every-
one is ready to take money, and with very little capital
you can buy the best and most expensive ware." The
great thing was to get a good name, and then, little by
little, by means of credit, one might rise very high.

So it was settled that I should buy. I had a little
money on hand for a couple of newspaper articles, for
which nowadays they pay; I had a bit of reputation
earned by a great many articles in Hebrew, for which I
received quite nice complimentary letters; and, in case
of need, there is a little money owing to me from cer-
tain Jewish booksellers of the Maskilim, for books
bought "on commission." Well, I am resolved to buy.

But what shall I buy? I look round and take note
of all the things a man can buy, and see that I, as a
Jew, may not have them; that which I may buy, no
matter where, isn't worth a halfpenny; a thing that is
of any value, I can't have. And I determine to take
to the old ware which my great-great-grandfathers
bought, and made a fortune in. My parents and the
whole family wish for it every day. I resolve to buy —
you understand me? — earth of Palestine, and I an-
nounce both verbally and in writing to all my good
and bad brothers that I wish to become a purchaser
of the ware.

32 JEHALEL

Oh, what a commotion it made ! Hardly was it known
that I wished to buy Palestinian earth, than there
pounced upon me people of whom I had never thought it
possible that they should talk to me, and be in the room
with me. The first to come was a kind of Jew with a
green shawl, with white shoes, a pale face with a red
nose, dark eyes, and yellow earlocks. He commenced
unpacking paper and linen bags, out of which he shook
a little sand, and he said to me : "That is from Mother
Rachel's grave, from the Shunammite's grave, from the
graves of Huldah the prophetess and Deborah." Then
he shook out the other bags, and mentioned a whole list
of men: from the grave of Enoch, Moses our Teacher,
Elijah the Prophet, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Jonah, authors
of the Talmud, and holy men as many as there be. He
assured me that each kind of sand had its own precious
distinction, and had, of course, its special price. I had
not had time to examine all the bags of sand, when, aha !
I got a letter written on blue paper in Rashi script, in
which an unknown well-wisher earnestly warned me
against buying of that Jew, for neither he nor his father
before him had ever been in Palestine, and he had got
the sand in K., from the Andreiyeff Hills yonder, and
that if I wished for it, he had real Palestinian earth,
from the Mount of Olives, with a document from the
Palestinian vicegerent, the Brisk Rebbetzin, to the
effect that she had given of this earth even to the eaters
of swine's flesh, of whom it is said, "for their worm
shall not die," and they also were saved from worms.
My Palestinian Jew, after reading the letter, called
down all bad dreams upon the head of the Brisk Reb-

EARTH OF PALESTINE 33

betzin, and declared among other things that she her-
self was a dreadful worm, who, etc. He assured me
that I ought not to send money to the Brisk Rebbetzin,
"May Heaven defend you ! it will be thrown away,
as it has been a hundred times already!" and began
once more to praise his wares, his earth, saying it was a
marvel. I answered him that I wanted real earth of
Palestine, earth, not sand out of little bags.

"Earth, it is earth!" he repeated, and became very
angry. "What do you mean by earth? Am I offering
you mud? But that is the way with people nowadays,
when they want something Jewish, there is no pleasing
them! Only" (a thought struck him) "if you want
another sort, perhaps from the field of Machpelah, I can
bring you some Palestinian earth that is earth. Mean-
time give me something in advance, for, besides every-
thing else, I am a Palestinian Jew."

I pushed a coin into his hand, and he went away.
Meanwhile the news had spread, my intention to pur-
chase earth of Palestine had been noised abroad, and the
little town echoed with my name. In the streets, lanes,
and market-place, the talk was all of me and of how
"there is no putting a final value on a Jewish soul : one
thought he was one of them, and now he wants to buy
earth of Palestine !" Many of those who met me looked
at me askance, "The same and not the same!" In the
synagogue they gave me the best turn at the Reading
of the Law ; Jews in shoes and socks wished me "a good
Sabbath" with great heartiness, and a friendly smile:
"Eh-eh-eh ! We understand — you are a deep one — you
are one of us after all." In short, they surrounded me,

34 JEHALEL

and nearly carried me on their shoulders, so that I really
became something of a celebrity.

Yiidel, the "living orphan," worked the hardest.
Yiidel is already a man in years, but everyone calls him
the "orphan" on account of what befell him on a time.
His history is very long and interesting, I will tell it
you in brief.

He has a very distinguished father and a very noble
mother, and he is an only child, of a very frolicsome
disposition, on account of which his father and his
mother frequently disagreed; the father used to punish
him and beat him, but the boy hid with his mother.
In a word, it came to this, that his father gave him into
the hands of strangers, to be educated and put into
shape. The mother could not do without him, and fell
sick of grief ; she became a wreck. Her beautiful house
was burnt long ago through the boy's doing: one day,
when a child, he played with fire, and there was a
conflagration, and the neighbors came and built on the
site of her palace, and she, the invalid, lies neglected
in a corner. The father, who has left the house, often
wished to rejoin her, but by no manner of means can
they live together without the son, and so the cast-off
child became a "living orphan"; he roams about in the
wide world, comes to a place, and when he has stayed
there a little while, they drive him out, because
wherever he comes, he stirs up a commotion. As is the
way with all orphans, he has many fathers, and every-
one directs him, hits him, lectures him; he is always in
the way, blamed for everything, it's always his fault, so
that he has got into the habit of cowering and shrinking

EAETH OF PALESTINE 35

at the mere sight of a stick. Wandering about as he
does, he has copied the manners and customs of strange
people, in every place where he has been; his very
character is hardly his own. His father has tried both
to threaten and to persuade him into coming back,
saying they would then all live together as before, but
Yiidel has got to like living from home, he enjoys the
scrapes he gets into, and even the blows they earn for
him. No matter how people knock him about, pull his
hair, and draw his blood, the moment they want him
to make friendly advances, there he is again, alert and
smiling, turns the world topsyturvy, and won't hear
of going home. It is remarkable that Yiidel, who is
no fool, and has a head for business, the instant people
look kindly on him, imagines they like him, although
he has had a thousand proofs to the contrary. He has
lately been of such consequence in the eyes of the world
that they have begun to treat him in a new way, and
they drive him out of every place at once. The poor
boy has tried his best to please, but it was no good,
they knocked him about till he was covered with blood,
took every single thing he had, and empty-handed,
naked, hungry, and beaten as he is, they shout at him
"Be off!" from every side. Now he lives in narrow
streets, in the small towns, hidden away in holes and
corners. He very often hasn't enough to eat, but he
goes on in his old way, creeps into tight places, dances at
all the weddings, loves to meddle, everything concerns
him, and where two come together, he is the third.

I have known him a long time, ever since he was a
little boy. He always struck me as being very wild,

36 JEHALEL

but I saw that he was of a noble disposition, only that
he had grown rough from living among strangers. I
loved him very much, but in later years he treated me
to hot and cold by turns. I must tell you that when
Yiidel had eaten his fill, he was always very merry, and
minded nothing; but when he had been kicked out by
his landlord, and went hungry, then he was angry, and
grew violent over every trifle. He would attack me for
nothing at all, we quarrelled and parted company, that
is, I loved him at a distance. When he wasn't just in
my sight, I felt a great pity for him, and a wish to go
to him; but hardly had I met him than he was at the
old game again, and I had to leave him. Now that I
was together with him in my native place, I found him
very badly off, he hadn't enough to eat. The town was
small and poor, and he had no means of supporting
himself. When I saw him in his bitter and dark dis-
tress, my heart went out to him. But at such times,
as I said before, he is very wild and fanatical. One day,
on the Ninth of Ab, I felt obliged to speak out, and
tell him that sitting in socks, with his forehead on the
ground, reciting Lamentations, would do no good.
Yiidel misunderstood me, and thought I was laughing
at Jerusalem. He began to fire up, and he spread
reports of me in the town, and when he saw me in the
distance, he would spit out before me. His anger dated
from some time past, because one day I turned him out
of my house; he declared that I was the cause of all
his misfortunes, and now that I was his neighbor, I
had resolved to ruin him; he believed that I hated him
and played him false. Why should Yiidel think that?

EARTH OF PALESTINE 37

I don't know. Perhaps he feels one ought to dislike
him, or else he is so embittered that he cannot believe
in the kindly feelings of others. However that may be,
Yiidel continued to speak ill of me, and throw mud at
me through the town; crying out all the while that I
hadn't a scrap of Jewishness in me.

Now that he heard I was buying Palestinian earth,
he began by refusing to believe it, and declared it was
a take-in and the trick of an apostate, for how could
a person who laughed at socks on the Ninth of Ab
really want to buy earth of Palestine? But when he
saw the green shawls and the little bags of earth, he
went over — a way he has — to the opposite, the exact
opposite. He began to worship me, couldn't praise me
enough, and talked of me in the back streets, so that the
women blessed me aloud. Yiidel was now much given
to my company, and often came in to see me, and was
most intimate, although there was no special piousness
about me. I was just the same as before, but Yiidel
took this for the best of signs, and thought it proved
me to be of extravagant hidden piety.

"There's a Jew for you !" he would cry aloud in the
street. "Earth of Palestine ! There's a Jew !"

In short, he filled the place with my Jewishness and
my hidden orthodoxy. I looked on with indifference,
but after a while the affair began to cost me both time
and money.

The Palestinian beggars and, above all, Yiidel and the
townsfolk obtained for me the reputation of piety, and
there came to me orthodox Jews, treasurers, cabalists,
beggar students, and especially the Rebbe's followers;

38 JEHALEL

they came about me like bees. They were never in the
habit of avoiding me, but this was another thing all the
same. Before this, when one of the Rebbe's disciples
came, he would enter with a respectful demeanor, take
off his hat, and, sitting in his cap, would fix his gaze on
my mouth with a sweet smile ; we both felt that the one
and only link between us lay in the money that I gave
and he took. He would take it gracefully, put it into
his purse, as it might be for someone else, and thank
me as though he appreciated my kindness. When 7 went
to see him, he would place a chair for me, and give me
preserve. But now he came to me with a free and
easy manner, asked for a sip of brandy with a snack to
eat, sat in my room as if it were his own, and looked at
me as if I were an underling, and he had authority over
me ; I am the penitent sinner, it is said, and that signi-
fies for him the key to the door of repentance; I have
entered into his domain, and he is my lord and master;
he drinks my health as heartily as though it were his
own, and when I press a coin into his hand, he looks
at it well, to make sure it is worth his while accepting
it. If I happen to visit him, I am on a footing with
all his followers, the Chassidim; his "trustees," and
all his other hangers-on, are my brothers, and come
to me when they please, with all the mud on their boots,
put their hand into my bosom and take out my tobacco-
pouch, and give it as their opinion that the brandy is
weak, not to talk of holidays, especially Purim and
Rejoicing of the Law, when they troop in with a great
noise and vociferation, and drink and dance, and pay
as much attention to me as to the cat.

EARTH OF PALESTINE 39

In fact, all the townsfolk took the same liberties with
me. Before, they asked nothing of me, and took me as
they found me, now they began to demand things of me
and to inquire why I didn't do this, and why I did that,
and not the other. Shmuelke the bather asked me why
I was never seen at the bath on Sabbath. Kalmann the
butcher wanted to know why, among the scape-fowls,
there wasn't a white one of mine; and even the beadle
of the Klaus, who speaks through his nose, and who had
never dared approach me, came and insisted on giving
me the thirty-nine stripes on the eve of the Day of
Atonement: "Eh-eh, if you are a Jew like other Jews,
come and lie down, and you shall be given stripes!"

And the Palestinian Jews never ceased coming with
their bags of earth, and I never ceased rejecting. One
day there came a broad-shouldered Jew from "over
there," with his bag of Palestinian earth. The earth
pleased me, and a conversation took place between us
on this wise:

"How much do you want for your earth?"

"For my earth? From anyone else I wouldn't take
less than thirty rubles, but from you, knowing you and
of you as I do, and as your parents did so much for
Palestine, I will take a twenty-five ruble piece. You
must know that a person buys this once and for all."

"I don't understand you," I answered. "Twenty-five
rubles ! How much earth have you there ?"

"How much earth have I ? About half a quart. There
will be enough to cover the eyes and the face. Perhaps
you want to cover the whole body, to have it underneath
and on the top and at the sides? 0, I can bring you

40 JEHALEL

some more, but it will cost you two or three hundred
rubles, because, since the good-for-nothings took to com-
ing to Palestine, the earth has got very expensive.
Believe me, I don't make much by it, it costs me
nearly. . . . }i

"I don't understand you, my friend! What's this
about bestrewing the body ? What do you mean by it ?"

"How do you mean, 'what do you mean by it?'
Bestrewing the body like that of all honest Jews, after
death."

"Ha? After death? To preserve it ?"

"Yes, what else?"

"I don't want it for that, I don't mind what happens
to my body after death. I want to buy Palestinian
earth for my lifetime."

"What do you mean? What good can it do you
while you're alive? You are not talking to the point,
or else you are making game of a poor Palestinian
Jew?"

"I am speaking seriously. I want it now, while I
live ! What is it you don't understand ?"

My Palestinian Jew was greatly perplexed, but he
quickly collected himself, and took in the situation. I
saw by his artful smile that he had detected a strain
of madness in me, and what should he gain by leading
me into the paths of reason? Rather let him profit
by it ! And this he proceeded to do, saying with winning
conviction :

"Yes, of course, you are right! How right you are!
May I ever see the like! People are not wrong when
they say, 'The apple falls close to the tree'! You are

EAETH OF PALESTINE 41

drawn to the root, and you love the soil of Palestine,
only in a different way, like your holy forefathers, may
they be good advocates ! You are young, and I am
old, and I have heard how they used to bestrew their
head-dress with it in their lifetime, so as to fulfil the
Scripture verse, 'And have pity on Zion's dust,' and
honest Jews shake earth of Palestine into their shoes
on the eve of the Ninth of Ab, and at the meal before
the fast they dip an egg into Palestinian earth — nu,
fein ! I never expected so much of you, and I can say
with truth, 'There's a Jew for you!' Well, in that
case, you will require two pots of the earth, but it will
cost you a deal."

"We are evidently at cross-purposes," I said to him.
"What are two potfuls ? What is all this about bestrew-
ing the body? I want to buy Palestinian earth, earth
in Palestine, do you understand? I want to buy, in
Palestine, a little bit of earth, a few dessiatines."

"Ha? I didn't quite catch it. What did you say?"
and my Palestinian Jew seized hold of his right ear,
as though considering what he should do ; then he said
cheerfully: "Ha — aha! You mean to secure for your-
self a burial-place, also for after death ! 0 yes, indeed,
you are a holy man and no mistake ! Well, you can get
that through me, too ; give me something in advance, and
I shall manage it for you all right at a bargain."

"Why do you go on at me with your 'after death,' "
I cried angrily. "I want a bit of earth in Palestine, I
want to dig it, and sow it, and plant it . . . ''

"Ha? What? Sow it and plant it?! That is ...
that is ... you only mean . . . may all bad dreams!

42 JEHALEL

..." and stammering thus, he scraped all the scattered
earth, little by little, into his bag, gradually got nearer
the door, and — was gone!

It was not long before the town was seething and
bubbling like a kettle on the boil, everyone was upset
as though by some misfortune, angry with me, and still
more with himself: "How could we be so mistaken?
He doesn't want to buy Palestinian earth at all, he
doesn't care what happens to him when he's dead, he
laughs — he only wants to buy earth in Palestine, and
set up villages there."

"Eh-eh-eh! He remains one of them! He is what
he is — a skeptic!" so they said in all the streets, all
the householders in the town, the women in the market-
place, at the bath, they went about abstracted, and as
furious as though I had insulted them, made fools of
them, taken them in, and all of a sudden they became
cold and distant to me. The pious Jews were seen no
more at my house. I received packages from Palestine
one after the other. One had a black seal, on which
was scratched a black ram's horn, and inside, in large
characters, was a ban from the Brisk Eebbetzin, because
of my wishing to make all the Jews unhappy. Other
packets were from different Palestinian beggars, who tried
to compel me, with fair words and foul, to send them
money for their travelling expenses and for the samples
of earth they enclosed. My fellow-townspeople also got
packages from "over there," warning them against me —
I was a dangerous man, a missionary, and it was a Mitz-
veh to be revenged on me. There was an uproar, and
no wonder ! A letter from Palestine, written in Eashi,

43

with large seals! In short I was to be put to shame
and confusion. Everyone avoided me, nobody came
near me. When people were obliged to come to me
in money matters or to beg an alms, they entered
with deference, and spoke respectfully, in a gentle voice,
as to "one of them," took the alms or the money, and
were out of the door, behind which they abused me, as
usual.

Only Yiidel did not forsake me. Yiidel, the 'living
orphan," was bewildered and perplexed. He had plenty
of work, flew from one house to the other, listening,
begging, and talebearing, answering and asking ques-
tions; but he could not settle the matter in his own
mind: now he looked at me angrily, and again with
pity. He seemed to wish not to meet me, and yet he
sought occasion to do so, and would look earnestly into
my face.

The excitement of my neighbors and their behavior
to me interested me very little ; but I wanted very much
to know the reason why I had suddenly become abhor-
rent to them ? I could by no means understand it.

Once there came a wild, dark night. The sky was
covered with black clouds, there was a drenching rain
and hail and a stormy wind, it was pitch dark, and it
lightened and thundered, as though the world were
turning upside down. The great thunder claps and the
hail broke a good many people's windows, the wind
tore at the roofs, and everyone hid inside his house,
or wherever he found a corner. In that dreadful dark
night my door opened, and in came — Yiidel, the "living
orphan"; he looked as though someone were pushing
him from behind, driving him along. He was as white
as the wall, cowering, beaten about, helpless as a leaf.

44 JEHALEL

He came in, and stood by the door, holding his hat; he
couldn't decide, did not know if he should take it off,
or not. I had never seen him so miserable, so despair-
ing, all the time I had known him. I asked him to
sit down, and he seemed a little quieted. I saw that he
was soaking wet, and shivering with cold, and I gave
him hot tea, one glass after the other. He sipped
it with great enjoyment. And the sight of him sitting
there sipping and warming himself would have been
very comic, only it was so very sad. The tears came into
my eyes. Yiidel began to brighten up, and was soon
Yiidel, his old self, again. I asked him how it was he
had come to me in such a state of gloom and bewilder-
ment ? He told me the thunder and the hail had broken
all the window-panes in his lodging, and the wind had
carried away the roof, there was nowhere he could go
for shelter; nobody would let him in at night; there
was not a soul he could turn to, there remained nothing
for him but to lie down in the street and die.

"And so," he said, "having known you so long, I
hoped you would take me in, although you are 'one
of them/ not at all pious, and, so they say, full of evil
intentions against Jews and Jewishness; but I know
you are a good man, and will have compassion on me."

I forgave Yiidel his rudeness, because I knew him
for an outspoken man, that he was fond of talking, but
never did any harm. Seeing him depressed, I offered
him a glass of wine, but he refused it.

I understood the reason of his refusal, and started a
conversation with him.

EARTH OF PALESTINE 45

"Tell me, Yiidel heart, how is it I have fallen into
such bad repute among you that you will not even
drink a drop of wine in my house? And why do you
say that I am 'one of them,' and not pious? A little
while ago you spoke differently of me."

"Ett! It just slipped from my tongue, and the truth
is you may be what you please, you are a good man."

"No, Yiidel, don't try to get out of it ! Tell me openly
(it doesn't concern me, but I am curious to know), why
this sudden revulsion of feeling about me, this change
of opinion ? Tell me, Yiidel, I beg of you, speak freely !"

My gentle words and my friendliness gave Yiidel great
encouragement. The poor fellow, with whom not one
of "them" has as yet spoken kindly! When he saw
that I meant it, he began to scratch his head ; it seemed
as if in that minute he forgave me all my "heresies,"
and he looked at me kindly, and as if with pity. Then,
seeing that I awaited an answer, he gave a twist to his
earlock, and said gently and sincerely :

"You wish me to tell you the truth? You insist
upon it? You will not be offended?"

"You know that I never take offence at anything you
say. Say anything you like, Yiidel heart, only speak."

"Then I will tell you : the town and everyone else is
very angry with you on account of your Palestinian
earth: you want to do something new, buy earth and
plough it and sow — and where? in our land of Israel,
in our Holy Land of Israel !"

"But why, Yiidel dear, when they thought I was
buying Palestinian earth to bestrew me after death, was
I looked upon almost like a saint?"
4

46 JEHALEL

"E, that's another thing! That showed that you
held Palestine holy, for a land whose soil preserves one
against being eaten of worms, like any other honest
Jew."

"Well, I ask you, Yiidel, what does this mean ? When
they thought I was buying sand for after my death, I
was a holy man, a lover of Palestine, and because I want
to buy earth and till it, earth in your Holy Land, our
holy earth in the Holy Land, in which our best and
greatest counted it a privilege to live, I am a blot on
Israel. Tell me, Yiidel, I ask you: Why, because one
wants to bestrew himself with Palestinian earth after
death, is one an orthodox Jew ; and when one desires to
give oneself wholly to Palestine in life, should one be
'one of them' ? Now I ask you — all those Palestinian Jews
who came to me with their bags of sand, and were my
very good friends, and full of anxiety to preserve my
body after death, why have they turned against me on
hearing that I wished for a bit of Palestinian earth
while I live? Why are they all so interested and such
good brothers to the dead, and such bloodthirsty
enemies to the living? Why, because I wish to provide
for my sad existence, have they noised abroad that I
am a missionary, and made up tales against me ? Why ?
I ask you, why, Yiidel, why?"

"You ask me? How should I know? I only know
that ever since Palestine was Palestine, people have
gone there to die — that I know; but all this ploughing,
sowing, and planting the earth, I never heard of in my
life before."

47

"Yes, Yiidel, you are right, because it has been so
for a long time, you think so it has to be — that is the
real answer to your questions. But why not think back
a little? Why should one only go to Palestine to die?
Is not Palestinian earth fit to live on ? On the contrary,
it is some of the very best soil, and when we till it
and plant it, we fulfil the precept to restore the Holy
Land, and we also work for ourselves, toward the reali-
zation of an honest and peaceable life. I won't discuss
the matter at length with you to-day. It seems that
you have quite forgotten what all the holy books say
about Palestine, and what a precept it is to till the
soil. And another question, touching what you said
about Palestine being only there to go and die in. Tell
me, those Palestinian Jews who were so interested in
my death, and brought earth from over there to bestrew
me — tell me, are they also only there to die? Did you
notice how broad and stout they were ? Ha ? And they,
they too, when they heard I wanted to live there, fell
upon me like wild animals, filling the world with their
cries, and made up the most dreadful stories about
me. Well, what do you say, Yiidel? I ask you."

"Do I know?" said Yiidel, with a wave of the hand.
"Is my head there to think out things like that? But
tell me, I beg, what is the good to you of buying land in
Palestine and getting into trouble all round?"

"You ask, what is the good to me? I want to live,
do you hear? I want to live!"

"If you can't live without Palestinian earth, why
did you not get some before? Did you never want to
live till now?"

48 JEHALEL

"Oh, Yiidel, you are right there. I confess that till
now I have lived in a delusion, I thought I was living;
but — what is the saying? — so long as the thunder is
silent ..."

"Some thunder has struck you!" interrupted Yiidel,
looking compassionately into my face.

"I will put it briefly. You must know, Yiidel, that I
have been in business here for quite a long time. I worked
faithfully, and my chief was pleased with me. I was
esteemed and looked up to, and it never occurred to me
that things would change; but bad men could not bear
to see me doing so well, and they worked hard against
me, till one day the business was taken over by my
employer's son; and my enemies profited by the oppor-
tunity, to cover me with calumnies from head to foot,
spreading reports about me which it makes one shudder
to hear. This went on till the chief began to look askance
at me. At first I got pin-pricks, malicious hints, then
things got worse and worse, and at last they began to
push me about, and one day they turned me out of the
house, and threw me into a hedge. Presently, when I
had reviewed the whole situation, I saw that they could
do what they pleased with me. I had no one to rely on,
my onetime good friends kept aloof from me, I had
lost all worth in their eyes; with some because, as
is the way with people, they took no trouble to in-
quire into the reason of my downfall, but, hearing all
that was said against me, concluded that I was in the
wrong; others, again, because they wished to be agree-
able to my enemies; the rest, for reasons without
number. In short, reflecting on all this, I saw the game

EARTH OF PALESTINE 49

was lost, and there was no saying what might not
happen to me ! Hitherto I had borne my troubles
patiently, with the courage that is natural to me; but
now I feel my courage giving way, and I am in fear
lest I should fall in my own eyes, in my own estimation,
and get to believe that I am worth nothing. And all
this because I must needs resort to them, and take all
the insults they choose to fling at me, and every outcast
has me at his mercy. That is why I want to collect
my remaining strength, and buy a parcel of land in
Palestine, and, God helping, I will become a bit of a
householder — do you understand?"

"Why must it be just in Palestine ?"

"Because I may not, and I cannot, buy in anywhere
else. I have tried to find a place elsewhere, but they
were afraid I was going to get the upper hand, so down
they came, and made a wreck of it. Over there I shall be
proprietor myself — that is firstly, and secondly, a great
many relations of mine are buried there, in the country
where they lived and died. And although you count
me as 'one of them,' I tell you I think a great deal of
'the merits of the fathers,' and that it is very pleasant
to me to think of living in the land that will remind
me of such dear forefathers. And although it will be
hard at first, the recollection of my ancestors and the
thought of providing my children with a corner of their
own and honestly earned bread will give me strength,
till I shall work my way up to something. And I hope
I will get to something. Remember, Yiidel, I believe
and I hope! You will see, Yiidel — you know that our
brothers consider Palestinian earth a charm against

50 JEHALEL

being eaten by worms, and you think that I laugh at
it? No, I believe in it! It is quite, quite true that
my Palestinian earth will preserve me from worms, only
not after death, no, but alive — from such worms as
devour and gnaw at and poison the whole of life I"

Yiidel scratched his nose, gave a rub to the cap on
his head, and uttered a deep sigh.

"Yes, Yiidel, you sigh! Now do you know what I
wanted to say to you?"

"Ett!" and Yiidel made a gesture with his hand.
"What you have to say to me ? — ett !"

"Oi, that 'ett!' of yours! Yiidel, I know it! When
you have nothing to answer, and you ought to think,
and think something out, you take refuge in 'ett!' Just
consider for once, Yiidel, I have a plan for you, too.
Remember what you were, and what has become of you.
You have been knocking about, driven hither and
thither, since childhood. You haven't a house, not a
corner, you have become a beggar, a tramp, a nobody,
despised and avoided, with unpleasing habits, and living
a dog's life. You have very good qualities, a clear head,
and acute intelligence. But to what purpose do you
put them ? You waste your whole intelligence on get-
ting in at backdoors and coaxing a bit of bread out of
the maidservant, and the mistress is not to know. Can
you not devise a means, with that clever brain of yours,
how to earn it for yourself? See here, I am going to
buy a bit of ground in Palestine, come with me, Yiidel,
and you shall work, and be a man like other men. You
are what they call a 'living orphan,' because you have
many fathers ; and don't forget that you have one Father

EARTH OF PALESTINE 51

who lives, and who is only waiting for you to grow better.
Well, how much longer are you going to live among
strangers? Till now you haven't thought, and the life
suited you, you have grown used to blows and contumely.
But now that — that — none will let you in, your eyes
must have been opened to see your condition, and you
must have begun to wish to be different. Only begin
to wish ! You see, I have enough to eat, and yet my
position has become hateful to me, because I have lost
my value, and am in danger of losing my humanity.
But you are hungry, and one of these days you will
die of starvation out in the street. Yiidel, do just think
it over, for if I am right, you will get to be like other
people. Your Father will see that you have turned into
a man, he will be reconciled with your mother, and you
will be 'a father's child,' as you were before. Brother
Yiidel, think it over !"

I talked to my Yiidel a long, long time. In the mean-
while, the night had passed. My Yiidel gave a start,
as though waking out of a deep slumber, and went away
full of thought.

On opening the window, I was greeted by a friendly
smile from the rising morning star, as it peeped out
between the clouds.

And it began to dawn.

ISAAC LOB PEREZ

Born, 1851, in Samoscz, Government of Lublin, Russian
Poland; Jewish, philosophical, and general literary educa-
tion; practiced law in Samoscz, a Hasidic town; clerk to
the Jewish congregation in Warsaw and as such collector
of statistics on Jewish life; began to write at twenty-five;
contributor to Zedernbaum's Jiidisches Volksblatt; publisher
and editor of Die judische Bibliothek (4 vols.), in which
he conducted the scientific department, and wrote all the
editorials and book reviews, of Literatur and Leben, and
of Yom-tov Blattlech; now (1912) co-editor of Der Freind,
Warsaw; Hebrew and Yiddish prose writer and poet; alle-
gorist; collected Hebrew works, 1899-1901; collected Yiddish
works, 7 vols., Warsaw and New York, 1909-1912 (in course
of publication).

A WOMAN'S WRATH

The small room is dingy as the poverty that clings
to its walls. There is a hook fastened to the crumbling
ceiling, relic of a departed hanging lamp. The old,
peeling stove is girded about with a coarse sack, and
leans sideways toward its gloomy neighbor, the black,
empty fireplace, in which stands an inverted cooking
pot with a chipped rim. Beside it lies a broken spoon,
which met its fate in unequal contest with the scrapings
of cold, stale porridge.

The room is choked with furniture; there is a four-
post bed with torn curtains. The pillows visible through
their holes have no covers.

There is a cradle, with the large, yellow head of a
sleeping child; a chest with metal fittings and an open
padlock — nothing very precious left in there, evidently;
further, a table and three chairs (originally painted
red), a cupboard, now somewhat damaged. Add to
these a pail of clean water and one of dirty water, an
oven rake with a shovel, and you will understand that a
pin could hardly drop onto the floor.

And yet the room contains him and her beside.

She, a middle-aged Jewess, sits on the chest that fills
the space between the bed and the cradle.

To "her right is the one grimy little window, to her
left, the table. She is knitting a sock, rocking the
cradle with her foot, and listens to him reading the
Talmud at the table, with a tearful, Wallachian, sing-

56 PEREZ

ing intonation, and swaying to and fro with a series
of nervous jerks. Some of the words he swallows, others
he draws out ; now he snaps at a word, and now he skips
it; some he accentuates and dwells on lovingly, others
he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out of
a bag. And never quiet for a moment. First he draws
from his pocket a once red and whole handkerchief, and
wipes his nose and brow, then he lets it fall into his
lap, and begins twisting his earlocks or pulling at his
thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. Again, he lays
a pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves
of his book, and slaps his knees. His fingers coming
into contact with the handkerchief, they seize it, and
throw a corner in between his teeth; he bites it, lays
one foot across the other, and continually shuffles with
both feet.

All the while his pale forehead wrinkles, now in a
perpendicular, now in a horizontal, direction, when the
long eyebrows are nearly lost below the folds of skin.
At times, apparently, he has a sting in the chest, for he
beats his left side as though he were saying the Al-
Chets. Suddenly he leans his head to the left, presses
a finger against his left nostril, and emits an artificial
sneeze, leans his head to the right, and the proceeding
is repeated. In between he takes a pinch of snuff, pulls
himself together, his voice rings louder, the chair creaks,
the table wobbles.

The child does not wake ; the sounds are too familiar
to disturb it.

And she, the wife, shrivelled and shrunk before her
time, sits and drinks in delight. She never takes her

A WOMAN'S WRATH 57

eye off her husband, her ear lets no inflection of his
voice escape. Now and then, it is true, she sighs. Were
he as fit for this world as he is for the other world,
she would have a good time of it here, too — here, too —

"Ma!" she consoles herself, "who talks of honor?
Not every one is worthy of both tables !"

She listens. Her shrivelled face alters from minute
to minute; she is nervous, too. A moment ago it was
eloquent of delight. Now she remembers it is Thurs-
day, there isn't a dreier to spend in preparation for
Sabbath. The light in her face goes out by degrees, the
smile fades, then she takes a look through the grimy
window, glances at the sun. It must be getting late,
and there isn't a spoonful of hot water in the house.
The needles pause in her hand, a shadow has overspread
her face. She looks at the child, it is sleeping less
quietly, and will soon wake. The child is poorly, and
there is not a drop of milk for it. The shadow on her
face deepens into gloom, the needles tremble and move
convulsively.

And when she remembers that it is near Passover,
that her ear-rings and the festal candlesticks are at the
pawnshop, the chest empty, the lamp sold, then the
needles perform murderous antics in her fingers. The
gloom on her brow is that of a gathering thunder-storm,
lightnings play in her small, grey, sunken eyes.

He sits and "learns," unconscious of the charged
atmosphere ; does not see her let the sock fall and begin
wringing her finger-joints; does not see that her fore-
head is puckered with misery, one eye closed, and the
other fixed on him, her learned husband, with a look

58 PEEEZ

fit to send a chill through his every limb; does not
see her dry lips tremble and her jaw quiver. She con-
trols herself with all her might, but the storm is
gathering fury within her. The least thing, and it will
explode.

That least thing has happened.

He was just translating a Talmudic phrase with
quiet delight, "And thence we derive that — " He was
going on with "three, — " but the word "derive" was
enough, it was the lighted spark, and her heart was the
gunpowder. It was ablaze in an instant. Her deter-
mination gave way, the unlucky word opened the flood-
gates, and the waters poured through, carrying all be-
fore them.

"Derived, you say, derived? 0, derived may you be,
Lord of the World," she exclaimed, hoarse with anger,
"derived may you be ! Yes ! You !" she hissed like a
snake. "Passover coming — Thursday — and the child
ill — and not a drop of milk is there. Ha ?"

Her breath gives out, her sunken breast heaves, her
eyes flash.

He sits like one turned to stone. Then, pale and
breathless, too, from fright, he gets up and edges toward
the door.

At the door he turns and faces her, and sees that
hand and tongue are equally helpless from passion;
his eyes grow smaller; he catches a bit of handkerchief
between his teeth, retreats a little further, takes a deeper
breath, and mutters :

"Listen, woman, do you know what Bittul-Torah
means? And not letting a husband study in peace, to

A WOMAN'S WEATH 59

be always worrying about livelihood, ha? And who
feeds the little birds, tell me? Always this want of
faith in God, this giving way to temptation, and taking
thought for this world . . . foolish, ill-natured woman !
Not to let a husband study ! If you don't take care, you
will go to Gehenna."

Eeceiving no answer, he grows bolder. Her face gets
paler and paler, she trembles more and more violently,
and the paler she becomes, and the more she trembles,
the steadier his voice, as he goes on :

"Gehenna! Fire! Hanging by the tongue! Four
death penalties inflicted by the court!"

She is silent, her face is white as chalk.

He feels that he is doing wrong, that he has no call
to be cruel, that he is taking a mean advantage, but
he has risen, as it were, to the top, and is boiling over.
He cannot help himself.

"Do you know," he threatens her, "what Skiloh
means? It means stoning, to throw into a ditch and
cover up with stones ! Sref oh — burning, that is, pour-
ing a spoonful of boiling lead into the inside ! Hereg —
beheading, that means they cut off your head with a
sword! Like this" (and he passes a hand across his
neck). "Then Cheneck — strangling! Do you hear?
To strangle! Do you understand? And all four for
making light of the Torah ! For Bittul-Torah !"

His heart is already sore for his victim, but he is
feeling his power over her for the first time, and it has
gone to his head. Silly woman ! He had never known
how easy it was to frighten her.

60 PEREZ

"That comes of making light of the Torah!" he
shouts, and breaks off. After all, she might come to her
senses at any moment, and take up the broom! He
springs back to the table, closes the Gemoreh, and hur-
ries out of the room.

"I am going to the house-of-study !" he calls out over
his shoulder in a milder tone, and shuts the door after
him.

The loud voice and the noise of the closing door have
waked the sick child. The heavy-lidded eyes open, the
waxen face puckers, and there is a peevish wail. But
she, beside herself, stands rooted to the spot, and does
not hear.

"Ha !" comes hoarsely at last out of her narrow
chest. "So that's it, is it? Neither this world nor the
other. Hanging, he says, stoning, burning, beheading,
strangling, hanging by the tongue, boiling lead poured
into the inside, he says — for making light of the Torah —
Hanging) ha, ha, ha!" (in desperation). "Yes, I'll
hang, but here, here! And soon ! What is there to wait
for?"

The child begins to cry louder ; still she does not hear.

"A rope ! a rope !" she screams, and stares wildly into
every corner.

"Where is there a rope? I wish he mayn't find a
bone of me left ! Let me be rid of one Gehenna at any
rate ! Let him try it, let him be a mother for once, see
how he likes it! I've had enough of it! Let it be an
atonement ! An end, an end ! A rope, a rope ! !"

Her last exclamation is like a cry for help from out of
a conflagration.

A WOMAN'S WRATH 61

She remembers that they have a rope somewhere.
Yes, under the stove — the stove was to have been tied
round against the winter. The rope must be there still.

She runs and finds the rope, the treasure, looks up at
the ceiling — the hook that held the lamp — she need only
climb onto the table.

She climbs —

But she sees from the table that the startled child,
weak as it is, has sat up in the cradle, and is reaching
over the side — it is trying to get out —

"Mame, M-mame," it sobs feebly.

A fresh paroxysm of anger seizes her.

She flings away the rope, jumps off the table, runs to
the child, and forces its head back into the pillow,
exclaiming :

"Bother the child ! It won't even let me hang myself !
I can't even hang myself in peace! It wants to suck.
What is the good? You will suck nothing but poison,
poison, out of me, I tell you !"

"There, then, greedy !" she cries in the same breath,
and stuffs her dried-up breast into his mouth.

"There, then, suck away — bite !"

THE TREASURE

To sleep, in summer time, in a room four yards
square, together with a wife and eight children, is any-
thing but a pleasure, even on a Friday night — and
Shmerel the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only
half through with the night, hot and gasping, hastily
pours some water over his finger-tips, flings on his
dressing-gown, and escapes barefoot from the parched
Gehenna of his dwelling. He steps into the street — all
quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town
is a distant, serene, and starry sky. He feels as if he
were all alone with God, blessed is He, and he says,
looking up at the sky, "Now, Lord of the Universe, now
is the time to hear me and to bless me with a treasure
out of Thy treasure-house !"

As he says this, he sees something like a little flame
coming along out of the town, and he knows, That is it !
He is about to pursue it, when he remembers it is Sab-
bath, when one mustn't turn. So he goes after it walk-
ing. And as he walks slowly along, the little flame
begins to move slowly, too, so that the distance between
them does not increase, though it does not shorten,
either. He walks on. Now and then an inward voice
calls to him : "Shmerel, don't be a fool ! Take oft. the
dressing-gown. Give a jump and throw it over the
flame !" But he knows it is the Evil Inclination speak-
ing. He throws off the dressing-gown onto his arm,
but to spite the Evil Inclination he takes still smaller

THE TKEASUEE 63

steps, and rejoices to see that, as soon as he takes these
smaller steps, the little flame moves more slowly, too.

Thus he follows the flame, and follows it, till he grad-
ually finds himself outside the town. The road twists
and turns across fields and meadows, and the distance
between him and the flame grows no longer, no shorter.
Were he to throw the dressing-gown, it would not reach
the flame. Meantime the thought revolves in his mind :
Were he indeed to become possessed of the treasure, he
need no longer be a woodcutter, now, in his later years ;
he has no longer the strength for the work he had once.
He would rent a seat for his wife in the women's Shool,
so that her Sabbaths and holidays should not be spoiled
by their not allowing her to sit here or to sit there.
On New Year's Day and the Day of Atonement it is all
she can do to stand through the service. Her many chil-
dren have exhausted her! And he would order her a
new dress, and buy her a few strings of pearls. The
children should be sent to better Chedorim, and he
would cast about for a match for his eldest girl. As it
is, the poor child carries her mother's fruit baskets, and
never has time so much as to comb her hair thoroughly,
and she has long, long plaits, and eyes like a deer.

"It would be a meritorious act to pounce upon the
treasure !"

The Evil Inclination again, he thinks. If it is not to
be, well, then it isn't ! If it were in the week, he would
soon know what to do ! Or if his Yainkel were there, he
would have had something to say. Children nowadays !
Who knows what they don't do on Sabbath, as it is!
And the younger one is no better: he makes fun of the

64 PEKEZ

teacher in Cheder. When the teacher is about to
administer a blow, they pull his beard. And who's going
to find time to see after them — chopping and sawing a
whole day through.

He sighs and walks on and on, now and then glancing
up into the sky : "Lord of the Universe, of whom are you
making trial? Shmerel Woodcutter? If you do mean
to give me the treasure, give it me!" It seems to
him that the flame proceeds more slowly, but at this
very moment he hears a dog bark, and it has a bark he
knows — that is the dog in Vissoke. Vissoke is the first
village you come to on leaving the town, and he sees
white patches twinkle in the dewy morning atmosphere,
those are the Vissoke peasant cottages. Then it occurs
to him that he has gone a Sabbath day's journey, and
he stops short.

"Yes, I have gone a Sabbath day's journey," he
thinks, and says, speaking into the air : "You won't lead
me astray ! It is not a God-send ! God does not make
sport of us — it is the work of a demon." And he feels a
little angry with the thing, and turns and hurries
toward the town, thinking : "I won't say anything about
it at home, because, first, they won't believe me, and if
they do, they'll laugh at me. And what have I done to
be proud of? The Creator knows how it was, and that
is enough for me. Besides, she might be angry, who can
tell? The children are certainly naked and barefoot,
poor little things ! Why should they be made to trans-
gress the command to honor one's father?"

No, he won't breathe a word. He won't even ever
remind the Almighty of it. If he really has been good,
the Almighty will remember without being told.

THE TKEASUKE 65

And suddenly he is conscious of a strange, lightsome,
inward calm, and there is a delicious sensation in his
limbs. Money is, after all, dross, riches may even lead
a man from the right way, and he feels inclined to thank
God for not having brought him into temptation by
granting him his wish. He would like, if only — to sing
a song! "Our Pather, our King" is one he remembers
from his early years, but he feels ashamed before him-
self, and breaks off. He tries to recollect one of the
cantor's melodies, a Sinai tune — when suddenly he
sees that the identical little flame which he left behind
him is once more preceding him, and moving slowly
townward, townward, and the distance between them
neither increases nor diminishes, as though the flame
were taking a walk, and he were taking a walk, just tak-
ing a little walk in honor of Sabbath. He is glad in
his heart and watches it. The sky pales, the stars begin
to go out, the east flushes, a narrow pink stream flows
lengthwise over his head, and still the flame flickers
onward into the town, enters his own street. There is
his house. The door, he sees, is open. Apparently he
forgot to shut it. And, lo and behold! the flame goes
in, the flame goes in at his own house door ! He follows,
and sees it disappear beneath the bed. All are asleep.
He goes softly up to the bed, stoops down, and sees the
flame spinning round underneath it, like a top, always
in the same place; takes his dressing-gown, and throws
it down under the bed, and covers up the flame. No
one hears him, and now a golden morning beam steals
in through the chink in the shutter.

66 PEEEZ

He sits down on the bed, and makes a vow not to say
a word to anyone till Sabbath is over — not half a word,
lest it cause desecration of the Sabbath. She could
never hold her tongue, and the children certainly not;
they would at once want to count the treasure, to know
how much there was, and very soon the secret would
be out of the house and into the Shool, the house-of-
study, and all the streets, and people would talk about
his treasure, about luck, and people would not say their
prayers, or wash their hands, or say grace, as they
should, and he would have led his household and half
the town into sin. No, not a whisper ! And he stretches
himself out on the bed, and pretends to be asleep.

And this was his reward : When, after concluding the
Sabbath, he stooped down and lifted up the dressing-
gown under the bed, there lay a sack with a million of
gulden, an almost endless number — the bed was a large
one — and he became one of the richest men in the place.

And he lived happily all the years of his life.

Only, his wife was continually bringing up against
him : "Lord of the World, how could a man have such a
heart of stone, as to sit a whole summer day and not say
a word, not a word, not to his own wife, not one single
word ! And there was I" (she remembers) "crying over
my prayer as I said God of Abraham — and crying so —
for there wasn't a dreier left in the house."

Then he consoles her, and says with a smile:

"Who knows? Perhaps it was all thanks to your
'God of Abraham' that it went off so well."

You ask how it is that I remained a Jew? Whose
merit it is ?

Not through my own merits nor those of my
ancestors. I was a six-year-old Cheder boy, my father
a countryman outside Wilna, a householder in a small
way.

No, I remained a Jew thanks to the Schpol Grand-
father.

How do I come to mention the Schpol Grandfather?
What has the Schpol Grandfather to do with it, you ask ?

The Schpol Grandfather was no Schpol Grandfather
then. He was a young man, suffering exile from home
and kindred, wandering with a troop of mendicants
from congregation to congregation, from friendly inn
to friendly inn, in all respects one of them. What dif-
ference his heart may have shown, who knows? And
after these journeyman years, the time of revelation had
not come even yet. He presented himself to the Rab-
binical Board in Wilna, took out a certificate, and be-
came a Shochet in a village. He roamed no more, but
remained in the neighborhood of Wilna. The Misnag-
dim, however, have a wonderful -flair, and they suspected
something, began to worry and calumniate him, and
finally they denounced him to the Eabbinical authori-
ties as a transgressor of the Law, of the whole Law!
What Misnagdim are capable of, to be sure !

As I said, I was then six years old. He used to come
to us to slaughter small cattle, or just to spend the

68 PEREZ

night, and I was very fond of him. Whom else, except
my father and mother, should I have loved? I had a
teacher, a passionate man, a destroyer of souls, and this
other was a kind and genial creature, who made you feel
happy if he only looked at you. The calumnies did
their work, and they took away his certificate. My
teacher must have had a hand in it, because he heard
of it before anyone, and the next time the Shochet came,
he exclaimed "Apostate !" took him by the scruff of his
coat, and bundled him out of the house. It cut me to
the heart like a knife, only I was frightened to death
of the teacher, and never stirred. But a little later,
when the teacher was looking away, I escaped and began
to run after the Shochet across the road, which, not far
from the house, lost itself in a wood that stretched all
the way to Wilna. What exactly I proposed .to do to
help him, I don't know, but something drove me after
the poor Shochet. I wanted to say good-by to him, to
have one more look into his nice, kindly eyes.

But I ran and ran, and hurt my feet against the
stones in the road, and saw no one. I went to the right,
down into the wood, thinking I would rest a little on
the soft earth of the wood. I was about to sit down,
when I heard a voice (it sounded like his voice) farther
on in the wood, half speaking and half singing. I went
softly towards the voice, and saw him some way off,
where he stood swaying to and fro under a tree. I went
up to him — he was reciting the Song of Songs. I look
closer and see that the tree under which he stands is
different from the other trees. The others are still bare
of leaves, and this one is green and in full leaf, it shines

IT IS WELL 69

like the sun, and stretches its flowery branches over the
Shochet's head like a tent. And a quantity of birds
hop among the twigs and join in singing the Song of
Songs. I am so astonished that I stand there with
open mouth and eyes, rooted like the trees.

He ends his chant, the tree is extinguished, the
little birds are silent, and he turns to me, and says
affectionately :

"Listen, Yu'dele," — Yu'del is my name — "I have a
request to make of you."

"Really ?" I answer joyfully, and I suppose he wishes
me to bring him out some food, and I am ready to run
and bring him our whole Sabbath dinner, when he says
to me:

"Listen, keep what you saw to yourself."

This sobers me, and I promise seriously and faith-
fully to hold my tongue.

"Listen again. You are going far away, very far
away, and the road is a long road."

I wonder, however should I come to travel so far?
And he goes on to say:

"They will knock the Eebbe's Torah out of your head,
and you will forget Father and Mother, but see you
keep to your name! You are called Yiidel — remain a
Jew !"

I am frightened, but cry out from the bottom of my
heart :

"Surely! As surely may I live!"

Then, because my own idea clung to me, I added :

"Don't you want something to eat ?"

And before I finished speaking, he had vanished.

70 PEEEZ

The second week after they fell upon us and led me
away as a Cantonist, to be brought up among the Gen-
tiles and turned into a soldier.

Time passed, and I forgot everything, as he had fore-
told. They knocked it all out of my head.

I served far away, deep in Russia, among snows and
terrific frosts, and never set eyes on a Jew. There may
have been hidden Jews about, but I knew nothing of
them, I knew nothing of Sabbath and festival, nothing
of any fast. I forgot everything.

But I held fast to my name !

I did not change my coin.

The more I forgot, the more I was inclined to be quit
of my torments and trials — to make an end of them by
agreeing to a Christian name, but whenever the bad
thought came into my head, he appeared before me, the
same Shochet, and I heard his voice say to me, "Keep
your name, remain a Jew!"

And I knew for certain that it was no empty dream,
because every time I saw him older and older, his beard
and earlocks greyer, his face paler. Only his eyes
remained the same kind eyes, and his voice, which
sounded like a violin, never altered.

Once they flogged me, and he stood by and wiped
the cold sweat off my forehead, and stroked my face,
and said softly : "Don't cry out ! We ought to suffer !
Remain a Jew," and I bore it without a cry, without a
moan, as though they had been flogging not-me.

Once, during the last year, I had to go as a sentry
to a public house behind the town. It was evening,

IT IS WELL 71

and there was a snow-storm. The wind lifted patches of
enow, and ground them to needles, rubbed them to dust,
and this snow-dust and these snow-needles were whirled
through the air, flew into one's face and pricked — you
couldn't keep an eye open, you couldn't draw your
breath ! Suddenly I saw some people walking past me,
not far away, and one of them said in Yiddish, "This
is the first night of Passover." Whether it was a voice
from God, or whether some people really passed me, to
this day I don't know, but the words fell upon my heart
like lead, and I had hardly reached the tavern and begun
to walk up and down, when a longing came over me,
a sort of heartache, that is not to be described. I
wanted to recite the Haggadah, and not a word of it
could I recall! Not even the Four Questions I used
to ask my father. I felt it all lay somewhere deep down
in my heart. I used to know so much of it, when I was
only six years old. I felt, if only I could have recalled
one simple word, the rest would have followed and risen
out of my memory one after the other, like sleepy birds
from beneath the snow. But that one first word is just
what I cannot remember ! Lord of the Universe, I cried
fervently, one word, only one word! As it seems, I
made my prayer in a happy hour, for "we were slaves"
came into my head just as if it had been thrown down
from Heaven. I was overjoyed ! I was so full of joy
that I felt it brimming over. And then the rest all came
back to me, and as I paced up and down on my watch,
with my musket on my shoulder, I recited and sang
the Haggadah to the snowy world around. I drew it
out of me, word after word, like a chain of golden links,

72 PEREZ

like a string of pearls. 0, but you won't understand,
you couldn't understand, unless you had been taken
away there, too!

The wind, meanwhile, had fallen, the snow-storm had
come to an end, and there appeared a clear, twinkling
sky, and a shining world of diamonds. It was silent all
round, and ever so wide, and ever so white, with a sweet,
peaceful, endless whiteness. And over this calm, wide,
whiteness, there suddenly appeared something still
whiter, and lighter, and brighter, wrapped in a robe and
a prayer-scarf, the prayer-scarf over its shoulders, and
over the prayer-scarf, in front, a silvery white beard;
and above the beard, two shining eyes, and above them,
a sparkling crown, a cap with gold and silver ornaments.
And it came nearer and nearer, and went past me, but
as it passed me it said:

"It is well !"

It sounded like a violin, and then the figure vanished.

But it was the same eyes, the same voice.

I took Schpol on my way home, and went to see the
Old Man, for the Rebbe of Schpol was called by the
people Der Alter, the "Schpol Grandfather."

And I recognized him again, and he recognized me !

WHENCE A PEOVEEB

"Drunk all the year round, sober at Purim," is a
Jewish proverb, and people ought to know whence it
comes.

In the days of the famous scholar, Eeb Chayyim Vital,
there lived in Safed, in Palestine, a young man who (not
of us be it spoken ! ) had not been married a year before
he became a widower. God's ways are not to be under-
stood. Such things will happen. But the young man
was of the opinion that the world, in as far as he was
concerned, had come to an end ; that, as there is one sun
in heaven, so his wife had been the one woman in the
world. So he went and sold all the merchandise in his
little shop and all the furniture of his room, and gave
the proceeds to the head of the Safed Academy, the
Kosh ha-Yeshiveh, on condition that he should be taken
into the Yeshiveh and fed with the other scholars, and
that he should have a room to himself, where he might
sit and learn Torah.

The Eosh ha-Yeshiveh took the money for the
Academy, and they partitioned off a little room for the
young man with some boards, in a corner of the attic
of the house-of-study. They carried in a sack with
straw, and vessels for washing, and the young man sat
himself down to the Talmud. Except on Sabbaths and
holidays, when the householders invited him to dinner,
he never set eyes on a living creature. Food sufficient
for the day, and a clean shirt in honor of Sabbaths and

74 PEEEZ

festivals, were carried up to him by the beadle, and
whenever he heard steps on the stair, he used to turn
away, and stand with his face to the wall, till whoever
it was had gone out again and shut the door.

In a word, he became a Porush, for he lived separate
from the world.

At first people thought he wouldn't persevere long,
became he was a lively youth by nature; but as week
after week went by, and the Porush sat and studied, and
the tearful voice in which he intoned the Gemoreh was
heard in the street half through the night, or else he was
seen at the attic window, his pale face raised towards the
sky, then they began to believe in him, and they hoped
he might in time become a mighty man in Israel, and
perhaps even a wonderworker. They said so to the
Eebbe, Chayyim Vital, but he listened, shook his head,
and replied, "God grant it may last.9

Meantime a little "wonder5* really happened. The
beadle's little daughter, who used sometimes to carry up
the Porash's food for her father, took it into her head
that she most have one look at the Porush. What does
she? Takes off her shoes and stockings, and carries the
food to him barefoot, so noiselessly that she heard her
own heart beat. But the beating of her heart frightened
her so much that she fell down half the stairs, and was
laid up for more than a month in consequence. In her
fever she told the whole story, and people began to
believe in the Porush more firmly than ever and to wait
with inCTPMJTig impatience till he should become famous.

They described the occurrence to Beb Chayyim Vital,
and again he shook his head, and even sighed, and

n

answered, "God grant be may be ridoriousP And
when they pressed him for an explanation of these
words, Beb Chayyim answered, that as the Pornsh bad
left the world, not so much for the sake of Heaven as
on account of bis grief for bis wife, it was to be feared
that he would be sorely beset and templed by the
"Other Side," and God grant he might not stumble and
faH

And Beb Chayyim Vital never spoke without good
reason!

One day the Porosb was sitting deep in a book, when
be beard somefliing tapping at the door, and fear came
over him. But as -the tapping went on, be rose, forget-
ting to dose bis book, went and opened the door — and in
walks a turkey. He lets it in, for it occurs to him that
it would be nice to have a living tiling in the room. The
mrkev '^ralkf r-sn '-:rr, s~ ' roes .g~ ~ fe riles L:"-T. :iieil~

in a corner. AIM! tlw» Pornsh wonders what ihi* nay
mean, and sits down again to his book. Sitting there,
be remembers that it is going on for Purhn. W«« ^••M'-
one sent him a turkey out of regard for his study of the
Torah? What shall he do with the turkey? Should
anyone, be reflects, ask him to dinner, supposing it were
to be a poor man, be would send him the turkey on the
ere of Ptirir:. ari ihfn he •arz-i 5.1:1517 lin^elf —I:!
it also. He has not once tasted fowl-meat since be fast
bis wife. Thinking thus, he ^"»<r^**l bis lips, and bis
month watered. He threw a glance at the turkey, and
saw it looking at him in a friendly way, as though it
bad quite understood bis intention, and was very glad to

76 PEREZ

think it should have the honor of being eaten by a
Porush. He could not restrain himself, but was con-
tinually lifting his eyes from his book to look at the
turkey, till at last he began to fancy the turkey was
smiling at him. This startled him a little, but all the
same it made him happy to be smiled at by a living
creature.

The same thing happened at Minchah and Maariv.
In the middle of the Eighteen Benedictions, he could
not for the life of him help looking round every minute
at the turkey, who continued to smile and smile. Sud-
denly it seemed to him, he knew that smile well — the
Almighty, who had taken back his wife, had now sent
him her smile to comfort him in his loneliness, and he
began to love the turkey. He thought how much better
it would be, if a rich man were to invite him at Purim,
so that the turkey might live.

And he thought it in a propitious moment, as we shall
presently see, but meantime they brought him, as usual,
a platter of groats with a piece of bread, and he washed
his hands, and prepared to eat.

No sooner, however, had he taken the bread into his
hand, and was about to bite into it, than the turkey
moved out of its corner, and began peck, peck, peck,
towards the bread, by way of asking for some, and as
though to say it was hungry, too, and came and stood
before him near the table. The Porush thought, "He'd
better have some, I don't want to be unkind to him, to
tease him," and he took the bread and the platter of
porridge, and set it down on the floor before the turkey,
who pecked and supped away to its heart's content.

WHENCE A PEOVEEB 77

Next day the Porush went over to the Eosh ha-
Yeshiveh, and told him how he had come to have a fel-
low-lodger; he used always to leave some porridge over,
and to-day he didn't seem to have had enough. The
Eosh ha-Yeshiveh saw a hungry face before him. He
said he would tell this to the Eebbe, Chayyim Vital, so
that he might pray, and the evil spirit, if such indeed
it was, might depart. Meantime he would give orders
for two pieces of bread and two plates of porridge to
be taken up to the attic, so that there should be enough
for both, the Porush and the turkey. Eeb Chayyim
Vital, however, to whom the story was told in the name
of the Eosh ha-Yeshiveh, shook his head, and declared
with a deep sigh that this was only the beginning!

Meanwhile the Porush received a double portion and
was satisfied, and the turkey was satisfied, too. The
turkey even grew fat. And in a couple of weeks or so the
Porush had become so much attached to the turkey that
he prayed every day to be invited for Purim by a rich
man, so that he might not be tempted to destroy it.

And, as we intimated, that temptation, anyhow, was
spared him, for he was invited to dinner by one of the
principal householders in the place, and there was not
only turkey, but every kind of tasty dish, and wine fit
for a king. And the best Purim-players came to enter-
tain the rich man, his family, and the guests who had
come to him after their feast at home. And our Porush
gave himself up to enjoyment, and ate and drank. Per-
haps he even drank rather more than he ate, for the
wine was sweet and grateful to the taste, and the warmth
of it made its way into every limb.
6

78 PEREZ

Then suddenly a change came over him.

The Ahasuerue-Esther play had begun. Vashti will
not do the king's pleasure and come in to the banquet
as God made her. Esther soon finds favor in her stead,
she is given over to Hegai, the keeper of the women,
to be purified, six months with oil of myrrh and six
months with other sweet perfumes. And our Porush
grew hot all over, and it was dark before his eyes ; then
red streaks flew across his field of vision, like tongues of
fire, and he was overcome by a strange, wild longing
to be back at home, in the attic of the house-of -study —
a longing for his own little room, his quiet corner, a
longing for the turkey, and he couldn't bear it, and even
before they had said grace he jumped up and ran away
home.

He enters his room, looks into the corner habitually
occupied by the turkey, and stands amazed — the turkey
has turned into a woman, a most beautiful woman, such
as the world never saw, and he begins to tremble all
over. And she comes up to him, and takes him around
the neck with her warm, white, naked arms, and the
Porush trembles more and more, and begs, "Not here,
not here ! It is a holy place, there are holy books lying
about." Then she whispers into his ear that she is the
Queen of Sheba, that she lives not far from the house-
of-study, by the river, among the tall reeds, in a palace
of crystal, given her by King Solomon. And she draws
him along, she wants him to go with her to her palace.

And he hesitates and resists — and he goes.

Next day, there was no turkey, and no Porush, either !

WHENCE A PEOVEKB 79

They went to Eeb Chayyim Vital, who told them to
look for him along the bank of the river, and they found
him in a swamp among the tall reeds, more dead than
alive.

They rescued him and brought him round, but from
that day he took to drink.

And Reb Chayyim Vital said, it all came from his
great longing for the Queen of Sheba, that when he
drank, he saw her ; and they were to let him drink, only
not at Purim, because at that time she would have great
power over him.

Hence the proverb, "Drunk all the year round, sober
at Purim.'*

MOEDECAI SPEKTOR

Born, 1859, in Uman, Government of Kieff, Little Russia;
education Hasidic; entered business in 1878; wrote first
sketch, A Roman ohn Liebe, in 1882; contributor to Zedern-
baum's Jiidisches Volksblatt, 1884-1887; founded, in 1888,
and edited Der Hausfreund, at Warsaw; editor of Warsaw
daily papers, Unser Leben, and (at present, 1912) Dos neie
Leben; writer of novels, historical romances, and sketches
in Yiddish; contributor to numerous periodicals; compiled
a volume of more than two thousand Jewish proverbs.

AN ORIGINAL STRIKE

I was invited to a wedding.

Not a wedding at which ladies wore low dress, and
scattered powder as they walked, and the men were in
frock-coats and white gloves, and had waxed moustaches.

Not a wedding where you ate of dishes with outlandish
names, according to a printed card, and drank wine
dating, according to the label, from the reign of King
Sobieski, out of bottles dingy with the dust of yester-
day.

No, but a Jewish wedding, where the men, women,
and girls wore the Sabbath and holiday garments in
which they went to Shool; a wedding where you whet
your appetite with sweet-cakes and apple-tart, and sit
down to Sabbath fish, with fresh rolls, golden soup,
stuffed fowl, and roast duck, and the wine is in large,
clear, white bottles; a wedding with a calling to the
Reading of the Torah of the bridegroom, a party on
the Sabbath preceding the wedding, a good-night-play
performed by the musicians, and a bridegroom's-dinner
in his native town, with a table spread for the poor.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik Berkover had made a feast for
the poor at the wedding of each of his children, and
now, on the occasion of the marriage of his youngest
daughter, he had invited all the poor of the little town
Lipovietz to his village home, where he had spent all
his life.

It is the day of the ceremony under the canopy, two
o'clock in the afternoon, and the poor, sent for early

84 SPEKTOE

in the morning by a messenger, with the three great
wagons, are not there. Lipovietz is not more than five
versts away — what can have happened? The parents
of the bridal couple and the assembled guests wait to
proceed with the ceremony.

At last the messenger comes riding on a horse
unharnessed from his vehicle, but no poor.

"Why have you come back alone?" demands Reb
Yitzchok-Aizik."

"They won't come!" replies the messenger.

"What do you mean by 'they won't come'?" asked
everyone in surprise.

"They say that unless they are given a kerbel apiece,
they won't come to the wedding."

All laugh, and the messenger goes on :

"There was a wedding with a dinner to the poor in
Lipovietz to-day, too, and they have eaten and drunk
all they can, and now they've gone on strike, and declare
that unless they are promised a kerbel a head, they
won't move from the spot. The strike leaders are the
Crooked Man with two crutches, Mekabbel the Long,
Feitel the Stammerer, and Yainkel Fonf atch ; the others
would perhaps have come, but these won't let them. So
I didn't know what to do. I argued a whole hour, and
got nothing by it, so then I unharnessed a horse, and
came at full speed to know what was to be done."

We of the company could not stop laughing, but Eeb
Yitzchok-Aizik was very angry.

"Well, and you bargained with them? Won't they
come for less ? he asked the messenger.

"Yes, I bargained, and they won't take a kopek less."

AN ORIGINAL STEIKE 85

"Have their prices gone up so high as all that?"
exclaimed Eeb Yitzchok-Aizik, with a satirical laugh.
"Why did you leave the wagons ? We shall do without
the tramps, that's all !"

"How could I tell? I didn't know what to do. I
was afraid you would be displeased. Now I'll go and
fetch the wagons back."

"Wait ! Don't be in such a hurry, take time !"

Eeb Yitzchok-Aizik began consulting with the com-
pany and with himself.

"What an idea ! Who ever heard of such a thing ?
Poor people telling me what to do, haggling with me
over my wanting to give them a good dinner and a nice
present each, and saying they must be paid in rubles,
otherwise it's no bargain, ha! ha! For two guldens
each it's not worth their while ? It cost them too much
to stock the ware? Thirty kopeks wouldn't pay them?
I like their impertinence ! Mischief take them, I shall
do without them !

"Let the musicians play! Where is the beadle?
They can begin putting the veil on the bride."

But directly afterwards he waved his hands.

"Wait a little longer. It is still early. Why should
it happen to me, why should my pleasure be spoilt?
Now I've got to marry my youngest daughter without
a dinner to the poor! I would have given them half
a ruble each, it's not the money I mind, but fancy
bargaining with me! Well, there, I have done my part,
and if they won't come, I'm sure they're not wanted;
afterwards they'll be sorry; they don't get a wedding
like this every day. We shall do without them."

86 SPEKTOK

"Well, can they put the veil on the bride ?" the beadle
came and inquired.

"Yes, they can. . . No, tell them to wait a little
longer !"

Nearly all the guests, who were tired of waiting,
cried out that the tramps could very well be missed.

Eeb Yitzchok-Aizik's face suddenly assumed another
expression, the anger vanished, and he turned to me and
a couple of other friends, and asked if we would drive
to the town, and parley with the revolted almsgatherers.

"He has no brains, one can't depend on him," he
said, referring to the messenger.

A horse was harnessed to a conveyance, and we drove
off, followed by the mounted messenger.

"A revolt — a strike of almsgatherers, how do you like
that?" we asked one another all the way. We had
heard of workmen striking, refusing to work except for
a higher wage, and so forth, but a strike of paupers —
paupers insisting on larger alms as pay for eating a
free dinner, such a thing had never been known.

In twenty minutes time we drove into Lipovietz.

In the market-place, in the centre of the town, stood
the three great peasant wagons, furnished with fresh
straw. The small horses were standing unharnessed,
eating out of their nose-bags; round the wagons were a
hundred poor folk, some dumb, others lame, the greater
part blind, and half the town urchins with as many men.

All of them were shouting and making a commotion.

The Crooked One sat on a wagon, and banged it with
his crutches; Long Mekabbel, with a red plaster on his
neck, stood beside him.

AN ORIGINAL STRIKE 87

These two leaders of the revolt were addressing the
people, the meek of the earth.

"Ha, ha !" exclaimed Long Mekabbel, as he caught
sight of us and the messenger, "they have come to beg
our acceptance !"

"To beg our acceptance!" shouted the Crooked One,
and banged his crutch.

"Why won't you come to the wedding, to the dinner ?"
we inquired. "Everyone will be given alms."

"How much ?" they asked all together.

"We don't know, but you will take what they offer."

"Will they give it us in kerblech? Because, if not,
we don't go."

"There will be a hole in the sky if you don't go,"
cried some of the urchins present.

The almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins
with their sticks, and there was a bit of a row.

Mekabbel the Long, standing on the cart, drew him-
self to his full height, and began to shout :

"Hush, hush, hush ! Quiet, you crazy cripples ! One
can't hear oneself speak! Let us hear what those have
to say who are worth listening to !" and he turned to
us with the words :

"You must know, dear Jews, that unless they dis-
tribute kerblech among us, we shall not budge. Never
you fear ! Reb Yitzchok-Aizik won't marry his youngest
daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us
now? To send to Lunetz would cost him more in con-
veyances, and he would have to put off the marriage."

"What do they suppose? That because we are poor
people they can do what they please with us? " and a

88 SPEKTOR

new striker hitched himself up by the wheel, blind of
one eye, with a tied-up jaw. Xo one can oblige us to
go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force
us — either it's kerblech, or we stay where we are."

"K-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech ! !" came from Feitel the Stam-
merer.

"Nienblech !" put in Yainkel Fonfatch, speaking
through his small nose. "No, more !" called out a couple
of merry paupers.

"Kerblech, kerblech !" shouted the rest in concert.

And through their shouting and their speeches
sounded such a note of anger and of triumph, it seemed
as though they were pouring out all the bitterness of
soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless
lives.

They had always kept silence, had had to keep silence,
had to swallow the insults offered them along with the
farthings, and the dry bread, and the scraped bones,
and this was the first time they had been able to retaliate,
the first time they had known how it felt to be entreated
by the fortunate in all things, and they were determined
to use their opportunity of asserting themselves to the
full, to take their revenge. In the word kerblech lay
the whole sting of their resentment.

And while we talked and reasoned with them, came
a second messenger from Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, to say
that the paupers were to come at once, and they would
be given a ruble each.

There was a great noise and scrambling, the three
wagons filled with almsgatherers, one crying out, "0
my bad hand !" another, "0 my foot !" and a third, "0

AN ORIGINAL STRIKE 89

my poor bones !" The merry ones made antics, and sang
in their places, while the horses were put in, and the
procession started at a cheerful trot. The urchins gave
a great hurrah, and threw little stones after it, with
squeals and whistles.

The poor folks must have fancied they were being
pelted with flowers and sent off with songs, they looked
so happy in the consciousness of their victory.

For the first and perhaps the last time in their lives,
they had spoken out, and got their own way.

After the "canopy" and the chicken soup, that is, at
"supper," tables were spread for the friends of the
family and separate ones for the almsgatherers.

Reb Yitzchok-Aizik and the members of his own
household served the poor with their own hands, pressing
them to eat and drink.

"Le-Chayyim to you, Reb Yitzchok-Aizik! May you
have pleasure in your children, and be a great man, a
great rich man !" desired the poor.

"Long life, long life to all of you, brethren ! Drink
in health, God help All-Israel, and you among them!"
replied Reb Yitzchok-Aizik.

After supper the band played, and the almsgatherers,
with Reb Yitzchok-Aizik, danced merrily in a ring
round the bridegroom.

Then who was so happy as Reb Yitzchok-Aizik? He
danced in the ring, the silk skirts of his long coat flapped
and flew like eagles' wings, tears of joy fell from his
shining eyes, and his spirits rose to the seventh heaven.

He laughed and cried like a child, and exchanged
embraces with the almsgatherers.

90 SPEKTOR

"Brothers!" he exclaimed as he danced, "let us be
merry, let us be Jews ! Musicians, give us something
cheerful — something gayer, livelier, louder !"

"This is what you call a Jewish wedding !"

"This is how a Jew makes merry !"

So the guests and the almsgatherers clapped their
hands in time to the music.

Yes, dear readers, it was what I call a Jewish
Wedding !

A GLOOMY WEDDING

They handed Gittel a letter that had come by post,
she put on her spectacles, sat down by the window,
and began to read.

She read, and her face began to shine, and the
wrinkled skin took on a little color. It was plain that
what she read delighted her beyond measure, she
devoured the words, caught her breath, and wept aloud
in the fulness of her joy.

"At last, at last ! Blessed be His dear Name, whom
I am not worthy to mention ! I do not know, Gottinyu,
how to thank Thee for the mercy Thou hast shown me.
Beile! Where is Beile? Where is Yossel? Children!
Come, make haste and wish me joy, a great joy has
befallen us ! Send for Avremele, tell him to come with
Zlatke and all the children."

Thus Gittel, while she read the letter, never ceased
calling every one into the room, never ceased reading
and calling, calling and reading, and devouring the
words as she -read.

Every soul who happened to be at home came running.

"Good luck to you ! Good luck to us all ! Moi-
shehle has become engaged in Warsaw, and invites us
all to the wedding," Gittel explained. "There, read
the letter, Lord of the World, may it be in a propitious
hour, may we all have comfort in one another, may we
hear nothing but good news of one another and of All-
Israel ! Read it, read it, children ! He writes that
he has a very beautiful bride, well-favored, with a large

92 SPEKTOE

dowry. Lord of the World, I am not worthy of the
mercy Thou hast shown me I" repeated Gittel over and
over, as she paced the room with uplifted hands, while
her daughter Beile took up the letter in her turn. The
children and everyone in the house, including the maid
from the kitchen, with rolled-up sleeves and wet hands,
encircled Beile as she read aloud.

"Read louder, Beiletshke, so that I can hear, so that
we can all hear," begged Gittel, and there were tears
of happiness in her eyes.

The children jumped for joy to see Grandmother so
happy. The word "wedding," which Beile read out of
the letter, contained a promise of all delightful things:
musicians, pancakes, new frocks and suits, and they
could not keep themselves from dancing. The maid, too,
was heartily pleased, she kept on singing out, "Oi, what
a bride, beautiful as gold !" and did not know what to be
doing next — should she go and finish cooking the dinner,
or should she pull down her sleeves and make holiday ?

The hiss of a pot boiling over in the kitchen inter-
rupted the letter-reading, and she was requested to go
and attend to it forthwith.

"The bride sends us a separate greeting, long life
to her, may she live when my bones are dust. Let us go
to the provisor, he shall read it ; it is written in French."

The provisor, the apothecary's foreman, who lived in
the same house, said the bride's letter was not written
in French, but in Polish, that she called Gittel her
second mother, that she loved her son Moses as her life,
that he was her world, that she held herself to be the
most fortunate of girls, since God had given her Moses,

93

that Gittel (once more!) was her second mother, and
she felt like a dutiful daughter towards her, and hoped
that Gittel would love her as her own child.

The bride declared further that she kissed her new
sister, Beile, a thousand times, together with Zlatke and
their husbands and children, and she signed herself
"Your forever devoted and loving daughter Eegina."

An hour later all Gittel's children were assembled
round her, her eldest son Avremel with his wife, Zlatke
and her little ones, Beile's husband, and her son-in-law
Yossel. All read the letter with eager curiosity, brandy
and spice-cakes were placed on the table, wine was sent
for, they drank healths, wished each other joy, and began
to talk of going to the wedding.

Gittel, very tired with all she had gone through this
day, went to lie down for a while to rest her head,
which was all in a whirl, but the others remained sitting
at the table, and never stopped talking of Moisheh.

"I can imagine the sort of engagement Moisheh has
made, begging his pardon," remarked the daughter-in-
law, and wiped her pale lips.

"I should think so, a man who's been a bachelor up
to thirty! It's easy to fancy the sort of bride, and the
sort of family she has, if they accepted Moisheh as a
suitor," agreed the daughter.

"God helping, this ought to make a man of him,"
sighed Moisheh's elder brother, "he's cost us trouble
and worry enough."

"It's your fault," Yossel told him. "If I'd been his
elder brother, he would have turned out differently! I
should have directed him like a father, and taken him
well in hand."
7

94 SPEKTOR

"You think so, but when God wishes to punish a man
through his own child going astray, nothing is of any
use; these are not the old times, when young people
feared a Rebbe, and respected their elders. Nowadays
the world is topsyturvy, and no sooner has a boy out-
grown his childhood than he does what he pleases, and
parents are nowhere. What have I left undone to make
something out of him, so that he should be a credit
to his family ? Then, he was left an orphan very early ;
perhaps he would have obeyed his father (may he enter
a lightsome paradise !), but for a brother and his mother,
he paid them as much attention as last year's snow,
and, if you said anything to him, he answered rudely,
and neither coaxing nor scolding was any good. Now,
please God, he'll make a fresh start, and give up his
antics before it's too late. His poor mother ! She's had
trouble enough on his account, as we all know."

Beile let fall a tear and said :

"If our father (may he be our kind advocate!) were
alive, Moishehle would never have made an engagement
like this. "Who knows what sort of connections they
will be ! I can see them, begging his pardon, from here !
Is he likely to have asked anyone's advice? He always
had a will of his own — did what he wanted to do, never
asked his mother, or his sister, or his brother, before-
hand. Now he's a bridegroom at thirty if he's a day,
and we are all asked to the wedding, are we really ? And
wo shall soon all be running to see the fine sight, such
as never was seen before. We are no such fools! He
thinks himself the clever one now! So he wants us to
be at the wedding? Only says it out of politeness."

A GLOOMY WEDDING 95

"We must go, all the same/' said Avremel.

"Go and welcome, if you want to — you won't catch
me there," answered his sister.

There was a deal more discussion and disputing about
not going to the wedding, and only congratulating by
telegram, for good manners' sake. Since he had asked
no one's advice, and engaged himself without them, let
him get married without them, too !

Gittel, up in her bedroom, could not so soon compose
herself after the events of the day. What she had
experienced was no trifle. Moishehle engaged to be
married ! She had been through so much on his account
in the course of her life, she had loved him, her youngest
born, so dearly! He was such a beautiful child that
the light of his countenance dazzled you, and bright as
the day, so that people opened ears and mouth to hear
him talk, and God and men alike envied her the
possession of such a boy.

"I counted on making a match for him, as I did
with Avremel before him. He was offered the best
connections, with the families of the greatest Eabbis.
But, no — no — he wanted to go on studying. 'Study
here, study there,' said I, 'sixteen years old and a
bachelor! If you want to study, can't you study at
your father-in-law's, eating Kb'st? There are books in
plenty, thank Heaven, of your father's.' No, no, he
wanted to go and study elsewhere, asked nobody's advice,
and made off, and for two months I never had a line. I
nearly went out of my mind. Then, suddenly, there
came a letter, begging my pardon for not having said
good-by, and would I forgive him, and send him some

96 SPEKTOE

money, because he had nothing to eat. It tore my
heart to think my Moishehle, who used to make me
happy whenever he enjoyed a meal, should hunger. I
sent him some money, I went on sending him money for
three years, after that he stopped asking for it. I begged
him to come home, he made no reply. 'I don't wish to
quarrel with Avremel, my sister, and her husband,' he
wrote later, 'we cannot live together in peace.' Why?
I don't know ! Then, for a time, he left off writing
altogether, and the messages we got from him sounded
very sad. Now he was in Kieff, now in Odessa, now in
Charkoff, and they told us he was living like any Gentile,
had not the look of a Jew at all. Some said he was
living with a Gentile woman, a countess, and would
never marry in his life."

Five years ago he had suddenly appeared at home,
"to see his mother," as he said. Gittel did not recog-
nize him, he was so changed. The rest found him quite
the stranger: he had a "goyish" shaven face, with a
twisted moustache, and was got up like a rich Gentile,
with a purse full of bank-notes. His family were
ashamed to walk abroad with him, Gittel never ceased
weeping and imploring him to give up the countess,
remain a Jew, stay with his mother, and she, with God's
help, would make an excellent match for him, if he
would only alter his appearance and ways just a little.
Moishehle solemnly assured his mother that he was a
Jew, that there was no countess, but that he wouldn't
remain at home for a million rubles, first, because he
had business elsewhere, and secondly, he had no fancy
for his native town, there was nothing there for him to

A GLOOMY WEDDING 97

do, and to dispute with his brother and sister about
religious piety was not worth his while.

So Moishehle departed, and Gittel wept, wondering
why he was different from the other children, seeing
they all had the same mother, and she had lived and
suffered for all alike. Why would he not stay with
her at home ? What would he have wanted for there ?
God be praised, not to sin with her tongue, thanks
to God first, and then to him (a lightsome paradise
be his!), they were provided for, with a house and a
few thousand rubles, all that was necessary for their
comfort, and a little ready money besides. The house
alone, not to sin with her tongue, would bring in enough
to make a living. Other people envy us, but it doesn't
happen to please him, and he goes wandering about the
world — without a wife and without a home — a man
twenty and odd years old, and without a home !

The rest of the family were secretly well content to
be free of such a poor creature — "the further off, the
better — the shame is less."

A letter from him came very seldom after this, and
for the last two years he had dropped out altogether.
Nobody was surprised, for everyone was convinced that
Moisheh would never come to anything. Some told that
he was in prison, others knew that he had gone abroad
and was being pursued, others, that he had hung himself
because he was tired of life, and that before his death
he had repented of all his sins, only it was too late.

His relations heard all these reports, and were careful
to keep them from his mother, because they were not
sure that the bad news was true.

98 SPEKTOR

Gittel bore the pain at her heart in silence, weeping
at times over her Moishehle, who had got into bad
ways — and now, suddenly, this precious letter with its
precious news: Her Moishehle is about to marry, and
invites them to the wedding !

Thus Gittel, lying in bed in her own room, recalled
everything she had suffered through her undutiful son,
only now — now everything was forgotten and forgiven,
and her mothers heart was full of love for her Moi-
shehle, just as in the days when he toddled about at her
apron, and pleased his mother and everyone else.

All her thoughts were now taken up with getting
ready to attend the wedding; the time was so short —
there were only three weeks left. When her other
children were married, Gittel began her preparations
three months ahead, and now there were only three
weeks.

Next day she took out her watered silk dress, with
the green satin flowers, and hung it up to air, examined
it, lest there should be a hook missing. After that
she polished her long ear-rings with chalk, her pearls,
her rings, and all her other ornaments, and bought a
new yellow silk kerchief for her head, with a large
flowery pattern in a lighter shade.

A week before the journey to Warsaw they baked
spice-cakes, pancakes, and almond-rolls to take with her,
"from the bridegroom's side," and ordered a wig for
the bride. When her eldest son was married, Gittel
had also given the bride silver candlesticks for Friday
evenings, and presented her with a wig for the Veiling
Ceremony.

A GLOOMY WEDDING 99

And before she left, Gittel went to her husband's
grave, and asked him to be present at the wedding as
a good advocate for the newly-married pair.

Gittel started for Warsaw In grand style, and cheerful
and happy, as befits a mother going to the wedding of
her favorite son. All those who accompanied her to the
station declared that she looked younger and prettier
by twenty years, and made a beautiful bridegroom's
mother.

Besides wedding presents for the bride, Gittel took
with her money for wedding expenses, so that she might
play her part with becoming lavishness, and people
should not think her Moishehle came, bless and preserve
us, of a low-born family — to show that he was none so
forlorn but he had, God be praised and may it be for a
hundred and twenty years to come! a mother, and a
sister, and brothers, and came of a well-to-do family.
She would show them that she could be as fine a bride-
groom's mother as anyone, even, thank God, in Warsaw.
Moishehle was her last child, and she grudged him
nothing. Were he (may he be a good intercessor!)
alive, he would certainly have graced the wedding better,
and spent more money, but she would spare nothing
to make a good figure on the occasion. She would treat
every connection of the bride to a special dance-tune,
give the musicians a whole five-ruble-piece for their
performance of the Vivat, and two dreierlech for the
Kosher-Tanz, beside something for the Rav, the cantor,
and the beadle, and alms for the poor — what should
she save for? She has no more children to marry off
— blessed be His dear Name, who had granted her life
to see her Moishehle's wedding !

100 SPEKTOE

Thus happily did Gittel start for Warsaw.

One carriage after another drove up to the wedding-
reception room in Dluga Street, Warsaw, ladies and
their daughters, all in evening dress, and smartly attired
gentlemen, alighted and went in.

The room was full, the band played, ladies and gentle-
men were dancing, and those who were not, talked of
the bride and bridegroom, and said how fortunate they
considered Eegina, to have secured such a presentable
young man, lively, educated, and intelligent, with quite
a fortune, which he had made himself, and a good busi-
ness. Ten thousand rubles dowry with the perfection
of a husband was a rare thing nowadays, when a poor
professional man, a little doctor without practice, asked
fifteen thousand. It was true, they said, that Eegina
was a pretty girl and a credit to her parents, but how
many pretty, bright girls had more money than Eegina,
and sat waiting?

It was above all the mothers of the young ladies
present who talked low in this way among themselves.

The bride sat on a chair at the end of the room, ladies
and young girls on either side of her ; Gittel, the bride-
groom's mother in her watered silk dress, with the large
green satin flowers, was seated between two ladies with
dresses cut so low that Gittel could not bear to look
at them — women with husbands and children daring
to show themselves like that at a wedding! Then she
could not endure the odor of their bare skin, the powder,
pomade, and perfumes with which they were smeared,
sprinkled, and wetted, even to their hair. All these
strange smells tickled Gittel's nose, and went to her

A GLOOMY WEDDING 101

head like a fume. She sat between the two ladies, feeling
cramped and shut in, unable to stir, and would gladly
have gone away. Only whither? Where should she, the
bridegroom's mother, be sitting, if not near the bride,
at the upper end of the room ? But all the ladies sitting
there are half -naked. Should she sit near the door?
That would never do. And Gittel remained sitting, in
great embarrassment, between the two women, and
looked on at the reception, and saw nothing but a room
full of decolletees, ladies and girls.

Gittel felt more and more uncomfortable, it made her
quite faint to look at them.

"One can get over the girls, young things, because a
girl has got to please, although no Jewish daughter ought
to show herself to everyone like that, but what are
you to do with present-day children, especially in a
dissolute city like Warsaw? But young women, and
women who have husbands and children, and no need,
thank God, to please anyone, how are they not ashamed
before God and other people and their own children,
to come to a wedding half-naked, like loose girls in a
public house? Jewish daughters, who ought not to be
seen uncovered by the four walls of their room, to come
like that to a wedding! To a Jewish wedding! . . .
Tpfu, tpfu, I'd like to spit at this newfangled world,
may God not punish me for these words ! It is enough
to make one faint to see such a display among Jews!"

After the ceremony under the canopy, which was
erected in the centre of the room, the company sat down
to the table, and Gittel was again seated at the top,
between the two women before mentioned, whose per-
fumes went to her head.

102 SPEKTOR

She felt so queer and so ill at ease that she could
not partake of the dinner, her mouth seemed locked,
and the tears came in her eyes.

When they rose from table, Gittel sought out a place
removed from the "upper end," and sat down in a
window, but presently the bride's mother, also in decol-
lete, caught sight of her, and went and took her by the
hand.

"Why are you sitting here, Mechuteneste ? Why
are you not at the top ?"

"I wanted to rest myself a little."

"Oh, no, no, come and sit there," said the lady, led
her away by force, and seated her between the two
ladies with the perfumes.

Long, long did she sit, feeling more and more sick
and dizzy. If only she could have poured out her heart
to some one person, if she could have exchanged a single
word with anybody during that whole evening, it would
have been a relief, but there was no one to speak to.
The music played, there was dancing, but Gittel could
see nothing more. She felt an oppression at her heart,
and became covered with perspiration, her head grew
heavy, and she fell from her chair.

"The bridegroom's mother has fainted !" was the out-
cry through the whole room. "Water, water !"

They fetched water, discovered a doctor among the
guests, and he led Gittel into another room, and soon
brought her round.

The bride, the bridegroom, the bride's mother, and
the two ladies ran in:

A GLOOMY WEDDING 103

"What can have caused it ? Lie down ! How do you
feel now ? Perhaps you would like a sip of lemonade ?"
they all asked.

"Thank you, I want nothing, I feel better already,
leave me alone for a while. I shall soon recover myself,
and be all right."

So Gittel was left alone, and she breathed more easily,
her head stopped aching, she felt like one let out of
prison, only there was a pain at her heart. The tears which
had choked her all day now began to flow, and she wept
abundantly. The music never ceased playing, she heard
the sound of the dancers' feet and the directions of the
master of ceremonies; the floor shook, Gittel wept, and
tried with all her might to keep from sobbing, so that
people should not hear and come in and disturb her.
She had not wept so since the death of her husband, and
this was the wedding of her favorite son !

By degrees she ceased to weep altogether, dried her
eyes, and sat quietly talking to herself of the many
things that passed through her head.

"Better that he (may he enter a lightsome paradise!)
should have died than lived to see what I have seen,
and the dear delight which I have had, at the wedding
of my youngest child ! Better that I myself should not
have lived to see his marriage canppy. Canopy, indeed !
Four sticks stuck up in the middle of the room to make
fun with, for people to play at being married, like
monkeys! Then at table: no Seven Blessings, not a
Jewish word, not a Jewish face, no Minyan to be seen,
only shaven Gentiles upon Gentiles, a roomful of naked
women and girls that make you sick to look at them.

104 SPEKTOR

Moishehle had better have married a poor orphan, I
shouldn't have heen half so ashamed or half so un-
happy."

Gittel called to mind the sort of a bridegroom's
mother she had been at the marriage of her eldest
son, and the satisfaction she had felt. Four hundred
women had accompanied her to the Shool when Avre-
mele was called to the Reading of the Law as a bride-
groom, and they had scattered nuts, almonds, and
raisins down upon him as he walked; then the party
before the wedding, and the ceremony of the canopy, and
the procession with the bride and bridegroom to the
Shool, the merry home-coming, the golden soup, the
bridegroom brought at supper time to the sound of
music, the cantor and his choir, who sang while they
sat at table, the Seven Blessings, the Vivat played for
each one separately, the Kosher-Tanz, the dance round
the bridegroom — and the whole time it had been Gittel
here and Gittel there: "Good luck to you, Gittel, may
you be happy in the young couple and in all your
other children, and live to dance at the wedding of
your youngest" (it was a delight and no mistake!).
"Where is Gittel?" she hears them cry. "The uncle,
the aunt, a cousin have paid for a dance for the
Mechuteneste on the bridegroom's side ! Play, musicians
all !" The company make way for her, and she dances
with the uncle, the aunt, and the cousin, and all the rest
clap their hands. She is tired with dancing, but still
they call "Gittel"! An old friend sings a merry song
in her honor. "Play, musicians all !" And Gittel dances
on, the company clap their hands, and wish her all that

A GLOOMY WEDDING 105

is good, and she is penetrated with genuine happiness
and the joy of the occasion. Then, then, when the guests
begin to depart, and the mothers of bridegroom and
bride whisper together about the forthcoming Veiling
Ceremony, she sees the bride in her wig, already a wife,
her daughter-in-law! Her jam pancakes and almond-
rolls are praised by all, and what cakes are left over
from the Veiling Ceremony are either snatched one by
one, or else they are seized wholesale by the young
people standing round the table, so that she should not
see, and they laugh and tease her. That is the way to
become a mother-in-law ! And here, of course, the whole
of the pancakes and sweet-cakes and almond-rolls which
she brought have never so much as been unpacked, and
are to be thrown away or taken home again, as you
please ! A shame ! No one came to her for cakes. The
wig, too, may be thrown away or carried back — Moi-
shehle told her it was not required, it wouldn't quite
do. The bride accepted the silver candlesticks with
embarrassment, as though Gittel had done something
to make her feel awkward, and some girls who were
standing by smiled, "Begina has been given candle-
sticks for the candle-blessing on Fridays — ha, ha, ha !"

The bridal couple with the girl's parents came in to
ask how she felt, and interrupted the current of her
thoughts.

"We shall drive home now, people are leaving," they
said.

"The wedding is over," they told her, "everything in
life comes to a speedy end."

10G SPEKTOR

Gittel remembered that when Avremel was married,
the festivities had lasted a whole week, till over the
second cheerful Sabbath, when the bride, the new
daughter-in-law, was led to the Shool !

The day after the wedding Gittel drove home, sad,
broken in spirit, as people return from the cemetery
where they have buried a child, where they have laid a
fragment of their own heart, of their own life, under
the earth.

Driving home in the carriage, she consoled herself
with this at least :

"A good thing that Beile and Zlatke, Avremel and
Yossel were not there. The shame will be less, there
will be less talk, nobody will know what I am suffering."

Gittel arrived the picture of gloom.

When she left for the wedding, she had looked sud-
denly twenty years younger, and now she looked twenty
years older than before!

POVEETY

I was living in Mezkez at the time, and Seinwill
Bookbinder lived there too.

But Heaven only knows where he is now ! Even then
his continual pallor augured no long residence in Mez-
kez, and he was a Yadeschlever Jew with a wife and six
small children, and he lived by binding books.

Who knows what has become of him ! But that is not
the question — I only want to prove that Seinwill was a
great liar.

If he is already in the other world, may he forgive
me — and not be very angry with me, if he is still living
in Mezkez !

He was an orthodox and pious Jew, but when you
gave him a book to bind, he never kept his word.

When he took a book and even the whole of his pay
in advance, he would swear by beard and earlocks, by
wife and children, and by the Messiah, that he would
bring it back to you by Sabbath, but you had to be at
him for weeks before the work was finished and sent
in.

Once, on a certain Friday, I remembered that next
day, Sabbath, I should have a few hours to myself for
reading.

A fortnight before I had given Seinwill a new book
to bind for me. It was just a question whether or not
he would return it in time, so I set out for his home,
with the intention of bringing back the book, finished
or not. I had paid him his twenty kopeks in advance,

108 SPEKTOR

so what excuses could he possibly make? Once for all,
I would give him a bit of my mind, and take away the
work unfinished — it will be a lesson for him for the
next time !

Thus it was, walking along and deciding on what I
should say to Seinwill, that I turned into the street to
which I had been directed. Once in the said street, I
had no need to ask questions, for I was at once shown
a little, low house, roofed with mouldered slate.

I stooped a little by way of precaution, and entered
Seinwill's house, which consisted of a large kitchen.

Here he lived with his wife and children, and here
he worked.

In the great stove that took up one-third of the
kitchen there was a cheerful crackling, as in every
Jewish home on a Friday.

In the forepart of the oven, on either hand, stood a
variety of pots and pipkins, and gossipped together in
their several tones. An elder child stood beside them
holding a wooden spoon, with which she stirred or
skimmed as the case required.

Seinwill's wife, very much occupied, stood by the one
four-post bed, which was spread with a clean white
sheet, and on which she had laid out various kinds of
cakes, of unbaked dough, in honor of Sabbath. Beside
her stood a child, its little face red with crying, and
hindered her in her work.

"Seinwill, take Chatzkele away ! How can I get on
with the cakes ? Don't you know it's Friday ?" she kept
calling out, and Seinwill, sitting at his work beside a

POVERTY 109

large table covered with books, repeated every time like
an echo:

"Chatzkele, let mother alone !"

And Chatzkele, for all the notice he took, might have
been as deaf as the bedpost.

The minute Seinwill saw me, he ran to meet me in a
shamefaced way, like a sinner caught in the act; and
before I was able to say a word, that is, tell him angrily
and with decision that he must give me my book finished
or not — never mind about the twenty kopeks, and so-
on— and thus revenge myself on him, he began to
answer, and he showed me that my book was done, it
was already in the press, and there only remained the
lettering to be done on the back. Just a few minutes
more, and he would bring it to my house.

"Xo, I will wait and take it myself," I said, rather
vexed.

Besides, I knew that to stamp a few letters on a book-
cover could not take more than a few minutes at most.

"Well, if you are so good as to wait, it will not take
long. There is a fire in the oven, I have only just got
to heat the screw."

And so saying, he placed a chair for me, dusted it
with the flap of his coat, and I sat down to wait.
Seinwill really took my book out of the press quite
finished except for the lettering on the cover, and began
to hurry. Now he is by the oven — from the oven to
the corner — and once more to the oven and back to the
corner — and so on ten times over, saying to me. every
time:

"There, directly, directly, in another minute," and
back once more across the room.
8

110 SPEKTOR

So it went on for about ten minutes, and I began to
take quite an interest in this running of his from one
place to another, with empty hands, and doing nothing
but repeat "Directly, directly, this minute !"

Most of all I wonder why he keeps on looking into the
corner — he never takes his eyes off that corner. What
is he looking for, what does he expect to see there?
I watch his face growing sadder — he must be suf-
fering from something or other — and all the while
he talks to himself, "Directly, directly, in one little
minute." He turns to me: "I must ask you to wait a
little longer. It will be very soon now — in another
minute's time. Just because we want it so badly, you'd
think she'd rather burst," he said, and he went back to
the corner, stooped, and looked into it.

"What are you looking for there every minute?" I
ask him.

"Nothing. But directly — Take my advice : why should
you sit there waiting? I will bring the book to you
myself. When one wants her to, she won't !"

"All right, it's Friday, so I need not hurry. Why
should you have the trouble, as I am already here?" I
reply, and ask him who is the "she who won't."

"You see, my wife, who is making cakes, is kept wait-
ing by her too, and I, with the lettering to do on the
book, I also wait."

"But what are you waiting for ?"

"You see, if the cakes are to take on a nice glaze
while baking, they must be brushed over with a yolk."

"Well, and what has that to do with stamping the
letters on the cover of the book?"

POVERTY 111

"What has that to do with it ? Don't you know that
the glaze-gold which is used for the letters will not
stick to the cover without some white of egg?"

"Yes, I have seen them smearing the cover with white
of egg before putting on the letters. Then what ?"

"How 'what?' That is why we are waiting for the

egg-"

"So you have sent out to buy an egg?"

"No, but it will be there directly." Pie points out
to me the corner which he has been running to look
into the whole time, and there, on the ground, I see
an overturned sieve, and under the sieve, a hen turning
round and round and cackling.

"As if she'd rather burst !" continued Seinwill. "Just
because we want it so badly, she won't lay. She lays
an egg for me nearly every time, and now — just as if
she'd rather burst!" he said, and began to scratch his
head.

And the hen? The hen went on turning round and
round like a prisoner in a dungeon, and cackled louder
than ever.

To tell the truth, I had inferred at once that Seinwill
was persuaded I should wait for my book till the hen
had laid an egg, and as I watched Seinwill's wife, and
saw with what anxiety she waited for the hen to lay,
I knew that I was right, that Seinwill was indeed BO
persuaded, for his, wife called to him:

"Ask the young man for a kopek and send the child
to buy an egg in the market. The cakes are getting
cold."

113 SPEKTOR

"The young man owes me nothing, a few weeks ago
he paid me for the whole job. There is no one to borrow
from, nobody will lend me anything, I owe money all
around, my very hair is not my own."

When Seinwill had answered his wife, he took another
peep into the corner, and said:

"She will not keep us waiting much longer now. She
can't cackle forever. Another two minutes !"

But the hen went on puffing out her feathers, pecking
and cackling for a good deal more than two minutes.
It seemed as if she could not bear to see her master and
mistress in trouble, as if she really wished to do them
a kindness by laying an egg. But no egg appeared.

I lent Seinwill two or three kopeks, which he was to
pay me back in work, because Seinwill has never once
asked for, or accepted, charity, and the child was sent
to the market.

A few minutes later, when the child had come back
with an egg, Seinwill's wife had the glistening Sabbath
cakes on a shovel, and was placing them gaily in the
oven; my book was finished, and the unfortunate hen,
released at last from her prison, the sieve, ceased to
cackle and to ruffle out her plumage.

SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Pen name of Shalom Rabinovitz; born, 1859, in Pereyas-
lav, Government of Poltava, Little Russia; Government
Rabbi, at twenty-one, in Lubni, near his native place; has
spent the greater part of his life in Kieff; in Odessa from
1890 to 1893, and in America from 1905 to 1907; Hebrew,
Russian, and Yiddish poet, novelist, humorous short story
writer, critic, and playwright; prolific contributor to He-
brew and Yiddish periodicals; founder of Die jiidische
Volksbibliothek; novels: Stempenyu, Yosele Solovei, etc.;
collected works: first series, Alle Werk, 4 vols., Cracow,
1903-1904; second series, Neueste Werk, 8 vols., Warsaw,
1909-1911.

THE CLOCK

The clock struck thirteen !

Don't imagine I am joking, I am telling you in all
seriousness what happened in Mazepevke, in our house,
and I myself was there at the time.

We had a clock, a large clock, fastened to the wall, an
old, old clock inherited from my grandfather, which
had been left him by my great-grandfather, and so
forth. Too bad, that a clock should not be alive and
able to tell us something beside the time of day ! What
stories we might have heard as we sat with it in the
room! Our clock was famous throughout the town as
the best clock going — "Reb Simcheh's clock" — and peo-
ple used to come and set their watches by it, because it
kept more accurate time than any other. You may
believe me that even Reb Lebish, the sage, a philosopher,
who understood the time of sunset from the sun itself,
and knew the calendar by rote, he said himself — I
heard him — that our clock was — well, as compared with
his watch, it wasn't worth a pinch of snuff, but as there
were such things as clocks, our clock was a clock. And
if Reb Lebish himself said so, you may depend upon it
he was right, because every Wednesday, between After-
noon and Evening Prayer, Reb Lebish climbed busily
onto the roof of the women's Shool, or onto the top of
the hill beside the old house-of-study, and looked out
for the minute when the sun should set, in one hand
his watch, and in the other the calendar. And when
the sun dropt out of sight on the further side of

116 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Mazepevke, Eeb Lebish said to himself, "Got him !" and
at once came away to compare his watch with the clocks.
When he came in to us, he never gave us a "good
evening," only glanced up at the clock on the wall, then
at his watch, then at the almanac, and was gone !

But it happened one day that when Eeb Lebish came
in to compare our clock with the almanac, he gave a
shout :

"Sim-cheh ! Make haste ! Where are you ?"

My father came running in terror.

"Ha, what has happened, Eeb Lebish ?"

"Wretch, you dare to ask?" and Eeb Lebish held his
watch under my father's nose, pointed at our clock, and
shouted again, like a man with a trodden toe :

"Sim-cheh ! Why don't you speak ? It is a minute
and a half ahead of the time ! Throw it away !"

My father was vexed. What did Eeb Lebish mean by
telling him to throw away his clock?

"Who is to prove," said he, "that my clock is a minute
and a half fast ? Perhaps it is the other way about, and
your watch is a minute and a half slow? Who is to
tell?"

Eeb Lebish stared at him as though he had said that
it was possible to have three days of New Moon, or that
the Seventeenth of Tammuz might possibly fall on the
Eve of Passover, or made some other such wild remark,
enough, if one really took it in, to give one an apoplectic
fit. Eeb Lebish said never a word, he gave a deep sigh,
turned away without wishing us "good evening,"
slammed the door, and was gone. But no one minded
much, because the whole town knew Eeb Lebish for a

THE CLOCK 117

person who was never satisfied with anything : he would
tell you of the best cantor that he was a dummy, a log ;
of the cleverest man, that he was a lumbering animal;
of the most appropriate match, that it was as crooked
as an oven rake; and of the most apt simile, that it was
as applicable as a pea to the wall. Such a man was Reb
Lebish.

But let me return to our clock. I tell you, that was a
clock! You could hear it strike three rooms away:
Bom ! bom ! bom ! Half the town went by it, to recite
the Midnight Prayers, to get up early for Seliches dur-
ing the week before New Year and on the ten Solemn
Days, to bake the Sabbath loaves on Fridays, to bless the
candles on Friday evening. They lighted the fire by it
on Saturday evening, they salted the meat, and so all the
other things pertaining to Judaism. In fact, our clock
was the town clock. The poor thing served us faith-
fully, and never tried stopping even for a time, never
once in its life had it to be set to rights by a clock-
maker. My father kept it in order himself, he had an
inborn talent for clock work. Every year on the Eve
of Passover, he deliberately took it down from the wall,
dusted the wheels with a feather brush, removed from
its inward part a collection of spider webs, desiccated
flies, which the spiders had lured in there to their
destruction, and heaps of black cockroaches, which had
gone in of themselves, and found a terrible end. Hav-
ing cleaned and polished it, he hung it up again on the
wall and shone, that is, they both shone : the clock
shone because it was cleaned and polished, and my
father shone because the clock shone.

118 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

And it came to pass one day that something hap-
pened.

It was on a fine, bright, cloudless day; we were all
sitting at table, eating breakfast, and the clock struck.
Now I always loved to hear the clock strike and count
the strokes out loud:

"One — two — three — seven — eleven — twelve — thir-
teen! Oi! Thirteen?"

"Thirteen?" exclaimed my father, and laughed.
"You're a fine arithmetician (no evil eye!). Whenever
did you hear a clock strike thirteen?"

"But I tell you, it struck thirteen !"

"I shall give you thirteen slaps," cried my father,
angrily, "and then you won't repeat this nonsense again.
Goi, a clock cannot strike thirteen !"

"Do you know what, Simcheh," put in my mother,
"I am afraid the child is right, I fancy I counted
thirteen, too."

"There's another witness!" said my father, but it
appeared that he had begun to feel a little doubtful
himself, for after the meal he went up to the clock, got
upon a chair, gave a turn to a little wheel inside the
clock, and it began to strike. We all counted the
strokes, nodding our head at each one the while: one —
two — three — seven — nine — twelve — thirteen.

"Thirteen!" exclaimed my father, looking at us in
amaze. He gave the wheel another turn, and again the
clock struck thirteen. My father got down off the chair
with a sigh. He was as white as the wall, and remained
standing in the middle of the room, stared at the
ceiling, chewed his beard, and muttered to himself:

THE CLOCK 119

"Plague take thirteen! What can it mean? What
does it portend ? If it were out of order, it would have
stopped. Then, what can it he ? The inference can only
be that some spring has gone wrong."

"Why worry whether it's a spring or not?" said my
mother. "You'd better take down the clock and put it
to rights, as you've a turn that waj."

"Hush, perhaps you're right," answered my father,
took down the clock and busied himself with it. He
perspired, spent a whole day over it, and hung it up
again in its place.

Thank God, the clock was going as it should, and
when, near midnight, we all stood round it and counted
twelve, my father was overjoyed.

"Ha? It didn't strike thirteen then, did it? When
I say it is a spring, I know what I'm about."

"I always said you were a wonder," my mother told
him. "But there is one thing I don't understand : why
does it wheeze so ? I don't think it used to wheeze like
that."

"It's your fancy," said my father, and listened to the
noise it made before striking, like an old man preparing
to cough: chil-chil-chil-chil-trrrr . . . and only then:
bom ! — bom ! — bom ! — and even the "bom" was not the
same as formerly, for the former "bom" had been a
cheerful one, and now there had crept into it a melan-
choly note, as into the voice of an old worn-out cantor
at the close of the service for the Day of Atonement,
and the hoarseness increased, and the strike became
lower and duller, and my father, worried and anxious.
It was plain that the affair preyed upon his mind, that

120 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

he suffered in secret, that it was undermining his health,
and yet he could do nothing. We felt that any moment
the clock might stop altogether. The imp started play-
ing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself
sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his
feet after him. One could see that the clock was about
to stop forever ! It was a good thing my father under-
stood in time that the clock was about to yield up its
soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights:
the weight was too light. And he puts on a jostle,
which has the weight of about four pounds. The clock
goes on like a song, and my father becomes as cheerful
as a newborn man.

But this was not to be for long: the clock began to
lose again, the imp was back at his tiresome perform-
ances: he moved slowly on one side, quickly on the
other, with a hoarse noise, like a sick old man, so that
it went to the heart. A pity to see how the clock
agonized, and my father, as he watched it, seemed like
a nickering, bickering flame of a candle, and nearly
went out for grief.

Like a good doctor, who is ready to sacrifice himself
for the patient's sake, who puts forth all his energy,
tries every remedy under the sun to save his patient,
even so my father applied himself to save the old clock,
if only it should be possible.

"The weight is too light," repeated my father, and
hung something heavier onto it every time, first a frying-
pan, then a copper jug, afterwards a flat-iron, a bag
of sand, a couple of tiles — and the clock revived every

THE CLOCK 121

time and went on, with difficulty and distress, but still
it went — till one night there was a misfortune.

It was on a Friday evening in winter. We had just
eaten our Sabbath supper, the delicious peppered fish
with horseradish, the hot soup with macaroni, the stewed
plums, and said grace as was meet. The Sabbath
candles flickered, the maid was just handing round
fresh, hot, well-dried Polish nuts from off the top of
the stove, when in came Aunt Yente, a dark-favored
little woman without teeth, whose husband had deserted
her, to become a follower of the Eebbe, quite a number
of years ago.

"Good Sabbath !" said Aunt Yente, "I knew you had
some fresh Polish nuts. The pity is that I've nothing
to crack them with, may my husband live no more years
than I have teeth in my mouth ! What did you think,
Malkeh, of the fish to-day? What a struggle there was
over them at the market! I asked him about his fish —
Manasseh, the lazy — when up comes Soreh Peril, the
rich: Make haste, give it me, hand me over that little
pike ! — Why in such a hurry ? say I. God be with you,
the river is not on fire, and Manasseh is not going to
take the fish back there, either. Take my word for
it, with these rich people money is cheap, and sense
is dear. Turns round on me and says: Paupers, she
says, have no business here — a poor man, she says,
shouldn't hanker after good things. What do you think
of such a shrew ? How long did she stand by her mother
in the market selling ribbons? She behaves just like
Pessil Peise Avrohom's over her daughter, the one she
married to a great man in Schtrischtch, who took her

122 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

just as she was, without any dowry or anything — Jewish
luck! They say she has a bad time of it — no evil eye
to her days — can't get on with his children. Well, who
would be a stepmother? Let them beware! Take
Chavvehle ! What is there to find fault with in her ?
And you should see the life her stepchildren lead her !
One hears shouting day and night, cursing, squabbling,
and fighting."

The candles began to die down, the shadow climbed
the wall, scrambled higher and higher, the nuts crackled
in our hands, there was talking and telling stories and
tales, just for the pleasure of it, one without any
reference to the other, but Aunt Yente talked more
than anyone.

"Hush!" cried out Aunt Yente, "listen, because not
long ago a still better thing happened. Not far from
Yampele, about three versts away, some robbers fell
upon a Jewish tavern, killed a whole houseful of people,
down to a baby in a cradle. The only person left alive
was a servant-girl, who was sleeping on the kitchen
stove. She heard people screeching, and jumped down,
this servant-girl, off the stove, peeped through a chink
in the door, and saw, this servant-girl I'm telling you
of, saw the master of the house and the mistress lying
on the floor, murdered, in a pool of blood, and she went
back, this girl, and sprang through a window, and ran
into the town screaming: Jews, to the rescue, help,
help, help !"

Suddenly, just as Aunt Yente was shouting, "Help,
help, help!" we heard trrraach! — tarrrach! — bom — dzin
— dzin — dzin, bommU We were so deep in the story,

THE CLOCK 123

we only thought at first that robbers had descended
upon our house, and were firing guns, and we could
not move for terror. For one minute we looked at
one another, and then with one accord we began to call
out, "Help ! help ! help !" and my mother was so carried
away that she clasped me in her arms and cried:

"My child, my life for yours, woe is me !"

"Ha? What? What is the matter with him? What
has happened?" exclaimed my father.

"Nothing ! nothing ! hush ! hush !" cried Aunt Yente,
gesticulating wildly, and the maid came running in
from the kitchen, more dead than alive.

"Who screamed ? What is it ? Is there a fire ? What
is on fire? Where?"

"Fire? fire? Where is the fire?" we all shrieked.
"Help ! help ! Gewalt, Jews, to the rescue, fire, fire !"

"Which fire ? what fire ? where fire ? ! Fire take you,
you foolish girl, and make cinders of you!" scolded
Aunt Yente at the maid. "Now she must come, as
though we weren't enough before! Fire, indeed, says
she ! Into the earth with you, to all black years ! Did
you ever hear of such a thing ? What are you all yelling
for? Do you know what it was that frightened you?
The best joke in the world, and there's nobody to laugh
with! God be with you, it was the clock falling onto
the floor — now you know! You hung every sort of
thing onto it, and now it is fallen, weighing at least
three pud. And no wonder! A man wouldn't have
fared better. Did you ever ? !"

It was only then we came to our senses, rose one by
one from the table, went to the clock, and saw it lying

124 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed
for evermore !

"There is an end to the clock !" said my father, white
as the wall. He hung his head, wrung his fingers, and
the tears came into his eyes. I looked at my father
and wanted to cry, too.

"There now, see, what is the use of fretting to
death?" said my mother. "No doubt it was so decreed
and written down in Heaven that to-day, at that par-
ticular minute, our clock was to find its end, just (I
beg to distinguish!) like a human being, may God not
punish me for saying so ! May it be an Atonement
for not remembering the Sabbath, for me, for thee, for
our children, for all near and dear to us, and for all
Israel. Amen, Selah!"

FISHEL THE TEACHER

Twice a year, as sure as the clock, on the first day
of Nisan and the first of Ellul — for Passover and Taber-
nacles— Fishel the teacher travelled from Balta to
Chaschtschevate, home to his wife and children. It was
decreed that nearly all his life long he should be the
guest of his own family, a very welcome guest, but a
passing one. He came with the festival, and no sooner
was it over, than back with him to Balta, back to the
schooling, the ruler, the Gemoreh, the dull, thick wits,
to the being knocked about from pillar to post, to the
wandering among strangers, and the longing for home.

On the other hand, when Fishel does come home,
he is an emperor! His wife Bath-sheba comes out to
meet him, pulls at her head-kerchief, blushes red as fire,
questions as though in asides, without as yet looking
him in the face, "How are you ?" and he replies, "How
are you?" and Froike his son, a boy of thirteen or so,
greets him, and the father asks, "Well, Efroim, and
how far on are you in the Gemoreh?" and his little
daughter Eesele, not at all a bad-looking little girl,
with a plaited pigtail, hugs and kisses him.

"Tate, what sort of present have you brought me ?"

"Printed calico for a frock, and a silk kerchief for
mother. There — give mother the kerchief!"

And Fishel takes a silk (suppose a half-silk!) kerchief
out of his Tallis-bag, and Bath-sheba grows redder
still, and pulls her head-cloth over her eyes, takes up
a bit of household work, busies herself all over the
place, and ends by doing nothing.
9

126 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

"Bring the Gemoreh, Efroim, and let me hear what
you can do !"

And Froike recites his lesson like the bright boy
he is, and Fishel listens and corrects, and his heart
expands and overflows with delight, his soul rejoices —
a bright boy, Froike, a treasure !

"If you want to go to the bath, there is a shirt ready
for you !"

Thus Bath-sheba as she passes him, still not venturing
to look him in the face, and Fishel has a sensation of
unspeakable comfort, he feels like a man escaped from
prison and back in a lightsome world, among those
who are near and dear to him. And he sees in fancy
a very, very hot bath-house, and himself lying on the
highest bench with other Jews, and he perspires
and swishes himself with the birch twigs, and can never
have enough.

Home from the bath, fresh and lively as a fish, like
one newborn, he rehearses the portion of the Law for
the festival, puts on the Sabbath cloak and the new
girdle, steals a glance at Bath-sheba in her new dress
and silk kerchief — still a pretty woman, and so pious
and good! — and goes with Froike to the Shool. The
air is full of Sholom Alechems, "Welcome, Reb Fishel
the teacher, and what are you about?" — "A teacher
teaches !"— "What is the news?"— "What should it be?
The world is the world !"— "What is going on in Balta?"
— " Balta is Balta."

The same formula is repeated every time, every half-
year, and Nissel the reader begins to recite the evening
prayers, and sends forth his voice, the further the

FISHEL THE TEACHER 127

louder, and when he comes to "And Moses declared the
set feasts of the Lord unto the children of Israel," it
reaches nearly to Heaven. And Froike stands at his
father's side, and recites the prayers melodiously, and
once more Fishel's heart expands and flows over with
joy — a good child, Froike, a good, pious child !

"A happy holiday, a happy holiday !"

"A happy holiday, a happy year!"

At home they find the Passover table spread: the
four cups, the bitter herbs, the almond and apple paste,
and all the rest of it. The reclining-seats (two small
benches with big cushions) stand ready, and Fishel
becomes a king. Fishel, robed in white, sits on the
throne of his dominion, Bath-sheba, the queen, sits
beside him in her new silk kerchief ; Ef roim, the prince,
in a new cap, and the princess Resele with her plait,
sit opposite them. Look on with respect ! His majesty
Fishel is seated on his throne, and has assumed the
sway of his kingdom.

The Chaschtschevate scamps, who love to make game
of the whole world, not to mention a teacher, maintain
that one Passover Eve our Fishel sent his Bath-sheba
the following Russian telegram: "Rebyata sobral
dyengi vezu prigatovi npiyedu tzarstvovatz." Which
means: "Have entered my pupils for the next term,
am bringing money, prepare the dumplings, I come to
reign/' The mischief-makers declare that this telegram
was seized at Balta station, that Bath-sheba was sought
and not found, and that Fishel was sent home with the
etape. Dreadful! But I can assure you, there isn't a

128 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

word of truth in the story, because Fishel never sent a
telegram in his life, nobody was ever seen looking for
Bath-sheba, and Fishel was never taken anywhere by the
etape. That is, he was once taken somewhere by the
etape, but not on account of a telegram, only on account
of a simple passport! And not from Balta, but from
Yehupetz, and not at Passover, but in summer-time. He
wished, you see, to go to Yehupetz in search of a post as
teacher, and forgot his passport. He thought it was
in Balta, and he got into a nice mess, and forbade
his children and children's children ever to go in search
of pupils in Yehupetz.

Since then he teaches in Balta, and comes home for
Passover, winds up his work a fortnight earlier, and
sometimes manages to hasten back in time for the
Great Sabbath. Hasten, did I say? That means when
the road is a road, when you can hire a conveyance,
and when the Bug can either be crossed on the ice
or in the ferry-boat. But when, for instance, the snow
has begun to melt, and the mud is deep, when there
is no conveyance to be had, when the Bug has begun
to split the ice, and the ferry-boat has not started
running, when a skiff means peril of death, and the
festival is upon you — what then? It is just "nit gut."

Fishel the teacher knows the taste of "nit gilt." He
has had many adventures and mishaps since he became
a teacher, and took to faring from Chaschtschevate to
Balta and from Balta to Chaschtschevate. He has tried
going more than half-way on foot, and helped to push
the conveyance besides. He has lain in the mud with
a priest, the priest on top, and he below. He has fled

FISHEL THE TEACHER 129

before a pack of wolves who were pursuing the vehicle,
and afterwards they turned out to be dogs, and not
wolves at all. But anything like the trouble on this
Passover Eve had never befallen him before.

The trouble came from the Bug, that is, from the
Bug's breaking through the ice, and just having its
fling when Fishel reached it in a hurry to get home,
and really in a hurry, because it was already Friday
and Passover Eve, that is, Passover eve fell on a Sab-
bath that year.

Fishel reached the Bug in a Gentile conveyance
Thursday evening. According to his own reckoning,
he should have got there Tuesday morning, because
he left Balta Sunday after market, the spirit having
moved him to go into the market-place to spy after a
chance conveyance. How much better it would have
been to drive with Yainkel-Shegetz, a Balta carrier,
even at the cart-tail, with his legs dangling, and shaken
to bits. He would have been home long ago by now, and
have forgotten the discomforts of the journey. But he
had wanted a cheaper transit, and it is an old saying
that cheap things cost dear. Yoneh, the tippler, who
procures vehicles in Balta, had said to him : "Take my
advice, give two rubles, and you will ride in Yainkel's
wagon like a lord, even if you do have to sit behind the
wagon. Consider, you're playing with fire, the festival
approaches." But as ill-luck would have it, there came
along a familiar Gentile from Chaschtschevate.

"Eh, Eabbi, you're not wanting a lift to Chasch-
tschevate ?"

"How much would the fare be ?"

130 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

He thought to ask how much, and he never thought
to ask if it would take him home by Passover, because
in a week he could have covered the distance walking
behind the cart.

But as Fishel drove out of the town, he soon began
to repent of his choice, even though the wagon wag
large, and he sitting in it in solitary grandeur, like any
count. He saw that with a horse that dragged itself
along in that way, there would be no getting far, for
they drove a whole day without getting anywhere in
particular, and however much he worried the peasant
to know if it were a long way yet, the only reply he
got was, "Who can tell?" In the evening, with a
rumble and a shout and a crack of the whip, there came
up with them Yainkel-Shegetz and his four fiery horses
jingling with bells, and the large coach packed with
passengers before and behind. Yainkel, catching sight
of the teacher in the peasant's cart, gave another loud
crack with his whip, ridiculed the peasant, his passenger,
and his horse, as only Yainkel-Shegetz knows how, and
when a little way off, he turned and pointed at one of
the peasant's wheels.

"Hallo, man, look out ! There's a wheel turning !"

The peasant stopped the horse, and he and the
teacher clambered down together, and examined the
wheels. They crawled underneath the cart, and found
nothing wrong, nothing at all.

When the peasant understood that Yainkel had made
a fool of him, he scratched the back of his neck below
his collar, and began to abuse Yainkel and all Jews
with curses such as Fishel had never heard before. His
voice and his anger rose together:

FISHEL THE TEACHER 131

"May you never know good ! May you have a bad
year ! May you not see the end of it ! Bad luck to
you, you and your horses and your wife and your
daughter and your aunts and your uncles and your
parents-in-law and — and all your cursed Jews !"

It was a long time before the peasant took his seat
again, nor did he cease to fume against Yainkel the
driver and all Jews, until, with God's help, they reached
a village wherein to spend the night.

Next morning Fishel rose with the dawn, recited his
prayers, a portion of the Law, and a few Psalms,
breakfasted on a roll, and was ready to set forward.
Unfortunately, Chfedor (this was the name of his
driver) was not ready. Chfedor had sat up late with
a crony and got drunk, and he slept through a whole
day and a bit of the night, and then only started on
his way.

"Well," Fishel reproved him as they sat in the cart,
"well, Chfedor, a nice way to behave, upon my word !
Do you suppose I engaged you for a merrymaking?
What have you to say for yourself, I should like to
know, eh?"

And Fishel addressed other reproachful words to him,
and never ceased casting the other's laziness between
his teeth, partly in Polish, partly in Hebrew, and help-
ing himself out with his hands. 'Chfedor understood
quite well what Fishel meant, but he answered him not
a word, not a syllable even. No doubt he felt that
Fishel was in the right, and he was silent as a cat,
till, on the fourth day, they met Yainkel-Shegetz,
driving back from Chaschtschevate with a rumble and a

132 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

crack of his whip, who called out to them, "You may
as well turn back to Balta, the Bug has burst the ice."
Fishel's heart was like to burst, too, but Chfedor, who
thought that Yainkel was trying to fool him a second
time, started repeating his whole list of curses, called
down all bad dreams on Yainkel's hands and feet, and
never shut his mouth till they came to the Bug on
Thursday evening. They drove straight to Prokop
Baranyuk, the ferryman, to inquire when the ferry-boat
would begin to run, and the two Gentiles, Chfedor and
Prokop, took to sipping brandy, while Fishel proceeded
to recite the Afternoon Prayer.

The sun was about to set, and poured a rosy light
onto the high hills that stood on either side of the
river, and were snow-covered in parts and already green
in others, and intersected by rivulets that wound their
way with murmuring noise down into the river, where
the water foamed with the broken ice and the increasing
thaw. The whole of Chaschtschevate lay before him as
on a plate, while the top of the monastery sparkled like a
light in the setting sun. Standing to recite the Eighteen
Benedictions, with his face towards Chaschtschevate,
Fishel turned his eyes away and drove out the idle
thoughts and images that had crept into his head : Bath-
sheba with the new silk kerchief, Froike with the
Gemoreh, Resele with her plait, the hot bath and the
highest bench, and freshly-baked Matzes, together with
nice peppered fish and horseradish that goes up your
nose, Passover borshtsh with more Matees, a heavenly
mixture, and all the other good things that desire is

FISHEL THE TEACHER 133

capable of conjuring up — and however often he drove
these fancies away, they returned and crept back into
his brain like summer flies, and disturbed him at his
prayers.

When Fishel had repeated the Eighteen Benedictions
and Olenu, he betook him to Prokop, and entered into
conversation with him about the ferry-boat and the
festival eve, giving him to understand, partly in Polish
and partly in Hebrew and partly with his hands, what
Passover meant to the Jews, and Passover Eve falling
on a Sabbath, and that if, which Heaven forbid, he
had not crossed the Bug by that time to-morrow, he
was a lost man, for, beside the fact that they were on
the lookout for him at home — his wife and children
(Fishel gave a sigh that rent the heart) — he would
not be able to eat or drink for a week, and Fishel
turned away, so that the tears in his eyes should not
be seen.

Prokop Baranyuk quite appreciated Fishel's position,
and replied that he knew to-morrow was a Jewish festi-
val, and even how it was called; he even knew that the
Jews celebrated it by drinking wine and strong brandy ;
he even knew that there was yet another festival at
which the Jews drank brandy, and a third when all
Jews were obliged to get drunk, but he had forgotten its
name —

"Well and good," Fishel interrupted him in a lament-
able voice, "but what is to happen? How if I don't
get there ?"

To this Prokop made no reply. He merely pointed
with his hand to the river, as much as to say, "See for
yourself !"

134 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

And Fishel lifted up his eyes to the river, and saw
that which he had never seen before, and heard that
which he had never heard in his life. Because you may
say that Fishel had never yet taken in anything "out of
doors," he had only perceived it accidentally, by the way,
as he hurried from Cheder to the house-of-study, and
from the house-of-study to Cheder. The beautiful blue
Bug between the two lines of imposing hills, the mur-
mur of the winding rivulets as they poured down the
hillsides, the roar of the ever-deepening spring-flow, the
light of the setting sun, the glittering cupola of the
convent, the wholesome smell of Passover-Eve-tide out
of doors, and, above all, the being so close to home and
not able to get there — all these things lent wings, as
it were, to Fishel's spirit, and he was borne into a new
world, the world of imagination, and crossing the Bug
seemed the merest trifle, if only the Almighty were
willing to perform a fraction of a miracle on his behalf.

Such and like thoughts floated in and out of Fishel's
head, and lifted him into the air, and so far across the
river, he never realized that it was night, and the stars
came out, and a cool wind blew in under his cloak to
his little prayer-scarf, and Fishel was busy with things
that he had never so much as dreamt of : earthly things
and Heavenly things, the great size of the beautiful
world, the Almighty as Creator of the earth, and so on.

Fishel spent a bad night in Prokop's house — such a
night as he hoped never to spend again. The next
morning broke with a smile from the bright and cheer-
ful sun. It was a singularly fine day, and so sweetly
warm that all the snow left melted into kasha, and

FISHEL THE TEACHER 135

the kasha, into water, and this water poured into the
Bug from all sides; and the Bug became clearer, light
blue, full and smooth, and the large bits of ice that
looked like dreadful wild beasts, like white elephants
hurrying and tearing along as if they were afraid of
being late, grew rarer.

Fishel the teacher recited the Morning Prayer, break-
fasted on the last piece of leavened bread left in his
prayer-scarf bag, and went out to the river to see about
the ferry. Imagine his feelings when he heard that the
ferry-boat would not begin running before Sunday after-
noon ! He clapped both hands to his head, gesticulated
with every limb, and fell to abusing Prokop. Why had
he given him hopes of the ferry-boat's crossing next day ?
Whereupon Prokop answered quite coolly that he had
said nothing about crossing with the ferry, he was
talking of taking him across in a small boat ! And that
he could still do, if Fishel wished, in a sail-boat,
in a rowboat, in a raft, and the fare was not less than
one ruble.

"A raft, a rowboat, anything you like, only don't let
me spend the festival away from home !"

Thus Fishel, and he was prepared to give him two
rubles then and there, to give his life for the holy
festival, and he began to drive Prokop into getting out
the raft at once, and taking him across in the direction
of Chaschtschevate, where Bath-sheba, Froike, and
Resele are already looking out for him. It may be they
are standing on the opposite hills, that they see him,
and make signs to him, waving their hands, that they
call to him, only one can neither see them nor hear

136 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

their voices, because the river is wide, dreadfully wide,
wider than ever!

The sun was already half-way up the deep, blue sky,
when Prokop told Fishel to get into the little trough
of a boat, and when Fishel heard him, he lost all power
in his feet and hands, and was at a loss what to do, for
never in his life had he been in a rowboat, never in
his life had he been in any small boat. And it seemed
to him the thing had only to dip a little to one side,
and all would be over.

"Jump in, and off we'll go !" said Prokop once more,
and with a turn of his oar he brought the boat still
closer in, and took Fishel's bundle out of his hands.

Fishel the teacher drew his coat-skirts neatly together,
and began to perform circles without moving from the
spot, hesitating whether to jump or not. On the one
hand were Passover Eve, Bath-sheba, Froike, Resele, the
bath, the home service, himself as king; on the other,
peril of death, the Destroying Angel, suicide — because
one dip and — good-by, Fishel, peace be upon him !

And Fishel remained circling there with his folded
skirts, till Prokop lost patience and said, another
minute, and he should set out and be off to Chasch-
tschevate without him. At the beloved word "Chasch-
tschevate/' Fishel called his dear ones to mind, sum-
moned the whole of his courage, and fell into the boat.
I say "fell in," because the instant his foot touched the
bottom of the boat, it slipped, and Fishel, thinking he
was falling, drew back, and this drawing back sent him
headlong forward into the boat-bottom, where he lay
stretched out for some minutes before recovering his

FISHEL THE TEACHEK 137

wits, and for a long time after his face was livid, and
his hands shook, while his heart beat like a clock, tik-
tik-tak, tik-tik-tak!

Prokop meantime sat in the prow as though he were
at home. He spit into his hands, gave a stroke with the
oar to the left, a stroke to the right, and the boat
glided over the shining water, and Fishel's head spun
round as he sat. As he sat? No, he hung floating,
suspended in the air! One false movement, and that
which held him would give way; one lean to the side,
and he would be in the water and done with! At this
thought, the words came into his mind, "And they
sank like lead in the mighty waters," and his hair
stood on end at the idea of such a death. How? Not
even to be buried with the dead of Israel? • And he
bethought himself to make a vow to — to do what? To
give money in charity? He had none to give — he was
a very, very poor man! So he vowed that if God
would bring him home in safety, he would sit up whole
nights and study, go through the whole of the Talmud
in one year, God willing, with God's help.

Fishel would dearly have liked to know if it were
much further to the other side, and found himself
seated, as though on purpose, with his face to Prokop
and his back to Chaschtsc'hevate. And he dared not open
his mouth to ask. It seemed to him that his very
voice would cause the boat to rock, and one rock — good-
by, Fishel ! But Prokop opened his mouth of his own
accord, and began to speak. He said there was nothing
worse when you were on the water than a thaw. It
made it impossible, he said, to row straight ahead;

138 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

one had to adapt one's course to the ice, to row round
and round and backwards.

"There's a bit of ice making straight for us now."

Thus Prokop, and he pulled back and let pass a
regular ice-floe, which swam by with a singular rocking
motion and a sound that Fishel had never seen or heard
before. And then he began to understand what a wild
adventure this journey was, and he would have given
goodness knows what to be safe on shore, even on the
one they had left.

"0, you see that?" asked Prokop, and pointed up-
stream.

Fishel raised his eyes slowly, was afraid of moving
much, and looked and looked, and saw nothing but
water, water, and water.

"There's a big one coming down on us now, we must
make a dash for it, for it's too late to row back."

So said Prokop, and rowed away with both hands,
and the boat glided and slid like a fish through the
water, and Fishel felt cold in every limb. He would
have liked to question, but was afraid of interfering.
However, again Prokop spoke of himself.

"If we don't win by a minute, it will be the worse
for us."

Fishel can now no longer contain himself, and asks:

"How do you mean, the worse?"

"We shall be done for," says Prokop.

"Done for?"

"Done for."

"How do you mean, done for?" persists Fishel.

"I mean, it will grind us."

"Grind us?"

FISHEL THE TEACHER 139

"Grind us."

Fishel does not understand what "grind us, grind us"
may signify, but it has a sound of finality, of the next
world, about it, and Fishel is bathed in a cold sweat,
and again the words come into his head, "And they
sank like lead in the mighty waters."

And Prokop, as though to quiet our Fishel's mind,
tells him a comforting story of how, years ago at this
time, the Bug broke through the ice, and the ferry-
boat could not be used, and there came to him another
person to be rowed across, an excise official from Uman,
quite a person of distinction, and offered a large sum;
and they had the bad luck to meet two huge pieces of
ice, and he rowed to the right, in between the floes,
intending to slip through upwards, and he made an
involuntary side motion with the boat, and they went
flop into the water! Fortunately, he, Prokop, could
swim, but the official came to grief, and the fare-
money, too.

"It was good-by to my fare!" ended Prokop, with
a sigh, and Fishel shuddered, and his tongue dried up,
so that he could neither speak nor utter the slightest
sound.

In the very middle of the river, just as they were
rowing along quite smoothly, Prokop suddenly stopped,
and looked — and looked — up the stream; then he laid
down the oars, drew a bottle out of his pocket, tilted
it into his mouth, sipped out of it two or three times,
put it back, and explained to Fishel that he had always
to take a few sips of the "bitter drop," otherwise he
felt bad when on the water. And he wiped his

140 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

mouth, took the oars in hand again, and said, having
crossed himself three times :

"Now for a race !"

A race? With whom? With what? Fishel did not
understand, and was afraid to ask; but again he felt
the brush of the Death Angel's wing, for Prokop had
gone down onto his knees, and was rowing with might
and main. Moreover, he said to Fishel, and pointed
to the bottom of the boat:

"Kebbe, lie down !"

Fishel understood that he was to lie down, and did
not need to be told twice. For now he had seen a
whole host of floes coming down upon them, a world
of ice, and he shut his eyes, flung himself face down-
wards in the boat, and lay trembling like a lamb, and
recited in a low voice, "Hear, 0 Israel !" and the Confes-
sion, thought on the graves of Israel, and fancied that
now, now he lies in the abyss of the waters, now, now
comes a fish and swallows him, like Jonah the prophet
when he fled to Tarshish, and he remembers Jonah's
prayer, and sings softly and with tears :

"Affofuni mayyim ad nofesh — the waters have reached
unto my soul; tehom yesoveveni — the deep hath covered
me!"

Fishel the teacher sang and wept and thought piti-
fully of his widowed wife and his orphaned children,
and Prokop rowed for all he was worth, and sang his
little song:

"0 thou maiden with the black lashes !"

And Prokop felt the same on the water as on dry
land, and Fishel's "Affofuni" and Prokop's "0 maiden"

FISHEL THE TEACHEE 141

blended into one, and a strange song sounded over the
Bug, a kind of duet, which had never been heard there
before.

"The black year knows why he is so afraid of death,
that Jew," so wondered Prokop Baranyuk, "a poor
tattered little Jew like him, a creature I would not
give this old boat for, and so afraid of death !"

The shore reached, Prokop gave Fishel a shove in
the side with his boot, and Fishel started. The Gentile
burst out laughing, but Fishel did not hear, Fishel went
on reciting the Confession, saying Kaddish for his own
soul, and mentally contemplating the graves of Israel !

"Get up, you silly Rebbe! We're there — in Chasch-
tschevate !"

Slowly, slowly, Fishel raised his head, and gazed
around him with red and swollen eyes.

"Chasch-tsche-va-te ? ? ? "

"Chaschtschevate ! Give me the ruble, Rebbe !"

Fishel crawls out of the boat, and, finding himself
really at home, does not know what to do for joy.
Shall he run into the town? Shall he go dancing?
Shall he first thank and praise God who has brought
him safe out of such great peril ? He pays the Gentile
his fare, takes up his bundle under his arm and is
about to run home, the quicker the better, but he
pauses a moment first, and turns to Prokop the ferry-
man:

"Listen, Prokop, dear heart, to-morrow, please God,
you'll come and drink a glass of brandy, and taste
festival fish at Fishel the teacher's, for Heaven's sake !"
10

142 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

"Shall I say no ? Am I such a fool ?" replied Prokop,
licking his lips in anticipation at the thought of the
Passover brandy he would sip, and the festival fish he
would delectate himself with on the morrow.

And Prokop gets back into his boat, and pulls quietly
home again, singing a little song, and pitying the poor
Jew who was so afraid of death. "The Jewish faith is
the same as the Mahommedan !" and it seems to him a
very foolish one. And Fishel is thinking almost the
same thing, and pities the Gentile on account of his
religion. "What knows he, yon poor Gentile, of such
holy promises as were made to us Jews, the beloved
people !"

And Fishel the teacher hastens uphill, through the
Chaschtschevate mud. He perspires with the exertion,
and yet he does not feel the ground beneath his feet.
He flies, he floats, he is going home, home to his dear
ones, who are on the watch for him as for Messiah,
who look for him to return in health, to seat himself
upon his kingly throne and reign.

Look, Jews, and turn respectfully aside! Fishel the
teacher has come home to Chaschtschevate, and seated
himself upon the throne of his kingdom !

AN EASY FAST

That which Doctor Tanner failed to accomplish,
was effectually carried out by Chayyim Chaikin, a
simple Jew in a small town in Poland.

Doctor Tanner wished to show that a man can fast
forty days, and he only managed to get through twenty-
eight, no more, and that with people pouring spoon-
fuls of water into his mouth, and giving him morsels
of ice to swallow, and holding his pulse — a whole busi-
ness! Chayyim Chaikin has proved that one can fast
more than forty days; not, as a rule, two together, one
after the other, but forty days, if not more, in the course
of a year.

To fast is all he asks!

Who said drops of water? Who said ice? Not for
him! To fast means no food and no drink from one
set time to the other, a real four-and-twenty-hours.

And no doctors sit beside him and hold his pulse,
whispering, "Hush! Be quiet!"

Well, let us hear the tale !

Chayyim Chaikin is a very poor man, encumbered
with many children, and they, the children, support
him.

They are mostly girls, and they work in a factory
and make cigarette wrappers, and they earn, some one
gulden, others half a gulden, a day, and that not every
day. How about Sabbaths and festivals and "shtreik"
days? One should thank God for everything, even in

144 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

their out-of-the-way little town strikes are all the fash-
ion!

And out of that they have to pay rent — for a damp
corner in a basement.

To buy clothes and shoes for the lot of them ! They
have a dress each, but they are two to every pair of
shoes.

And then food — such as it is ! A bit of bread smeared
with an onion, sometimes groats, occasionally there is a
bit of taran that burns your heart out, so that after
eating it for supper, you can drink a whole night.

When it comes to eating, the bread has to be por-
tioned out like cake.

"Oi, dos Essen, dos Essen seiers!"

Thus Chaike, Chayyim Chaikin's wife, a poor, sick
creature, who coughs all night long.

"No evil eye," says the father, and he looks at his
children devouring whole slices of bread, and would
dearly like to take a mouthful himself, only, if he does
so, the two little ones, Fradke and Beilke, will go sup-
perless.

And he cuts his portion of bread in two, and gives
it to the little ones, Fradke and Beilke.

Fradke and Beilke stretch out their little thin, black
hands, look into their father's eyes, and don't believe
him: perhaps he is joking? Children are nashers, they
play with father's piece of bread, till at last they begin
taking bites out of it. The mother sees and exclaims,
coughing all the while :

"It is nothing but eating and stuffing!"

AN EASY FAST 145

The father cannot bear to hear it, and is about to
answer her, but he keeps silent — he can't say anything,
it is not for him to speak! Who is he in the house?
A broken potsherd, the last and least, no good to any-
one, no good to them, no good to himself.

Because the fact is he does nothing, absolutely noth-
ing; not because he won't do anything, or because it
doesn't befit him, but because there is nothing to do —
and there's an end of it ! The whole townlet complains
of there being nothing to do! It is just a crowd of
Jews driven together. Delightful! They're packed
like herrings in a barrel, they squeeze each other close,
all for love.

"Well-a-day !" thinks Chaikin, "it's something to have
children, other people haven't even that. But to depend
on one's children is quite another thing and not a
happy one!" Not that they grudge him his keep —
Heaven forbid ! But he cannot take it from them, he
really cannot !

He knows how hard they work, he knows how the
strength is wrung out of them to the last drop, he
knows it well!

Every morsel of bread is a bit of their health and
strength — he drinks his children's blood! No, the
thought is too dreadful!

"Tatinke, why don't you eat?" ask the children.

"To-day is a fast day with me," answers Chayyim
Chaikin.

"Another fast? How many fasts have you?"

"Not so many as there are days in the week."

146 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

And Chayyim Chaikin speaks the truth when he says
that he has many fasts, and yet there are days on which
he eats.

But he likes the days on which he fasts better.

First, they are pleasing to God, and it means a
little bit more of the world-to-come, the interest grows,
and the capital grows with it.

"Secondly" (he thinks), "no money is wasted on me.
Of course, I am accountable to no one, and nobody
ever questions me as to how I spend it, but what do I
want money for, when I can get along without it ?

"And what is the good of feeling one's self a little
higher than a beast ? A beast eats every day, but I can
go without food for one or two days. A man should be
above a beast !

"0, if a man could only raise himself to a level
where he could live without eating at all ! But there
are one's confounded insides!" So thinks Chayyim
Chaikin, for hunger has made a philosopher of him.

"The insides, the necessity of eating, these are the
causes of the world's evil! The insides and the neces-
sity of eating have made a pauper of me, and drive my
children to toil in the sweat of their brow and risk
their lives for a bit of bread!

"Suppose a man had no need to eat ! Ai — ai — ai !
My children would all stay at home! An end to toil,
an end to moil, an end to 'shtreikeven,' an end to the
risking of life, an end to factory and factory owners,
to rich men and paupers, an end to jealousy and hatred
and fighting and shedding of blood ! All gone and done
with! Gone and done with! A paradise! a paradise!"

AN EASY FAST 147

So reasons Chayyim Chaikin, and, lost in speculation,
he pities the world, and is grieved to the heart to think
that God should have made man so little above the
beast.

The day on which Chayyim Chaikin fasts is, as I told
you, his best day, and a real fast day, like the Ninth of
Ab, for instance — he is ashamed to confess it — is a
festival for him !

You see, it means not to eat, not to be a beast, not
to be guilty of the children's blood, to earn the reward
of a Mitzveh, and to weep to heart's content on the
ruins of the Temple.

For how can one weep when one is full? How can
a full man grieve? Only he can grieve whose soul
is faint within him ! The good year knows how some
folk answer it to their conscience, giving in to their
insides — afraid of fasting! Buy them a groschen worth
of oats, for charity's sake !

Thus would Chayyim Chaikin scorn those who bought
themselves off the fast, and dropped a hard coin into
the collecting box.

The Ninth of Ab is the hardest fast of all — so the
world has it.

Chayyim Chaikin cannot see why. The day is long,
is it? Then the night is all the shorter. It's hot out
of doors, is it? Who asks you to go loitering about in
the sun? Sit in the Shool and recite the prayers, of
which, thank God, there are plenty.

"I tell you," persists Chayyim Chaikin, "that the
Ninth of Ab is the easiest of the fasts, because it is
the best, the very best !

148 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

"For instance, take the Day of Atonement fast! It
is written, 'And you shall mortify your bodies.' What
for ? To get a clean bill and a good year.

"It doesn't say that you are to fast on the Ninth
of Ab, but you fast of your own accord, because how
could you eat on the day when the Temple was wrecked,
and Jews were killed, women ripped up, and children
dashed to pieces?

"It doesn't say that you are to weep on the Ninth
of Ab, but you do weep. How could anyone restrain
his tears when he thinks of what we lost that day ?"

"The pity is, there should be only one Ninth of Ab !"
says Chayyim 'Chaikin.

"Well, and the Seventeenth of Tammuz!" suggests
some one.

"And there is only one Seventeenth of Tammuz!"
answers Chayyim Chaikin, with a sigh.

"Well, and the Fast of Gedaliah? and the Fast of
Esther?" continues the same person.

"Only one of each!" and Chayyim Chaikin sighs
again.

E, Eeb Chayyim, you are greedy for fasts, are you?"

"More fasts, more fasts!" says Chayyim Chaikin,
and he takes upon himself to fast on the eve of the
Ninth of Ab as well, two days at a stretch.

What do you think of fasting two days in succession ?
Isn't that a treat? It is hard enough to have to break
one's fast after the Ninth of Ab, without eating on
the eve thereof as well.

One forgets that one has insides, that such a thing
exists as the necessity to eat, and one is free of the
habit that drags one down to the level of the beast.

AN EASY FAST 149

The difficulty lies in the drinking! I mean, in the
not drinking. "If I" (thinks Chayyim Chaikin)
"allowed myself one glass of water a day, I could fast
a whole week till Sabbath."

You think I say that for fun ? Not at all ! Chayyirn
Chaikin is a man of his word. When he says a thing,
it's said and done! The whole week preceding the
Ninth of Ab he ate nothing, he lived on water.

Who should notice? His wife, poor thing, is sick,
the elder children are out all day in the factory, and
the younger ones do not understand. Fradke and
Beilke only know when they are hungry (and they are
always hungry), the heart yearns within them, and
they want to eat.

"To-day you shall have an extra piece of bread,"
says the father, and cuts his own in two, and Fradke
and Beilke stretch out their dirty little hands for it,
and are overjoyed.

"Tatinke, you are not eating," remark the elder girls
at supper, "this is not a fast day!"

"And no more do I fast!" replies the father, and
thinks: "That was a take-in, but not a lie, because,
after all, a glass of water — that is not eating and not
fasting, either."

When it comes to the eve of the Ninth of Ab, Chay-
yim feels so light and airy as he never felt before,
not because it is time to prepare for the fast by taking
a meal, not because he may eat. On the contrary, he
feels that if he took anything solid into his mouth, it
would not go down, but stick in his throat.

That is, his heart is very sick, and his hands and
feet shake ; his body is attracted earthwards, his strength

150 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

fails, he feels like fainting. But fie, what an idea ! To
fast a whole week, to arrive at the eve of the Ninth of
Ab, and not hold out to the end ! Never !

And Chayyim Chaikin takes his portion of bread
and potato, calls Fradke and Beilke, and whispers :

"Children, take this and eat it, but don't let Mother
see!"

And Fradke and Beilke take their father's share of
food, and look wonderingly at his livid face and shaking
hands.

Chayyim sees the children snatch at the bread and
munch and swallow, and he shuts his eyes, and rises
from his place. He cannot wait for the other girls
to come home from the factory, but takes his book of
Lamentations, puts off his shoes, and drags himself —
it is all he can do — to the Shool.

He is nearly the first to arrive. He secures a seat
next the reader, on an overturned bench, lying with
its feet in the air, and provides himself with a bit of
burned-down candle, which he glues with its drippings
to the foot of the bench, leans against the corner of
the platform, opens his book, "Lament for Zion and all
the other towns," and he closes his eyes and sees Zion
robed in black, with a black veil over her face, lament-
ing and weeping and wringing her hands, mourning
for her children who fall daily, daily, in foreign lands,
for other men's sins.

" And wilt not thou, 0 Zion, ask of me

Some tidings of the children from thee reft?
I bring thee greetings over land and sea,
From those remaining — from the remnant left! "

And he opens his eyes and sees :

AN EASY FAST l5l

A bright sunbeam has darted in through the dull, dusty
window-pane, a beam of the sun which is setting yonder
behind the town. And though he shuts them again, he
still sees the beam, and not only the beam, but the
whole sun, the bright, beautiful sun, and no one can
see it but him ! Chayyim 'Chaikiu looks at the sun and
sees it — and that's all ! How is it ? It must be because
he has done with the world and its necessities — he feels
happy — he feels light — he can bear anything — he will
have an easy fast — do you know, he will have an easy
fast, an easy fast !

Chayyim Chaikin shuts his eyes, and sees a strange
world, a new world, such as he never saw before. Angels
seem to hover before his eyes, and he looks at them, and
recognizes his children in them, all his children, big
and little, and he wants to say something to them, and
cannot speak — he wants to explain to them, that he
cannot help it — it is not his fault! How should it,
no evil eye ! be his fault, that so many Jews are gathered
together in one place and squeeze each other, all for
love, squeeze each other to death for love? How can
he help it, if people desire other people's sweat, other
people's blood? if people have not learned to see that
one should not drive a man as a horse is driven to work ?
that a horse is also to be pitied, one of God's creatures,
a living thing?

And Chayyim Chaikin keeps his eyes shut, and sees,
sees everything. And everything is bright and light,
and curls like smoke, and he feels something is going
out of him, from inside, from his heart, and is drawn
upward and loses itself from the body, and he feels

152 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

very light, very, very light, and he gives a sigh — a long,
deep sigh — and feels still lighter, and after that he
feels nothing at all — absolutely nothing at all —
Yes, he has an easy fast.

When Bare the beadle, a red-haired Jew with thick
lips, came into the Shool in his socks with the worn-
down heels, and saw Chayyim Chaikin leaning with his
head back, and his eyes open, he was angry, thought
Chayyim was dozing, and he began to grumble :

"He ought to be ashamed of himself — reclining
like that — came here for a nap, did he ? — Reb Chayyim,
excuse me, Reb Chayyim ! "

But Chayyim Chaikin did not hear him.

The last rays of the Bun streamed in through the
Shool window, right onto Chayyim Chaikin's quiet
face with the black, shining, curly hair, the. black, bushy
brows, the half-open, black, kindly eyes, and lit the
dead, pale, still, hungry face through and through.

I told you how it would be: Chayyim Chaikin had
an easy fast !

THE PASSOVEE GUEST

"I have a Passover guest for you, Reb Yoneh, such
a guest as you never had since you became a house-
holder."

"What sort is he?"

"A real Oriental citron !"

"What does that mean?"

"It means a 'silken Jew/ a personage of distinction.
The only thing against him is — he doesn't speak our
language."

"What does he speak, then?"

"Hebrew."

"Is he from Jerusalem?"

"I don't know where he comes from, but his words
are full of a's."

Such was the conversation that took place between
my father and the beadle, a day before Passover, and
I was wild with curiosity to see the "guest" who didn't
understand Yiddish, and who talked with a's. I had
already noticed, in synagogue, a strange-looking indi-
vidual, in a fur cap, and a Turkish robe striped blue,
red, and yellow. We boys crowded round him on all
sides, and stared, and then caught it hot from the
beadle, who said children had no business "to creep
into a stranger's face" like that. Prayers over, every-
one greeted the stranger, and wished him a happy
Passover, and he, with a sweet smile on his red cheeks

154 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

set in a round grey beard, replied to each one, "Shalom !
Shalom!" instead of our Sholom. This "Shalom!
Shalom !" of his sent us boys into fits of laughter. The
beadle grew very angry, and pursued us with slaps.
We eluded him, and stole deviously back to the stranger,
listened to his "Shalom ! Shalom !" exploded with
laughter, and escaped anew from the hands of the beadle.

I am puffed up with pride as I follow my father and
his guest to our house, and feel how all my comrades
envy me. They stand looking after us, and every now
and then I turn my head, and put out my tongue at
them. The walk home is silent. When we arrive, my
father greets my mother with "a happy Passover !" and
the guest nods his head so that his fur cap shakes.
"Shalom ! Shalom !" he says. I think of my comrades,
and hide my head under the table, not to burst out
laughing. But I shoot continual glances at the guest,
and his appearance pleases me; I like his Turkish robe,
striped yellow, red, and blue, his fresh, red cheeks set
in a curly grey beard, 'his beautiful black eyes that
look out so pleasantly from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
And I see that my father is pleased with him, too,
that he is delighted with him. My mother looks at
him as though he were something more than a man,
and no one speaks to him but my father, who offers
him the cushioned reclining-seat at table.

Mother is taken up with the preparations for the
Passover meal, and Eikel the maid is helping her. It
is only when the time comes for saying Kiddush that
my father and the guest hold a Hebrew conversation.
I am proud to find that I understand nearly every
word of it. Here it is in full.

THE PASSOVER GUEST 155

My father :"Nu?" (That means, "Won't you please
say Kiddush?")

The guest: "Nu-nu!" (meaning, "Say it rather your-
self !")

My father: "Nu-0?" ("Why not you?")
The guest: "0-nu?" ("Why should I?")
My father: "1-0 !" ("You first!")
The guest: "0-ai !" ("You first!")
My father: "E-o-i !" ("I beg of you to say it!")
The guest: "Ai-o-e!" ("I beg of you!")
My father: "Ai-e-o-nu?" ("Why should you refuse?")
The guest: "Oi-o-e-nu-nu !" ("If you insist, then I
must.")

And the guest took the cup of wine from my father's
hand, and recited a Kiddush. But what a Kiddush ! A
Kiddush such as we had never heard before, and shall
never hear again. First, the Hebrew — all a's. Secondly,
the voice, which seemed to come, not out of his beard,
but out of the striped Turkish robe. I thought of
my comrades, how they would have laughed, what slaps
would have rained down, had they been present at that
Kiddush.

Being alone, I was able to contain myself. I asked
my father the Four Questions, and we all recited the
Haggadah together. And I was elated to think that
such a guest was ours, and no one else's.

II

Our sage who wrote that one should not talk at meals
(may he forgive me for saying so !) did not know Jewish
life. When shall a Jew find time to talk, if not during

156 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

a meal ? Especially at Passover, when there is so much
to say before the meal and after it. Eikel the maid
handed the water, we washed our hands, repeated the
Benediction, mother helped us to fish, and my father
turned up his sleeves, and started a long Hebrew talk
with the guest. He began with the first question one
Jew asks another:

"What is your name?"

To which the guest replied all in a's and all in one
breath :

"Ayak Bakar Gashal Damas Hanoch Vassam Za'an
Chafaf Tatzatz."

My father remained with his fork in the air, staring
in •amazement at the possessor of so long a name. I
coughed and looked under the table, and my mother
said, "Favele, you should be careful eating fish, or you
might be choked with a bone," while she gazed at our
guest with awe. She appeared overcome by his name,
although unable to understand it. My father, who
understood, thought it necessary to explain it to her.

"You see, Ayak Bakar, that is our Alef-Bes inverted.
It is apparently their custom to name people after the
alphabet."

"Alef-Bes! Alef-Bes!" repeated the guest with the
sweet smile on his red cheeks, and his beautiful black
eyes rested on us all, including Rikel the maid, in the
most friendly fashion.

Having learnt his name, my father was anxious to
know whence, from what land, he came. I understood
this from the names of countries and towns which I
caught, and from what my father translated for my

THE PASSOVER GUEST 157

mother, giving her a Yiddish version of nearly every
phrase. And my mother was quite overcome by every
single thing she heard, and Eikel the maid was over-
come likewise. And no wonder! It is not every day
that a person comes from perhaps two thousand miles
away, from a land only to be reached across seven seas
and a desert, the desert journey alone requiring forty
days and nights. And when you get near to the land,
you have to climb a mountain of which the top reaches
into the clouds, and this is covered with ice, and dread-
ful winds blow there, so that there is peril of death!
But once the mountain is safely climbed, and the land is
reached, one beholds a terrestrial Eden. Spices, cloves,
herbs, and every kind of fruit — apples, pears, and
oranges, grapes, dates, and olives, nuts and quantities
of figs. And the houses there are all built of deal, and
roofed with silver, the furniture is gold (here the guest
cast a look at our silver cups, spoons, forks, and knives),
and brilliants, pearls, and diamonds bestrew the roads,
and no one cares to take the trouble of picking them up,
they are of no value there. (He was looking at my
mother's diamond ear-rings, and at the pearls round
her white neck.)

"You hear that ?" my father asked her, with a happy
face.

"I hear," she answered, and added: "Why don't they
bring some over here? They could make money by it.
Ask him that, Yoneh !"

My father did so, and translated the answer for my
mother's benefit :

"You see, when you arrive there, you may take what
you like, but when you leave the country, you must
11

158 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

leave everything in it behind, too, and if they shake out
of you no matter what, you are done for."

"What do you mean?" questioned my mother, ter-
rified.

"I mean, they either hang you on a tree, or they
stone you with stones."

Ill

The more tales our guest told us, the more thrilling
they became, and just as we were finishing the dump-
lings and taking another sip or two of wine, my father
inquired to whom the country belonged. Was there a
king there? And he was soon translating, with great
delight, the following reply:

"The country belongs to the Jews who live there, and
who are called Sefardim. And they have a king, also
a Jew, and a very pious one, who wears a fur cap, and
who is called Joseph ben Joseph. He is the high priest
of the Sefardim, and drives out in a gilded carriage,
drawn by six fiery horses. And when he enters the
synagogue, the Levites meet him with songs."

"There are Levites who sing in your synagogue?"
asked my father, wondering, and the answer caused his
face to shine with joy.

"What do you think?" he said to my mother. "Our
guest tells me that in his country there is a temple,
with priests and Levites and an organ."

"Well, and an altar?" questioned my mother, and
my father told her:

"He says they have an altar, and sacrifices, he says,
and golden vessels — everything just as we used to have
it in Jerusalem."

THE PASSOVER GUEST 159

And with these words my father sighs deeply, and
my mother, as she looks at 'him, sighs also, and I cannot
understand the reason. Surely we should be proud and
glad to think we have such a land, ruled over by a
Jewish king and high priest, a land with Levites and
an organ, with an altar and sacrifices — and bright,
sweet thoughts enfold me, and carry me away as on
wings to that happy Jewish land where the houses are
of pine-wood and roofed with silver, where the furniture
is gold, and diamonds and pearls lie scattered in the
street. And I feel sure, were I really there, I should
know what to do — I should know how to hide things —
they would shake nothing out of me. I should certainly
bring home a lovely present for my mother, diamond
ear-rings and several pearl necklaces. I look at the one
mother is wearing, at her ear-rings, and I feel a great
desire to be in that country. And it occurs to me, that
after Passover I will travel there with our guest,
secretly, no one shall know. I will only speak of it
to our guest, open my heart to him, tell him the whole
truth, and beg him to take me there, if only for a little
while. He will certainly do so, he is a very kind and
approachable person, he looks at every one, even at Rikel
the maid, in such a friendly, such a very friendly way !

"So I think, and it seems to me, as I watch our
guest, that he has read my thoughts, and that his
beautiful black eyes say to me :

"Keep it dark, little friend, wait till after Passover,
then we shall manage it !"

160 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

IV

I dreamt all night long. I dreamt of a desert, a
temple, a high priest, and a tall mountain. I climb
the mountain. Diamonds and pearls grow on the trees,
and my comrades sit on the boughs, and shake the
jewels down onto the ground, whole showers of them,
and I stand and gather them, and stuff them into my
pockets, and, strange to say, however many I stuff in,
there is still room! I stuff and stuff, and still there
is room! I put my hand into my pocket, and draw
out — not pearls and brilliants, but fruits of all kinds —
apples, pears, oranges, olives, dates, nuts, and figs. This
makes me very unhappy, and I toss from side to side.
Then I dream of the temple, I hear the priests chant,
and the Levites sing, and the organ play. I want to
go inside and I cannot — Bikel the maid has hold of me,
and will not let me go. I beg of her and scream and
cry, and again I am very unhappy, and toss from side
to side. I wake — and see my father and mother stand-
ing there, half dressed, both pale, my father hanging
his head, and my mother wringing her hands, and with
her soft eyes full of tears. I feel at once that something
has gone very wrong, very wrong indeed, but my childish
head is incapable of imagining the greatness of the
disaster.

The fact is this: our guest from beyond the desert
and the seven seas has disappeared, and a lot of things
have disappeared with him: all the silver wine-cups,
all the silver spoons, knives, and forks; all my mother's
ornaments, all the money that happened to be in the
house, and also Eikel the maid !

THE PASSOVER GUEST 161

A pang goes through my heart. Not on account of
the silver cups, the silver spoons, knives, and forks that
have vanished; not on account of mother's ornaments
or of the money, still less on account of Rikel the maid,
a good riddance! But because of the happy, happy
land whose roads were strewn with brilliants, pearls,
and diamonds; because of the temple with the priests,
the Levites, and the organ; because of the altar and
the sacrifices; because of all the other beautiful things
that have been taken from me, taken, taken, taken !

I turn my face to the wall, and cry quietly to myself.

GYMNASIYE

A man's worst enemy, I tell you, will never do him
the harm he does himself, especially when a woman
interferes, that is, a wife. Whom do you think I have
in mind when I say that ? My own self ! Look at me
and think. What would you take me for? Just an
ordinary Jew. It doesn't say on my nose whether I
have money, or not, or whether I am very low indeed,
does it?

It may be that I once had money, and not only that —
money in itself is nothing — but I can tell you, I earned
a living, and that respectably and quietly, without worry
and flurry, not like some people who like to live in a
whirl.

No, my motto is, "More haste, less speed."

I traded quietly, went bankrupt a time or two quietly,
and quietly went to work again. But there is a God in
the world, and He blessed me with a wife — as she isn't
here, we can speak openly — a wife like any other, that
is, at first glance she isn't so bad — not at all ! In person,
(no evil eye!) twice my height; not an ugly woman,
quite a beauty, you may say; an intelligent woman,
quite a man — and that's the whole trouble ! Oi, it isn't
good when the wife is a man! The Almighty knew
what He was about when, at the creation, he formed
Adam first and then Eve. But what's the use of telling
her that, when she says, "If the Almighty created Adam
first and then Eve, that's His affair, but if he put more

GYMNASIYE 163

sense into my heel than into your head, no more am
I to blame for that !"

"What is all this about?" say I.— "It's about that
which should be first and foremost with you." says she

•/ 7 »/

"But I have to be the one to think of everything — even
about sending the boy to the Gymnasiye !" — "Where,"
say I, "is it 'written' that my boy should go to the
Gymnasiye? Can I not afford to have him taught
Torah at home?" — "I've told you a hundred and fifty
times," says she, "that you won't persuade me to go
against the world! And the world," says she, "has
decided that children should go to the Gymnasiye." — "In
my opinion," say I, "the world is mad!" — "And you,"
says she, "are the only sane person in it ? A pretty thing
it would be," says she, "if the world were to follow
you !" — "Every man," say I, "should decide on his own
course." — "If my enemies," says she, "and my friends'
enemies, had as little in pocket and bag, in box and
chest, as you have in your head, the world would be
a different place." — "Woe to the man," say I, "who
needs to be advised by his wife!" — "And woe to the
wife," says she, "who has that man to her husband !" —
Now if you can argue with a woman who, when you say
one thing, maintains the contrary, when you give her
one word, treats you to a dozen, and who, if you bid
her shut up, cries, or even, I beg of you, faints — well,
I envy you, that's all ! In short, up and down, this way
and that way, she got the best of it — she, not I, because
the fact is, when she wants a thing, it has to be !

Well, what next? Gymnasiye! The first thing was
to prepare the boy for the elementary class in the

164 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Junior Preparatory. I must say, I did not see anything
very alarming in that. It seemed to me that anyone
of our Cheder boys, an Alef-Bes scholar, could tuck it
all into his belt, especially a boy like mine, for whose
equal you might search an empire, and not find him.
I am a father, not of you be it said! but that boy has
a memory that beats everything! To cut a long story
short, he went up for examination and — did not pass!
You ask the reason? He only got a two in arithmetic;
they said he was weak at calculation, in the science of
mathematics. What do you think of that? He has a
memory that beats everything! I tell you, you might
search an empire for his like — and they come talking
to me about mathematics ! Well, he failed to pass, and
it vexed me very much. If he was to go up for exam-
ination, let him succeed. However, being a man and
not a woman, I made up my mind to it — it's a mis-
fortune, but a Jew is used to that. Only what was the
use of talking to her with that bee in her bonnet?
Once for all, Gymnasiye! I reason with her. "Tell
me," say I, "(may you be well !) what is the good of it?
He's safe/' say I, "from military service, being an only
son, and as for Parnosseh, devil I need it for Parnosseh !
What do I care if he does become a trader like his
father, a merchant like the rest of the Jews? If he is
destined to become a rich man, a banker, I don't see
that I'm to be pitied."

Thus do I reason with her as with the wall. "So
much the better," says she, "if he has not been entered
for the Junior Preparatory." — "What now ?" say I.

"Now," says she, "he can go direct to the Senior
Preparatory."

GYMNASIYE 165

Well, Senior Preparatory, there's nothing so terrible
in that, for the boy has a head, I tell you ! You might

search an empire And what was the result?

Well, what do you suppose? Another two instead of a
five, not in mathematics this time — a fresh calamity !
His spelling is not what it should be. That is, he can
spell all right, but he gets a bit mixed with the two Rus-
sian e's. That is, he puts them in right enough, why
shouldn't he? only not in their proper places. Well,
there's a misfortune for you! I guess I won't find the
way to Poltava fair if the child cannot put the e's
where they belong ! When they brought the good news,
she turned the town inside out; ran to the director,
declared that the boy could do it; to prove it, let him
be had up again ! They paid her as much attention as
if she were last year's snow, put a two, and another
sort of two, and a two with a dash! Call me nut-
crackers, but there was a commotion. "Failed again !"
say I to her. "And if so," say I, "what is to be done?
Are we to commit suicide? A Jew," say I, "is used to
that sort of thing," upon which she fired up and blazed
away and stormed and scolded as only she can. But I
let you off! He, poor child, was in a pitiable state.
Talk of cruelty to animals ! Just think : the other boys
in little white buttons, and not he ! I reason with him :
"You little fool! What does it matter? Who ever
heard of an examination at which everyone passed?
Somebody must stay at home, mustn't they ? Then why
not you? There's really nothing to make such a fuss
about." My wife, overhearing, goes off into a fresh
fury, and falls upon me. "A fine comforter you are,"

166 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

says she, "who asked you to console him with that sort
of nonsense? You'd better see about getting him a
proper teacher," says she, "a private teacher, a Eussian,
for grammar !"

You hear that? Now I must have two teachers for
him — one teacher and a Rebbe are not enough. Up and
down, this way and that way, she got the best of it,
as usual.

What next? We engaged a second teacher, a Rus-
sian this time, not a Jew, preserve us, hut a real Gen-
tile, because grammar in the first class, let me tell you,
is no trifle, no shredded horseradish ! Gra-ma-ti-ke,
indeed! The two e's! Well, I was telling about the
teacher that God sent us for our sins. It's enough to
make one blush to remember the way he treated us, as
though we had been the mud under his feet. Laughed
at us to our face, he did, devil take him, and the one
and only thing he could teach him was: tshasnok,
tshasnoka, tshasnoku, tshasnokom. If it hadn't been
for her, I should have had him by the throat, and out
into the street with his blessed grammar. But to her it
was all right and as it should be. Now the boy will
know which e to put. If you'll believe me, they
tormented him through that whole winter, for he was
not to be had up for slaughter till about Pentecost.
Pentecost over, he went up for examination, and this
time he brought home no more two's, but a four and a
five. There was great joy — we congratulate! we con-
gratulate! Wait a bit, don't be in such a hurry with
your congratulations ! We don't- know yet for certain
whether he has got in or not. We shall not know till

GYMNASIYE 167

August. Why not till August? Why not before? Go
and ask them. What is to be done? A Jew is used to
that sort of thing.

August — and I gave a glance out of the corner of my
eye. She was up and doing ! From the director to the
inspector, from the inspector to the director ! "Why
are you running from Shmunin to Bunin," say I, "like
a poisoned mouse ?"

"You asking why?" says she. "Aren't you a native
of this place? You don't seem to know how it is now-
adays with the Gymnasiyes and the percentages ?" And
what came of it ? He did not pass ! You ask why ?
Because he hadn't two fives. If he had had two fives,
then, they say, perhaps he would have got in. You hear
— perhaps ! How do you like that perhaps ? Well, I'll
let you off what I had to bear from her. As for him,
the little boy, it was pitiful. Lay with his face in the
cushion, and never stopped crying till we promised him
another teacher. And we got him a student from the
Gymnasiye itself, to prepare him for the second class,
but after quite another fashion, because the second class
is no joke. In the second, besides mathematics and
grammar, they require geography, penmanship, and I
couldn't for the life of me say what else. I should have
thought a bit of the Maharsho was a more difficult thing
than all their studies put together, and very likely had
more sense in it, too. But what would you have ? A Jew
learns to put up with things.

In fine, there commenced a series of "lessons," of
ourokki. We rose early — the ourokki ! Prayers and
breakfast over — the ourokki. A whole day — ourokki.

168 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

One heard him late at night drumming it over and
over : Nominative — dative — instrumental — vocative ! It
grated so on my ears! I could hardly bear it. Eat?
Sleep ? Not he ! Taking a poor creature and tormenting
it like that, all for nothing, I call it cruelty to animals !
"The child," say I, "will be ill!" "Bite off your
tongue," says she. I was nowhere, and he went up a
second time to the slaughter, and brought home nothing
but fives ! And why not ? I tell you, he has a head —
there isn't his like ! And such a boy for study as never
was, always at it, day and night, and repeating to him-
self between whiles! That's all right then, is it? Was
it all right ? When it came to the point, and they hung
out the names of all the children who were really
entered, we looked — mine wasn't there! Then there
was a screaming and a commotion. What a shame!
And nothing but fives ! Now look at her, now see her go,
see her run, see her do this and that ! In short, she went
and she ran and she did this and that and the other —
until at last they begged her not to worry them any
longer, that is, to tell you the truth, between ourselves,
they turned her out, yes! And after they had turned
her out, then it was she burst into the house, and showed
for the first time, as it were, what she was worth.
"Pray," said she, "what sort of a father are you? If
you were a good father, an affectionate father, like other
fathers, you would have found favor with the director,
patronage, recommendations, this — that !" Like a
woman, wasn't it? It's not enough, apparently, for me
to have my head full of terms and seasons and fairs
and notes and bills of exchange and "protests" and all

GYMNASIYE 169

the rest of it. "Do you want me," say I, "to take over
your Gymnasiye and your classes, things I'm sick of
already ?" Do you suppose she listened to what I said ?
She ? Listen ? She just kept at it, she sawed and filed
and gnawed away like a worm, day and night, day and
night ! "If your wife," says she, "were a wife, and your
child, a child — if I were only of so much account in this
house !"— "Well," say I, "what would happen ?"— "You
would lie," says she, "nine ells deep in the earth. I,"
says she, "would bury you three times a day, so that
you should never rise again!"

How do you like that? Kind, wasn't it? That (how
goes the saying?) was pouring a pailful of water over a
husband for the sake of peace. Of course, you'll under-
stand that I was not silent, either, because, after all,
I'm no more than a man, and every man has his feel-
ings. I assure you, you needn't envy me, and in the
end she carried the day, as usual.

Well, what next? I began currying favor, getting
up an acquaintance, trying this and that; I had to
lower myself in people's eyes and swallow slights, for
every one asked questions, and they had every right to
do so. "You, no evil eye, Eeb Aaron," say they, "are
a householder, and inherited a little something from
your father. What good year is taking you about to
places where a Jew had better not be seen?" Was I
to go and tell them I had a wife (may she live one
hundred and twenty years!) with this on the brain:
Gymnasiye, Gymnasiye, and Gym-na-si-ye ? I (much
good may it do you!) am, as you see me, no more un-
lucky than most people, and with God's help I made

170 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

my way, and got where I wanted, right up to the noble-
man, into his cabinet, yes! And sat down with him
there to talk it over. I thank Heaven, I can talk to any
nobleman, I don't need to have my tongue loosened for
me. "What can I do for you ?" he asks, and bids me be
seated. Say I, and whisper into his ear, "My lord,"
say I, "we," say I, "are not rich people, but we have,"
say I, "a boy, and he wishes to study, and I," say I,
"wish it, too, but my wife wishes it very niuch !" Says
he to me again, "What is it you want ?" Say I to him,
and edge a bit closer, "My dear lord," say I, "we," say
I, "are not rich people, but we have," say I, "a small
fortune, and one remarkably clever boy, who," say I,
"wishes to study; and I," say I, "also wish it, but my
wife wishes it very much!" and I squeeze that "very
much" so that he may understand. But he's a Gentile
and slow-witted, and he doesn't twig, and this time he
asks angrily, "Then, whatever is it you want ? !" I
quietly put my hand into my pocket and quietly take
it out again, and I say quietly: "Pardon me, we," say
I, "are not rich people, but we have a little," say I,
"fortune, and one remarkably clever boy, who," say I,
"wishes to study; and I," say I, "wish it also, but my
wife," say I, "wishes it very much indeed!" and I

take and press into his hand and this time, yes!

he understood, and went and got a note-book, and
asked my name and my son's name, and which class I
wanted him entered for.

"Oho, lies the wind that way ?" think I to myself, and
I give him to understand that I am called Katz, Aaron
Katz, and my son, Moisheh, Moshke we call him, and I

GYMNASIYE 171

want to get him into the third class. Says he to me,
if 1 am Katz, and my son is Moisheh, Moshke we call
him, and he wants to get into class three, I am to
bring him in January, and he will certainly be passed.
You hear and understand? Quite another thing I
Apparently the horse trots as we shoe him. The worst
is having to wait. But what is to be done ? When they
say, Wait ! one waits. A Jew is used to waiting.

January — a fresh commotion, a scampering to and
fro. To-morrow there will be a consultation. The
director and the inspector and all the teachers of the
Gymnasiye will come together, and it's only after the
consultation that we shall know if he is entered or not.
The time for action has come, and my wife is anywhere
but at home. No hot meals, no samovar, no nothing!
She is in the Gymnasiye, that is, not in the Gymnasiye,
but at it, walking round and round it in the frost, from
first thing in the morning, waiting for them to begin
coming away from the consultation. The frost bites,
there is a tearing east wind, and she paces round and
round the building, and waits. Once a woman, always
a woman ! It seemed to me, that when people have
made a promise, it is surely sacred, especially — you
understand? But who would reason with a woman?
Well, she waited one hour, she waited two, waited three,
waited four; the children were all home long ago, and
she waited on. She waited (much good may it do
you!) till she got what she was waiting for. A door
opens, and out comes one of the teachers. She springs
and seizes hold on him. Does he know the result of the
consultation? Why, says he, should he not? They

172 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

have passed altogether twenty- five children, twenty-
three Christian and two Jewish. Says she, "Who are
they?" Says he, "One a Shefselsohn and one a Katz."
At the name Katz, my wife shoots home like an arrow
from the bow, and bursts into the room in triumph:
"Good news! good news! Passed, passed!" and there
are tears in her eyes. Of course, I am pleased, too,
but I don't feel called upon to go dancing, being a man
and not a woman. "It's evidently not much you care ?"
says she to me. "What makes you think that?" say I.
— "This," says she, "you sit there cold as a stone! If
you knew how impatient the child is, you would have
taken him long ago to the tailor's, and ordered his
little uniform," says she, "and a cap and a satchel,"
says she, "and made a little banquet for our friends." —
"Why a banquet, all of a sudden?" say I. "Is there a
Bar-Mitzveh ? Is there an engagement ?" I say all this
quite quietly, for, after all, I am a man, not a woman.
She grew so angry that she stopped talking. And when
a woman stops talking, it's a thousand times worse
than when she scolds, because so long as she is scolding
at least you hear the sound of the human voice. Other-
wise it's talk to the wall ! To put it briefly, she got her
way — she, not I — as usual.

There was a banquet ; we invited our friends and our
good friends, and my boy was dressed up from head to
foot in a very smart uniform, with white buttons and a
cap with a badge in front, quite the district-governor!
And it did one's heart good to see him, poor child !
There was new life in him, he was so happy, and he
shone, I tell you, like the July sun! The company

GYMNASIYE 173

drank to him, and wished him joy: Might he study
in health, and finish the course in health, and go on in
health, till he reached the university! "Ett!" say I,
"we can do with less. Let him only complete the eight
classes at the Gymnasiye," say I, "and, please God, I'll
make a bridegroom of him, with God's help." Cries my
wife, smiling and fixing me with her eye the while,
"Tell him," says she, "that he's wrong! He," says
she, "keeps to the old-fashioned cut." "Tell her from
me," say I, "that I'm blest if the old-fashioned cut
wasn't better than the new." Says she, "Tell him that

he (may he forgive me!) is " The company burst

out laughing. "Oi, Reb Aaron," say they, "you have
a wife (no evil eye!) who is a 'Cossack and not a wife
at all!" Meanwhile they emptied their wine-glasses,
and cleared their plates, and we were what is called
"lively." I and my wife were what is called "taken
into the boat," the little one in the middle, and we made
merry till daylight. That morning early we took him
to the Gymnasiye. It was very early, indeed, the door
was shut, not a soul to be seen. Standing outside there
in the frost, we were glad enough when the door opened,
and they let us in. Directly after that the small fry
began to arrive with their satchels, and there was a
noise and a commotion and a chatter and a laughing
and a scampering to and fro — a regular fair! School-
boys jumped over one another, gave each other punches,
pokes, and pinches. As I looked at these young hope-
fuls with the red cheeks, with the merry, laughing eyes,
I called to mind our former narrow, dark, and gloomy
Cheder of long ago years, and I saw that after all she
12

174 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

was right; she might be a woman, but she had a man's
head on her shoulders! And as I reflected thus, there
came along an individual in gilt Buttons, who turned
out to be a teacher, and asked what I wanted. I pointed
to my boy, and said I had come to bring him to Cheder.
that is, to the Gymnasiye. He asked to which class?
I tell him, the third, and he has only just been entered.
He asks his name. Say I, "Katz, Moisheh Katz, that is,
Moshke Katz." Says he, "Moshke Katz?" He has no
Moshke Katz in the third class. "There is," he says,
"a Katz, only not a Moshke Katz, but a Morduch —
Morduch Katz." Say I, "What Morduch ? Moshke, not
Morduch !" "Morduch !" he repeats, and thrusts the
paper into my face. I to him, "Moshke." He to me,
"Morduch !" In short, Moshke — Morduch, Morduch —
Moshke, we hammer away till there comes out a fine
tale: that which should have been mine is another's.
You see what a kettle of fish? A regular Gentile mud-
dle ! They have entered a Katz — yes ! But, by mistake,
another, not ours. You see how it was : there were two
Katz's in our town ! What do you say to such luck ?
I have made a bed, and another will lie in it! No,
but you ought to know who the other is, that Katz, I
mean ! A nothing of a nobody, an artisan, a bookbinder
or a carpenter, quite a harmless little man, but who
ever heard of him? A pauper! And his son — yes!
And mine — no ! Isn't it enough to disgust one, I ask
you ! And you should have seen that poor boy of mine,
when he was told to take the badge off his cap ! Xo
bride on her wedding-day need shed more tears than
were his! And no matter how I reasoned with him,

GYMNASIYE 175

whether I coaxed or scolded. "You see," I said to her,
"what you've done! Didn't I tell you that your
Gymnasiye was a slaughter-house for him? I only
trust this may have a good ending, that he won't fall
ill." — "Let my enemies," said she, "fall ill, if they like.
My child," says she, "must enter the Gymnasiye. If he
hasn't got in this time, in a year, please God, he will.
If he hasn't got in," says she, "here, he will get in in
another town — he must get in! Otherwise," says she,
"I shall shut an eye, and the earth shall cover me!"
You hear what she said? And who, do you suppose,
had his way — she or I? When she sets her heart on a
thing, can there be any question ?

Well, I won't make a long story of it. I hunted up
and down with him; we went to the ends of the world,
wherever there was a town and a Gymnasiye, thither
went we! We went up for examination, and were
examined, and we passed and passed high, and did not
get in — and why ? All because of the percentage ! You
may believe, I looked upon my own self as crazy those
days ! "Wretch ! what is this ? What is this flying that
you fly from one town to another? What good is to
come of it? And suppose he does get in, what then?"
No, say what you will, ambition is a great thing. In the
end it took hold of me, too, and the Almighty had
compassion, and sent me a Gymnasiye in Poland, a
"commercial" one, where they took in one Jew to every
Christian. It came to fifty per cent. But what then?
Any Jew who wished his son to enter must bring his
Christian with him, and if he passes, that is, the Chris-
tian, and one pays his entrance fee, then there is hope.

176 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Instead of one bundle, one has two on one's shoulders,
you understand ? Besides being worn with anxiety about
my own, I had to tremble for the other, because if Esau,
which Heaven forbid, fail to pass, it's all over with
Jacob. But what I went through before I got that
Christian, a shoemaker's son, Holiava his name was, is
not to be described. And the best of all was this —
would you believe that my shoemaker, planted in the
earth firmly as Korah, insisted on Bible teaching?
There was nothing for it but my son had to sit down
beside his, and repeat the Old Testament. How came
a son of mine to the Old Testament? Ai, don't ask!
He can do everything and understands everything.

With God's help the happy day arrived, and they
both passed. Is my story finished? Not quite. When
it came to their being entered in the books, to writing
out a check, my Christian was not to be found ! What
has happened? He, the Gentile, doesn't care for his
son to be among so many Jews — he won't hear of it!
Why should he, seeing that all doors are open to him
anyhow, and he can get in where he pleases ? Tell him
it isn't fair ? Much good that would be ! "Look here,"
say I, "how much do you want, Pani Holiava?" Says
he, "Nothing!" To cut the tale short — up and down,
this way and that way, and friends and people inter-
fering, we had him off to a refreshment place, and
ordered a glass, and two, and three, before it all came
right ! Once he was really in, I cried my eyes out, and
thanks be to Him whose Name is blessed, and who has
delivered me out of all my troubles ! When I got home,
a fresh worry ! What now ? My wife has been reflect-

GYMNASIYE 177

ing and thinking it over: After all, her only son, the
apple of her eye — he would be there and we here! And
if so, what, says she, would life he to her? "Well,"
say I, "what do you propose doing?" — "What I propose
doing?" says she. "Can't you guess? I propose," says
she, "to be with him."— "You do?" say I. "And the
house? What about the house?" — "The house," says
she, "is a house." Anything to object to in that? So
she was off to him, and I was left alone at home. And
what a home! I leave you to imagine. May such a
year be to my enemies! My comfort was gone, the
business went to the bad. Everything went to the bad,
and we were continually writing letters. I wrote to her,
she wrote to me — letters went and letters came. Peace
to my beloved wife ! Peace to my beloved husband !
"For Heaven's sake," I write, "what is to be the end of
it ? After all, I'm no more than a man ! A man with-
out a housemistress !" It was as much use as last year's
snow; it was she who had her way, she, and not I, as
usual.

To make an end of my story, I worked and worried
myself to pieces, made a mull of the whole business,
sold out, became a poor man, and carried my bundle
over to them. Once there, I took a look round to see
where I was in the world, nibbled here and there, just
managed to make my way a bit, and entered into a
partnership with a trader, quite a respectable man, yes !
A well-to-do householder, holding office in the Shool,
but at bottom a deceiver, a swindler, a pickpocket, who
was nearly the ruin of me! You can imagine what a
cheerful state of things it was. Meanwhile I come home

178 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

one evening, and see my boy come to meet me, looking
strangely red in the face, and without a badge on his
cap. Say I to him, "Look here, Moshehl, where's your
badge?" Says he to me, "Whatever badge?" Say I,
"The button." Says he, "Whatever button?" Say I,
"The button off your cap." It was a new cap with a
new badge, only just bought for the festival ! He grows
redder than before, and says, "Taken off." Say I,
"What do you mean by 'taken off'?" Says he, "I am
free." Say I, "What do you mean by 'you are free'?"
Says he, "We are all free." Say I, "What do you mean
by 'we are all free' ?" Says he, "We are not going back
any more." Say I, "What do you mean by 'we are not
going back' ?" Says he, "We have united in the resolve
to stay away." Say I, "What do you mean by 'you'
have united in a resolve? Who are 'you'? What is
all this? Bless your grandmother," say I, "do you
suppose I have been through all this for you to unite
in a resolve ? Alas ! and alack !" say I, "for you and me
and all of us ! May it please God not to let this be
visited on Jewish heads, because always and every-
where," say I, "Jews are the scapegoats." I speak thus
to him and grow angry and reprove him as a father
usually does reprove a child. But I have a wife (long
life to her!), and she comes running, and washes my
head for me, tells me I don't know what is going on in
the world, that the world is quite another world to what
it used to be, an intelligent world, an open world, a
free world, "a world," says she, "in which all are equal,
in which there are no rich and no poor, no masters and
no servants, no sheep and no shears, no cats, rats, no

GYMNASIYE 179

piggy-wiggy " "Te-te-te!" say I, "where

have you learned such fine language? a new speech,"
say I, "with new words. Why not open the hen-house,
and let out the hens? Chuck — chuck — chuck, hurrah
for freedom !" Upon which she blazes up as if I had
poured ten pails of hot water over her. And now for
it! As only they can! Well, one must sit it out and
listen to the end. The worst of it is, there is no end.
"Look here," say I, "hush !" say I, "and now let be !"
say I, and beat upon my breast. "I have sinned!" say
I, "I have transgressed, and now stop," say I, "if you
would only be quiet!" But she won't hear, and she
won't see. No, she says, she will know why and where-
fore and for goodness' sake and exactly, and just how
it was, and what it means, and how it happened, and
once more and a second time, and all over again from
the beginning !

I beg of you — who set the whole thing going? A —
woman !

ELIEZER DAVID ROSENTHAL

Born, 1861, in Chotin, Bessarabia; went to Breslau,
Germany, in 1880, and pursued studies at the University;
returned to Bessarabia in 1882; co-editor of the Bibliothek
Dos Leben, published at Odessa, 1904, and Kishineff, 1905;
writer of stories.

SABBATH

Friday evening !

The room has been tidied, the table laid. Two Sab-
bath loaves have been placed upon it, and covered with
a red napkin. At the two ends are two metal candle-
sticks, and between them two more of earthenware, with
candles in them ready to be lighted.

On the small sofa that stands by the stove lies a
sick man covered up with a red quilt, from under the
quilt appears a pale, emaciated face, with red patches
on the dried-up cheeks and a black beard. The sufferer
wears a nightcap, which shows part of his black hair
and his black earlocks. There is no sign of life in his
face, and only a faint one in his great, black eyes.

On a chair by the couch sits a nine-year-old girl with
damp locks, which have just been combed out in honor
of Sabbath. She is barefoot, dressed only in a shirt
and a frock. The child sits swinging her feet, absorbed
in what she is doing; but all her movements are gentle
and noiseless.

The invalid coughed.

"Kche, kche, kche, kche," came from the sofa.

"What is it, Tate?" asked the little girl, swinging her
feet.

The invalid made no reply.

He slowly raised his head with both hands, pulled
down the nightcap, and coughed and coughed and
coughed, hoarsely at first, then louder, the cough tearing

184 ROSENTHAL

at his sick chest and dinning in the ears. Then he sat
up, and went on coughing and clearing his throat, till
he had brought up the phlegm.

The little girl continued to be absorbed in her work
and to swing her feet, taking very little notice of her
sick father.

The invalid smoothed the creases in the cushion, laid
his head down again, and closed his eyes. He lay thus
for a few minutes, then he said quite quietly :

"Leah!"

"What is it, Tate?" inquired the child again, still
swinging her feet.

"Tell . . mother ... it is ... time to ... bless
. . . the candles ..."

The little girl never moved from her seat, but shouted
through the open door into the shop :

"Mother, shut up shop! Father says it's time for
candle-blessing.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," answered her mother from
the shop.

She quickly disposed of a few women customers : sold
one a kopek's worth of tea, the other, two kopeks' worth
of sugar, the third, two tallow candles. Then she
closed the shutters and the street door, and came into
the room.

"You've drunk the glass of milk?" she inquired of
the sick man.

"Yes ... I have . . . drunk it," he replied.

"And you, Leahnyu, daughter," and she turned to
the child, "may the evil spirit take you ! Couldn't you
put on your shoes without my telling you? Don't you
know it's Sabbafh ?"

SABBATH 185

The little girl hung her head, and made no other
answer.

Her mother went to the table, lighted the candles,
covered her face with her hands, and blessed them.

After that she sat down on the seat by the window
to take a rest.

It was only on Sabbath that she could rest from her
hard work, toiling and worrying as she was the whole
week long with all her strength and all her mind.

She sat lost in thought.

She was remembering past happy days.

She also had known what it is to enjoy life, when
her husband was in health, and they had a few hundred
rubles. They finished boarding with her parents, they
set up a shop, and though he had always been a close
frequenter of the house-of -study, a bench-lover, he soon
learnt the Torah of commerce. She helped him, and
they made a livelihood, and ate their bread in honor. But
in course of time some quite new shops were started in
the little town, there was great competition, the trade
was small, and the gains were smaller, it became neces-
sary to borrow money on interest, on weekly payment,
and to pay for goods at once. The interest gradually ate
up the capital with the gains. The creditors took what
they could lay hands on, and still her husband remained
in their debt.

He could not get over this, and fell ill.

The whole bundle of trouble fell upon her : the burden
of a livelihood, the children, the sick man, everything,
everything, on her.

But she did not lose heart.

186 ROSENTHAL

"God will help, he will soon get well, and will surely
find some work. God will not desert us," so she
reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle.

The very difficulty of her position roused her courage,
and gave her strength.

She sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a
little shop.

Three years have passed since then.

However it may be, God has not abandoned her, and
however bitter and sour the struggle for Parnosseh
may have been, she had her bit of bread. Only his
health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse.
She glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated
face, and tears fell from her eyes.

During the week she has no time to think how un-
happy she is. Parnosseh, housework, attendance on the
children and the sick man — these things take up all
her time and thought. She is glad when it comes to
bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed.

But on Sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think
over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself
out.

"When will there be an end of my troubles and suffer-
ing?" she asked herself, and could give no answer
whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. She
saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great,
wide, shoreless sea of trouble.

It flashed across her:

"When he dies, things will be easier."

But the thought of his death only increased her appre-
hension.

SABBATH 187

It brought with it before her eyes the dreadf ud words :
widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children. . .

These alarmed her more than her present distress.

How can children grow up without a father? Now,
even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells
them to say their prayers and to study. Who is to
watch over them if he dies ?

"Don't punish me, Lord of the World, for my bad
thought," she begged with her whole heart. "I will take
it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't
let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name
of widow, don't let my children be called orphans !"

He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back
and leaning against the wall. In one hand he holds a
prayer-book — he is receiving the Sabbath into his house.
His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words
before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer.
He knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his
wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless
to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what
with the extra expense incurred on his account and the
trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weak-
ness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than
once caused her unmerited pain. He sees and knows
it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death
can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat
the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request
to God and only one : that God should send kind Death
to deliver him from his trouble and misery.

188 HOSENTHAL

Suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came
into the room, in a long Sabbath cloak, with two long
earlocks, and a prayer-book under his arm.

"A good Sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud,
ringing voice.

It seemed as if he and the holy Sabbath had come
into the room together! In one moment the little boy
had driven trouble and sadness out of sight, and shed
light and consolation round him.

His "good Sabbath !" reached his parents' hearts,
awoke there new life and new hopes.

"A good Sabbath !" answered the mother. Her eyes
rested on the child's bright face, and her thoughts
were no longer melancholy as before, for she saw in his
eyes a whole future of happy possibilities.

"A good Sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man,
and he took a deeper, easier breath. No, he will not die
altogether, he will live again after death in the child.
He can die in peace, he leaves a Kaddish behind him.

YOM KIPPUK

Erev Yom Kippur, Minchah time!

The Eve of the Day of Atonement, at Afternoon
Prayer time.

A solemn and sacred hour for every Jew.

Everyone feels as though he were born again.

All the week-day worries, the two-penny-half-penny
interests, seem far, far away; or else they have hidden
themselves in some corner. Every Jew feels a noble
pride, an inward peace mingled with fear and awe. He
knows that the yearly Judgment Day is approaching,
when God Almighty will hold the scales in His hand
and weigh every man's merits against his transgressions.
The Lentence given on that day is one of life or death.
No trifle ! But the Jew is not so terrified as you might
think — he has broad shoulders. Besides, he has a certain
footing behind the "upper windows," he has good advo-
cates and plenty of them ; he has the "binding of Isaac"
and a long chain of ancestors and ancestresses, who
were put to death for the sanctification of the Holy
Name, who allowed themselves to be burnt and roasted
for the sake of God's Torah. Nishkoshe! Things are
not so bad. The Lord of All may just remember that,
and look aside a little. Is He not the Compassionate,
the Merciful?

The shadows lengthen and lengthen.
Jews are everywhere in commotion.
Some hurry home straight from the bath, drops of
bath-water dripping from beard and earlocks. They have
not even dried their hair properly in their haste.
13

190 ROSENTHAL

It is time to prepare for the davvening. Some are
already on their way to Shool, robed in white. Nearly
every Jew carries in one hand a large, well-packed
Tallis-bag, which to-day, besides the prayer-scarf, holds
the whole Jewish outfit : a bulky prayer-book, a book of
Psalms, a Likkute Zevi, and so on; and in the other
hand, two wax-candles, one a large one, that is the "light
of life," and the other a small one, a shrunken looking
thing, which is the "soul-light."

The Tamschevate house-of -study presents at this mo-
ment the following picture: the floor is covered with
fresh hay, and the dust and the smell of the hay fill
the whole building. Some of the men are standing
at their prayers, beating their breasts in all seriousness :
"We have trespassed, we have been faithless, we have
robbed," with an occasional sob of contrition. Others
are very busy setting up their wax-lights in boxes
filled with sand; one of them, a young man who
cannot live without it, betakes himself to the platform
and repeats a "Bless ye the Lord." Meantime another
comes slyly, and takes out two of the candles standing
before the platform, planting his own in their place.
Not far from the ark stands the beadle with a strap in
his hand, and all the foremost householders go up to
him, lay themselves down with their faces to the ground,
and the beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows apiece,
and not one of them bears him any grudge. Even Reb
Groinom, from whom the beadle never hears anything
from one Yom Kippur to another but "may you
be . . ." and "rascal," "impudence," "brazen face,"
"spendthrift," "carrion," "dog of all dogs" — and not

YOM KIPPUE 191

infrequently Eeb Groinom allows himself to apply his
right hand to the beadle's cheek, and the latter has
to take it all in a spirit of love — this same Eeb Groinom
now humbly approaches the same poor beadle, lies
quietly down with his face to the ground, stretches him-
self out, and the beadle deliberately counts the strokes
up to "thirty-nine Malkes." Covered with hay, Eeb
Groinom rises slowly, a piteous expression on his face,
just as if he had been well thrashed, and he pushes a coin
into the Shamash's hand. This is evidently the beadle's
day! To-day he can take his revenge on his house-
holders for the insults and injuries of a whole year !

But if you want to be in the thick of it all, you
must stand in the anteroom by the door, where people
are crowding round the plates for collections. The
treasurer sits beside a little table with the directors
of the congregation; the largest plate lies before them.
To one side of them sits the cantor with his plate, and
beside the cantor, several house-of-study youths with
theirs. On every plate lies a paper with a written
notice: "Visiting the Sick," "Supporting the Fallen,"
"Clothing the Naked," "Talmud Torah," "Eefuge for
the Poor," and so forth. Over one plate, marked "The
Eeturn to the Land of Israel," presides a modern young
man, a Zionist. Everyone wishing to enter the house-
of-study must first go to the plates marked "Call to the
Torah" and "Seat in the Shool," put in what is his
due, and then throw a few kopeks into the other plates.

Berel Tzop bustled up to the plate "Seat .in the
Shool," gave what was expected of him, popped a few

192 KOSEXTHAL

coppers into the other plates, and prepared to recite
the Afternoon Prayer. He wanted to pause a little
between the words of his prayer, to attend to their
meaning, to impress upon himself that this was the Eve
of the Day of Atonement! But idle thoughts kept
coming into his head, as though on purpose to annoy
him, and his mind was all over the place at once ! The
words of the prayers got mixed up with the idea of
oats, straw, wheat, and barley, and however much trouble
he took to drive these idle thoughts away, he did not
succeed. "Blow the great trumpet of our deliverance!"
shouted Berel, and remembered the while that Ivan owed
him ten measures of wheat. "... lift up the ensign
to gather our exiles ! . . . " — "and I made a mistake in
Stephen's account by thirty kopeks . . . " Berel saw
that it was impossible for him to pray with attention,
and he began to reel off the Eighteen Benedictions,
but not till he reached the Confession could he collect
his scattered thoughts, and realize what he was saying.
When he raised his hands to beat his breast at "We
have trespassed, we have robbed," the hand remained
hanging in the air, half-way. A shudder went through
his limbs, the letters of the words "we have robbed"
began to grow before his eyes, they became gigantic,
they turned strange colors — red, blue, green, and yellow
— now they took the form of large frogs — they got
bigger and bigger, crawled into his eyes, croaked in
his ears : You are a thief, a robber, you have stolen and
plundered ! You think nobody saw, that it would all
run quite smoothly, but you are wrong! We shall
stand before the Throne of Glory and cry : You are a
thief, a robber!

YOM KIPPUE 193

Berel stood some time with his hand raised midway
in the air.

The whole affair of the hundred rubles rose before
his eyes.

A couple of months ago he had gone into the house
of Reb Moisheh Chalfon. The latter had just gone
out, there was nobody else in the room, nobody had even
seen him come in.

The key was in the desk — Berel had looked at it, had
hardly touched it — the drawer had opened as though
of itself — several hundred-ruble-notes had lain glistening
before his eyes ! Just that day, Berel had received a
very unpleasant letter from the father of his daughter's
bridegroom, and to make matters worse, the author of
the letter was in the right. Berel had been putting
off the marriage for two years, and the Mechutton wrote
quite plainly, that unless the wedding took place after
Tabernacles, he should return him the contract.

"Return the contract!" the fiery letters burnt into
Berel's brain.

He knew his Mechutton well. The Misnaggid ! He
wouldn't hesitate to tear up a marriage contract, either !
And when it's a question of a by no means pretty
girl of twenty and odd years! And the kind of bride-
groom anybody might be glad to have secured for his
daughter! And then to think that only one of those
hundred-ruble-notes lying tossed together in that drawer
would help him out of all his troubles. And the Evil
Inclination whispers in his ear: "Berel, now or never!
There will be an end to all your worry! Don't you
6ee, it's a godsend." He, Berel, wrestled with him hard.

194 BOSENTHAL

He remembers it all distinctly, and he can hear now
the faint little voice of the Good Inclination: "Berel,
to become a thief in one's latter years! You who so
carefully avoided even the smallest deceit! Fie, for
shame ! If God will, he can help you by honest means
too." But the voice of the Good Inclination was so
feeble, so husky, and the Evil Inclination suggested in
his other ear: "Do you know what? Borrow one hun-
dred rubles! Who talks of stealing? You will earn
some money before long, and then you can pay him
back — it's a charitable loan on his part, only that he
doesn't happen to know of it. Isn't it plain to be seen
that it's a godsend? If you don't call this Providence,
what is? Are you going to take more than you really
need? You know your Mechutton? Have you taken
a good look at that old maid of yours? You recollect
the bridegroom ? Well, the Mechutton will be kind and
mild as milk. The bridegroom will be a 'silken son-in-
law/ the ugly old maid, a young wifei — fool ! God and
men will envy you. . . " And he, Berel, lost his head,
his thoughts flew hither and thither, like frightened
birds, and — he no longer knew which of the two voices
was that of the Good Inclination, and —

No one saw him leave Moisheh Chalfon's house.

And still his hand remains suspended in mid-air,
still it does not fall against his breast, and there is a
cold perspiration on his brow.

Berel started, as though out of his sleep. He had
noticed that people were beginning to eye him as he
stood with his hand held at a distance from his person.
He hastily rattled through "For the sin, . . ." concluded
the Eighteen Benedictions, and went home.

YOM KIPPUK 195

At home, he didn't dawdle, he only washed his hands,
recited "Who bringest forth bread," and that was all.
The food stuck in his throat, he said grace, returned to
Shool, put on the Tallis, and started to intone tunefully
the Prayer of Expiation.

The lighted wax-candles, the last v rays of the sun
stealing in through the windows of the house-of-study,
the congregation entirely robed in white and enfolded
in the prayer-scarfs, the intense seriousness depicted on
all faces, the hum of voices, and the bitter weeping
that penetrated from the women's gallery, all this suited
BerePs mood, his contrite heart. Berel had recited the
Prayer of Expiation with deep feeling; tears poured
from his eyes, his own broken voice went right through
his heart, every word found an echo there, and he felt
it in every limb. Berel stood before God like a little
child before its parents; he wept and told all that was
in his heavily-laden heart, the full tale of his cares
and troubles. Berel was pleased with himself, he felt
that he was not saying the words anyhow, just rolling
them off his tongue, but he was really performing an
act of penitence with his whole heart. He felt remorse
for his sins, and God is a God of compassion and mercy,
who will certainly pardon him.

"Therefore is my heart sad," began Berel, "that the
sin which a man commits against his neighbor cannot
be atoned for even on the Day of Atonement, unless he
asks his neighbor's forgiveness . . . therefore is my
heart broken and my limbs tremble, because even the
day of my death cannot atone for this sin."

196 KOSENTHAL

Berel begau to recite this in pleasing, artistic fashion,
weeping and whimpering like a spoiled child, and drawl-
ing out the words, when it grew dark before his eyes.
Berel had suddenly become aware that he was in the
position of one about to go in through an open door. He
advances, he must enter, it is a question of life and
death. And without any warning, just as he is stepping
across the threshhold, the door is shut from within
with a terrible bang, and he remains standing outside.

And he has read this in the Prayer of Expiation ? With
fear and fluttering he reads it over again, looking nar-
rowly at every word — a cold sweat covers him — the
words prick him like pins. Are these two verses his
pitiless judges, are they the expression of his sentence?
Is he already condemned? "Ay, ay, you are guilty,"
flicker the two verses on the page before him, and prayer
and tears are no longer of any avail. His heart cried
to God: "Have pity, merciful Father! A grown-up
girl — what am I to do with her ? And his father wanted
to break off the engagement. As soon as I have earned
the money, I will give it back . . . " But he knew all
the time that these were useless subterfuges; the Lord
of the Universe can only pardon the sin committed
against Himself, the sin committed against man cannot
be atoned for even on the Day of Atonement!

Berel took another look at the Prayer of Expiation.
The words, "unless he asks his neighbor's forgiveness,"
danced before his eyes. A ray of hope crept into his
despairing heart. One way is left open to him : he can
confess to Moisheh Chalfon ! But the hope was quickly
extinguished. Is that a small matter? What of my

YOM KIPPUR 197

honor, my good name? And what of the match?
"Mercy, 0 Father," he cried, "have mercy !"

Berel proceeded no further with the Prayer of Expia-
tion. He stood lost in his melancholy thoughts, his
whole life passed before his eyes. He, Berel, had never
licked honey, trouble had been his in plenty, he had
known cares and worries, but God had never abandoned
him. It had frequently happened to him in the course
of his life to think he was lost, to give up all his hope.
But each time God had extricated him unexpectedly
from his difficulty, and not only that, but lawfully,
honestly, Jewishly. And now — he had suddenly lost his
trust in the Providence of His dear Name ! "Donkey !"
thus Berel abused himself, "went to look for trouble, did
you? Now you've got it! Sold yourself body and
soul for one hundred rubles ! Thief ! thief ! thief 1" It
did Berel good to abuse himself like this, it gave him
a sort of pleasure to aggravate his wounds.

Berel, sunk in his sad reflections, has forgotten where
he is in the world. The congregation has finished the
Prayer of Expiation, and is ready for Kol Nidre. The
cantor is at his post at the reading-desk on the platform,
two of the principal, well-to-do Jews, with Torahs in
their hands, on each side of him. One of them is
Moisheh Chalfon. There is a deep silence in the build-
ing. The very last rays of the sun are slanting in
through the window, and mingling with the flames of
the wax-candles. . . .

"With the consent of the All-Present and with the
consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with
them that have transgressed," startled Berel's ears. It

198 ROSENTHAL

was Moisheh Chalfon's voice. The voice was low, sweet,
and sad. Berel gave a side glance at where Moisheh
Chalfon was standing, and it seemed to him that
Moisheh Chalfon was doing the same to him, only
Moisheh Chalfon was looking not into his eyes, but
deep into his heart, and there reading the word Thief!
And Moisheh Chalfon is permitting the people to pray
together with him, Berel the thief!

"Mercy, mercy, compassionate God!" cried Berel's
heart in its despair.

They had concluded Maariv, recited the first four
chapters of the Psalms and the Song of Unity, and the
people went home, to lay in new strength for the
morrow.

There remained only a few, who spent the greater
part of the night repeating Psalms, intoning the Mish-
nah, and so on; they snatched an occasional doze on the
bare floor overlaid with a whisp of hay, an old cloak
under their head. Berel also stayed the night in the
house-of-study. He sat down in a corner, in robe and
Tallis, and began reciting Psalms with a pleasing pathos,
and he went on until overtaken by sleep. At first he
resisted, he took a nice pinch of snuff, rubbed his eyes,
collected his thoughts, but it was no good. The covers
of the book of Psalms seemed to have been greased,
for they continually slipped from his grasp, the printed
lines had grown crooked and twisted, his head felt
dreadfully heavy, and his eyelids clung together; his
nose was forever drooping towards the book of Psalms.
He made every effort to keep awake, started up every

YOM KIPPUR 199

time as though he had burnt himself, but sleep was the
stronger of the two. Gradually he slid from the bench
onto the floor; the Psalter slipped finally from between
his fingers, his head dropped onto the hay, and he fell
sweetly asleep . . .

And Berel had a dream :

Yom Kippur, and yet there is a fair in the town,
the kind of fair one calls an "earthquake," a fair such
as Berel does not remember having seen these many
years, so crowded is it with men and merchandise.
There is something of everything — cattle, horses, sheep,
corn, and fruit. All the Tamschevate Jews are strolling
round with their wives and children, there is buying
and selling, the air is full of noise and shouting, the
whole fair is boiling and hissing and humming like a
kettle. One runs this way and one that way, this one
is driving a cow, that one leading home a horse by the
rein, the other buying a whole cart-load of corn. Berel is
all astonishment and curiosity: how is it possible for
Jews to busy themselves with commerce on Yom Kip-
pur? on such a holy day? As far back as he can
remember, Jews used to spend the whole day in Shool,
in linen socks, white robe, and prayer-scarf. They
prayed and wept. And now what has come over them,
that they should be trading on Yom Kippur, as if
it were a common week-day, in shoes and boots (this
last struck him more than anything) ? Perhaps it is
all a dream? thought Berel in his sleep. But no, it
is no dream ! "Here I am strolling round the fair, wide
awake. And the screaming and the row in my ears,
is that a dream, too? And my having this very minute

200 ROSENTHAL

been bumped on the shoulder by a Gentile going past
me with a horse — is that a dream? But if the whole
world is taking part in the fair, it's evidently the
proper thing to do ... " Meanwhile he was watching
a peasant with a horse, and he liked the look of the
horse so much that he bought it and mounted it. And
he looked at it from where he sat astride, and saw the
horse was a horse, but at the selfsame time it was
Moisheh Chalfon as well. Berel wondered: how is it
possible for it to be at once a horse and a man? But
his own eyes told him it was so. He wanted to dis-
mount, but the horse bears him to a shop. Here he
climbed down and asked for a pound of sugar. Berel
kept his eyes on the scales, and — a fresh surprise ! Where
they should have been weighing sugar, they were weigh-
ing his good and bad deeds. And the two scales were
nearly equally laden, and oscillated up and down in the
air . . .

Suddenly they threw a sheet of paper into the scale
that held his bad deeds. Berel looked to see — it was
the hundred-ruble-note which he had appropriated at
Moisheh Chalfon's! But it was now much larger,
bordered with black, and the letters and numbers were
red as fire. The piece of paper was frightfully heavy,
it was all two men could do to carry it to the weighing-
machine, and when they had thrown it with all their
might onto the scale, something snapped, and the scale
went down, down, down.

At that moment a man sleeping at Berel's head
stretched out a foot, and gave Berel a kick in the head.
Berel awoke.

YOM KIPPUR 201

Not far from him sat a grey-haired old Jew, huddled
together, enfolded in a Tallis and robe, repeating Psalins
with a melancholy chant and a broken, quavering voice.

Berel caught the words :

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright:
For the end of that man is peace.
But the transgressors shall be destroyed together:
The latter end of the wicked shall be cut off ... "

Berel looked round in a fright: Where is he? He
had quite forgotten that he had remained for the night
in the house-of-study. He gazed round with sleepy
eyes, and they fell on some white heaps wrapped in robes
and prayer-scarfs, while from their midst came the
low, hoarse, tearful voices of two or three men who
had not gone to sleep and were repeating Psalms. Many
of the candles were already sputtering, the wax was
melting into the sand, the flames rose and fell, and rose
again, flaring brightly.

And the pale moon looked in at the windows, and
poured her silvery light over the fantastic scene.

Berel grew icy cold, and a dreadful shuddering went
through his limbs.

He had not yet remembered that he was spending
the night in the house-of-study.

He imagined that he was dead, and astray in limbo.
The white heaps which he sees are graves, actual graves,
and there among the graves sit a few sinful souls, and
bewail and lament their transgressions. And he, Berel,
cannot even weep, he is a fallen one, lost forever — he
is condemned to wander, to roam everlastingly among
the graves.

202 UOSENTHAL

By degrees, however, he called to mind where he was,
and collected his wits.

Only then he remembered his fearful dream.

"No," he decided within himself, "I have lived till
now without the hundred rubles, and I will continue
to live without them. If the Lord of the Universe
wishes to help me, he will do so without them too. My
soul and my portion of the world-to-come are dearer to
me. Only let Moisheh Chalfon come in to pray, I will
tell him the whole truth and avert misfortune."

This decision gave him courage, he washed his hands,
and sat down again to the Psalms. Every few minutes
he glanced at the window, to see if it were not beginning
to dawn, and if Eeb Moisheh Chalfon were not coming
along to Shool.

The day broke.

With the first sunbeams Berel's fears and terrors
began little by little to dissipate and diminish. His
resolve to restore the hundred rubles weakened con-
siderably.

"If I don't confess," thought Berel, wrestling in spirit
with temptation, "I risk my world-to-come ... If I
do confess, what will my Chantzeh-Leah say to it? He
writes, either the wedding takes place, or the contract
is dissolved ! And what shall I do, when his father
gets to hear about it? There will be a stain on my
character, the marriage contract will be annulled, and
I shall be left . . . without my good name and . . .
with my ugly old maid . . .

"What is to be done? Help ! What is to be done?"

YOM KIPPUR 203

The people began to gather in the Shool. The reader
of the Morning Service intoned "He is Lord of the
Universe" to the special Yom Kippur tune, a few house-
holders and young men supported him, and Berel heard
through it all only, Help! What is to be done?

And suddenly he beheld Moisheh Chalfon.

Berel quickly rose from his place, he wanted to make
a rush at Moisheh Chalfon. But after all he remained
where he was, and sat down again.

"I must first think it over, and discuss it with my
Chantzeh-Leah," was Berel's decision.

Berel stood up to pray with the congregation. He
was again wishful to pray with fervor, to collect his
thoughts, and attend to the meaning of the words, but
try as he would, he couldn't ! Quite other things came
into his head : a dream, a fair, a horse, Moisheh Chalfon,
Chantzeh-Leah, oats, barley, this world and the next
were all mixed up together in his mind, and the words
of the prayers skipped about like black patches before
his eyes. He wanted to say he was sorry, to cry, but
he only made curious grimaces, and could not squeeze
out so much as a single tear.

Berel was very dissatisfied with himself. He finished
the Morning Prayer, stood through the Additional
Service, and proceeded to devour the long Piyyutim.

The question, What is to be done? left him no peace,
and he was really reciting the Piyyutim to try and
stupefy himself, to dull his brain.

So it went on till U-Nesanneh Toikef.

The congregation began to prepare for U-Nesanneh
Toikef, coughed, to clear their throats, and pulled the

204 ROSENTHAL

Tallesim over their heads. The cantor sat down for a
minute to rest, and unbuttoned his shroud. His face
was pale and perspiring, and his eyes betrayed a great
weariness. From the women's gallery came a sound of
weeping and wailing.

Berel had drawn his Tallis over his head, and started
reciting with earnestness and enthusiasm :

" We will express the mighty holiness of this Day,

For it is tremendous and awful!

On which Thy kingdom is exalted,

And Thy throne established in grace;

Whereupon Thou art seated in truth.

Verily, it is Thou who art judge and arbitrator,

Who knowest all, and art witness, writer, sigillator, re-
corder and teller;

And Thou recallest all forgotten things,

And openest the Book of Remembrance, and the book
reads itself,

And every man's handwriting is there ..."

These words opened the source of Berel's tears, and
he sobbed unaffectedly. Every sentence cut him to the
heart, like a sharp knife, and especially the passage :

"And Thou recallest all forgotten things, and openest
the Book of Eemembrance, and the book reads itself,
and every man's handwriting is there . . . '' At that
very moment the Book of Remembrance was lying open
before the Lord of the Universe, with the handwritings
of all men. It contains his own as well, the one which
he wrote with his own hand that day when he took away
the hundred-ruble-note. He pictures how his soul flew
up to Heaven while he slept, and entered everything in
the eternal book, and now the letters stood before the

YOM KIPPUE 205

Throne of Glory, and cried, "Berel is a thief, Berel is
a robber!" And he has the impudence to stand and
pray before God? He, the offender, the transgressor —
and the Shool does not fall upon his head?

The congregation concluded U-Nesanneh Toikef, and
the cantor began: "And the great trumpet of ram's
horn shall be sounded ..." and still Berel stood with
the Tallis over his head.

Suddenly he heard the words :

"And the Angels are dismayed,

Fear and trembling seize hold of them as they proclaim,
As swiftly as birds, and say:
This is the Day of Judgment!"

The words penetrated into the marrow of Berel's
bones, and he shuddered from head to foot. The words,
"This is the Day of Judgment," reverberated in his ears
like a peal of thunder. He imagined the angels were
hastening to him with one speed, with one swoop, to
seize and drag him before the Throne of Glory, and
the piteous wailing that came from the women's court
was for him, for his wretched soul, for his endless
misfortune.

"No I no ! no !" he resolved, "come what may, let him
annul the contract, let them point at me with their
fingers as at a thief, if they choose, let my Chantzeh-
Leah lose her chance! I will take it all in good part,
if I may only save my unhappy soul ! The minute the
Kedushah is over I shall go to Moisheh Chalfon, tell him
the whole story, and beg him to forgive me."

The cantor came to the end of U-Nesanneh Toikef,
the congregation resumed their seats, Berel also returned
to his place, and did not go up to Moisheh Chalfon.
14

206 EOSENTHAL

"Help, what shall I do, what shall I do ?" he thought,
as he struggled with his conscience. "Chantzeh-Leah
will lay me on the fire . . . she will cry her life
out . . . the Mechutton . . . the bridegroom . . . "

The Additional Service and the Afternoon Service
were over, people were making ready for the Conclusion
Service, Neileh. The shadows were once more lengthen-
ing, the sun was once more sinking in the west. The
Shool-Goi began to light candles and lamps, and placed
them on the tables and the window-ledges. Jews with
faces white from exhaustion sat in the anteroom resting
and refreshing themselves with a pinch of snuff, or a
drop of hartshorn, and a few words of conversation.
Everyone feels more cheerful and in better humor. What
had to be done, has been done and well done. The Lord
of the Universe has received His due. They have
mortified themselves a whole day, fasted continuously,
recited prayers, and begged forgiveness !

Now surely the Almighty will do His part, accept
the Jewish prayers and have compassion on His people
Israel.

Only Berel sits in a corner by himself. He also is
wearied and exhausted. He also has fasted, prayed,
wept, mortified himself, like the rest. But he knows
that the whole of his toil and trouble has been thrown
away. He sits troubled, gloomy, and depressed. He
knows that they have now reached Nei'leh, that he has
still time to repent, that the door of Heaven will stand
open a little while longer, his repentance may yet pass
through . . . otherwise, yet a little while, and the gates
of mercy will be shut and ... too late !

YOM KIPPUR 207

"Oh, open the gate to us, even while it is closing,"
sounded in Berel's ears and heart . . . yet a little while,
and it will be too late !

"No, no!" shrieked Berel to himself, "I will not
lose my soul, my world-to-come! Let Chantzeh-Leah
burn me and roast me, I will take it all in good part, so
that I don't lose my world-to-come !"

Berel rose from his seat, and went up to Moisheh
Chalfon.

"Reb Moisheh, a word with you," he whispered into
his ear.

"Afterwards, when the prayers are done."

"No, no, no !" shrieked Berel, below his breath, "now,
at once !"

Moisheh Chalfon stood up.

Berel led him out of the house-of-study, and aside.

"Reb Moisheh, kind soul, have pity on me and forgive
me !" cried Berel, and burst into sobs.

"God be with you, Berel, what has come over you all
at once?" asked Reb Moisheh, in astonishment.

"Listen to me, Reb Moisheh !" said Berel, still sobbing.
"The hundred rubles you lost a few weeks ago are in
my house! . . . God knows the truth, I didn't take
them out of wickedness. I came into your house, the
key was in the drawer . . . there was no one in the
room . . . That day I'd had a letter from my Mechutton
that he'd break off his son's engagement if the wedding
didn't take place to time. . . My girl is ugly and
old . . . the bridegroom is a fine young man ... a
precious stone .... I opened the drawer in spite of
myself . . . and saw the bank-notes . . . You see how
it was? . . . My Mechutton is a Misnaggid ... a flint-

208 ROSENTHAL

hearted screw ... I took out the note . . . but it is
shortening my years ! . . . God knows what I bore and
suffered at the time . . . To-night I will bring you the
note back . . . Forgive me! ... Let the Mechutton
break off the match, if he chooses, let the woman fret
away her years, so long as I am rid of the serpent that
is gnawing at my heart, and gives me no peace! I
never before touched a ruble belonging to anyone else,
and become a thief in my latter years I won't !"

Moisheh Chalfon did not answer him for a little
while. He took out his snuff, and had a pinch, then he
took out of the bosom of his robe a great red handker-
chief, wiped his nose, and reflected a minute or two.
Then he said quietly:

"If a match were broken off through me, I should be
sorry. You certainly behaved as you should not have,
in taking the money without leave, but it is written:
Judge not thy neighbor till thou hast stood in his
place. You shall keep the hundred rubles. Come
to-night and bring me an I. 0. U., and begin to repay
me little by little."

"What are you, an angel ?" exclaimed Berel, weeping.

"God forbid," replied Moisheh Chalfon, quietly, "I
am what you are. You are a Jew, and I also am a
Jew."

ISAIAH LERNER

Born, 1861, in Zwoniec, Podolia, Southwestern Russia; co-
editor of die Bibliothek Dos Leben, published at Odessa,
1904, and Kishineff, 1905.

BERTZI WASSERFUHRER

I

The first night of Passover. It is already about ten
o'clock. Outside it is dark, wet, cold as the grave. A
fine, close, sleety rain is driving down, a light, sharp,
fitful wind blows, whistles, sighs, and whines, and wan-
ders round on every side, like a returned and sinful soul
seeking means to qualify for eternal bliss. The mud is
very thick, and reaches nearly to the waist.

At one end of the town of Kamenivke, in the Poor
People's Street, which runs along by the bath-house, it
is darkest of all, and muddiest. The houses there are
small, low, and overhanging, tumbled together in such
a way that there is no seeing where the mud begins
and the dwelling ends. No gleam of light, even in the
windows. Either the inhabitants of the street are all
asleep, resting their tired bones and aching limbs, or
else they all lie suffocated in the sea of mud, simply
because the mud is higher than the windows. Whatever
the reason, the street is quiet as a God's-acre, and the
darkness may be felt with the hands.

Suddenly the dead stillness of the street is broken
by the heavy tread of some ponderous creature, walking
and plunging through the Kamenivke mud, and there
appears the tall, broad figure of a man. He staggers
like one tipsy or sick, but he keeps on in a straight line,
at an even pace, like one born and bred and doomed to
die in the familiar mud, till he drags his way to a low,
crouching house at the very end of the street, almost

212 LERNEK

under the hillside. It grows lighter — a bright flame
shines through the little window-panes. He has not
reached the door before it opens, and a shaky, tearful
voice, full of melancholy, pain, and woe, breaks the hush
a second time this night:

"Bertzi, is it you ? Are you all right ? So late ? Has
there been another accident? And the cart and the
horse, wu senen?"

"All right, all right ! A happy holiday !"

His voice is rough, hoarse, and muffled.

She lets him into the passage, and opens the inner
door.

But scarcely is he conscious of the light, warmth, and
cleanliness of the room, when he gives a strange, wild
cry, takes one leap, like a hare, onto the "eating-couch"
spread for him on the red-painted, wooden sofa, and —
he lies already in a deep sleep.

II

The whole dwelling, consisting of one nice, large,
low room, is clean, tidy, and bright. The bits of furni-
ture and all the household essentials are poor, but so
clean and polished that one can mirror oneself in them,
if one cares to stoop down. The table is laid ready
for Passover. The bottles of red wine, the bottle of
yellow Passover brandy, and the glass goblets of different
colors reflect the light of the thick tallow candles, and
shine and twinkle and sparkle. The oven, which stands
in the same room, is nearly out, there is one sleepy
little bit of fire still flickering. But the pots, ranged round
the fire as though to watch over it and encourage it, ex-

BERTZI WASSERFUHRER 213

hale such delicious, appetizing smells that they would
tempt even a person who had just eaten his fill. But no
one makes a move towards them. All five children lie
stretched in a row on the red-painted, wooden bed.
Even they have not tasted of the precious dishes, of
which they have thought and talked for weeks previous
to the festival. They cried loud and long, waiting for
their father's return, and at last they went sweetly to
sleep. Only one fly is moving about the room : Rochtzi,
Bertzi Wasserfiihrer's wife, and rivers of tears, large,
clear tears, salt with trouble and distress, flow from
her eyes.

Ill

Although Rochtzi has not seen more than thirty
summers, she looks like an old woman. Once upon a
time she was pretty, she was even known as one of the
prettiest of the Kamenivke girls, and traces of her
beauty are still to be found in her uncommonly large,
dark eyes, and even in her lined face, although the eyes
have long lost their fire, and her cheeks, their color and
freshness. She is dressed in clean holiday attire, but
her eyes are red from the hot, salt tears, and her ex-
pression is darkened and sad.

"Such a festival, such a great, holy festival, and then
when it comes. . . " The pale lips tremble and quiver.

How many days and nights, beginning before Purim,
has she sat with her needle between her fingers, so that
the children should have their holiday frocks — and all
depending on her hands and head ! How much thought
and care and strength has she spent on preparing the
room, their poor little possessions, and the food ? How

214 LERNER

many were the days, Sabbaths excepted, on which they
went without a spoonful of anything hot, so that they
might be able to give a becoming reception to that dear,
great, and holy visitor, the Passover? Everything (the
Almighty forbid that she should sin with her tongue!)
of the best, ready and waiting, and then, after all. . .

He, his sheepskin, his fur cap, and his great boots
are soaked with rain and steeped in thick mud, and
there, in this condition, lies he, Bertzi Wasserfiihrer,
her husband, her Passover "king," like a great black
lump, on the nice, clean, white, draped "eating-couch,"
and snores.

IV

The brief tale I am telling you happened in the days
before Kamenivke had joined itself on, by means of the
long, tall, and beautiful bridge, to the great high hill
that has stood facing it from everlasting, thickly wooded,
and watered by quantities of clear, crystal streams, which
babble one to another day and night, and whisper with
their running tongues of most important things. So
long as the bridge had not been flung from one of the
giant rocks to the other rock, the Kamenivke people
had not been able to procure the good, wholesome
water of the wild hill, and had to content themselves
with the thick, impure water of the river Smotritch,
which has flowed forever round' the eminence on which
Kamenivke is built. But man, and especially the Jew,
gets used to anything, and the Kamenivke people, who
are nearly all Grandfather Abraham's grandchildren,
had drunk Smotritch water all their lives, and were
conscious of no grievance.

BEETZI WASSERFUHRER 215

But the lot of the Kamenivke water-carriers was hard
and bitter. Kamenivke stands high, almost in the air,
and the river Smotritch runs deep down in the valley.

In summer, when the ground is dry, it was bearable,
for then the Kamenivke water-carrier was merely bathed
in sweat as he toiled up the hill, and the Jewish bread-
winner has been used to that for ages. But in winter,
when the snow was deep and the frost tremendous, when
the steep Skossny hill with its clay soil was covered
with ice like a hill of glass ! Or when the great rains
were pouring down, and the town and especially the clay
hill are confounded with the deep, thick mud !

Our Bertzi Wasserfiihrer was more alive to the fascin-
ations of this Parnosseh than any other water-carrier.
He was, as though in his own despite, a pious Jew and
a great man of his word, and he had to carry water
for almost all the well-to-do householders. True, that
in face of all his good luck he was one of the poorest
Jews in the Poor People's Street, only

V

Lord of the World, may there never again be such a
winter as there was then !

Not the oldest man there could recall one like it. The
snow came down in drifts, and never stopped. One could
and might have sworn on a scroll of the Law, that the
great Jewish God was angry with the Kamenivke Jews,
and had commanded His angels to shovel down on
Kamenivke all the snow that had lain by in all the
seven heavens since the sixth day of creation, so that
the sinful town might be a ruin and a desolation.

216 LERNER

And the terrible, fiery frosts !

Frozen people were brought into the town nearly
every day.

Oi, Jews, how Bertzi Wasserfiihrer struggled, what a
time he had of it ! Enemies of Zion, it was nearly
the death of him !

And suddenly the snow began to stop falling, all at
once, and then things were worse than ever — there
was a sea of water, an ocean of mud.

And Passover coming on with great strides!

For three days before Passover he had not come home
to sleep. Who talks of eating, drinking, and sleeping?
He and his man toiled day and night, like six horses,
like ten oxen.

The last day before Passover was the worst of all.
His horse suddenly came to the conclusion that sooner
than live such a life, it would die. So it died and van-
ished somewhere in the depths of the Kamenivke clay.

And Bertzi the water-carrier and his man had to
drag the cart with the great water-barrel themselves, the
whole day till long after dark.

VI

It is already eleven, twelve, half past twelve at night,
and Bertzi's chest, throat, and nostrils continue to pipe
and to whistle, to sob and to sigh.

The room is colder and darker, the small fire in the
oven went out long ago, and only little stumps of candles
remain.

Eochtzi walks and runs about the loom, she weeps
and wrings her hands.

BEETZI WASSERFUHRER 217

But now she runs up to the couch by the table, and
begins to rouse her husband with screams and cries fit
to make one's blood run cold and the hair stand up on
one's head:

"No, no, you're not going to sleep any longer, I tell
you! Bertzi, do you hear me? Get up, Bertzi, aren't
you a Jew ? — a man ? — the father of children ? — Bertzi,
have you God in your heart ? Bertzi, have you said your
prayers ? My husband, what about the Seder ? I won't
have it ! — I feel very ill — I am going to faint ! — Help ! —
Water !"

"Have I forgotten somebody's water? — Whose? —
Where? . . ."

But Rochtzi is no longer in need of water : she beholds
her "king" on his feet, and has revived without it. With
her two hands, with all the strength she has, she holds
him from falling back onto the couch.

"Don't you see, Bertzi? The candles are burning
down, the supper is cold and will spoil. I fancy it's
already beginning to dawn. The children, long life to
them, went to sleep without any food. Come, please,
begin to prepare for the Seder, and I will wake the two
elder ones."

Bertzi stands bent double and treble. His breathing
is labored and loud, his face is smeared with mud and
swollen from the cold, his beard and earlocks are rough
and bristly, his eyes sleepy and red. He looks strangely
wild and unkempt. Bertzi looks at Rochtzi, at the table,
he looks round the room, and sees nothing. But now he
looks at the bed : his little children, washed, and in their
holiday dresses, are all lying in a row across the bed,

218 LEENEE

and — he remembers everything, and understands what
Eochtzi is saying, and what it is she wants him to do.

"Give me some water — I said Minchah and Maariv
by the way, while I was at work."

"I'm bringing it already ! May God grant you a like
happiness ! Good health to you ! Hershele, get up, my
Kaddish, father has come home already ! Shmuelkil,
my little son, go and ask father the Four Questions."

Bertzi fills a goblet with wine, takes it up in his left
hand, places it upon his right hand, and begins :

"Savri Moronon, ve-Eabbonon, ve-Eabbosai — with the
permission of the company." — His head goes round. —
"Lord of the "World ! — I am a Jew. — Blessed art Thou,
Lord our God, King of the Universe — " It grows
dark before his eyes: "The first night of Passover — I
ought to make Kiddush — Thou who dost create the fruit
of the vine" — his feet fail him, as though they had been
cut off — "and I ought to give the Seder — This is the
bread of the poor. . . . Lord of the World, you know
how it is : I can't do it ! — Have mercy ! — Forgive me !"

VII

A nasty smell of sputtered-out candles fills the room.
Eochtzi weeps. Bertzi is back on the couch and snores.

Different sounds, like the voices of winds, cattle, and
wild beasts, and the whirr of a mill, are heard in his
snoring. And her weeping — it seems as if the whole
room were sighing and quivering and shaking. . . .

EZRIELK THE SCRIBE

Forty days before Ezrielk descended upon this sinful
world, his life-partner was proclaimed in Heaven, and
the Heavenly Council decided that he was to transcribe
the books of the Law, prayers, and Mezuzehs for the
Kabtzonivke Jews, and thereby make a living for his
wife and children. But the hard word went forth to him
that he should not disclose this secret decree to anyone,
and should even forget it himself for a goodly number
of years. A glance at Ezrielk told one that he had been
well lectured with regard to some important matter,
and was to tell no tales out of school. Even Minde, the
Kabtzonivke Bobbe, testified to this :

"Never in all my life, all the time I've been bringing
Jewish children into God's world, have I known a child
scream so loud at birth as Ezrielk — a sign that he'd
had it well rubbed into him !"

Either the angel who has been sent to fillip little
children above the lips when they are being born, was
just then very sleepy (Ezrielk was born late at night),
or some one had put him out of temper, but one way or
another little Ezrielk, the very first minute of his Jewish
existence, caught such a blow that his top lip was all
but split in two.

After this kindly welcome, when God's angel himself
had thus received Ezrielk, slaps, blows, and stripes
rained down upon his head, body, and life, all through
his days, without pause or ending.

220 LEENEE

Ezrielk began to attend Cheder when he was exactly
three years old. His first teacher treated him very
badly, beat him continually, and took all the joy of
his childhood from him. By the time this childhood of
his had passed, and he came to be married (he began
to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-scarf on the
day of his marriage), he was a very poor specimen,
small, thin, stooping, and yellow as an egg-pudding, his
little face dark, dreary, and weazened, like a dried
Lender herring. The only large, full things about him
were his earlocks, which covered his whole face, and his
two blue eyes. He had about as much strength as a fly,
he could not even break the wine-glass under the mar-
riage canopy by himself, and had to ask for help of
Eeb Yainkef Butz, the beadle of the Old Shool.

Among the German Jews a boy like that would have
been left unwed till he was sixteen or even seventeen,
but our Ezrielk was married at thirteen, for his bride
had been waiting for him seventeen years.

It was this way : Eeb SeinwiH Bassis, Ezrielk's father,
and Eeb Selig Tachshit, his father-in-law, were Hostre
Chassidim, and used to drive every year to spend the
Solemn Days at the Hostre Eebbe's. They both (not of
you be it spoken!) lost all their children in infancy,
and, as you can imagine, they pressed the Eebbe very
closely on this important point, left him no peace, till
he should bestir himself on their behalf, and exercise
all his influence in the Higher Spheres. Once, on the
Eve of Yom Kippur, before daylight, after the waving
of the scape-fowls, when the Eebbe, long life to him,
was in somewhat high spirits, our two Chassidim made

EZRIELK THE SCRIBE 221

another set upon him, but this time they had quite a
new plan, and it simply had to work out !

"Do you know what? Arrange a marriage between
your children ! Good luck to you !" The whole company
of Chassidim broke some plates, and actually drew up
the marriage contract. It was a little difficult to draw
up the contract, because they did not know which of
our two friends would have the boy (the Rebbe, long
life to him, was silent on this head), and which, the
girl, but — a learned Jew is never at a loss, and they
wrote out the contract with conditions.

For three years running after this their wives bore
them each a child, but the children were either both
boys or both girls, so that their vow to unite the son of
one to a daughter of the other born in the same year
could not be fulfilled, and the documents lay on the
shelf.

True, the little couples departed for the "real world"
within the first month, but the Rebbe consoled the father
by saying :

"We may be sure they were not true Jewish children,
that is, not true Jewish souls. The true Jewish soul
once born into the world holds on, until, by means of
various troubles and trials, it is cleansed from every
stain. Don't worry, but wait."

The fourth year the Rebbe's words were established:
Reb Selig Tachshit had a daughter born to him, and
Reb Seinwill Bassis, Ezrielk.

Channehle, Ezrielk's bride, was tall, when they mar-
ried, as a young fir-tree, beautiful as the sun, clever
as the day is bright, and white as snow, with sky-blue,
15

222 LERNER

star-like eyes. Her hair was the color of ripe corn —
in a word, she was fair as Abigail and our Mother
Rachel in one, winning as Queen Esther, pious as Leah,
and upright as our Grandmother Sarah.

But although the bride was beautiful, she found no
fault with her bridegroom; on the contrary, she es-
teemed it a great honor to have him for a husband. All
the Kabtzonivke girls envied her, and every Kabtzonirke
woman who was "expecting" desired with all her heart
that she might have such a son as Ezrielk. The reason
is quite plain: First, what true Jewish maiden looks
for beauty in her bridegroom? Secondly, our Ezrielk
was as full of excellencies as a pomegranate is of seeds.

His teachers had not broken his bones for nothing. The
blows had been of great and lasting good to him. Even
before his wedding, Seinwill Bassis's Ezrielk was deeply
versed in the Law, and could solve the hardest "ques-
tions," so that you might have made a Rabbi of him. He
was, moreover, a great scribe. His "in-honor-ofs," and
his "blessed bes" were known, not only in Kabtzonivke,
but all over Kamenivke, and as for his singing — !

When Ezrielk began to sing, poor people forgot their
hunger, thirst, and need, the sick, their aches and pains,
the Kabtzonivke Jews in general, their bitter exile.

He mostly sang unfamiliar tunes and whole "things."

"Where do you get them, Ezrielk?"

The little Ezrielk would open his eyes (he kept them
shut while he sang), his two big blue eyes, and answer
wonderingly :

"Don't you hear how everything sings ?"

EZEIELK THE SCRIBE 223

After a little while, when Ezrielk had been singing
so well and so sweetly and so wonderfully that the
Kabtzonivke Jews began to feel too happy, people fell
athinking, and they grew extremely uneasy and dis-
turbed in their minds :

"It's not all so simple as it looks, there is some-
thing behind it. Suppose a not-good one had intro-
duced himself into the child (which God forbid!)?
It would do no harm to take him to the Aleskev Rebbe,
long life to him/'

As good luck would have it, the Hostre Rebbe came
along just then to Kabtzonivke, and, after all, Ezrielk
belonged to him, he was born through the merit of the
Rebbe's miracle-working! So the Chassidim told him
the story. The Rebbe, long life to him, sent for him.
Ezrielk came and began to sing. The Rebbe listened
a long, long time to his sweet voice, which rang out
like a hundred thousand crystal and gold bells into
every corner of the room.

"Do not be alarmed, he may and he must sing. He
gets his tunes there where he got his soul."

And Ezrielk sang cheerful tunes till he was ten
years old, that is, till he fell into the hands of the
teacher Reb Yainkel Vittiss.

Now, the end and object of Reb Yainkel's teach-
ing was not merely that his pupils should know a lot
and know it well. Of course, we know that the Jew
only enters this sinful world in order that he may
more or less perfect himself, and that it is therefore
needful he should, and, indeed, he must, sit day and
night over the Torah and the Commentaries. Yainkel

224 LERNER

Vittiss's course of instruction began and ended with
trying to imbue his pupils with a downright, genuine,
Jewish-Chassidic enthusiasm.

The first day Ezrielk entered his Cheder, Eeb Yainkel
lifted his long, thick lashes, and began, while he gazed
fixedly at him, to shake his head, saying to himself:
"No, no, he won't do like that. There is nothing wrong
with the vessel, a goodly vessel, only the wine is still very
sharp, and the ferment is too strong. He is too cocky,
too lively for me. A wonder, too, for he's been in
good hands (tell me, weren't you under both Moisheh-
Yusis?), and it's a pity, when you come to think, that
such a goodly vessel should be wasted. Yes, he wants
treating in quite another way."

And Yainkel Vittiss set himself seriously to the task
of shaping and working up Ezrielk.

Eeb Yainkel was not in the least concerned when
he beat a pupil and the latter cried and screamed at
the top of his voice. He knew what he was about, and
was convinced that, when one beats and it hurts, even a
Jewish child (which must needs get used to blows) may
cry and scream, and the more the better ; it showed that
his method of instruction was taking effect. And when
he was thrashing Ezrielk, and the boy cried and yelled,
Eeb Yainkel would tell him : "That's right, that's the
way ! Cry, scream — louder still ! That's the way to
get a truly contrite Jewish heart ! You sing too merrily
for me — a true Jew should weep even while he sings."

When Ezrielk came to be twelve years old, his teacher
declared that he might begin to recite the prayers in
Shool before the congregation, as he now had within
him that which beseems a good Chassidic Jew.

EZEIELK THE SCRIBE 225

So Ezrielk began to davven in the Kabtzonivke Old
Shool, and a crowd of people, not only from Kabtzo-
nivke, but even from Kamenivke and Ebionivke, used
to fill and encircle the Shool to hear him.

Reb Yainkel was not mistaken, he knew what he was
saying. Ezrielk was indeed fit to davven: life and the
joy of life had vanished from his singing, and the
terrorful weeping, the fearful wailing of a nation's
two thousand years of misfortune, might be heard and
felt in his voice.

Ezrielk was very weakly, and too young to lead the
service often, but what a stir he caused when he lifted
up his voice in the Shool !

Kabtzonivke, Kamenivke, and Ebionivke will never
forget the first U-mipne Chatoenu led by the twelve-
year-old Ezrielk, standing before the precentor's desk in
a long, wide prayer-scarf.

The men, women, and children who were listening
inside and outside the Old Shool felt a shudder go
through them, their hair stood on end, and their hearts
wept and fluttered in their breasts.

Ezrielk's voice wept and implored, "on account of
our sins."

At the time when Ezrielk was distinguishing himself
on this fashion with his chanting, the Jewish doctor
from Kamenivke happened to be in the place. He saw
the crowd round the Old Shool, and he went in. As
you may suppose, he was much longer in coming out.
He was simply riveted to the spot, and it is said that
he rubbed his eyes more than once while he listened

226 LERNER

and looked. On coming away, he told them to bring
Ezrielk to see him on the following day, saying that he
wished to see him, and would take no fee.

Next day Ezrielk came with his mother to the doctor's
house.

"A blow has struck me ! A thunder has killed me !
Reb Yainkel, do you know what the doctor said?"

"You silly woman, don't scream so ! He cannot have
said anything bad about Ezrielk. What is the matter?
Did he hear him intone the Gemoreh, or perhaps sing?
Don't cry and lament like that !"

"Reb Yainkel, what are you talking about? The
doctor said that my Ezrielk is in danger, that he's ill,
that he hasn't a sound organ — his heart, his lungs, are
all sick. Every little bone in him is broken. He mustn't
sing or study — the bath will be his death — he must
have a long cure — he must be sent away for air. God
(he said to me) has given you a precious gift, such as
Heaven and earth might envy. Will you go and bury
it with your own hands?"

"And you were frightened and believed him? Non-
sense! I've had Ezrielk in my Cheder two years. Do
I want him to come and tell me what goes on there ? If
he were a really good doctor, and had one drop of
Jewish blood left in his veins, wouldn't he know that
every true Jew has a sick heart, a bad lung, broken
bones, and deformed limbs, and is well and strong in
spite of it, because the holy Torah is the best medicine
for all sicknesses? Ha, ha, ha! And he wants Ezrielk
to give up learning and the bath ? Do you know what ?
Go home and send Ezrielk to Cheder at once !"

EZEIELK THE SCKIBE 227

The Kamenivke doctor made one or two more at-
tempts at alarming Ezrielk's parents ; he sent his assist-
ant to them more than once, but it was no use, for
after what Eeb Yainkel had said, nobody would hear
of any doctoring.

So Ezrielk continued to study the Talmud and occa-
sionally to lead the service in Shool, like the Chassidic
child he was, had a dip nearly every morning in the
bath-house, and at thirteen, good luck to him, he was
married.

The Hostre Eebbe himself honored the wedding with
his presence. The Rebbe, long life to him, was fond
of Ezrielk, almost as though he had been his own child.
The whole time the saint stayed in Kabtzonivke, Kam-
enivke, and Ebionivke, Ezrielk had to be near him.

When they told the Eebbe the story of the doctor, he
remarked, "Ett! what do they know?"

And Ezrielk continued to recite the prayers after his
marriage, and to sing as before, and was the delight of
all who heard him.

Agreeably to the marriage contract, Ezrielk and his
Channehle had a double right to board with their par-
ents "forever"; when they were born and the written
engagements were filled in, each was an only child, and
both Reb Seinwill and Eeb Selig undertook to board
them "forever." True, when the parents wedded their
"one and only children," they had both of them a
houseful of little ones and no Parnosseh (they really
hadn't ! ) , but they did not go back upon their word
with regard to the "board forever."

228 LEBNEE

Of course, it is understood that the two "everlasting
boards" lasted nearly one whole year, and Ezrielk and
his wife might well give thanks for not having died of
hunger in the course of it, such a bad, bitter year as it
was for their poor parents. It was the year of the great
flood, when both Eeb Seinwill Bassis and Eeb Selig
Tachshit had their houses ruined.

Ezrielk, Channehle, and their little son had to go and
shift for themselves. But the other inhabitants of
Kabtzonivke, regardless of this, now began to envy
them in earnest: what other couple of their age, with a
child and without a farthing, could so easily make a live-
lihood as they?

Hardly had it come to the ears of the three towns
that Ezrielk was seeking a Parnosseh when they were
all astir. All the Shools called meetings, and sought
for means and money whereby they might entice the
wonderful cantor and secure him for themselves. There
was great excitement in the Shools. Fancy finding
in a little, thin Jewish lad all the rare and precious
qualities that go to make a great cantor ! The trustees
of all the Shools ran about day and night, and a fierce
war broke out among them.

The war raged five times twenty-four hours, till the
Great Shool in Kamenivke carried the day. Not one of
the others could have dreamed of offering him such a
salary — three hundred rubles and everything found !

"God is my witness" — thus Ezrielk opened his heart,
as he sat afterwards with the company of Hostre Chas-
sidim over a little glass of brandy — "that I find it very
hard to leave our Old Shool, where my grandfather

EZRIELK THE SCEIBE 229

and great-grandfather used to pray. Believe me, broth-
ers, I would not do it, only they give me one hundred
and fifty rubles earnest-money, and I want to pass it
on to my father and father-in-law, so that they may
rebuild their houses. To your health, brothers ! Drink
to my remaining an honest Jew, and wish that my head
may not be turned by the honor done to me !"

And Ezrielk began to davven and to sing (again
without a choir) in the Great Shool, in the large town
of Kamenivke. There he intoned the prayers as he had
never done before, and showed who Ezrielk was! The
Old Shool in Kabtzonivke had been like a little box
for his voice.

In those days Ezrielk and his household lived in hap-
piness and plenty, and he and Channehle enjoyed the
respect and consideration of all men. When Ezrielk
led the service, the Shool was filled to overflowing, and
not only with Jews, even the richest Gentiles (I beg to
distinguish!) came to hear him, and wondered how
such a small and weakly creature as Ezrielk, with his
thin chest and throat, could bring out such wonderful
tunes and whole compositions of his own ! Money fell
upon the lucky couple, through circumcisions, weddings,
and so on, like snow. Only one thing began, little by
little, to disturb their happiness : Ezrielk took to cough-
ing, and then to spitting blood.

He used to complain that he often felt a kind of pain
in his throat and chest, but they did not consult a
doctor.

"What, a doctor ?" fumed Reb Yainkel. "Nonsense !
It hurts, does it? Where's the wonder? A carpenter,

230 LERNER

a smith, a tailor, a shoemaker works with his hands, and
his hands hurt. Cantors and teachers and match-makers
work with their throat and chest, and these hurt, they
are bound to do so. It is simply hemorrhoids."

So Ezrielk went on intoning and chanting, and the
Kamenivke Jews licked their fingers, and nearly jumped
out of their skin for joy when they heard him.

Two years passed in this way, and then came a
change.

It was early in the morning of the Fast of the De-
struction of the Temple, all the windows of the Great
Shool were open, and all the tables, benches, and desks
had been carried out from the men's hall and the
women's hall the evening before. Men and women sat
on the floor, so closely packed a pin could not have
fallen to the floor between them. The whole street
in which was the Great Shool was chuck full with a
terrible crowd of men, women, and children, although
it just happened to be cold, wet weather. The fact is,
Ezrielk's Lamentations had long been famous through-
out the Jewish world in those parts, and whoever had
ears, a Jewish heart, and sound feet, came that day to
hear him. The sad epidemic disease that (not of our
days be it spoken!) swallows men up, was devastating
Kamenivke and its surroundings that year, and every-
one sought a place and hour wherein to weep out his
opprest and bitter heart.

Ezrielk also sat on the floor reciting Lamentations,
but the man who sat there was not the same Ezrielk,
and the voice heard was not his. Ezrielk, with his
sugar-sweet, honeyed voice, had suddenly been trans-

EZRIELK THE SCEIBE 231

formed into a strange being, with a voice that struck
terror into his hearers; the whole people saw, heard,
and felt, how a strange creature was flying about
among them with a fiery sword in his hand. He slashes,
hews, and hacks at their hearts, and with a terrible
voice he cries out and asks : "Sinners ! Where is your
holy land that flowed with milk and honey? Slaves!
Where is your Temple? Accursed slaves! You sold
your freedom for money and calumny, for honors and
worldly greatness!"

The people trembled and shook and were all but
entirely dissolved in tears. "Upon Zion and her cities !"
sang out once more Ezrielk's melancholy voice, and
suddenly something snapped in his throat, just as when
the strings of a good fiddle snap when the music is at
its best. Ezrielk coughed, and was silent. A stream of
blood poured from his throat, and he grew white as the
wall.

The doctor declared that Ezrielk had lost his voice
forever, and would remain hoarse for the rest of his
life. .

"Nonsense!" persisted Eeb Yainkel. "His voice is
breaking — it's nothing more !"

"God will help!" was the comment of the Hostre
saint. A whole year went by, and Ezrielk's voice neither
broke nor returned to him. The Hostre Chassidim
assembled in the house of Elkoneh the butcher to con-
sider and take counsel as to what Ezrielk should take to
in order to earn a livelihood for wife and children. They
thought it over a long, long time, talked and gave their
several opinions, till they hit upon this : Ezrielk had still

232 LERNER

one hundred and fifty rubles in store — let him spend
one hundred rubles on a house in Kabtzonivke, and
begin to traffic with the remainder.
~Thus Ezrielk became a trader. He began driving to
fairs, and traded in anything and everything capable
of being bought or sold.

Six months were not over before Ezrielk was out of
pocket. He mortgaged his property, and with the money
thus obtained he opened a grocery shop for Channehle.
He himself (nothing satisfies a Jew!) started to drive
about in the neighborhood, to collect the contributions
subscribed for the maintenance of the Hostre Rebbe,
long life to him !

Ezrielk was five months on the road, and when,
torn, worn, and penniless, he returned home, he found
Channehle brought to bed of her fourth child, and the
shop bare of ware and equally without a groschen. But
Ezrielk was now something of a trader, and is there
any strait in which a Jewish trader has not found him-
self? Ezrielk had soon disposed of the whole of his
property, paid his debts, rented a larger lodging, and
started trading in several new and more ambitious
lines: he pickled gherkins, cabbages, and pumpkins,
made beet soup, both red and white, and offered them for
sale, and so on. It was Channehle again who had to
carry on most of the business, but, then, Ezrielk did not
sit with his hands in his pockets. Toward Passover
he had Shmooreh Matzes; he baked and sold them to
the richest householders in Kamenivke, and before the
Solemn Days he, as an expert, tried and recommended
cantors and prayer-leaders for the Kamenivke Shools.

EZEIELK THE SCRIBE 233

When it came to Tabernacles, he trafficked in citrons
and "palms."

For three years Ezrielk and his 'Channehle struggled
at their trades, working themselves nearly to death (of
Zion's enemies be it spoken!), till, with the help of
Heaven, they came to be twenty years old.

By this time Ezrielk and Channehle were the parents
of four living and two dead children. Channehle, the
once so lovely Channehle, looked like a beaten Hosha-
nah, and Ezrielk — you remember the picture drawn
at the time of his wedding? — well, then try to imagine
what he was like now, after those seven years we have
described for you! It's true that he was not spitting
blood any more, either because Reb Yainkel had been
right, when he said that would pass away, or because
there was not a drop of blood in the whole of his body.

So that was all right — only, how were they to live?
Even Reb Yainkel and all the Hostre Chassidim to-
gether could not tell him !

The singing had raised him and lifted him off his feet,
and let him fall. And do you know why it was and
how it was that everything Ezrielk took to turned out
badly? It was because the singing was always there,
in his head and his heart. He prayed and studied, sing-
ing. He bought and sold, singing. He sang day and
night. No one heard him, because he was hoarse, but
he sang without ceasing. Was it likely he would be
a successful trader, when he was always listening to
what Heaven and earth and everything around him
were singing, too ? He only wished he could have been
a slaughterer or a Rav (he was apt enough at study),

234 LERNER

only, first, Eabbonim and slaughterers don't die every
day, and, second, they usually leave heirs to take their
places; third, even supposing there were no such heirs,
one has to pay "privilege-money," and where is it to
come from? No, there was nothing to be done. Only
God could and must have pity on him and his wife and
children, and help them somehow.

Ezrielk struggled and fought his need hard enough
those days. One good thing for him was this — his being
a Hostre Chossid; the Hostre Chassidim, although they
have been famed from everlasting as the direst poor
among the Jews, yet they divide their last mouthful with
their unfortunate brethren. But what can the gifts of
mortal men, and of such poor ones into the bargain, do
in a case like Ezrielk's? And God alone knows what
bitter end would have been his, if Eeb Shmuel Bar, the
Kabtzonivke scribe, had not just then (blessed be the
righteous Judge ! ) met with a sudden death. Our
Ezrielk was not long in feeling that he, and only he,
should, and, indeed, must, step into Reb Shmuel's shoes.
Ezrielk had been an expert at the scribe's work for
years and years. Why, his father's house and the scribe's
had been nearly under one roof, and whenever Ezrielk,
as a child, was let out of Cheder, he would go and sit
any length of time in Reb Shmuel's room (something
in the occupation attracted him) and watch him write.
And the little Ezrielk had more than once tried to make
a piece of parchment out of a scrap of skin; and what
Jewish boy cannot prepare the veins that are used to
sew the phylacteries and the scrolls of the Law? Nor
was the scribe's ink a secret to Ezrielk.

EZRIELK THE SCRIBE 235

So Ezrielk became scribe in Kabtzonivke.

Of course, he did not make a fortune. Reb Shmuel
Bar, who had been a scribe all his days, died a very poor
man, and left a roomful of hungry, half -naked children
behind him, but then — what Jew, I ask you (or has
Messiah come?), ever expected to find a Parnosseh with
enough, really enough, to eat?

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER

At the time I am speaking of, the above was about
forty years old. He was a little, thin Jew with a long
face, a long nose, two large, black, kindly eyes, and one
who would sooner be silent and think than talk, no mat-
ter what was being said to him. Even when he was
scolded for something (and by whom and when and
for what was he not scolded?), he used to listen with
a quiet, startled, but sweet smile, and his large, kindly
eyes would look at the other with such wonderment,
mingled with a sort of pity, that the other soon stopped
short in his abuse, and stood nonplussed before him.

"There, you may talk! You might as well argue
with a horse, or a donkey, or the wall, or a log of wood !"
and the other would spit and make off.

But if anyone observed that smile attentively, and
studied the look in his eyes, he would, to a certainty,
have read there as follows:

"0 man, man, why are you eating your heart out?
Seeing that you don't know, and that you don't under-
stand, why do you undertake to tell me what I ought
to do?"

And when he was obliged to answer, he used to do
so in a few measured and gentle words, as you would
speak to a little, ignorant child, smiling the while, and
then he would disappear and start thinking again.

They called him "breadwinner," because, no matter
how hard the man worked, he was never able to earn
a living. He was a little tailor, but not like the tailors

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 237

nowadays, who specialize in one kind of garment, for
Yitzchok-Yossel made . everything: trousers, cloaks,
waistcoats, top-coats, fur-coats, capes, collars, bags for
prayer-books, "little prayer-scarfs," and so on. Besides,
he was a ladies' tailor as well. Summer and winter,
day and night, he worked like an ox, and yet, when the
Kabtzonivke community, at the time of the great cholera,
in order to put an end to the plague, led him,
aged thirty, out to the cemetery, and there married him
to Malkeh the orphan, she cast him off two weeks later !
She was still too young (twenty-eight), she said, to
stay with him and die of hunger. She went out into
the world, together with a large band of poor, after the
great fire that destroyed nearly the whole town, and
nothing more was heard of Malkeh the orphan from
that day forward. And Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber be-
took himself, with needle and flat-iron, into the women's
chamber in the New Shool, the community having
assigned it to him as a workroom.

How came it about, you may ask, that so versatile a
tailor as Yitzchok-Yossel should be so poor?

Well, if you do, it just shows you didn't know him!

Wait and hear what I shall tell you.

The story is on this wise : Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber
was a tailor who could make anything, and who made
nothing at all, that is, since he displayed his imagina-
tion in cutting out and sewing on the occasion I am
referring to, nobody would trust him.

I can remember as if it were to-day what happened in
Kabtzonivke, and the commotion there was in the little
town when Yitzchok-Yossel made Reb Yecheskel the
16

238 LERNEB

teacher a pair of trousers (begging your pardon!)
of such fantastic cut that the unfortunate teacher had
to wear them as a vest, though he was not then in need
of one, having a brand new sheepskin not more than
three years old.

And now listen! Binyomin Droibnik the trader's
mother died (blessed be the righteous Judge !), and her
whole fortune went, according to the Law, to her only
son Binyomin. She had to be buried at the expense of
the community. If she was to be buried at all, it was
the only way. But the whole town was furious with the
old woman for having cheated them out of their expec-
tations and taken her whole fortune away with her to
the real world. None knew exactly why, but it was con-
fidently believed that old "Aunt" Leah had heaps of
treasure somewhere in hiding.

It was a custom with us in Kabtzonivke to say, when-
ever anyone, man or woman, lived long, ate sicknesses
by the clock, and still did not die, that it was a sign
that he had in the course of his long life gathered
great store of riches, that somewhere in a cellar he kept
potsful of gold and silver.

The Funeral Society, the younger members, had
long been whetting their teeth for "Aunt" Leah's for-
tune, and now she had died (may she merit Paradise!)
and had fooled them.

"What about her money?"

"A cow has flown over the roof and laid an egg !"

In that same night Reb Binyomin's cow (a real cow)
calved, and the unfortunate consequence was that she
died. The Funeral Society took the calf, and buried
"Aunt" Leah at its own expense.

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 239

Well, money or no money, inheritance or no inherit-
ance, Eeb Binyomin's old mother left him a quilt, a
large, long, wide, wadded quilt. As an article of house
furniture, a quilt is a very useful thing, especially in
a house where there is a wife (no evil eye!) and a
goodly number of children, little and big. Who doesn't
see that? It looks simple enough! Either one keeps
it for oneself and the two little boys (with whom Eeb
Binyomin used to sleep), or else one gives it to the
wife and the two little girls (who also sleep all to-
gether), or, if not, then to the two bigger boys or the
two bigger girls, who repose on the two bench-beds in
the parlor and kitchen respectively. But this particular
quilt brought such perplexity into Reb Binyomin's
rather small head that he (not of you be it spoken!)
nearly went mad.

"Why I and not she? Why she and not I? Or
they? Or the others? Why they and not I? Why
them and not us? Why the others and not them?
Well, well, what is all this fuss? What did we cover
them with before?"

Three days and three nights Reb Binyomin split his
head and puzzled his brains over these questions, till the
Almighty had pity on his small skull and feeble intelli-
gence, and sent him a happy thought.

"After all, it is an inheritance from one's one and
only mother (peace be upon her!), it is a thing from
Thingland! I must adapt it to some useful purpose,
so that Heaven and earth may envy me its possession !"
And he sent to fetch Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the
tailor, who could make every kind of garment, and said
to him:

240 LERNEB

"Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, you see this article?"

"I see it."

"Yes, you see it, but do you understand it, really
and truly understand it ?"

"I think I do."

"But do you know what this is, ha ?"

"A quilt."

"Ha, ha, ha! A quilt? I could have told you that
myself. But the stuff, the material?"

"It's good material, beautiful stuff."

"Good material, beautiful stuff? No, I beg your
pardon, you are not an expert in this, you don't know
the value of merchandise. The real artisan, the true
expert, would say: The material is light, soft, and
elastic, like a lung, a sound and healthy lung.
The stuff — he would say further — is firm, full, and
smooth as the best calf's leather. And durable? Why,
it's a piece out of the heart of the strongest ox, or the
tongue of the Messianic ox itself! Do you know how
many winters this quilt has lasted already ? But enough !
That is not why I have sent for you. We are neither
of us, thanks to His blessed Name, do-nothings. The
long and short of it is this: I wish to make out of
this — you understand me ? — out of this material, out of
this piece of stuff, a thing, an article, that shall draw
everybody to it, a fruit that is worth saying the blessing
over, something superfine. An instance: what, for
example, tell me, what would you do, if I gave this
piece of goods into your hands, and said to you: Eeb
Yitzchok-Yossel, as you are (without sin be it spoken !)
an old workman, a good workman, and, besides that, a

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 241

good comrade, and a Jew as well, take this material,
this stuff, and deal with it as you think best. Only let
it be turned into a sort of costume, a sort of garment,
so that not only Kabtzonivke, but all Kamenivke, shall
be bitten and torn with envy. Eh? What would you
turn it into?"

Yitzchok-Yossel was silent, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel went
nearly out of his mind, nearly fainted for joy at these
last words. He grew pale as death, white as chalk,
then burning red like a flame of fire, and sparkled and
shone. And no wonder: Was it a trifle? All his life
he had dreamed of the day when he should be given a
free hand in his work, so that everyone should see who
Yitzchok-Yossel is, arid at the end came — the trousers,
Eeb Yecheskel Melammed's trousers! How well, how
cleverly he had made them ! Just think : trousers and
upper garment in one! He had been so overjoyed, he
had felt so happy. So sure that now everyone would
know who Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber is ! He had even
begun to think and wonder about Malkeh the orphan —
poor, unfortunate orphan ! Had she ever had one single
happy day in her life? Work forever and next to no
food, toil till she was exhausted and next to no drink,
sleep where she could get it: one time in Elkoneh the
butcher's kitchen, another time in Yisroel Dintzis'
attic . . . and when at last she got married (good luck
to her !), she became the wife of Yitzchok-Yossel Broit-
geber! And the wedding took place in the burial-
ground. On one side they were digging graves, on the
other they were bringing fresh corpses. There was
weeping and wailing, and in the middle of it all, the

242 LEENEE

musicians playing and fiddling and singing, and the
relations dancing! . . . Good luck! Good luck! The
orphan and her breadwinner are being led to the mar-
riage canopy in the graveyard !

He will never forget with what gusto, she, his bride,
the first night after their wedding, ate, drank, and slept
— the whole of the wedding-supper that had been given
them, bridegroom and bride: a nice roll, a glass of
brandy, a tea-glass full of wine, and a heaped-up plate
of roast meat was cut up and scraped together and
eaten (no evil eye !) by her, by the bride herself. He had
taken great pleasure in watching her face. He had
known her well from childhood, and had no need to look
at her to know what she was like, but he wanted to see
what kind of feelings her face would express during
this occupation. When they led him into the bridal
chamber — she was already there — the companions of the
bridegroom burst into a shout of laughter, for the bride
was already snoring. He knew quite well why she had
gone to sleep so quickly and comfortably. Was there
not sufficient reason ? For the first time in her life she
had made a good meal and lain down in a bed with
bedclothes !

The six groschen candle burnt, the flies woke and
began to buzz, the mills clapt, and swung, and groaned,
and he, Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the bridegroom,
sat beside the bridal bed on a little barrel of pickled
gherkins, and looked at Malkeh the orphan, his bride,
his wife, listened to her loud thick snores, and thought.

The town dogs howled strangely. Evidently the wed-
ding in the cemetery had not yet driven away the Angel

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 243

of Death. From some of the neighboring houses came
a dreadful crying and screaming of women and children.

Malkeh the orphan heard nothing. She slept sweetly,
and snored as loud (I beg to distinguish!) as Caspar,
the tall, stout miller, the owner of both mills.

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber sits on the little barrel,
looks at her face, and thinks. Her face is dark, rough-
ened, and nearly like that of an old woman. A great,
fat fly knocked against the wick, the candle suddenly
began to burn brighter, and Yitzchok-Yossel saw her
face become prettier, younger, and fresher, and over-
spread by a smile. That was all the effect of the supper
and the soft bed. Then it was that he had promised
himself, that he had sworn, once and for all, to show
the Kabtzonivke Jews who he is, and then Malkeh the
orphan will have food and a bed every day. He would
have done this long ago, had it not been for those
trousers. The people are so silly, they don't under-
stand ! That is the whole misfortune ! And it's quite
the other way about: let someone else try and turn
out such an ingenious contrivance ! But because it was
he, and not someone else, they laughed and made fun
of him. How Reb Yecheskel, his wife and children, did
abuse him ! That was his reward for all his trouble.
And just because they themselves are cattle, horses,
boors, who don't understand the tailor's art! Ha, if
only they understood that tailoring is a noble, refined
calling, limitless and bottomless as (with due dis-
tinction ! ) the holy Torah !

But all is not lost. Who knows? For here comes
Binyomin DroibniK, an intelligent man, a man of brains

244 LERNER

and feeling. And think how many years he has been
a trader ! A retail trader, certainly, a jobber, but
still—

"Come, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, make an end! What
will you turn it into?"

"Everything."

"That is to say?"

"A dressing-gown for your Dvoshke, — "

"And then?"

"A morning-gown with tassels, — "

"After that?"

"A coat."

"Well?"

"A dress—"

"And besides that?"

"A pair of trousers and a jacket — "

"Nothing more?"

"Why not? A—"

"For instance?"

"Pelisse, a wadded winter pelisse for you."

"There, there ! Just that, and only that !" said Reb
Binyomin, delighted.

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber tucked away the quilt
under his arm, and was preparing to be off.

"Reb Yitzchok-Yossel! And what about taking my
measure ? And how about your charge ?"

Yitzchok-Yossel dearly loved to take anyone's meas-
ure, and was an expert at so doing. He had soon pulled
a fair-sized sheet of paper out of one of his deep pockets,
folded it into a long paper stick, and begun to measure
Reb Binyomin Droibnik's limbs. He did not even omit
to note the length and breadth of his feet.

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER 245

"What do you want with that? Are you measuring
me for trousers?"

"Ett, don't you ask! No need to teach a skilled
workman his trade !"

"And what about the charge?"

"We shall settle that later."

"No, that won't do with me; I am a trader, you
understand, and must have it all pat."

"Five gulden."

"And how much less?"

"How should I know? Well, four."

"Well, and half a ruble?"

"Well, well—"

"Remember, Eeb Yitzchok-Yossel, it must be a
masterpiece !"

"Trust me!"

For five days and five nights Yitzchok-Yossel set
his imagination to work on Binyomin Droibnik's inherit-
ance. There was no eating for him, no drinking, and
no sleeping. The scissors squeaked, the needle ran
hither and thither, up and down, the inheritance sighed
and almost sobbed under the hot iron. But how happy
was Yitzchok-Yossel those lightsome days and merry
nights? Who could compare with him? Greater than
the Kabtzonivke village elder, richer than Yisroel Din-
tzis, the tax-gatherer, and more exalted than the bailiff
himself was Yitzchok-Yossel, that is, in his own esti-
mation. All that he wished, thought, and felt was
forthwith created by means of his scissors and iron,
his thimble, needle, and cotton. No more putting on

246 LEENEE

of patches, sewing on of pockets, cutting out of
"Tefillin-Sacklech" and "little prayer-scarfs," no more
doing up of old dresses. Freedom, freedom — he wanted
one bit of work of the right sort, and that was all ! Ha,
now he would show them, the Kabtzonivke cripples
and householders, now he would show them who Yitz-
chok-Yossel Broitgeber is ! They would not laugh at him
or tease him any more ! His fame would travel from one
end of the world to the other, and Malkeh the orphan,
his bride, his wife, she also would hear of it, and —

She will come back to him! He feels it in every
limb. It was not him she cast off, only his bad luck.
He will rent a lodging (money will pour in from all
sides) — buy a little furniture: a bed, a sofa, a table — in
time he will buy a little house of his own — she will
come, she has been homeless long enough — it is time
she should rest her weary, aching bones — it is high time
she should have her own corner !

She will come back, he feels it, she will certainly
come home!

The last night! The work is complete. Yitzchok-
Yossel spread it out on the table of the women's Shool,
lighted a second groschen candle, sat down in front of
it with wide open, sparkling eyes, gazed with delight
at the product of his imagination and — was wildly
happy !

So he sat the whole night.

It was very hard for him to part with his achievement,
but hardly was it day when he appeared with it at Eeb
Binyomin Droibnik's.

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BEOITGEBEE 247

"A good morning, a good year, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel !
I see by your eyes that you have been successful. Is it
true?"

"You can see for yourself, there — "

"No, no, there is no need for me to see it first.
Dvoshke, Cheike, Shprintze, Dovid-Hershel, Yitzchok-
Yoelik ! You understand, I want them all to be present
and see."

In a few minutes the whole family had appeared on
the scene. Even the four little ones popped up from
behind the heaps of ragged covering.

Yitzchok-Yossel untied his parcel and —

"Wuus is duuuusss? ? ? ! ! !"

"A pair of trousers with sleeves !"

JUDAH STEINBEEG

Born, 1863, in Llpkany, Bessarabia; died, 1907, in Odessa;
education Hasidic; entered business in a small Roumanian
village for a short time; teacher, from 1889 in Jedency and
from 1896 in Leowo, Bessarabia; removed to Odessa, in
1905, to become correspondent of New York Warheit; writer
of fables, stories, and children's tales in Hebrew, and poems
in Yiddish; historical drama, Ha-Sotah; collected works in
Hebrew, 3 vols., Cracow, 1910-1911 (in course of pub-
lication).

A LIVELIHOOD

The two young fellows Maxim Klopatzel and Israel
Friedman were natives of the same town in New Bess-
arabia, and there was an old link existing between
them : a mutual detestation inherited from their respec-
tive parents. Maxim's father was the chief Gentile of
the town, for he rented the corn-fields of its richest
inhabitant; and as the lawyer of the rich citizen was
a Jew, little Maxim imagined, when his father came
to lose his tenantry, that it was owing to the Jews.
Little Struli was the only Jewish boy he knew (the
children were next door neighbors), and so a large share
of their responsibility was laid on Struli's shoulders.
Later on, when Klopatzel, the father, had abandoned
the plough and taken to trade, he and old Friedman
frequently came in contact with each other as rivals.

They traded and traded, and competed one against
the other, till they both become bankrupt, when each
argued to himself that the other was at the bottom of
his misfortune — and their children grew on in mutual
hatred.

A little later still, Maxim put down to Struli's account
part of the nails which were hammered into his Savior,
over at the other end of the town, by the well, where the
Government and the Church had laid out money and
set up a crucifix with a ladder, a hammer, and all other
necessary implements.

And Struli, on his part, had an account to settle with
Maxim respecting certain other nails driven in with

252 STEINBERG

hammers, and torn scrolls of the Law, and the history
of the ten martyrs of the days of Titus, not to mention
a few later ones.

Their hatred grew with them, its strength increased
with theirs.

When Krushevan began to deal in anti-Semitism,
Maxim learned that 'Christian children were carried off
into the Shool, Struli's Shool, for the sake of their
blood.

Thenceforth Maxim's hatred of Struli was mingled
with fear. He was terrified when he passed the Shool
at night, and he used to dream that Struli stood over
him in a prayer robe, prepared to slaughter him with
a ram's horn trumpet.

This because he had once passed the Shool early one
Jewish New Year's Day, had peeped through the win-
dow, and seen the ram's horn blower standing in his
white shroud, armed with the Shofar, and suddenly a
heartrending voice broke out with Min ha-Mezar, and
Maxim, taking his feet on his shoulders, had arrived
home more dead than alive. There was very nearly a
commotion. The priest wanted to persuade him that
the Jews had tried to obtain his blood.

So the two children grew into youth as enemies.
Their fathers died, and the increased difficulties of their
position increased their enmity.

The same year saw them called to military service,
from which they had both counted on exemption as the
only sons of widowed mothers; only Israel's mother
had lately died, bequeathing to the Czar all she had — a
soldier; and Maxim's mother had united herself to

A LIVELIHOOD 253

a second provider — and there was an end of the two
"only sons I"

Neither of them wished to serve; they were too
intellectually capable, too far developed mentally, too
intelligent, to be turned all at once into Russian soldiers,
and too nicely brought up to march from Port Arthur
to Mukden with only one change of shirt. They both
cleared out, and stowed themselves away till they fell
separately into the hands of the military.

They came together again under the fortress walls
of Mukden.

They ate and hungered sullenly round the same cook-
ing pot, received punches from the same officer, and had
the same longing for the same home.

Israel had a habit of talking in his sleep, and, .like
a born Bessarabian, in his Yiddish mixed with a large
portion of Roumanian words.

One night, lying in the barracks among the other
soldiers, and sunk in sleep after a hard day, Struli
began to talk sixteen to the dozen. He called out names,
he quarrelled, begged pardon, made a fool of himself —
all in his sleep.

It woke Maxim, who overheard the homelike names
and phrases, the name of his native town.

He got up, made his way between the rows of sleepers,
and sat down by Israel's pallet, and listened.

Next day Maxim managed to have a large helping
of porridge, more than he could eat, and he found
Israel, and set it before him.

"Maltzimesk !" said the other, thanking him in Rou-
manian, and a thrill of delight went through Maxim's
frame.
17

254 STEINBEKG

The* day following, Maxim was hit by a Japanese
bullet, and there happened to be no one beside him at
the moment.

The shock drove all the soldier-speech out of his
head. "Help, I am killed!" he called out, and fell
to the ground.

Struli was at his side like one sprung from the earth,
he tore off his Four-Corners, and made his comrade a
bandage.

The wound turned out to be slight, for the bullet
had passed through, only grazing the flesh of the left
arm. A few days later Maxim was back in the company.

"I wanted to see you again, Struli," he said, greeting
his comrade in Roumanian.

A flash of brotherly affection and gratitude lighted
Struli's Semitic eyes, and he took the other into his
arms, and pressed him to his heart.

They felt themselves to be "countrymen," of one and
the same native town.

Neither of them could have told exactly when their
union of spirit had been accomplished, but each one
knew that he thanked God for having brought him
together with so near a compatriot in a strange land.

And when the battle of Mukden had made Maxim
all but totally blind, and deprived Struli of one foot,
they started for home together, according to the passage
in the Midrash, "Two men with one pair of eyes and
one pair of feet between them." Maxim carried on his
shoulders a wooden box, which had now became a burden
in common for them, and Struli limped a little in front
of him, leaning lightly against his companion, so as to

A LIVELIHOOD 255

keep him in the smooth part of the road and out of
other people's way.

Struli had become Maxim's eyes, and Maxim, Struli's
feet; they were two men grown into one, and they pro-
vided for themselves out of one pocket, now empty of
the last ruhle.

They dragged themselves home. "A kasa, a kasa!"
whispered Struli into Maxim's ear, and the other turned
on him his two glazed eyes looking through a red haze,
and set in swollen red lids.

A childlike smile played on his lips :

"A kasa, a kasa !" he repeated, also in a whisper.

Home appeared to their fancy as something holy,
something consoling, something that could atone and
compensate for all they had suffered and lost. They had
seen such a home in their dreams.

But the nearer they came to it in reality, the more
the dream faded. They remembered that they were
returning as conquered soldiers and crippled men, that
they had no near relations and but few friends, while
the girls who had coquetted with Maxim before he left
would never waste so much as a look on him now he
was half-blind; and Struli's plans for marrying and
emigrating to America were frustrated : a cripple would
not be allowed to enter the country.

All their dreams and hopes finally dissipated, and
there remained only one black care, one all-obscuring
anxiety: how were they to earn a living?

They had been hoping all the while for a pension,
but in their service book was written "on sick-leave."
The Russo-Japanese war was distinguished by the fact

256 STEINBEKG

that the greater number of wounded soldiers went home
"on sick-leave/' and the money assigned by the Govern-
ment for their pension would not have been sufficient
for even a hundredth part of the number of invalids.

Maxim showed a face with two wide open eyes, to
which all the passers-by looked the same. He dis-
tinguished with difficulty between a man and a telegraph
post, and wore a smile of mingled apprehension and
confidence. The sound feet stepped hesitatingly, keep-
ing behind Israel, and it was hard to say which steadied
himself most against the other. Struli limped forward,
and kept open eyes for two. Sometimes he would look
round at the box on Maxim's shoulders, as though he
felt its weight as much as Maxim.

Meantime the railway carriages had emptied and
refilled, and the locomotive gave a great blast, received
an answer from somewhere a long way off, a whistle for a
whistle, and the train set off, slowly at first, and then
gradually faster and faster, till all that remained of
it were puffs of smoke hanging in the air without rhyme
or reason.

The two felt more depressed than ever. "Something
to eat ? Where are we to get a bite ?" was in their minds.

Suddenly Yisroel remembered with a start: this was
the anniversary of his mother's death — if he could only
say one Kaddish for her in a Klaus !

"Is it far from here to a Klaus?" he inquired of a
passer-by.

"There is one a little way down that side-street,"
was the reply.

"Maxim!" he begged of the other, "come with me!''

"Where to?"

A LIVELIHOOD 257

"To the synagogue/'

Maxim shuddered from head to foot. His fear of a
Jewish Shool had not left him, and a thousand foolish
terrors darted through his head.

But his comrade's voice was so gentle, so childishly
imploring, that he could not resist it, and he agreed to go
with him into the Shool.

It was the time for Afternoon Prayer, the daylight
and the dark held equal sway within the Klaus, the
lamps before the platform increasing the former to the
east and the latter to the west. Maxim and Yisroel
stood in the western part, enveloped in shadow. The
Cantor had just finished "Incense," and was entering
upon Ashre, and the melancholy night chant of Minchah
and Maariv gradually entranced Maxim's emotional
Roumanian heart.

The low, sad murmur of the Cantor seemed to him
like the distant surging of a sea, in which men were
drowned by the hundreds and suffocating with the
water. Then, the Ashre and the Kaddish ended, there
was silence. The congregation stood up for the
Eighteen Benedictions. Here and there you heard a
half-stifled sigh. And now it seemed to Maxim that
he was in the hospital at night, at the hour when the
groans grow less frequent, and the sufferers fall one by
one into a sweet sleep.

Tears started into his eyes without his knowing why.
He was no longer afraid, but a sudden shyness had
come over him, and he felt, as he watched Yisroel re-
peating the Kaddish, that the words, which he, Maxim,
could not understand, were being addressed to someone

258 STEINBERG

unseen, and yet mysteriously present in the darkening
Shool.

When the prayers were ended, one of the chief mem-
bers of the congregation approached the "Mandchurian,"
and gave Yisroel a coin into his hand.

Yisroel looked round — he did not understand at first
what the donor meant by it.

Then it occurred to him — and the blood rushed to
his face. He gave the coin to his companion, and
explained in a half-sentence or two how they had come
by it.

Once outside the Klaus, they both cried, after which
they felt better.

"A livelihood!" the same thought struck them both.

<rWe can go into partnership !"

AT THE MATZES

It was quite early in the morning, when Sossye, the
scribe's daughter, a girl of seventeen, awoke laughing;
a sunbeam had broken through the rusty window, made
its way to her underneath the counterpane, and there
opened her eyes.

It woke her out of a deep dream which she was
ashamed to recall, but the dream came back to her of
itself, and made her laugh.

Had she known whom she was going to meet in her
dreams, she would have lain down in her clothes, occurs
to her, and she laughs aloud.

"Got up laughing!" scolds her mother. "There's a
piece of good luck for you ! It's a sign of a black year
for her (may it be to my enemies!)."

Sossye proceeds to dress herself. She does not want
to fall out with her mother to-day, she wants to be on
good terms with everyone.

In the middle of dressing she loses herself in thought,
with one naked foot stretched out and an open stocking
in her hands, wondering how the dream would have
ended, if she had not awoke so soon.

Chayyimel, a villager's son, who boards with her
mother, passes the open doors leading to Sossye's room,
and for the moment he is riveted to the spot. His eyes
dance, the blood rushes to his cheeks, he gets all he can
by looking, and then hurries away to Cheder without
his breakfast, to study the Song of Songs.

260 STEINBERG

And Sossye, fresh and rosy from sleep, her brown
eyes glowing under the tumbled gold locks, betakes
herself to the kitchen, where her mother, with her
usual worried look, is blowing her soul out before the
oven into a smoky fire of damp wood.

"Look at the girl standing round like a fool! Run
down to the cellar, and fetch me an onion and some
potatoes !"

Sossye went down to the cellar, and found the onions
and potatoes sprouting.

At sight of a green leaf, her heart leapt. Greenery!
greenery! summer is coming! And the whole of her
dream came back to her !

"Look, mother, green sprouts !" she cried, rushing into
the kitchen.

"A thousand bad dreams on your head ! The onions
are spoilt, and she laughs ! My enemies' eyes will creep
out of their lids before there will be fresh greens to eat,
and all this, woe is me, is only fit to throw away!''

"Greenery, greenery!" thought Sossye, "summer is
coming !"

Greenery had got into her head, and there it remained,
and from greenery she went on to remember that to-day
was the first Passover-cake baking at Gedalyeh the
baker's, and that Shloimeh Shieber would be at work
there.

Having begged of her mother the one pair of boots
that stood about in the room and fitted everyone, she
put them on, and was off to the Matzes.

It was, as we have said, the first day's work at
Gedalyeh the baker's, and the sack of Passover flour had

AT THE MATZES 261

just been opened. Gravely, the flour-boy, a two weeks'
orphan, carried the pot of flour for the Mehereh, and
poured it out together with remembrances of his mother,
who had died in the hospital of injuries received at their
hands, and the water-boy came up behind him, and
added recollections of his own.

"The hooligans threw his father into the water off
the bridge — may they pay for it, siisser Gott ! May they
live till he is a man, and can settle his account with
them !"

Thus the grey-headed old Henoch, the kneader, and
he kneaded it all into the dough, with thoughts of his
own grandchildren : this one fled abroad, the other in
the regiment, and a third in prison.

The dough stiffens, the horny old hands work it with
difficulty. The dough gets stiffer every year, and the
work harder, it is time for him to go to the asylum !

The dough is kneaded, cut up in pieces, rolled and
riddled — is that a token for the whole Congregation of
Israel ? And now appear the round Matzes, which must
wander on a shovel into the heated oven of Shloimeh
Shieber, first into one corner, and then into another, till
another shovel throws them out into a new world,
separated from the old by a screen thoroughly scoured
for Passover, which now rises and now falls. There they
are arranged in columns, a reminder of Pithom and
Barneses. Kuk-ruk, kuk-ruk, ruk-ruk, whisper the still
warm Matzes one to another ; they also are remembering,
and they tell the tale of the Exodus after their fashion,
the tale of the flight out of Egypt — only they have seen
more flights than one.

262 STEINBERG

Thus are the Maizes kneaded and baked by the Jews,
with "thoughts." The Gentiles call them "blood," and
assert that Jews need blood for their Matzes, and they
take the trouble to supply us with fresh "thoughts"
every year !

But at Gedalyeh the baker's all is still cheerfulness.
Girls and boys, in their unspent vigor, surround the
tables, there is rolling and riddling and cleaning of
clean rolling-pins with pieces of broken glass (from
where ever do Jews get so much broken glass?), and
the whole town is provided with kosher Matzes. Jokes
and silver trills escape the lively young workers, the
company is as merry as though the Exodus were to-mor-
row.

But it won't be to-morrow. Look at them well,
because another day you will not find them so merry,
they will not seem like the same.

One of the likely lads has left his place, and suddenly
appeared at a table beside a pretty, curly-haired girl.
He has hurried over his Matzes, and now he wants to
help her.

She thanks him for his attention with a rolling-pin
over the fingers, and there is such laughter among the
spectators that Berke, the old overseer, exclaims, "What
impertinence !"

But he cannot finish, because he has to laugh himself.
There is a spark in the embers of his being which the
girlish merriment around him kindles anew.

And the other lads are jealous of the beaten one.
They know very well that no girl would hit a complete

AT THE MATZES 263

stranger, and that the blow only meant, "Impudent
boy, why need the world know of anything between us ?"

Shloimehle Shieber, armed with the shovels, stands
still for a minute trying to distinguish Sossye's voice
in the peals of laughter. The Matzes under his care are
browning in the oven.

And Sossye takes it into her head to make her Matzes
with one pointed corner, so that he may perhaps know
them for hers, and laughs to herself as she does so.

There is one table to the side of the room which was
not there last year ; it was placed there for the formerly
well-to-do housemistresses, who last year, when they
came to bake their Matzes, gave Yom-tov money to the
others. Here all goes on quietly; the laughter of the
merry people breaks against the silence, and is swallowed
up.

The work grows continually pleasanter and more
animated. The riddler stamps two or three Matzes with
hieroglyphs at once, in order to show off. Shloimeh
at the oven cannot keep pace with him, and grows angry :

"May all bad. . . "

The wish is cut short in his mouth, he has caught a
glance of Sossye's through the door of the baking-room,
he answers with two, gets three back, Sossye pursing
her lips to signify a kiss. Shloimeh folds his hands,
which also means something.

Meantime ten Matzes get scorched, and one of Sossye's
is pulled in two. "Brennen brennt mir mein Harz,"
starts a worker singing in a plaintive key.

"Come! hush, hush!" scolds old Berke. "Songs, in-
deed ! What next, you impudent boy ?"

264 STEINBERG

"My sorrows be on their head!" sighs a neighbor of
Sossye's. "They'd soon be tired of their life, if they
were me. I've left two children at home fit to scream
their hearts out. The other is at the breast, I have
brought it along. It is quiet just now, by good luck."

"What is the use of a poor woman's having children ?"
exclaims another, evidently "expecting" herself. Indeed,
she has a child a year — and a seven-days' mourning a
year afterwards.

"Do you suppose I ask for them? Do you think I
cry my eyes out for them before God?"

"If she hasn't any, who's to inherit her place at the
Matzes-baking — a hundred years hence?"

"All very well for you to talk, you're a grass-widow
(to no Jewish daughter may it apply!) !"

"May such a blow be to my enemies as he'll surely
come back again!"

"It's about time ! After three years !"

"Will you shut up, or do you want another beating ?"

Sossye went off into a fresh peal of laughter, and the
shovel fell out of Shloimeh's hand.

Again he caught a glance, but this time she wrinkled
her nose at him, as much as to say, "Fie, you shameless
boy ! Can't you behave yourself even before other peo-
ple?"

Hereupon the infant gave account of itself in a small,
shrill voice, and the general commotion went on increas-
ing. The overseer scolded, the Matzes-printing-wheel
creaked and squeaked, the bits of glass were ground
against the rolling-pins, there was a humming of songs
and a proclaiming of secrets, followed by bursts of
laughter, Sossye's voice ringing high above the rest.

AT THE MATZES 265

And the sun shone into the room through the small
window — a white spot jumped around and kissed every-
one there.

Is it the Spirit of Israel delighting in her young men
and maidens and whispering in their ears: "What if
it is Matzes-kneading, and what if it is Exile ? Only let
us be all together, only let us all be merry !"

Or is it the Spring, transformed into a white patch
of sunshine, in which all have equal share, and which
has not forgotten to bring good news into the house of
Gedalyeh the Matzeh-baker ?

A beautiful sun was preparing to set, and promised
another fine day for the morrow.

"Ding-dong, gul-gul-gul-gul-gul-gul !"

It was the convent bells calling the Christians to con-
fession !

All tongues were silenced round the tables at Gedalyeh
the baker's.

A streak of vapor dimmed the sun, and gloomy
thoughts settled down upon the hearts of the workers.

"Easter ! Their Easter is coming on !" and mothers'
eyes sought their children.

The white patch of sunshine suddenly gave a terrified
leap across the ceiling and vanished in a corner.

"Kik-kik, kik-rik, kik-rik," whispered the hot Matzes.
Who is to know what they say ?

Who can tell, now that the Jews have baked this
year's Matzes, how soon they will set about providing
them with material for the next? — "thoughts," and
broken glass for the rolling-pins.

DAVID FEISCHMANN

Born, 1863, in Lodz, Russian Poland, of a family of mer-
chants; education, Jewish and secular, the latter with special
attention to foreign languages and literatures; has spent
most of his life in Warsaw; Hebrew critic, editor, poet, sat-
irist, and writer of fairy tales; translator of George Eliot's
Daniel Deronda into Hebrew; contributor to Sholom-
Alechem's Jiidische Volksbibliothek, Spektor's Hausfreund,
and various periodicals; editor of monthly publication
Reshaflm; collected works in Hebrew, Ketabim Nibharim, 2
vols., Warsaw, 1899-1901, and Reshimot, 4 parts, Warsaw,
1911.

THEEE WHO ATE

Once upon a time three people ate. I recall the
event as one recalls a dream. Black clouds obscure the
men, because it happened long ago.

Only sometimes it seems to me that there are no
clouds, but a pillar of fire lighting up the men and
their doings, and the fire grows bigger and brighter,
and gives light and warmth to this day.

I have only a few words to tell you, two or three
words: once upon a time three people ate. Not on a
workday or an ordinary Sabbath, but on a Day of
Atonement that fell on a Sabbath.

Not in a corner where no one sees or hears, but before
all the people in the great Shool, in the principal Shool
of the town.

Neither were they ordinary men, these three, but the
chief Jews of the community: the Kabbi and his two
Dayonim.

The townsfolk looked up to them as if they had been
angels, and certainly held them to be saints. And now,
as I write these words, I remember how difficult it
was for me to understand, and how I sometimes used
to think the Kabbi and his Dayonim had done wrong.
But even then I felt that they were doing a tremendous
thing, that they were holy men with holy instincts, and
that it was not easy for them to act thus. Who knows
18

270 FRISCHMANN

how hard they fought with themselves, who knows how
they suffered, and what they endured?

And even if I live many years and grow old, I shall
never forget the day and the men, and what was done
on it, for they were no ordinary men, but great heroes.

Those were bitter times, such as had not been for
long, and such as will not soon return.

A great calamity had descended on us from Heaven,
and had spread abroad among the towns and over the
country : the cholera had broken out.

The calamity had reached us from a distant land, and
entered our little town, and clutched at young and old.

By day and by night men died like flies, and those
who were left hung between life and death.

Who can number the dead who were buried in those
days! Who knows the names of the corpses which lay
about in heaps in the streets !

In the Jewish street the plague made great ravages:
there was not a house where there lay not one dead —
not a family in which the calamity had not broken out.

In the house where we lived, on the second floor,
nine people died in one day. In the basement there
died a mother and four children, and in the house oppo-
site we heard wild cries one whole night through, and
in the morning we became aware that there was no one
left in it alive.

The grave-diggers worked early and late, and the
corpses lay about in the streets like dung. They stuck
one to the other like clay, and one walked over dead
bodies.

THREE WHO ATE 271

The summer broke up, and there came the Solemn
Days, and then the most dreadful day of all — the Day
of Atonement.

I shall remember that day as long as I live.

The Eve of the Day of Atonement — the reciting of
Kol Nidre!

At the desk before the ark there stands, not as usual
the precentor and two householders, but the Rabbi and
his two Dayonim.

The candles are burning all round, and there is a
whispering of the flames as they grow taller and taller.
The people stand at their reading-desks with grave
faces, and draw on the robes and prayer-scarfs, the
Spanish hoods and silver girdles; and their shadows
sway this way and that along the walls, and might be
the ghosts of the dead who died to-day and yesterday
and the day before yesterday. Evidently they could
not rest in their graves, and have also come into the
Shool.

Hush ! . . . the Rabbi has begun to say something,
and the Dayonim, too, and a groan rises from the con-
gregation.

''With the consent of the All-Present and with the
consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with
them that have transgressed."

And a great fear fell upon me and upon all the
people, young and old. In that same moment I saw the
Rabbi mount the platform. Is he going to preach ? Is
he going to lecture the people at a time when they are
falling dead like flies ? But the Rabbi neither preached
nor lectured. He only called to remembrance the souls

273 FRISCHMANN

of those who had died in the course of the last few days.
But how long it lasted! How many names he men-
tioned ! The minutes fly one after the other, and the
Rabbi has not finished ! Will the list of souls never
come to an end ? Never ? And it seems to me the Rabbi
had better call out the names of those who are left alive,
because they are few, instead of the names of the dead,
who are without number and without end.

I shall never forget that night and the praying, be-
cause it was not really praying, but one long, loud
groan rising from the depth of the human heart, cleaving
the sky and reaching to Heaven. Never since the world
began have Jews prayed in greater anguish of soul,
never have hotter tears fallen from human eyes.

That night no one left the Shool,

After the prayers they recited the Hymn of Unity,
and after that the Psalms, and then chapters from the
Mishnah, and then ethical books. . .

And I also stand among the congregation and pray,
and my eyelids are heavy as lead, and my heart beats
like a hammer.

"U-Malochim yechofezun — and the angels fly around."

And I fancy I see them flying in the Shool, up and
down, up and down. And among them I see the bad
angel with the thousand eyes, full of eyes from head to
feet.

That night no one left the Shool, but early in the
morning there were some missing — two of the congre-
gation had fallen during the night, and died before our
eyes, and lay wrapped in their prayer-scarfs and white

THREE WHO ATE 273

robes — nothing was lacking for their journey from the
living to the dead.

They kept on bringing messages into the Shool from
the Gass, but nobody wanted to listen or to ask questions,
lest he should hear what had happened in his own
house. No matter how long I live, I shall never forget
that night, and all I saw and heard.

But the Day of Atonement, the day that followed,
was more awful still.

And even now, when I shut my eyes, I see the whole
picture, and I think I am standing once more among
the people in the Shool.

It is Atonement Day in the afternoon.

The Rabbi stands on the platform in the centre of
the Shool, tall and venerable, and there is a fascination
in his noble features. And there, in the corner of the
Shool, stands a boy who never takes his eyes off the
Rabbi's face.

In truth I never saw a nobler figure.

The Rabbi is old, seventy or perhaps eighty years,
but tall and straight as a fir-tree. His long beard is
white like silver, but the thick, long hair of his head is
whiter still, and his face is blanched, and his lips are
pale, and only his large black eyes shine and sparkle like
the eyes of a young lion.

I stood in awe of him when I was a little child.
I knew he was a man of God, one of the greatest authori-
ties in the Law, whose advice was sought by the whole
world.

I knew also that he inclined to leniency in all his
decisions, and that none dared oppose him.

274 FRISCHMANN"

The sight I saw that day in Shool is before my eyes
now.

The Eabbi stands on the platform, and his black
eyes gleam and shine in the pale face and in the white
hair and beard.

The Additional Service is over, and the people are
waiting to hear what the Rabbi will say, and one is
afraid to draw one's breath.

And the Rabbi begins to speak.

His weak voice grows stronger and higher every
minute, and at last it is quite loud.

He speaks of the sanctity of the Day of Atonement
and of the holy Torah; of repentance and of prayer,
of the living and of the dead, and of the pestilence that
has broken out and that destroys without pity, without
rest, without a pause — for how long? for how much
longer ?

And by degrees his pale cheeks redden and his lips
also, and I hear him say: "And when trouble comes to
a man, he must look to his deeds, and not only to those
which concern him and the Almighty, but to those which
concern himself, to his body, to his flesh, to his own
health."

I was a child then, but I remember how I began to
tremble when I heard these words, because I had under-
stood.

The Rabbi goes on speaking. He speaks of cleanliness
and wholesome air, of dirt, which is dangerous to man,
and of hunger and thirst, which are men's bad angels
when there is a pestilence about, devouring without pity.

And the Rabbi goes on to say:

THEEE WHO ATE 275

"And men shall live by My commandments, and not
die by them. There are times when one must turn aside
from the Law, if by so doing a whole community may
be saved."

I stand shaking with fear. What does the Rabbi
want? What does he mean by his words? What does
he think to accomplish ? And suddenly I see that he is
weeping, and my heart beats louder and louder. What
has happened ? Why does he weep ? And there I stand
in the corner, in the silence, and I also begin to cry.

And to this day, if I shut my eyes, I see him standing
on the platform, and he makes a sign with his hand to
the two Dayonim to the left and right of him. He and
they whisper together, and he says something in their
ear. What has happened? Why does his cheek flame,
and why are theirs as white as chalk ?

And suddenly I hear them talking, but I cannot
understand them, because the words do not enter my
brain. And yet all three are speaking so sharply and
clearly !

And all the people utter a groan, and after the groan
I hear the words, <rWith the consent of the All-Present
and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave
to eat and drink on the Day of Atonement."

Silence. Not a sound is heard in the Shool, not an
eyelid quivers, not a breath is drawn.

And I stand in my corner and hear my heart beating :
one — two — one — two. A terror comes over me, and it
is black before my eyes. The shadows move to and fro
on the wall, and amongst the shadows I see the dead
who died yesterday and the day before yesterday and the

276 FRISCHMANN

day before the day before yesterday — a whole people, a
great assembly.

And suddenly I grasp what it is the Eabbi asks of us.
The Rabbi calls on us to eat, to-day! The Rabbi calls
on Jews to eat on the Day of Atonement — not to fast,
because of the cholera — because of the cholera — because
of the cholera . . . and I begin to cry loudly. And it
is not only I — the whole congregation stands weeping,
and the Dayonim on the platform weep, and the great-
est of all stands there sobbing like a child.

And he implores like a child, and his words are soft
and gentle, and every now and then he weeps so that
his voice cannot be heard.

"Eat, Jews, eat! To-day we must eat. This is a
time to turn aside from the Law. We are to live through
the commandments, and not die through them !"

But no one in the Shool has stirred from his place,
and there he stands and begs of them, weeping, and
declares that he takes the whole responsibility on him-
self, that the people shall be innocent. But no one stirs.
And presently he begins again in a changed voice — he
does not beg, he commands:

"I give you leave to eat — I — I — I !"

And his words are like arrows shot from the bow.

But the people are deaf, and no one stirs.

Then he begins again with his former voice, and
implores like a child:

"What would you have of me ? Why will you torment
me till my strength fails ? Think you I have not strug-
gled with myself from early this morning till now?"

And the Dayonim also plead with the people.

THREE WHO ATE 277

And of a sudden the Rabbi grows as white as chalk,
and lets his head fall on his breast. There is a groan
from one end of the Shool to the other, and after the
groan the people are heard to murmur among them-
selves.

Then the Rabbi, like one speaking to himself, says :

"It is God's will. I am eighty years old, and have
never yet transgressed a law. But this is also a law, it
is a precept. Doubtless the Almighty wills it so !
Beadle !"

The beadle comes, and the Rabbi whispers a few words
into his ear.

He also confers with the Dayonim, and they nod their
heads and agree.

And the beadle brings cups of wine for Sanctification,
out of the Rabbi's chamber, and little rolls of bread.
And though I should live many years and grow very old,
I shall never forget what I saw then, and even now,
when I shut my eyes, I see the whole thing : three Rabbis
standing on the platform in Shool, and eating before
the whole people, on the Day of Atonement !

The three belong to the heroes.

Who shall tell how they fought with themselves, who
shall say how they suffered, and what they endured?

"I have done what you wished," says the Rabbi, and
his voice does not shake, and his lips do not tremble.

"God's Name be praised!"

And all the Jews ate that day, they ate and wept.

Rays of light beam forth from the remembrance, and
spread all around, and reach the table at which I sit
and write these words.

278 PRISCHMANN

Once again: three people ate.

At the moment when the awesome scene in the Shool
is before me, there are three Jews sitting in a room
opposite the Shool, and they also are eating.

They are the three "enlightened" ones of the place:
the tax-collector, the inspector, and the teacher.

The window is wide open, so that all may see ; on the
table stands a samovar, glasses of red wine, and eat-
ables. And the three sit with playing-cards in their
hands, playing Preference, and they laugh and eat and
drink.

Do they also belong to the heroes ?

MICHA JOSEPH BERDYCZEWSKI

Born, 1865, in Berschad, Podolia, Southwestern Russia;
educated in Yeshibah of Volozhin; studied also modern
literatures in his youth; has been living alternately in
Berlin and Breslau; Hebrew, Yiddish, and German writer,
on philosophy, aesthetics, and Jewish literary, spiritual, and
timely questions; contributor to Hebrew periodicals; editor
of Bet-Midrash, supplement to Eet-Ozar ha-Sifrut; con-
tributed Ueber den Zusammenhang zwischen Ethik und
Aesthetik to Berner Studien zur Philosophic und ihrer
Geschichte; author of two novels, Mibayit u-Mihuz, and
Mahanaim; a book on the Hasidim, Warsaw, 1900; Jiidische
Ketobim vun a weiten Korov, Warsaw; Hebrew essays on
miscellaneous subjects, eleven parts, Warsaw and Breslau
(in course of publication).

MILITARY SERVICE

" They look as if they'd enough of me !"

So I think to myself, as I give a glance at my two
great top-boots, my wide trousers, and my shabby green
uniform, in which there is no whole part left.

I take a bit of looking-glass out of my box, and look
at my reflection. Yes, the military cap on my head is
a beauty, and no mistake, as big as Og king of Bashan,
and as bent and crushed as though it had been sat upon
for years together.

Under the cap appears a small, washed-out face, yel-
low and weazened, with two large black eyes that look
at me somewhat wildly.

I don't recognize myself; I remember me in a grey
jacket, narrow, close-fitting trousers, a round hat, and
a healthy complexion.

I can't make out where I got those big eyes, why
they shine so, why my face should be yellow, and my
nose, pointed.

And yet I know that it is I myself, Chayyim Blumin,
and no other; that I have been handed over for a sol-
dier, and have to serve only two years and eight months,
and not three years and eight months, because I have
a certificate to the effect that I have been through the
first four classes in a secondary school.

Though I know quite well that I am to serve only
two years and eight months, I feel the same as though
it were to be forever; I can't, somehow, believe that

282 BERDYCZEWSKI

my time will some day expire, and I shall once more
be free.

I have tried from the very beginning not to play
any tricks, to do my duty and obey orders, so that they
should not say, "A Jew won't work — a Jew is too lazy."

Even though I am let off manual labor, because I
am on "privileged rights," still, if they tell me to go and
clean the windows, or polish the flooring with sand,
or clear away the snow from the door, I make no fuss
and go. I wash and clean and polish, and try to do
the work well, so that they should find no fault with me.

They haven't yet ordered me to carry pails of water.

Why should I not confess it? The idea of having
to do that rather frightens me. When I look at the
vessel in which the water is carried, my heart begins
to flutter: the vessel is almost as big as I am, and I
couldn't lift it even if it were empty.

I often think : What shall I do, if to-morrow, or the
day after, they wake me at three o'clock in the morn-
ing and say coolly :

"Get up, Blumin, and go with Ossadtchok to fetch
a pail of water !"

You ought to see my neighbor Ossadtchok ! He looks
as if he could squash me with one finger. It is as easy
for him to carry a pail of water as to drink a glass of
brandy. How can I compare myself with him?

I don't care if it makes my shoulder swell, if I could
only carry the thing. I shouldn't mind about that.
But God in Heaven knows the truth, that I won't be
able to lift the pail off the ground, only they won't be-
lieve me, they will say:

MILITARY SERVICE 283

"Look at the lazy Jew, pretending he is a poor
creature that can't lift a pail !"

There — I mind that more than anything.

I don't suppose they will send me to fetch water, for,
after all, I am on "privileged rights," but I can't sleep
in peace: I dream all night that they are waking me
at three o'clock, and I start up bathed in a cold sweat.

Drill does not begin before eight in the morning,
but they wake us at six, so that we may have time to
clean our rifles, polish our boots and leather girdle,
brush our coat, and furbish the brass buttons with
chalk, so that they should shine like mirrors.

I don't mind the getting up early, I am used to rising
long before daylight, but I am always worrying lest
something shouldn't be properly cleaned, and they
should say that a Jew is so lazy, he doesn't care if his
things are clean or not, that he's afraid of touching
his rifle, and pay me other compliments of the kind.

I clean and polish and rub everything all I know,
but my rifle always seems in worse condition than the
other men's. I can't make it look the same as theirs,
do what I will, and the head of my division, a corporal,
shouts at me, calls me a greasy fellow, and says he'll
have me up before the authorities because I don't take
care of my arms.

But there is worse than the rifle, and that is the
uniform. Mine is years old — I am sure it is older
than I am. Every day little pieces fall out of it, and
the buttons tear themselves out of the cloth, dragging
bits of it after them.

284 BERDYCZEWSK1

I never had a needle in my hand in all my life be-
fore, and now I sit whole nights and patch and sew
on buttons. And next morning, when the corporal
takes hold of a button and gives a pull, to see if it's
firmly sewn, a pang goes through my heart : the button
is dragged out, and a piece of the uniform follows.

Another whole night's work for me !

After the inspection, they drive us out into the yard
and teach us to stand: it must be done so that our
stomachs fall in and our chests stick out. I am half
as one ought to be, because my stomach is flat enough
anyhow, only my chest is weak and narrow and also
flat — flat as a board.

The corporal squeezes in my stomach with his knee,
pulls me forward by the flaps of the coat, but it's no
use. He loses his temper, and calls me greasy fellow,
screams again that I am pretending, that I won't serve,
and this makes my chest fall in more than ever.

I like the gymnastics.

In summer we go out early into the yard, which is
very wide and covered with thick grass.

It smells delightfully, the sun warms us through, it
feels so pleasant.

The breeze blows from the fields, I open my mouth
and swallow the freshness, and however much I swal
low, it's not enough, I should like to take in all the air
there is. Then, perhaps, I should cough less, and grow
a little stronger.

We throw off the old uniforms, and remain in our
shirts, we run and leap and go through all sorts of per-

MILITARY SERVICE 285

formances with our hands and feet, and it's splendid !
At home I never had so much as an idea of such fun.

At first I was very much afraid of jumping across
the ditch, but I resolved once and for all — I've got to
jump it. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall fall
and bruise myself. Suppose I do? What then? Why
do all the others jump it and don't care? One needn't
be so very strong to jump !

And one day, before the gymnastics had begun, I
left my comrades, took heart and a long run, and when
I came to the ditch, I made a great bound, and, lo and
behold, I was over on the other side! I couldn't be-
lieve my own eyes that I had done it so easily.

Ever since then I have jumped across ditches, and
over mounds, and down from mounds, as well as any
of them.

Only when it comes to climbing a ladder or swing-
ing myself over a high bar, I know it spells misfortune
for me.

I spring forward, and seize the first rung with my
right hand, but I cannot reach the second with my left.

I stretch myself, and kick out with my feet, but I
cannot reach any higher, not by so much as a vershok,
and so there I hang and kick with my feet, till my right
arm begins to tremble and hurt me. My head goes
round, and I fall onto the grass. The corporal abuses
me as usual, and the soldiers laugh.

I would give ten years of my life to be able to get
higher, if only three or four rungs, but what can I do,
if my arms won't serve me?
19

286 BERDYCZEWSKI

Sometimes I go out to the ladder by myself, while
the soldiers are still asleep, and stand and look at it:
perhaps I can think of a way to manage ? But in vain.
Thinking, you see, doesn't help you in these cases.

Sometimes they tell one of the soldiers to stand in
the middle of the yard with his back to us, and we have
to hop over him. He bends down a little, lowers his
head, rests his hands on his knees, and we hop over him
one at a time. One takes a good run, and when one
comes to him, one places both hands on his shoulders,
raises oneself into the air, and — over !

I know exactly how it ought to be done; I take the
run all right, and plant my hands on his shoulders,
only I can't raise myself into the air. And if I do
lift myself up a little way, I remain sitting on the sol-
dier's neck, and were it not for his seizing me by the
feet, I should fall, and perhaps kill myself.

Then the corporal and another soldier take hold of
me by the arms and legs, and throw me over the man's
head, so that I may see there is nothing dreadful about
it, as though I did not jump right over him because I
was afraid, while it is that my arms are so weak, I
cannot lean upon them and raise myself into the air.

But when I say so, they only laugh, and don't be-
lieve me. They say, "It won't help you; you will have
to serve anyhow !"

When, on the other hand, it comes to "theory," the
corporal is very pleased with me.

He says, that except himself no one knows "theory" as
I do.

MILITARY SERVICE 287

He never questions me now, only when one of the
others doesn't know something, he turns to me :

"Well, Blumin, you tell me !"

I stand up without hurrying, and am about to answer,
but he is apparently not pleased with my way of rising
from my seat, and orders me to sit down again.

"When your superior speaks to you," says he, "you
ought to jump up as though the seat were hot," and
he looks at me angrily, as much as to say, "You may
know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as
well, and treat me with proper respect."

"Stand up again and answer !"

I start up as though I felt a prick from a needle,
and answer the question as he likes it done: smartly,
all in one breath, and word for word according to the
book.

• He, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure I
am not leaving anything out, but as he reads very slowly,
he cannot catch me up, and when I have got to the
end, he is still following with his finger and reading.
And when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look,
and says enthusiastically "Right!" and tells me to sit
down again.

"Theory," he says, "that you do know !"

Well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know.
And yet there are soldiers who are four years over it,
and don't know it then. For instance, take my com-
rade Ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to
"theory", he would rather go and hang or drown him-
self. He says, he would rather have to carry three pails
of water than sit down to "theory."

288 BERDYCZEWSKI

I tell him, that if he would learn to read, he could
study the whole thing by himself in a week; but he
won't listen.

"Nobody," he says, "will ever ask my advice."

One thing always alarmed me very much: However
was I to take part in the manoeuvres ?

I cannot lift a single pud (I myself only weigh two
pud and thirty pounds), and if I walk three versts, my
feet hurt, and my heart beats so violently that I think
it's going to burst my side.

At the mano3uvres I should have to carry as much
as fifty pounds' weight, and perhaps more: a rifle, a
cloak, a knapsack with linen, boots, a uniform, a tent,
bread, and onions, and a few other little things, and
should have to walk perhaps thirty to forty versts a day.

But when the day and the hour arrived, and the
command was given "Forward, march !" when the band
struck up, and two thousand men set their feet in mo-
tion, something seemed to draw me forward, and I
went. At the beginning I found it hard, I felt weighted
to the earth, my left shoulder hurt me so, I nearly
fainted. But afterwards I got very hot, I began to
breathe rapidly and deeply, my eyes were starting out
of my head like two cupping-glasses, and I not only
walked, I ran, so as not to fall behind — and so I ended
by marching along with the rest, forty versts a day.

Only I did not sing on the march like the others
First, because I did not feel so very cheerful, and sec-
ond, because I could not breathe properly, let alone sing.

At times I felt burning hot, but immediately after-
wards I would grow light, and the marching was easy,

MILITARY SERVICE 289

I seemed 'to be carried along rather than to tread the
earth, and it appeared to me as though another were
marching in my place, only that my left shoulder ached,
and I was hot.

I remember that once it rained a whole night long,
it came down like a deluge, our tents were soaked
through, and grew heavy. The mud was thick. At
three o'clock in the morning an alarm was sounded,
we were ordered to fold up our tents and take to the
road again. So off we went.

It was dark and slippery. It poured with rain. I
was continually stepping into a puddle, and getting
my boot full of water. I shivered and shook, and my
teeth chattered with cold. That is, I was cold one
minute and hot the next. But the marching was no
difficulty to me, I scarcely felt that I was on the march,
and thought very little about it. Indeed, I don't know
what I was thinking about, my mind was a blank.

We marched, turned back, and marched again. Then
we halted for half an hour, and turned back again.

And this went on a whole night and a whole day.

Then it turned out that there had been a mistake:
it was not we who ought to have marched, but another
regiment, and we ought not to have moved from the
spot. But there was no help for it then.

It was night. We had eaten nothing all day. The
rain poured down, the mud was ankle-deep, there was
no straw on which to pitch our tents, but we managed
somehow. And so the days passed, each like the other.
But I got through the manoeuvres, and was none the
worse.

290 BERDYCZEWSKI

Now I am already an old soldier; I have hardly an-
other year and a half to serve — about sixteen months.
I only hope I shall not be ill. It seems I got a bit of
a chill at the manoeuvres, I cough every morning, and
sometimes I suffer with my feet. I shiver a little at
night till I get warm, and then I am very hot, and I
feel very comfortable lying abed. But I shall probably
soon be all right again.

They say, one may take a rest in the hospital, but I
haven't been there yet, and don't want to go at all,
especially now I am feeling better. The soldiers are
sorry for me, and sometimes they do my work, but not
just for love. I get three pounds of bread a day, and
don't eat more than one pound. The rest I give to my
comrade Ossadtchok. He eats it all, and his own as
well, and then he could do with some more. In return
for this he often cleans my rifle, and sometimes does
other work for me, when he sees I have no strength left.

I am also teaching him and a few other soldiers to
read and write, and they are very pleased.

My corporal also comes to me to be taught, but he
never gives me a word of thanks.

The superior of the platoon, when he isn't drunk,
and is in good humor, says "you" to me instead of
"thou," and sometimes invites me to share his bed —
I can breathe easier there, because there is more air,
and I don't cough so much, either.

Only it sometimes happens that he comes back from
town tipsy, and makes a great to-do : How do I, a com-
mon soldier, come to be sitting on his bed ?

MILITARY SERVICE 291

He orders me to get up and stand before him "at
attention/' and declares he will "have me up" for it.

When, however, he has sobered down, he turns kind
again, and calls me to him; he likes me to tell him
"stories" out of books.

Sometimes the orderly calls me into the orderly-
room, and gives me a report to draw up, or else a list
or a calculation to make. He himself writes badly, and
is very poor at figures.

I do everything he wants, and he is very glad of my
help, only it wouldn't do for him to confess to it, and
when I have finished, he always says to me:

"If the commanding officer is not satisfied, he will
send you to fetch water."

I know it isn't true, first, because the commanding
officer mustn't know that I write in the orderly-room,
a Jew can't be an army secretary; secondly, because he
is certain to be satisfied: he once gave me a note to
write himself, and was very pleased with it.

"If you were not a Jew," he said to me then, "I should
make a corporal of you."

Still, my corporal always repeats his threat about the
water, so that I may preserve a proper respect for him,
although I not only respect him, I tremble before his
size. When Jie comes back tipsy from town, and finds
me in the orderly-room, he commands me to drag his
muddy boots off his feet, and I obey him and drag off
his boots.

Sometimes I don't care, and other times it hurts my
feelings.

ISAIAH BEESCHADSKI

Pen name of Isaiah Domaschewitski; born, 1871, near
Derechin, Government of Grodno (Lithuania), White Rus-
sia; died, 1909, in Warsaw; education, Jewish and secular;
teacher of Hebrew in Ekaterinoslav, Southern Russia; in
business, in Ekaterinoslav and Baku; editor, in 1903, of
Ha-Zeman, first in St. Petersburg, then in Wilna; after a
short sojourn in Riga removed to Warsaw; writer of novels
and short stories, almost exclusively in Hebrew; contributor
to Ha-Meliz, Ha-Shiloah, and other periodicals; pen pames
besides Berschadski: Berschadi, and Shimoni; collected
works in Hebrew, Tefusim u-Zelalim, Warsaw, 1899, and
Ketabim Aharonim, Warsaw, 1909.

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN

Forlorn and forsaken she was in her last years. Even
when she lay on the bed of sickness where she died,
not one of her relations or friends came to look after
her; they did not even come to mourn for her or ac-
company her to the grave. There was not even one
of her kin to say the first Kaddish over her resting-
place. My wife and I were the only friends she had
at the close of her life, no one but us cared for her
while she was ill, or walked behind her coffin. The
only tears shed at the lonely old woman's grave were
ours. I spoke the only Kaddish for her soul, but we,
after all, were complete strangers to her !

Yes, we were strangers to her, and she was a stranger
to us ! We made her acquaintance only a few years
before her death, when she was living in two tiny rooms
opposite the first house we settled in after our mar-
riage. Nobody ever came to see her, and she herself
visited nowhere, except at the little store where she
made her necessary purchases, and at the house-of-
study near by, where she prayed twice every day. She
was about sixty, rather undersized, and very thin, but
more lithesome in her movements than is common at
that age. Her face was full of creases and wrinkles,
and her light brown eyes were somewhat dulled, but
her ready smile and quiet glance told of a good heart
and a kindly temper. Her simple old gown was always
neat, her wig tastefully arranged, her lodging and its
furniture clean and tidy — and all this attracted us to

296 BERSCHADSKI

her from the first day onward. We were still more taken
with her retiring manner, the quiet way in which she
kept herself in the background and the slight melan-
choly of her expression, telling of a life that had held
much sadness.

We made advances. She was very willing to become
acquainted with us, and it was not very long before she
was like a mother to us, or an old aunt. My wife was
then an inexperienced "housemistress" fresh to her
duties, and found a great help in the old woman, who
smilingly taught her how to proceed with the house-
keeping. When our first child was born, she took it
to her heart, and busied herself with its upbringing
almost more than the young mother. It was evident
that dandling the child in her arms was a joy to her
beyond words. At such moments her eyes would
brighten, her wrinkles grew faint, a curiously satisfied
smile played round her lips, and a new note of joy came
into her voice.

At first sight all this seemed quite simple, because a
woman is naturally inclined to care for little children,
and it may have been so with her to an exceptional de-
gree, but closer examination convinced me that here
lay yet another reason; her attentions to the child, so
it seemed, awakened pleasant memories of a long-ago
past, when she herself was a young mother caring for
children of her own, and looking at this strange child
had stirred a longing for those other children, further
from her eyes, but nearer to her heart, although perhaps
quite unknown to her — who perhaps existed only in
her imagination.

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN 297

And when we were made acquainted with the details
of her life, we knew our conjectures to be true. Her
history was very simple and commonplace, but very
tragic. Perhaps the tragedy of such biographies lies in
their being so very ordinary and simple !

She lived quietly and happily with her husband
for twenty years after their marriage. They were not
rich, but their little house was a kingdom of delight,
where no good thing was wanting. Their business was
farming land that belonged to a Polish nobleman, a busi-
ness that knows of good times and of bad, of fat years
and lean years, years of high prices and years of low.
But on the whole it was a good business and profitable,
and it afforded them a comfortable living. Besides,
they were used to the country, they could not fancy
themselves anywhere else. The very thing that had
never entered their head is just what happened. In
the beginning of the "eighties" they were obliged to leave
the estate they had farmed for ten years, because the
lease was up, and the recently promulgated "tempo-
rary laws" forbade them to renew it. This was bad
for them from a material point of view, because it left
them without regular income just when their children
were growing up and expenses had increased, but their
mental distress was so great, that, for the time, the
financial side of the misfortune was thrown into the
shade.

When we made her acquaintance, many years had
passed since then, many another trouble had come into
her life, but one could hear tears in her voice while she
told the story of that first misfortune. It was a bitter

298 BERSCHADSKI

Tisho-b'ov for them when they left the house, the gar-
dens, the barns, and the stalls, their whole life, all those
things concerning which they had forgotten, and their
children had hardly known, that they were not their own
possession.

Their town surroundings made them more conscious
of their altered circumstances. She herself, the elder
children oftener still, had been used to drive into the
town now and again, but that was on pleasure trips,
which had lasted a day or two at most ; they had never
tried staying there longer, and it was no wonder if they
felt cramped and oppressed in town after their free life
in the open.

When they first settled there, they had a capital of
about ten thousand rubles, but by reason of inexperience
in their new occupation they were worsted in compe-
tition with others, and a few turns of bad luck brought
them almost to ruin. The capital grew less from year
to year; everything they took up was more of a strug-
gle than the last venture; poverty came nearer and
nearer, and the father of the family began to show signs
of illness, brought on by town life and worry. This,
of course, made their material position worse, and the
knowledge of it reacted disastrously on his health.
Three years after he came to town, he died, and she
was left with six children and no means of subsistence.
Already during her husband's life they had exchanged
their first lodging for a second, a poorer and cheaper
one, and after his death they moved into a third, meaner
and narrower still, and sold their precious furniture,
for which, indeed, there was no place in the new

FOKLORN" AXD FOESAKEX 299

existence. But even so the question of bread and meat
was not answered. They still had about six hundred
rubles,, but, as they were without a trade, it was easy
to foresee that the little stock of money would dwindle
day by day till there was none of it left — and what then ?

The eldest son, Yossef, aged twenty-one, had gone
from home a year before his father's death, to seek his
fortune elsewhere; but his first letters brought no very
good news, and now the second, Avrohom, a lad of
eighteen, and the daughter Eochel, who was sixteen,
declared their intention to start for America. The
mother was against it, begged them with tears not to
go, but they did not listen to her. Parting with them,
forever most likely, was bad enough in itself, but worst
of all was the thought that her children, for whose
Jewish education their father had never grudged money
even when times were hardest, should go to America,
and there, forgetting everything they had learned,
become "ganze Goyim." She was quite sure that her
husband would never have agreed to his children's being
thus scattered abroad, and this encouraged her to oppose
their will with more determination. She urged them
to wait at least till their elder brother had achieved
some measure of success, and could help them. She
held out this hope to them, because she believed in her
son Yossef and his capacity, and was convinced that in
a little time he would become their support.

If only Avrohom and Eochel had not been so impa-
tient (she would lament to us), everything would have
turned out differently! They would not have been
hustled off to the end of creation, and she would not

300 BERSCHADSKI

have been left so lonely in her last years, but — it had
apparently been so ordained!

Avrohom and Rochel agreed to defer the journey, but
when some months had passed, and Yossef was still
wandering from town to town, finding no rest for the
sole of his foot, she had to give in to her children and
let them go. They took with them two hundred rubles
and sailed for America, and with the remaining three
hundred rubles she opened a tiny shop. Her expenses
were not great now, as only the three younger children
were left her, but the shop was not sufficient to support
even these. The stock grew smaller month by month,
there never being anything over wherewith to replenish
it, and there was no escaping the fact that one day
soon the shop would remain empty.

And as if this were not enough, there came bad news
from the children in America. They did not complain
much ; on the contrary, they wrote most hopefully about
the future, when their position would certainly, so they
said, improve; but the mother's heart was not to be
deceived, and she felt instinctively that meanwhile they
were doing anything but well, while later — who could
foresee what would happen later?

One day she got a letter from Yossef, who wrote that,
convinced of the impossibility of earning a livelihood
within the Pale, he was about to make use of an oppor-
tunity that offered itself, and settle in a distant town
outside of it. This made her very sad, and she wept
over her fate — to have a son living in a Gentile city,
where there were hardly any Jews at all. And the next
letter from America added sorrow to sorrow. Avrohom

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN 301

and Rochel had parted company, and were living in
different towns. She could not bear the thought of her
young daughter fending for herself among strangers —
a thought that tortured her all the more as she had a
peculiar idea of America. She herself could not account
for the terror that would seize her whenever she remem-
bered that strange, distant life.

But the worst was nearly over ; the turn for the better
came soon. She received word from Yossef that he had
found a good position in his new home, and in a few
weeks he proved his letter true by sending her money.
From America, too, the news that came was more cheer-
ful, even joyous. Avrohom had secured steady work with
good pay, and before long he wrote for his younger
brother to join him in America, and provided him with
all the funds he needed for travelling expenses. Rochel
had engaged herself to a young man, whose praises she
sounded in her letters. Soon after her wedding, she
sent money to bring over another brother, and her hus-
band added a few lines, in which he spoke of "his great
love for his new relations," and how he "looked forward
with impatience to having one of them, his dear
brother-in-law, come to live with him."

This was good and cheering news, and it all came
within a year's time, but the mother's heart grieved over
it more than it rejoiced. Her delight at her daughter's
marriage with a good man she loved was anything
but unmixed. Melancholy thoughts blended with it,
whether she would or not. The occasion was one
which a mother's fancy had painted in rainbow colors,
on the preparations for which it had dwelt with untold
20

302 BERSCHADSKI

pleasure — and now she had had no share in it at all,
and her heart writhed under the disappointment. To
make her still sadder, she was obliged to part with two
more children. She tried to prevent their going, but
they had long ago set their hearts on following their
brother and sister to America, and the recent letters had
made them more anxious to be off.

So they started, and there remained only the young-
est daughter, Rivkeh, a girl of thirteen. Their position
was materially not a bad one, for every now and then the
old woman received help from her children in America
and from her son Yossef, so that she was not even
obliged to keep up the shop, but the mother in her
was not satisfied, because she wanted to see her chil-
dren's happiness with her own eyes. The good news
that continued to arrive at intervals brought pain as
well as pleasure, by reminding her how much less for-
tunate she was than other mothers, who were counted
worthy to live together with their children, and not
at a distance from them like her.

The idea that she should go out to those of them
who were in America, never occurred to her, or to
them, either ! But Yossef, who had taken a wife in his
new town, and who, soon after, had set up for himself,
and was doing very well, now sent for his mother and
little sister to come and live with him. At first the
mother was unwilling, fearing that she might be in the
way of her daughter-in-law, and thus disturb the house-
hold peace; even later, when she had assured herself
that the young wife was very kind, and there was
nothing to be afraid of, she could not make up her mind

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN 303

to go, even though she longed to be with Yossef, her
oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and how-
ever much she desired to see his wife and her little
grandchildren.

Why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she
herself was not clearly conscious; but she shrank from
the strange fashion of the life they led, and she never
ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that some day
they would come back to her. And this especially with
regard to Yossef, who sometimes complained in his
letters that his situation was anything but secure,
because the smallest circumstance might bring about an
edict of expulsion. She quite understood that her son
would consider this a very bad thing, but she herself
looked at it with other eyes ; round about here, too, were
people who made a comfortable living, and Yossef was
no worse than others, that he should not do the same.

Six or seven years passed in this way; the youngest
daughter was twenty, and it was time to think of a
match for her. Her mother felt sure that Yossef would
provide the dowry, but she thought best Rivkeh and her
brother should see each other, and she consented readily
to let Rivkeh go to him, when Yossef invited her to
spend several months as his guest. No sooner had she
gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this
parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her
only child. She was filled with regret at not having
gone with her, and waited impatiently for her return.
Suddenly she heard that Rivkeh had found favor with
a friend of Yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant,
and that Rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased

304 BERSCHADSKI

with him. The two were already engaged, and the
wedding was only deferred till she, the mother, should
come and take up her abode with them for good.

The longing to see her daughter overcame all her
doubts. She resolved to go to her son, and began
preparations for the start. These were just completed,
when there came a letter from Yossef to say that the
situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and
he and his family might have to leave their town.

This sudden news was distressing and welcome at one
and the same time. She was anxious lest the edict of
expulsion should harm her son's position, and pleased,
on the other hand, that he should at last be coming
back, for God would not forsake him here, either; what
with the fortune he had, and his aptitude for trade, he
would make a living right enough. She waited anx-
iously, and in a few months had gone through all the
mental suffering inherent in a state of uncertainty
such as hers, when fear and hope are twined in one.

The waiting was the harder to bear that all this time
no letter from Yossef or Eivkeh reached her promptly.
And the end of it all was this : news came that the dan-
ger was over, and Yossef would remain where he was;
but as far as she was concerned, it was best she should
do likewise, because trailing about at her age was a
serious thing, and it was not worth while her running
into danger, and so on.

The old woman was full of grief at remaining thus
forlorn in her old age, and she longed more than ever
for her children after having hoped so surely that she
would be with them soon. She could not understand
Yossef's reason for suddenly changing his mind with re-

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN 305

gard to her coming ; but it never occurred to her for one
minute to doubt her children's affection. And we, when
we had read the treasured bundle of letters from
Yossef and Rivkeh, we could not doubt it, either. There
was love and longing for the distant mother in every
line, and several of the letters betrayed a spirit of bitter-
ness, a note of complaining resentment against the hard
times that had brought about the separation from her.
And yet we could not help thinking, "Out of sight, out
of mind," that which is far from the eyes, weighs lighter
at the heart. It was the only explanation we could
invent, for why, otherwise, should the mother have to
remain alone among strangers?

All these considerations moved me to interfere in the
matter without the old woman's knowledge. She could
read Yiddish, but could not write it, and before we made
friends, her letters to the children were written by a
shopkeeper of her acquaintance. But from the time we
got to know her, I became her constant secretary, and
one day, when writing to Yossef for her, I made use of
the opportunity to enclose a letter from myself. I
asked his forgiveness for mixing myself up in another's
family affairs, and tried to justify the interference by
dwelling on our affectionate relations with his mother.
I then described, in the most touching words at my
command, how hard it was for her to live forlorn, how
she pined for the presence of her children and grand-
children, and ended by telling them, that it was their
duty to free their mother from all this mental suffering.

There was no direct reply to this letter of mine, but
the next one from the son to his mother gave her to

306 BERSCHADSKI

understand that there are certain things not to be
explained, while the impossibility of explaining them
may lead to a misunderstanding. This hint made the
position no clearer to us, and the fact of Yossef's not
answering me confirmed us in our previous suspicions.

Meanwhile our old friend fell ill, and quickly under-
stood that she would soon die. Among the things she
begged me to do after her death and having reference
to her burial, there was one particular petition several
times repeated: to send a packet of Hebrew books,
which had been left by her husband, to her son Yossef,
and to inform him of her death by telegram. "My
American children" — she explained with a sigh — "have
certainly forgotten everything they once learned, for-
gotten all their Jewishness! But my son Yossef is a
different sort; I feel sure of him, that he will say
Kaddish after me and read a chapter in the Mishnah,
and the books will come in useful for his children —
Grandmother's legacy to them."

When I fulfilled the old woman's last wish, I learned
how mistaken she had been. The answer to my letter
written during her lifetime came now that she was
dead. Her children thanked us warmly for our care
of her, and they also explained why she and they had
remained apart.

She had never known — and it was far better so — by
what means her son had obtained the right to live out-
side the Pale. It was enough that she should have to
live forlorn, where would have been the good of her
knowing that she was forsaken as well — that the one of
her children who had gone altogether over to "them"
was Yossef?

TASHRAK

Pen name of Israel Joseph Zevln; born, 1872, in Gori-
Gorki, Government of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia;
came to New York in 1889 ; first Yiddish sketch published in
Jiidisches Tageblatt, 1893; first English story in The Ameri-
can Hebrew, 1906; associate editor of Jiidisches Tageblatt;
writer of sketches, short stories, and biographies, in Hebrew,
Yiddish, and English; contributor to Ha-Ibri, Jewish Com-
ment, and numerous Yiddish periodicals; collected works,
Geklibene Schriften, 1 vol., New York, 1910, and Tashrak's
Beste Erzahlungen, 4 vols., New York, 1910.

THE HOLE IN A BEIGEL

When I was a little €heder-boy, my Rebbe, Bunem-
Breine-Gite's, a learned man, who was always torment-
ing me with Talmudical questions and with riddles, once
asked me, "What becomes of the hole in a Beigel, when
one has eaten the Beigel ?"

This riddle, which seemed to me then very hard to
solve, stuck in my head, and I puzzled over it day and
night. I often bought a Beigel, took a bite out of it, and
immediately replaced the bitten-out piece with my hand,
so that the hole should not escape. But when I had eaten
up the Beigel, the hole had somehow always disappeared,
which used to annoy me very much. I went about pre-
occupied, thought it over at prayers and at lessons, till
the Rebbe noticed that something was wrong with me.

At home, too, they remarked that I had lost my
appetite, that I ate nothing but Beigel — Beigel for break-
fast, Beigel for dinner, Beigel for supper, Beigel all
day long. They also observed that I ate it to the
accompaniment of strange gestures and contortions of
both my mouth and my hands.

One day I summoned all my courage, and asked the
Eebbe, in the middle of a lesson on the Pentateuch :

"Rebbe, when one has eaten a Beigel, what becomes
of the hole?"

"Why, you little silly," answered the Rebbe, "what
is a hole in a Beigel? Just nothing at all! A bit of
emptiness! It's nothing with the Beigel and nothing
without the Beigel !"

310 TASHRAK

Many years have passed since then, and I have not
yet been able to satisfy myself as to what is the object
of a hole in a Beigel. I have considered whether one
could not have Beigels without holes. One lives and
learns. And America has taught me this: One can
have Beigels without holes, for I saw them in a dairy-
shop in East Broadway. I at once recited the appro-
priate blessing, and then I asked the shopman about
these Beigels, and heard a most interesting history,
which shows how difficult it is to get people to accept
anything new, and what sacrifices it costs to introduce
the smallest reform.

This is the story:

A baker in an Illinois city took it into his head to
make straight Beigels, in the shape of candles. But
this reform cost him dear, because the united owners
of the bakeries in that city immediately made a set
at him and boycotted him.

They argued: "Our fathers' fathers baked Beigels
with holes, the whole world eats Beigels with holes,
and here comes a bold coxcomb of a fellow, upsets the
order of the universe, and bakes Beigels without holes!
Have you ever heard of such impertinence? It's just
revolution! And if a person like this is allowed to go
on, he will make an end of everything: to-day it's
Beigels without holes, to-morrow it will be holes without
Beigels ! Such a thing has never been known before !"

And because of the hole in a Beigel, a storm broke
out in that city that grew presently into a civil war. The
"bosses" fought on, and dragged the bakers'-hands Union
after them into the conflict. Now the Union contained

311

two parties, of which one declared that a hole and a Bei-
gel constituted together a private affair, like religion, and
that everyone had a right to bake Beigels as he thought
best, and according to his conscience. The other party
maintained, that to sell Beigels without holes was against
the constitution, to which the first party replied that the
constitution should be altered, as being too ancient, and
contrary to the spirit of the times. At this the second
party raised a clamor, crying that the rules could not be
altered, because they were Toras-Lokshen and every let-
ter, every stroke, every dot was a law in itself ! The city
papers were obliged to publish daily accounts of the
meetings that were held to discuss the hole in a Beigel,
and the papers also took sides, and wrote fiery polemical
articles on the subject. The quarrel spread through the
city, until all the inhabitants were divided into two
parties, the Beigel-with-a-hole party and the Beigel-
without-a-hole party. Children rose against their par-
ents, wives against their husbands, engaged couples
severed their ties, families were broken up, and still the
battle raged — and all on account of the hole in a
Beigel !

AS THE YEARS ROLL ON

Eosalie laid down the cloth with which she had been
dusting the furniture in her front parlor, and began
tapping the velvet covering of the sofa with her fingers.
The velvet had worn threadbare in places, and there
was a great rent in the middle.

Had the rent been at one of the ends, it could have
been covered with a cushion, but there it was, by bad
luck, in the very centre, and making a shameless display
of itself : Look, here I am ! See what a rent !

Yesterday she and her husband had invited company.
The company had brought children, and you never have
children in the house without having them leave some
mischief behind them.

To-day the sun was shining more brightly than ever,
and lighting up the whole room. Rosalie took the oppor-
tunity to inspect her entire set of furniture. Eight
years ago, when she was given the set at her marriage,
how happy, she had been ! Everything was so fresh and
new.

She had noticed before that the velvet was getting
worn, and the polish of the chairs disappearing, and the
seats losing their spring, but to-day all this struck
her more than formerly. The holes, the rents, the
damaged places, stared before them with such malicious
mockery — like a poor man laughing at his own evil
plight.

Rosalie felt a painful melancholy steal over her. Now
she could not but see that her furniture was old, that

AS THE YEARS EOLL ON 313

she would soon be ashamed to invite people into her
parlor. And her husband will be in no hurry to present
her with a new one — he has grown so parsimonious of
late!

She replaced the holland coverings of the sofa and
chairs, and went out to do her bedroom. There, on
a chair, lay her best dress, the one she had put on
yesterday for her guests.

She considered the dress: that, too, was frayed in
places; here and there even drawn together and sewn
over. The bodice was beyond ironing out again — and
this was her best dress. She opened the wardrobe, for
she wanted to make a general survey of her belongings.
It was such a light day, one could see even in the back
rooms. She took down one dress after another, and
laid them out on the made beds, observing each with
a critical eye. Her sense of depression increased the
while, and she felt as though stone on stone were being
piled upon her heart.

She began to put the clothes back into the ward-
robe, and she hung up every one of them with a sigh.
When she had finished with the bedroom, she went into
the dining-room, and stood by the sideboard on which
were set out her best china service and colored plates.
She looked them over. One little gold-rimmed cup had
lost its handle, a bowl had a piece glued in at the side.
On the top shelf stood the statuette of a little god with
a broken bow and arrow in his hand, and here there
was one little goblet missing out of a whole service.

As soon as everything was in order, Rosalie washed her
face and hands, combed up her hair, and began to look

314 TASHKAK

at herself in a little hand-glass, but the bath-room, to
which she had retired, was dark, and she betook herself
back into the front parlor, towel in hand, where she
could see herself in the big looking-glass on the wall.
Time, which had left traces on the furniture, on the
contents of the wardrobe, and on the china, had not
spared the woman, though she had been married only
eight years. She looked at the crow's-feet by her eyes,
and the lines in her forehead, which the worrying
thoughts of this day had imprinted there even more
sharply than usual. She tried to smile, but the smile
in the glass looked no more attractive than if she had
given her mouth a twist. She remembered that the
only way to remain young is to keep free from care.
But how is one to set about it? She threw on a scarlet
Japanese kimono, and stuck an artificial flower into her
hair, after which she lightly powdered her face and
neck. The scarlet kimono lent a little color to her
cheeks, and another critical glance at the mirror con-
vinced her that she was still a comely woman, only no
more a young one.

The bloom of youth had fled, never to return. Ver-
f alien! And the desire to live was stronger than ever,
even to live her life over again from the beginning,
sorrows and all.

She began to reflect what she should cook for supper.
There was time enough, but she must think of some-
thing new: her husband was tired of her usual dishes.
He said her cooking was old-fashioned, that it was
always the same thing, day in and day out. His taste
was evidently getting worn-out, too.

AS THE YEARS ROLL ON 315

And she wondered what she could prepare, so as to
win back her husband's former good temper and affec-
tionate appreciation.

At one time he was an ardent young man, with a fiery-
tongue. He had great ideals, and he strove high. He
talked of making mankind happy, more refined, more
noble and free. He had dreamt of a world without tears
and troubles, of a time when men should live as brothers,
and jealousy and hatred should be unknown. In those
days he loved with all the warmth of his youth, and
when he talked of love, it was a delight to listen. The
world grew to have another face for her then, life,
another significance, Paradise was situated on the earth.

Gradually his ideals lost their freshness, their shine
wore off, and he became a business man, racking his
brain with speculations, trying to grow rich without the
necessary qualities and capabilities, and he was left at
last with prematurely grey hair as the only result of
his efforts.

Eight years after their marriage he was as worn as
their furniture in the front parlor.

Rosalie looked out of the window. It was even much
brighter outside than indoors. She saw people going
up and down the street with different anxieties reflected
in their faces, with wrinkles telling different histories
of the cares of life. She saw old faces, and the young
faces of those who seemed to have tasted of age ere
they reached it. "Everything is old and worn and
shabby," whispered a voice in her ear.

A burst of childish laughter broke upon her medita-
tions. Round the corner came with a rush a lot of little

316 TASHBAK

boys with books under their arms, their faces full of the
zest of life, and dancing and jumping till the whole
street seemed to be jumping and dancing, too. Elder
people turned smilingly aside to make way for them.
Among the children Rosalie espied two little girls, also
with books under their arms, her little girls ! And the
mother's heart suddenly brimmed with joy, a delicious
warmth stole into her limbs and filled her being.

Rosalie went to the door to meet her two children
on their return from school, and when she had given
each little face a motherly kiss, she felt a breath of
freshness and new life blowing round her.

She took off their cloaks, and listened to their childish
prattle about their teachers and the day's lessons.

The clear voices rang through the rooms, awaking
sympathetic echoes in every corner. The home wore a
new aspect, and the sun shone even more brightly than
before and in more friendly, kindly fashion.

The mother spread a little cloth at the edge of the
table, gave them milk and sandwiches, and looked at
them as they ate — each child the picture of the mother,
her eyes, her hair, her nose, her look, her gestures —
they ate just as she would do.

And Rosalie feels much better and happier. She
doesn't care so much now about the furniture being
old, the dresses worn, the china service not being
whole, about the wrinkles round her eyes and in her
forehead. She only minds about her husband's being
so worn-out, so absent-minded that he cannot take
pleasure in the children as she can.

DAVID PINSKI

Born, 1872, in Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; re-
fused admission to Gymnasium in Moscow under percentage
restrictions; 1889-1891, secretary to Bene Zion in Vitebsk;
1891-1893, student in Vienna; 1893, co-editor of Spektor's
Hausf reund and Perez's Yom-tov Blattlech ; 1893, first sketch
published in New York Arbeiterzeitung; 1896, studied phi-
losophy in Berlin; 1899, eame to New York, and edited Das
Abendblatt, a daily, and Der Arbeiter, a weekly; 1912,
founder and co-editor of Die Yiddishe Wochenschrift; author
of short stories, sketches, an essay on the Yiddish drama,
and ten dramas, among them Yesurun, Eisik Scheftel, Die
Mutter, Die Familie Zwie, Der Oitzer, Der eibiger Jiid
(first part of a series of Messiah dramas), Der stummer
Moschiach, etc.; one volume of collected dramas, Dramen,
Warsaw, 1909.

21

EEB SHLOIMEH

The seventy-year-old Eeb Shloimeh's son, whose home
was in the country, sent his two boys to live with their
grandfather and acquire town, that is, Gentile, learning.

"Times have changed," considered Reb Shloimeh ; "it
can't be helped !" and he engaged a good teacher for the
children, after making inquiries here and there.

"Give me a teacher who can tell the whole of their
Law, as the saying goes, standing on one leg !" he would
say to his friends, with a smile.

At seventy-one years of age, Reb Shloimeh lived more
indoors than out, and he used to listen to the teacher
instructing his grandchildren.

"I shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would
say, laughing.

The teacher was one day telling his pupils about
mathematical geography. Reb Shloimeh sat with a
smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at the little
teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnest-
ness.

"The earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils,
and Reb Shloimeh smiles, and thinks, "He must have
seen it !" But the teacher shows it to be so by the light
of reason, and Reb Shloimeh becomes graver, and ceases
smiling ; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs ; he wants
to ask questions, but can find none that will do, and he
sits there as if he had lost his tongue.

The teacher has noticed his grave look, and under-
stands that the old man is interested in the lesson, and

320 PINSKI

he begins to tell of even greater wonders. He tells how
far the sun is from the earth, how big it is, how many
earths could be made out of it — and Eeb Shloimeh
begins to smile again, and at last can bear it no longer.

"Look here," he exclaimed, "that I cannot and will
not listen to! You may tell me the earth revolves —
well, be it so ! Very well, I'll allow you, that, perhaps,
according to reason — even — the size of the earth — the
appearance of the earth — do you see? — all that sort of
thing. But the sun ! Who has measured the sun ! Who,
I ask you! Have you been on it? A pretty thing to
say, upon my word !" Reb Shloimeh grew very excited.
The teacher took hold of Eeb Shloimeh's hand, and
began to quiet him. He told him by what means the
astronomers had discovered all this, that it was no
matter of speculation; he explained the telescope to
him, and talked of mathematical calculations, which he,
Eeb Shloimeh, was not able to understand. Eeb
Shloimeh had nothing to answer, but he frowned and
remained obstinate. "He" (he said, and made a con-
temptuous motion with his hand), "it's nothing to me,
not knowing that or being able to understand it!
Science, indeed ! Fiddlesticks !"

He relapsed into silence, and went on listening to
the teacher's "stories." "We even know," the teacher
continued, "what metals are to be found in the sun."

"And suppose I won't believe you?" and Eeb Shloi-
meh smiled maliciously.

"I will explain directly," answered the teacher.

"And tell us there's a fair in the sky!" interrupted
Eeb Shloimeh, impatiently. He was very angry, but
the teacher took no notice of his anger.

EEB SHLOIMEH 321

"Two hundred years ago/' began the teacher, "there
lived, in England, a celebrated naturalist and mathema-
tician, Isaac Newton. It was told of him that when
God said, Let there be light, Newton was born."

"Psh! I should think, very likely!" broke in Eeb
Shloimeh. <fWhy not?"

The teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation
of spectral analysis. He spoke at some length, and
Eeb Shloimeh sat and listened with close attention.
"Now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming
to an end.

Eeb Shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from
under his brows.

The teacher went on :

"The earth," he said, "has stood for many years.
Their exact number is not known, but calculation brings
it to several million — "

"E," burst in the old man, "I should like to know what
next ! I thought everyone knew that — that even they — "

"Wait a bit, Eeb Shloimeh," interrupted the teacher,
"I will explain directly."

"Ma! It makes me sick to hear you," was the irate
reply, and Eeb Shloimeh got up and left the room.

All that day Eeb Shloimeh was in a bad temper, and
went about with knitted brows. He was angry with
science, with the teacher, with himself, because he must
needs have listened to it all.

"Chatter and foolishness ! And there I sit and listen
to it !" he said to himself with chagrin. But he remem-
bered the "chatter," something begins to weigh on his

322 PINSKI

heart and brain, he would like to find a something to
catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of
their teaching, to invent some hard question, and stick
out a long red tongue at them all — those nowadays bar-
barians, those nowadays Newtons.

"After all, it's mere child's play," he reflects. "It's
ridiculous to take their nonsense to heart."

"Only their proofs, their proofs!" and the feeling
of helplessness comes over him once more.

"Ma !" He pulls himself together. "Is it all over with
us? Is it all up?! All up?! The earth revolves!
Gammon! As to their explanations — >very wonderful,
to be sure ! 0, of course, it's all of the greatest impor-
tance ! Dear me, yes !"

He is very angry, tears the buttons off his coat, puts
his hat straight on his head, and ^ spits.

"Apostates, nothing but apostates nowadays," he
concludes. Then he remembers the teacher — with what
enthusiasm he spoke !

His explanations ring in Reb Shloimeh's head, and
prove things, and once more the old gentleman is
perplexed.

Preoccupied, cross, with groans and sighs, he went to
bed. But he was restless all night, turning from one
side to the other, and groaning. His old wife tried to
cheer him.

"Such weather as it is to-day," she said, and coughed.
"I have a pain in the side, too."

Next morning when the teacher came, Reb Shloimeh
inquired with a displeased expression :

"Well, are you going to tell stories again to-day ?"

REB SHLOIMEH 323

"We shall not take geography to-day," answered the
teacher.

"Have your 'astronomers' found out by calculation
on which days we may learn geography?" asked Eeb
Shloimeh, with malicious irony.

"No, that's a discovery of mine!" and the teacher
smiled.

"And when have 'your* astronomers decreed the study
of geography ?" persisted Reb Shloimeh.

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow !" he repeated crossly, and left the room,
missing a lesson for the first time.

Next day the teacher explained the eclipses of the
sun and moon to his pupils. Reb Shloimeh sat with his
chair drawn up to the table, and listened without a
movement.

"It is all so exact," the teacher wound up his explana-
tion, "that the astronomers are able to calculate to a
minute when there will be an eclipse, and have never
yet made a mistake."

At these last words Reb Shloimeh nodded in a know-
ing way, and looked at the pupils as much as to say,
"You ask me about that !"

The teacher went on to tell of comets, planets, and
other suns. Reb Shloimeh snorted, and was continually
interrupting the teacher with exclamations. "If you
don't believe me, go and measure for yourself !" — "If it
is not so, call me a liar!" — "Just so!" — "Within one
yard of it !"

Reb Shloimeh repaid his Jewish education with inter-
est. There were not many learned men in the town

324 PINSKI

like Reb Shloimeh. The Rabbis without flattery called
him "a full basket," and Reb Shloimeh could not picture
to himself the existence of sciences other than "Jew-
ish," and when at last he did picture it, he would not
allow that they were right, unfalsified and right. He
was so far intelligent, he had received a so far enlight-
ened education, that he could understand how among
non-Jews also there are great men. He would even have
laughed at anyone who had maintained the contrary.
But that among non-Jews there should be men as
great as any Jewish ones, that 'he did not believe ! — let
alone, of course, still greater ones.

And now, little by little, Reb Shloimeh began to
believe that "their" learning was not altogether insig-
nificant, for he, "the full basket," was not finding it
any too easy to master. And what he had to deal with
were not empty speculations, unfounded opinions. No,
here were mathematical computations, demonstra-
tions which almost anyone can test for himself, which
impress themselves on the mind ! And Reb Shloimeh is
vexed in his soul. He endeavored to cling to his old
thoughts, his old conceptions. He so wished to cry out
upon the clear reasoning, the simple explanations, with
the phrases that are on the lips of every ignorant
obstructionist. And yet he felt that he was unjust,
and he gave up disputing with the teacher, as he paid
close attention to the latter's demonstrations. And the
teacher would say quite simply :

"One can measure," he would say, "why not? Only
it takes a lot of learning."

When the teacher was at the door, Reb Shloimeh
stayed him with a question.

EEB SHLOIMEH 325

"Then," he asked angrily, "the whole of 'your' learn-
ing is nothing but astronomy and geography ?"

"Oh, no!" said the teacher, "there's a lot besides — a
lot!"

"For instance?"

"Do you want me to tell you standing on one leg ?"

"Well, yes, 'on one leg,' " he answered impatiently,
as though in anger.

"But one can't tell you 'on one leg,' " said the teacher.
"If you like, I shall come on Sabbath, and we can have
a chat."

"Sabbath?" repeated Reb Shloimeh in a dissatisfied
tone.

"Sabbath, because I can't come at any other time,"
said the teacher.

"Then let it be Sabbath," said Eeb Shloimeh, reflec-
tively.

"But soon after dinner," he called after the teacher,
who was already outside the door. "And everything
else is as right as your astronomy?" he shouted, when
the teacher had already gone a little way.

"You will see !" and the teacher smiled.

Never in his whole life had Reb Shloimeh waited for
a Sabbath as he waited for this one, and the two days
that came before it seemed very long to him; he never
relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the whole
time. And he was often seen, during those two days,
to lift his hands to his forehead. He went about as
though there lay upon him a heavy weight, which he
wanted to throw off ; or as if he had a very disagreeable

326 PINSKI

bit of business before him, and wished he could get it
over.

On Sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's
appearance. "You wanted a lot of asking," he said to
him reproachfully.

The old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren
to their play, and Reb Shloimeh took the snuff-box
between his fingers, leant against the back of the "grand-
father's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened with
close attention to the teacher's words.

The teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names
of sciences, and explained their meaning, and Eeb
Shloimeh repeated each explanation in brief. "Physics,
then, is the science of — " "That means, then, that
we have here — that physiology explains — "

The teacher would help him, and then immediately
begin to talk of another branch of science. By the
time the old lady woke up, the teacher had given
examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry,
zoology, and sociology.

It was quite late; people were coming back from the
Afternoon Service, and those who do not smoke on
Sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky. But Reb Shloi-
meh had forgotten in what sort of world he was living.
He sat with wrinkled forehead and drawn brows,
listening attentively, seeing nothing before him but the
teacher's face, only catching up his every word.

"You are still talking?" asked the old lady, in aston-
ishment, rubbing her eyes.

Reb Shloimeh turned his head toward his wife with
a dazed look, as though wondering what she meant by
her question.

REB SHLOIMEH 327

"Oho!" said the old lady, "you only laugh at us
women !"

Reb Shloimeh drew his brows closer together, wrinkled
his forehead still more, and once more fastened his
eyes on the teacher's lips.

"It will soon be time to light the fire," muttered the
old lady.

The teacher glanced at the clock. "It's late," he said.

"I should think it was !" broke in the old lady. "Why
I was allowed to sleep so long, I'm sure I don't know !
People get to talking and even forget about tea."

Reb Shloimeh gave a look out of the window.

"0 wa !" he exclaimed, somewhat vexed, "they are
already coming out of Shool, the service is over ! What
a thing it is to sit talking ! 0 wa !"

He sprang from his seat, gave the pane a rub with
his hand, and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. The
teacher put on his things, but "Wait!" Reb Shloimeh
signed to him with his hand.

Reb Shloimeh finished reciting "Incense."

"When shall you teach the children all that?" he
asked then, looking into the prayer-book with a scowl.

"Not for a long time, not so quickly," answered the
teacher. "The children cannot understand everything."

"I should think not, anything so wonderful !" replied
Reb Shloimeh, ironically, gazing at the prayer-book and
beginning "Happy are we." He swallowed the prayers
as he said them, half of every word; no matter how he
wrinkled his forehead, he could not expel the stranger
thoughts from his brain, and fix his attention on the
prayers. After the service he tried taking up a book,

328 PINSKI

but it was no good, his head was a jumble of all the
new sciences. By means of the little he had just learned,
he wanted to understand and know everything, to fash-
ion a whole body out of a single hair, and he thought,
and thought, and thought. . . .

Sunday, when the teacher came, Eeb Shloimeh told
him that he wished to have a little talk with him. Mean-
time he sat down to listen. The hour during which the
teacher taught the children was too long for him, and he
scarcely took his eyes off the clock.

"Do you want another pupil?" he asked the teacher,
stepping with him into his own room. He felt as though
he were getting red, and he made a very angry face.

"Why not?" answered the teacher, looking hard into
Eeb Shloimeh's face. Reb Shloimeh looked at the floor,
his brows, as was usual with him in those days, drawn
together.

"You understand me — a pupil — " he stammered, "you
understand — not a little boy — a pupil — an elderly man
— you understand — quite another sort — "

"Well, well, we shall see!" answered the teacher,
smiling.

"I mean myself!" he snapped out with great dis-
pleasure, as if he had been forced to confess some very
evil deed. "Well, I have sinned — what do you want of
me?"

"Oh, but I should be delighted!" and the teacher
smiled.

"I always said I meant to be a doctor!" said Reb
Shloimeh, trying to joke. But his features contracted
again directly, and he began to talk about the terms,

EEB SHL01MEH 329

and it was arranged that every day for an hour and
a half the teacher should read to him and explain the
sciences. To begin with, Eeb Shloimeh chose physiology,
sociology, and mathematical geography.

Days, weeks, and months have gone by, and Eeb
Shloimeh has become depressed, very depressed. He
does not sleep at night, he has lost his appetite, doesn't
care to talk to people.

Bad, bitter thoughts oppress him.

For seventy years he had not only known nothing,
but, on the contrary, he had known everything wrong,
understood head downwards. And it seemed to him
that if he had known in his youth what he knew now,
he would have lived differently, that his years would
have been useful to others.

He could find no stain on his life — it was one long
record of deeds of charity; but they appeared to him
now so insignificant, so useless, and some of them even
mischievous. Looking round him, he saw no traces of
them left. The rich man of whom he used to beg
donations is no poorer for them, and the pauper for
whom he begged them is the same pauper as before.
It is true, he had always thought of the paupers as sacks
full of holes, and had only stuffed things into them
because he had a soft heart, and could not bear to see
a look of disappointment, or a tear rolling down the
pale cheek of a hungry pauper. His own little world,
as he had found it and as it was now, seemed to him
much worse than before, in spite of all the good things
he had done in it.

330 PINSKI

Not one good rich man! Not one genuine pauper!
They are all just as hungry and their palms itch — there
is no easing them. Times get harder, the world gets
poorer. Now he understands the reason of it all, now it
all lies before him as clear as on a map — he would be
able to make every one understand. Only now — now it
was getting late — he has no strength left. His spent
life grieves him. If he had not been so active, such a
"father of the community," it would not have grieved
him so much. But he had had a great influence in the
town, and this influence had been badly, blindly used !
And Eeb Shloimeh grew sadder day by day.

He began to feel a pain at his heart, a stitch in the
side, a burning in his brain, and he was wrapt in his
thoughts. Eeb Shloimeh was philosophizing.

To be of use to somebody, he reflected, means to leave
an impress of good in their life. One ought to help
once for all, so that the other need never come for help
again. That can be accomplished by wakening and
developing a man's intelligence, so that he may always
know for himself wherein his help lies.

And in such work he would have spent his life. If
he had only understood long ago, ah, how useful he
would have been ! And a shudder runs through him.

Tears of vexation come more than once into his eyes.

It was no secret in the town that old Eeb Shloimeh
spent two to three hours daily sitting with the teacher,
only what they did together, that nobody knew. They
tried to worm something out of the maid, but what
was to be got out of a "glomp with two eyes," whose

EEB SHLOIMEH 331

one reply was, "I don't know." They scolded her for
it. "How can you not know, glomp?" they exclaimed.
"Aren't you sometimes in the room with them ?"

"Look here, good people, what's the use of coming to
me?" the maid would cry. "How can I know, sitting
in the kitchen, what they are about? When I bring in
the tea, I see them talking, and I go !"

"Dull beast !" they would reply. Then they left her,
and betook themselves to the grandchildren, who knew
nothing, either.

"They have tea," was their answer to the question,
"What does grandfather do with the teacher?"

"But what do they talk about, sillies ?"

"We haven't heard !" the children answered gravely.

They tried the old lady.

"Is it my business ?" she answered.

They tried to go in to Eeb Shloimeh's house, on the
pretext of some business or other, but that didn't suc-
ceed, either. At last, a few near and dear friends asked
Eeb Shloimeh himself.

"How people do gossip !" he answered.

"Well, what is it?"

"We just sit and talk!"

There it remained. The matter was discussed all
over the town. Of course, nobody was satisfied. But'
he pacified them little by little.

The apostate teacher must turn hot and cold with
him!

They imagined that they were occupied with research,
and that Eeb Shloimeh was opening the teacher's eyes
for him — and they were pacified. When Eeb Shloimeh

332 PINSKI

suddenly fell on melancholy, it never came into anyone's
head that there might be a connection between this and
the conversations. The old lady settled that it was a
question of the stomach, which had always troubled
him, and that perhaps he had taken a chill. At his
age such things were frequent. "But how is one to
know, when he won't speak?" she lamented, and won-
dered which would be best, cod-liver oil or dried
raspberries.

Every one else said that he was already in fear of
death, and they pitied him greatly. "That is a sickness
which no doctor can cure," people said, and shook their
heads with sorrowful compassion. They talked to him
by the hour, and tried to prevent him from being alone
with his thoughts, but it was all no good ; he only grew
more depressed, and would often not speak at all.

"Such a man, too, what a pity!" they said, and
sighed. "He's pining awayi — given up to the contempla-
tion of death."

"And if you come to think, why should he fear
death ?" they wondered. "If he fears it, what about us ?
Och ! och ! och ! Have we so much to show in the next
world ?" And Ifeb Shloimeh had a lot to show. Jews
would have been glad of a tenth part of his world-to-
come, and Christians declared that he was a true
Christian, with his love for his fellow-men, and promised
him a place in Paradise. "Reb Shloimeh is goodness
itself," the town was wont to say. His one lifelong
occupation had been the affairs of the community.
"They are my life and my delight," he would repeat
to his intimate friends, "as indispensable to me as water

EEB SHLOIMEH 333

to a fish." He was a member of all the charitable
societies. The Talmud Torah was established under
his own roof, and pretty nearly maintained at his
expense. The town called him the "father of the com-
munity," and all unfortunate, poor, and bitter hearts
blessed him unceasingly.

Reb Shloimeh was the one person in the town almost
without an enemy, perhaps the one in the whole prov-
ince. Rich men grumbled at him. He was always after
their money — always squeezing them for charities.
They called him the old fool, the old donkey, but without
meaning what they said. They used to laugh at him,
to make jokes upon him, of course among themselves;
but they had no enmity against him. They all, with
a full heart, wished him joy of his tranquil life.

Reb Shloimeh was born, and had spent years, in
wealth. After making an excellent marriage, he set up
a business. His wife was the leading spirit within
doors, the head of the household, and his whole life
had been apparently a success.

When he had married his last child, and found him-
self a grandfather, he retired from business, and lived
his last years on the interest of his fortune.

Free from the hate and jealousy of neighbors,
pleasant and satisfactory in every respect, such was Reb
Shloimeh's life, and for all that he suddenly became
melancholy ! It can be nothing but the fear of death !

But very soon Reb Shloimeh, as it were with a wave
of the hand, dismissed the past altogether.
22

334 PINSKI

He said to himself with a groan that what had been
was over and done; he would never grow young again,
and once more a shudder went through him at the
thought, and there came again the pain in his side
and caught his breath, but Reb Shloimeh took no notice,
and went on thinking. "Something must be done !" he
said to himself, in the tone of one who has suddenly
lost his whole fortune — the fortune he has spent his
life in getting together, and there is nothing for him
but to start work again with his five fingers.

And Reb Shloimeh started. He began with the
Talmud Torah, where he had already long provided for
the children's bodily needs — food and clothing.

Now he would supply them with spiritual things —
instruction and education.

He dismissed the old teachers, and engaged young
ones in their stead, even for Jewish subjects. Out of
the Talmud Torah he wanted to make a little university.
He already fancied it a success. He closed his eyes,
laid his forehead on his hands, and a sweet, happy smile
parted his lips. He pictured to himself the useful
people who would go forth out of the Talmud Torah.
Now he can die happy, he thinks. But no, he does not
want to die ! He wants to live ! To live and to work,
work, work ! He will not and cannot see an end to
his life! Reb Shloimeh feels more and more cheerful,
lively, and fresh — to work to work — till—

The whole town was in commotion.

There was a perfect din in the Shools, in the streets,
in the houses. Hypocrites and crooked men, who had
never before been seen or heard of, led the dance.

REB SHLOIMEH 335

"To make Gentiles out of the children, forsooth ! To
turn the Talmud Torah into a school! That we won't
allow ! No matter if we have to turn the world upside
down, no matter what happens !"

Reb Shloimeh heard the cries, and made as though
he heard nothing. He thought it would end there, that
no one would venture to oppose him further.

"What do you say to that?" he asked the teachers.
"Fanaticism has broken out already !"

"It will give trouble," replied the teachers.

"Eh, nonsense !" said Reb Shloimeh, with conviction.
But on Sabbath, at the Reading of the Law, he saw that
he had been mistaken. The opposition had collected,
and they got onto the platform, and all began speaking
at once. It was impossible to make out what they were
saying, beyond a word here and there, or the fragment
of a sentence : " — none of it !" "we won't allow — !"
" — made into Gentiles!"

Reb Shloimeh sat in his place by the east wall, his
hands on the desk where lay 'his Pentateuch. He had
taken off his spectacles, and glanced at the platform,
put them on again, and was once more reading the
Pentateuch. They saw this from the platform, and
began to shout louder than ever. Reb Shloimeh stood
up, took off his prayer-scarf, and was moving toward the
door, when he heard some one call out, with a bang
of his fist on the platform :

"With the consent of the Rabbis and the heads of
the community, and in the name of the Holy Torah,
it is resolved to take the children away from the Talmud
Torah, seeing that in place of the Torah there is
uncleanness "

336 PINSKI

Eeb Shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart.
He stared at the platform with round eyes and open
mouth.

"The children are to be made into Gentiles," shouted
the person on the platform meantime, "and we have
plenty of Gentiles, thank God, already ! Thus may they
perish, with their name and their remembrance! We
are not short of Gentiles — there are more every day!
And hatred increases, and God knows what the Jews
are coming to! Whoso has God in his heart, and is
jealous for the honor of 'the Law, let him see to it
that the children cease going to the place of peril !"

Eeb Shloimeh wanted to call out, "Silence, you scoun-
drel!" The words all but rolled off his tongue, but
he contained himself, and moved on.

"The one who obeys will be blessed," proclaimed the
individual on the platform, "and whoso despises the
decree, his end shall be Gehenna, with that of Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat, who sinned and made Israel to sin !"

With these last words the speaker threw a fiery glance
at Eeb Shloimeh.

A quiver ran through the Shool, and all eyes were
turned on Eeb Shloimeh, expecting him to begin abusing
the speaker. A lively scene was anticipated. But Eeb
Shloimeh smiled.

He quietly handed his prayer-scarf to the beadle,
wished the bystanders "good Sabbath," and walked out
of Shool, leaving them all disconcerted.

That Sabbath Eeb Shloimeh was the quietest man in
the whole town. He was convinced that the interdict

EEB SHLOIMEH 337

would have no effect on anyone. "People are not so
foolish as all that," he thought, "and they wouldn't
treat him in that way !" He sat and laid plans for
carrying on the education in the Talmud Torah, and
he felt so light of heart that he sang to himself for
very pleasure.

The old wife, meanwhile, was muttering and moaning.
She had all her life been quite content with her husband
and everything he did, and had always done her best
to help him, hoping that in the world to come she
would certainly share his portion of immortality. And
now she saw with horror that he was like to throw away
his future. But how ever could it be? she wondered,
and was bathed in tears : "What has come over you ?
What has happened to make you like that? They are
not just to you, are they, when they say that about
taking children and making Gentiles of them?" Eeb
Shloimeh smiled. "Do you think," he said to her, "that
I have gone mad in my old age ? Don't be afraid. I'm
in my right mind, and you shall not lose your place in
Paradise."

But the wife was not satisfied with the reply, and
continued to mutter and to weep. There were goings-on
in the town, too. The place was aboil with excitement.
Of course they talked about Eeb Shloimeh; nobody
could make out what had come to him all of a sudden.

"That is the teacher's work!" explained one of a knot
of talkers.

"And we thought Eeb Shloimeh such a sage, such
a clever man, so book-learned. How can the teacher
(may his name perish !) have talked him over?"

338 PINSKI

"It's a pity on the children's account !" one would
exclaim here and there. "In the Talmud Torah, under
his direction, they wanted for nothing, and what's to
become of them now ! They'll be running wild in the
streets !"

"What then? Do you mean it would be better to
make Gentiles of them?"

"Well, there ! Of course, I understand !" he would
hasten to say, penitently. And a resolution was passed,
to the effect that the children should not be allowed
to attend the Talmud Torah.

Eeb Shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the
excited groups in the street, saw how the men threw
themselves about, rocked themselves, bit their beards,
described half -circles with their thumbs, and he smiled.

In the evening the teachers came and told him what
had been said in the town, and how all held that the
children were not to be allowed to go to the Talmud
Torah. Eeb Shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he
composed himself again and thought :

"Eh, they will quiet down, never mind ! They won't
do it to me! "

Entering the Talmud Torah on Sunday, he was
greeted by four empty walls. Even two orphans, who
had no relations or protector in the town, had not come.
They had been frightened and talked at and not allowed
to attend, and free meals had been secured for all of
them, so that they should not starve.

For the moment Keb Shloimeh lost his head. He
glanced at the teachers as though ashamed in their
presence, and his glance said, "What is to be done
now?"

REB SHLOIMEH 339

Suddenly he pulled himself together.

"No!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better
of me," and he ran out of the Talmud Torah, and was
gone.

He ran from house to house, to the parents and
relations of the children. But they all looked askance
at him, and he accomplished nothing: they all kept to
it— "No I"

"Come, don't be silly! Send, send the children to
the Talmud Torah," he begged. "You will see, you
will not regret it!"

And he drew a picture for them of the sort of people
the children would become.

But it was no use.

"We haven't got to manage the world," they answered
him. "We have lived without all that, and our children
will live as we are living now. We have no call to
make Gentiles of them !"

"We know, we know! People needn't come to us
with stories," they would say in another house. "We
don't intend to sell our souls !" was the cry in a third.

"And who says I have sold mine?" Eeb Shloimeh
would ask sharply.

"How should we know? Besides, who was talking
of you?" they answered with a sweet smile.

Reb Shloimeh reached home tired and depressed.
The old wife had a shock on seeing him.

"Dear Lord!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands.
"What is the matter with you? What makes you look
like that ?"

340 PINSKI

The teachers, who were there waiting for him, asked
no questions: they had only to look at his ghastly
appearance to know what had happened.

Reb Shloimeh sank into his arm-chair.

"Nothing," he said, looking sideways, but meaning
it for the teachers.

"Nothing is nothing!" and they betook themselves to
consoling him. "We will find something else to do,
get hold of some other children, or else wait a little —
they'll ask to be taken back presently."

Reb Shloimeh did not hear them. He had let his
head sink on to his breast, turned his look sideways, and
thoughts he could not piece together, fragments of
thoughts, went round and round in the drooping head.

"Why? Why?" He asked himself over and over.
"To do such a thing to me I Well, there you are ! There
you have it ! — You've lived your life — like a man ! — "

His heart felt heavy and hurt him, and his brain
grew warm, warm. In one minute there ran through
his head the impression which his so nearly finished
life had made on him of late, and immediately after
it all the plans he had thought out for setting to right
his whole past life by means of the little bit left him.
And now it was all over and done! "Why? Why?"
he asked himself without ceasing, and could not under-
stand it.

He felt his old heart bursting with love to all men.
It beat more and more strongly, and would not cease
from loving; and he would fain have seen everyone so
happy, so happy ! He would have worked with his last
bit of strength, he would have drawn his last breath

EEB SHLOIMEH 341

for the cause to which he had devoted himself. He is
no longer conscious of the whereabouts of his limbs,
he feels his head growing heavier, his feet cold, and it
is dark before his eyes.

When he came to himself again, he was in bed; on
his head was a bandage with ice; the old wife was
lamenting; the teachers stood not far from the bed,
and talked among themselves. He wanted to lift his
hand and draw it across his forehead, but somehow he
does not feel his hand at all. He looks at it — it lies
stretched out beside him. And Eeb Shloimeh under-
stood what had happened to him.

"A stroke !" he thought, "I am finished, done for !"

He tried to give a whistle and make a gesture with
his hand : "Verfallen !" but the lips would not meet
properly, and the hand never moved.

"There you are, done for!" the lips whispered. He
glanced round, and fixed his eyes on the teachers, and
then on his wife, wishing to read in their faces whether
there was danger, whether he was dying, or whether
there was still hope. He looked, and could not make out
anything. Then, whispering, he called one of the
teachers, whose looks had met his, to his side.

The teacher came running.

"Done for, eh?" asked Reb Shloimeh.

"No, Reb Shloimeh, the doctors give hope," the
teacher replied, so earnestly that Reb Shloimeh's spirits
revived.

"Nu, nu," said Reb Shloimeh, as though he meant,
"So may it be ! Out of your mouth into God's ears !"

The other teachers all came nearer.

342 PINSKI

"Good?" whispered Reb Shloimeh, "good, ha? There's
a hero for you !" he smiled.

"Never mind," they said cheeringly, "you will get
well again, and work, and do many things yet !"

"Well, well, please God !" he answered, and looked
away.

And Reb Shloimeh really got better every day. The
having lived wisely and the will to live longer saved
him.

The first time that he was able to move a hand or
lift a foot, a broad, sweet smile spread itself over his
face, and a fire kindled in his all but extinguished
eyes.

"Good luck to you!" he cried out to those around.
He was very cheerful in himself, and began to think
once more about doing something or other. "People
must be taught, they must be taught, even if the world
turn upside down." he thought, and rubbed his hands
together with impatience.

"If it's not to be in the Talmud Torah, it must be
somewhere else!" And he set to work thinking where
it should be. He recalled all the neighbors to his mem-
ory, and suddenly grew cheerful.

Not far away there lived a bookbinder, who employed
as many as ten workmen. They work sometimes from
fifteen to sixteen hours, and have no strength left for
study. One must teach them, he thinks. The master
is not likely to object. Reb Shloimeh was the making
of him, he it was who protected him, introduced him
into all the best families, and finally set him on his
feet.

EEB SHLOIMEH 343

Reb Shloimeh grows more and more lively, and is con-
tinually trying to rise from his couch.

Once out of bed, he could hardly endure to stay in
the room, and how happy he felt, when, leaning on a
stick, he stept out into the street! He hurried in the
direction of the bookbinder's.

He was convinced that people's feelings toward him
had changed for the better, that they would rejoice
on seeing him.

How he looked forward to seeing a friendly smile on
every face ! He would have counted himself the happiest
of men, if he had been able to hope that now everything
was different, and would come right.

But he did not see the smile.

The town looked upon the apoplectic stroke as God's
punishment — it was obvious. "Aha !" they had cried
on hearing of it, and everyone saw in it another proof,
and it also was "obvious" — of the fact that there is a
God in the world, and that people cannot do just what
they like. The great fanatics overflowed with eloquence,
and saw in it an act of Heavenly vengeance. "Serves
him right! Serves him right!" they thought. "Whose
fault is it?" people replied, when some one reminded
them that it was very sad — such a man as he had been,
"Who told him to do it ? He has himself to thank for
his misfortunes."

The town had never ceased talking of him the whole
time. Every one was interested in knowing how he was,
and what was the matter with him. And when they
heard that he was better, that he was getting well, they
really were pleased; they were sure that he would give

344 PINSKI

up all his foolish plans, and understand that God had
punished him, and that he would be again as before.

But it soon became known that he clung to his wicked-
ness, and people ceased to rejoice.

The Eabbi and his fanatical friends came to see him
one day by way of visiting the sick. Eeb Shloimeh felt
inclined to ask them if they had come to stare at him as
one visited by a miracle, but he refrained, and surveyed
them with indifference.

"Well, how are you, Eeb Shloimeh ?" they asked.

"Gentiles!" answered Eeb Shloimeh, almost in spite
of himself, and smiled.

The Eabbi and the others became confused.

They sat a little while, couldn't think of anything
to say, and got up from their seats. Then they stood
a bit, wished him a speedy return to health, and went
away, without hearing any answer from Eeb Shloimeh
to their "good night."

It was not long before the whole town knew of the
visit, and it began to boil like a kettle.

To commit such sin is to play with destiny. Once
you are in, there is no getting out! Give the devil a
hair, and he'll snatch at the whole beard.

So when Eeb Shloimeh showed himself in the street,
they stared at him and shook their heads, as though
to say, "Such a man — and gone to ruin !"

Eeb Shloimeh saw it, and it cut him to the heart.
Indeed, it brought the tears to his eyes, and he began
to walk quicker in the direction of the bookbinder's.

At the bookbinder's they received him in friendly
fashion, with a hearty "Welcome !" but he fancied that

REB SHLOIMEH 345

here also they looked at him askance, and therefore
he gave a reason for his coming.

"Walking is hard work," he said, "one must have
stopping-places."

With this same excuse he went there every day. He
would sit for an hour or two, talking, telling stories,
and at last he began to tell the "stories" which the
teacher had told.

He sat in the centre of the room, and talked away
merrily, with a pun here and a laugh there, and inter-
ested the workmen deeply. Sometimes they would all
of one accord stop working, open their mouths, fix
their eyes, and hang on his lips with an intelligent
smile.

Or else they stood for a few minutes tense, motionless
as statues, till Reb Shloimeh finished, before the master
should interpose.

"Work, work — you will hear it all in time !" he would
say, in a cross, dissatisfied tone.

And the workmen would unwillingly bend their backs
once more over their task, but Eeb Shloimeh remained
a little thrown out. He lost the thread of what he was
telling, began buttoning and unbuttoning his coat, and
glanced guiltily at the binder.

But he went his own way nevertheless.

As to his hearers, he was overjoyed with them. When
he saw that the workmen began to take interest in every
book that was brought them to be bound, he smiled
happily, and his eyes sparkled with delight.

And if it happened to be a book treating of the
subjects on which they had heard something from Reb

346 PINSKI

Shloimeh, they threw themselves upon it, nearly tore it
to pieces, and all but came to blows as to who should
have the binding of it.

Eeb Shloimeh began to feel that he was doing some-
thing, that he was being really useful, and he was
supremely happy.

The town, of course, was aware of Keb Shloimeh's
constant visits to the bookbinder's, and quickly found
out what he did {here.

"He's just off his head !" they laughed, and shrugged
their shoulders. They even laughed in Eeb Shloimeh's
face, but he took no notice of it.

His pleasure, however, came 'to a speedy end. One
day the binder spoke out.

"Eeb Shloimeh," he said shortly, "you prevent us
from working with your stories. What do you mean
by it? You come and interfere with the work."

"But do I disturb?" he asked. "They go on working
all the time—

"And a pretty way of working," answered the book-
binder. "The boys are ready enough at finding an
excuse for idling as it is ! And why do you choose
me? There are plenty of other workshops "

It was an honest "neck and crop" business, and there
was nothing left for Eeb Shloimeh but to take up his
stick and go.

"Nothing — again !" he whispered.

There was a sting in his heart, a beating in his
temples, and his head burned.

"Nothing — again! This time it's all over. I must
die — die — a story with an end."

EEB SHLOIMEH 347

Had he been young, he would have known what to
do. He would never have begun to think about death,
but now — where was the use of living on? What was
there to wait for ? All over ! — all over ! —

It was as much as he could do to get home. He sat
down in the arm-chair, laid his head back, and thought.

He pictured to himself the last weeks at the book-
binder's and the change that had taken place in the
workmen ; how they had appeared better-mannered, more
human, more intelligent. It seemed to him that he
had implanted in them the love of knowledge and the
inclination to study, had put them in the way of
viewing more rightly what went on around them. He
had been of some account with them — and all of a
sudden — !

"No !" he said to himself. "They will come to me —
they must come !" he thought, and fixed his eyes on the
door.

He even forgot that they worked till nine o'clock at
night, and the whole evening he never took his eyes off
the door.

The time flew, it grew later and later, and the book-
binders did not come.

At last he could bear it no longer, and went out into
the street; perhaps he would see them, and then he
would call them in.

It was dark in the street; the gas lamps, few and
far between, scarcely gave any light. A chilly autumn
night; the air was saturated with moisture, and there
was dreadful mud under foot. There were very few
passers-by, and Reb Shloimeh remained standing at his
door.

348 PINSKI

When he heard a sound of footsteps or voices, his
heart began to beat quicker. His old wife came out
three times to call him into the house again, but he
did not hear her, and remained standing outside.

The street grew still. There was nothing more to
be heard but the rattles of the night-watchmen. Keb
Shloimeh gave a last look into the darkness, as though
trying to see someone, and then, with a groan, he went
indoors.

Next morning he felt very weak, and stayed in bed.
He began to feel that his end was near, that he was
but a guest tarrying for a day.

"It's all the same, all the same !" he said to himself,
thinking quietly about death.

All sorts of ideas went through his head. He thought
as it were unconsciously, without giving himself a clear
account of what he was thinking of.

A variety of images passed through his mind, scenes
out of his long life, certain people, faces he had seen here
and there, comrades of his childhood, but they all had
no interest for him. He kept his eyes fixed on the door
of his room, waiting for death, as though it would come
in by the door.

He lay like that the whole day. His wife came in
continually, and asked him questions, and he was silent,
not taking his eyes off the door, or interrupting the
train of his thoughts. It seemed as if he had ceased
either to see or to hear. In the evening the teachers
began coming.

"Finished !" said Eeb Shloimeh, looking at the door.
Suddenly he heard a voice he knew, and raised his head.

EEB SHLOIMEH 349

"We have come to visit the sick," said the voice.

The door opened, and there came in four workmen
at once.

At first Eeb Shloimeh could not believe his eyes, but
soon a smile appeared upon his lips, and he tried to
sit up.

"Come, come!" he said joyfully, and his heart beat
rapidly with pleasure.

The workmen remained standing some way from the
bed, not venturing to approach the sick man, but Reb
Shloimeh called them to him.

"Nearer, nearer, children !" he said.

They came a little nearer.

"Come here, to me !" and he pointed to the bed.

They came up to the bed.

"Well, what are you all about?" he asked with a
smile.

The workmen were silent.

"Why did you not come last night?" he asked, and
looked at them smiling.

The workmen were silent, and shuffled with their
feet.

"How are you, Reb Shloimeh ?" asked one of them.

"Very well, very well," answered Reb Shloimeh, still
smiling. "Thank you, children ! Thank you !"

"Sit down, children, sit down." he said after a pause.
"I will tell you some more stories."

"It will tire you, Reb Shloimeh," said a workman.
"When you are better "

"Sit down, sit down!" said Reb Shloimeh, im-
patiently. "That's my business !"
23

350 PINSKI

The workmen exchanged glances with the teachers
and the teachers signed to them not to sit down.

"Not to-day, Eeb Shloimeh, another time, when
you—"

"Sit down, sit down !" interrupted Reb Shloimeh, "Do
me the pleasure !"

Once more the workmen exchanged looks with the
teachers, and, at a sign from them, they sat down.

Eeb Shloimeh began telling them the long story of
the human race, he spoke with ardor, and it was long
since his voice had sounded as it sounded then.

He spoke for a long, long time.

They interrupted him two or three times, and
reminded him that it was bad for him to talk so much.
But he only signified with a gesture that they were to
let him alone.

"I am getting better," he said, and went on.

At length the workmen rose from their seats.

"Let us go, Reb Shloimeh. It's getting late for us/'
they begged.

"True, true," he replied, "but to-morrow, do you
hear ? Look here, children, to-morrow !" he said, giving
them his hand.

The workmen promised to come. They moved away
a few steps, and then Reb Shloimeh called them back.

"And the others?" he inquired feebly, as though he
were ashamed of asking.

"They were lazy, they wouldn't come," was the reply.

"Well, well," he said, in a tone that meant "Well,
well, I know, you needn't say any more, but look here,
to-morrow !"

REB SHLOIMEH 351

"Now I am well again," he whispered as the workmen
went out. He could scarcely move a limb, but he was
very cheerful, looked at every one with a happy smile,
and his eyes shone.

"Now I am well," he whispered when they had been
obliged to put him into bed and cover him up. "Now
I am well," he repeated, feeling the while that his head
was strangely heavy, his heart faint, and that he was
very poorly. Before many minutes he had fallen into
a state of unconsciousness.

A dreadful, heartbreaking cry recalled him to him-
self. He opened his eyes. The room was full of people.
In many eyes were tears.

"Soon, then," he thought, and began to remember
something.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked of the person who
stood beside him.

"Five."

"They stop work at nine," he whispered to himself,
and called one of the teachers to him.

"When the workmen come, they are to let them in,
do you hear!" he said. The teacher promised.

"They will come at nine," added Beb Shloimeh.

In a little while he asked to write his will. After
writing the will, he undressed and closed his eyes.

They thought he had fallen asleep, but Eeb Shloimeh
was not asleep. He lay and thought, not about his past
life, but about the future, the future in which men
would live. He thought of what man would come to be.
He pictured to himself a bright, glad world, in which

352 PINSKI

all men would be equal in happiness, knowledge, and
education, and his dying heart beat a little quicker,
while his face expressed joy and contentment. He
opened his eyes, and saw beside him a couple of teachers.

"And will it really be?" he asked and smiled.

"Yes, Eeb Shloinaeh," they answered, without know-
ing to what his question referred, for his face told them
it was something good. The smile accentuated itself
on his lips.

Once again he lost himself in thought.

He wanted to imagine that happy world, and see with
his mind's eye nothing but happy people, educated
people, and he succeeded.

The picture was not very distinct. He was imagining
a great heap of happiness — happiness with a body and
soul, and he felt himself so happy.

A sound of lamentation disturbed him.

"Why do they weep?" he wondered. "Every one will
have a good time — everyone !"

He opened his eyes ; there were already lights burning.
The room was packed with people. Beside him stood
all his children, come together to take leave of their
father.

He fixed his gaze on the little grandchildren, a gaze
of love and gladness.

"They will see the happy time," he thought.

He was just going to ask the people to stop lament-
ing, but at that moment his eye caught the workmen of
the evening before.

"'Come here, come here, children !" and he raised his
voice a little, and made a sign with his head. People

EEB SHLOIMEH 353

did not know what he meant. He begged them to send
the workmen to him, and it was done.

He tried to sit up; those around helped him.

"Thank you — chilldren — for coming — thank you !" he
said. "Stop — weeping !" he implored of the bystanders.
"I want to die quietly — I want every one to — to — be as
happy — as I am ! Live, all of you, in the — hope of a —
good time — as I die — in — that hope. Dear chil —
dren — " and he turned to the workmen, "I told you —
last night — how man has lived so far. How he lives
now, you know for yourselves — but the coming time
will be a very happy one : all will be happy — all ! Only
work honestly, and learn! Learn, children! Every-
thing will be all right ! All will be hap "

A sweet smile appeared on his lips, and Eeb Shloi-
meh died.

In the town they — but what else could they say in
the town of a man who had died without repeating
the Confession, without a tremor at his heart, without
any sign of repentance? What else could they say of a
man who spent his last minutes in telling people to
learn, to educate themselves? What else could they
say of a man who left his whole capital to be devoted
to educational purposes and schools?

What was to be expected of them, when his own
family declared in court that their father was not
responsible when he made his last will?

Forgive them, Reb' Shloimeh, for they mean well —
they know not what they say and do.

S. LIBIN

Pen name of Israel Hurewitz; born, 1872, in Gori-Gorki,
Government of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; assist-
ant to a druggist at thirteen; went to London at twenty, and,
after seven months there, to New York (1893); worked as
capmaker; first sketch, "A Sifz vun a Arbeiterbrust " ;
contributor to Die Arbeiterzeitung, Das Abendblatt, Die
Zukunft, Vorwarts, etc.; prolific Yiddish playwright and
writer of sketches on New York Jewish life; dramas to the
number of twenty-six produced on the stage; collected works,
Geklibene Skizzen, 1 vol., New York, 1902, and 2 vols., New
York, 1907.

A PICNIC

Ask Shmuel, the capmaker, just for a joke, if he
would like to come for a picnic! He'll fly out at you
as if you had invited him to a swing on the gallows.
The fact is, he and his Sarah once went for a picnic,
and the poor man will remember it all his days.

It was on a Sabbath towards the end of August.
Shmuel came home from work, and said to his wife :

"Sarah, dear!"

"Well, husband?" was her reply.

"I want to have a treat," said Shmuel, as though
alarmed at the boldness of the idea.

"What sort of a treat? Shall you go to the swim-
ming-bath to-morrow ?"

"Ett ! What's the fun of that ?"

"Then, what have you thought of by way of an
exception? A glass of ice water for supper?"

"Not that, either."

"A whole siphon?"

Shmuel denied with a shake of the head.

"Whatever can it be!" wondered Sarah. "Are you
going to fetch a pint of beer?"

"What should I want with beer ?"

"Are you going to sleep on the roof?"

"Wrong again !"

"To buy some more carbolic acid, and drive out the
bugs?"

"Not a bad idea," observed Shmuel, "but that is
not it, either."

358 S. LIBIN

"Well, then, whatever is it, for goodness' sake ! The
moon ?" asked Sarah, beginning to lose patience. "What
have you been and thought of? Tell me once for all,
and have done with it!"

And Shmuel said:

"Sarah, you know, we belong to a lodge."

"Of course I do!" and Sarah gave him a look of
mingled astonishment and alarm. "It's not more than
a week since you took a whole dollar there, and I'm
not likely to have forgotten what it cost you to make
it up. What is the matter now ? Do they want another ?"

"Try again!"

"Out with it!"

"I — want us, Sarah," stammered Shmuel, — "to go
for a picnic."

"A picnic!" screamed Sarah. "Is that the only
thing you have left to wish for ?"

"Look here, Sarah, we toil and moil the whole year
through. It's nothing but trouble and worry, trouble
and worry. Call that living! When do we ever have
a bit of pleasure ?"

"Well, what's to be done?" said his wife, in a sub-
dued tone.

"The summer will soon be over, and we haven't set
eyes on a green blade of grass. We sit day and night
sweating in the dark."

"True enough!" sighed his wife, and Shmuel spoke
louder :

"Let us have an outing, Sarah. Let us enjoy our-
selves for once, and give the children a breath of fresh
air, let us have a change, if it's only for five minutes !"

A PICNIC 359

"What will it cost?" asks Sarah, suddenly, and
Shmuel has soon made the necessary calculation.

"A family ticket is only thirty cents, for Yossele,
Rivele, Hannahle, and Berele; for Eesele and Doletzke
I haven't to pay any carfare at all. For you and me, it
will be ten cents there and ten back — that makes fifty
cents. Then I reckon thirty cents for refreshments
to take with us: a pineapple (a damaged one isn't
more than five cents), a few bananas, a piece of water-
melon, a bottle of milk for the children, and a few
rolls — the whole thing shouldn't cost us more than
eighty cents at the outside."

"Eighty cents!" and Sarah clapped her hands to-
gether in dismay. "Why, you can live on that two
days, and it takes nearly a whole day's earning. You
can buy an old ice-box for eighty cents, you can buy
a pair of trousers — eighty cents!"

"Leave oft* talking nonsense!" said Shmuel, discon-
certed. "Eighty cents won't make us rich. We shall
get on just the same whether we have them or not.
We must live like human beings one day in the year!
Come, Sarah, let us go! We shall see lots of other
people, and we'll watch them, and see how they enjoy
themselves. It will do you good to see the world, to
go where there's a bit of life! Listen, Sarah, what
have you been to worth seeing since we came to
America ? Have you seen Brooklyn Bridge, or 'Central
Park, or the Baron Hirsch baths?"

"You know I haven't!" Sarah broke in. "I've no
time to go about sight-seeing. I only know the way
from here to the market."

360 S. LIBIN

"And what do you suppose ?" cried Shmuel. "I should
be as great a greenhorn as you, if I hadn't been obliged
to look everywhere for work. Now I know that America
is a great big place. Thanks to the slack times, I know
where there's an Eighth Street, and a One Hundred
and Thirtieth Street with tin works, and an Eighty-
Fourth Street with a match factory. I know every
single lane round the World Building. I know where
the cable car line stops. But you, Sarah, know nothing
at all, no more than if you had just landed. Let us go,
Sarah, I am sure you won't regret it!"

"Well, you know best!" said his wife, and this time
she smiled. "Let us go !"

And thus it was that Shmuel and his wife decided to
join the lodge picnic on the following day.

Next morning they all rose much earlier than usual
on a Sunday, and there was a great noise, for they
took the children and scrubbed them without mercy.
Sarah prepared a bath for Doletzke, and Doletzke
screamed the house down. Shmuel started washing
Yossele's feet, but as Yossele habitually went barefoot,
he failed to bring about any visible improvement, and
had to leave the little pair of feet to soak in a basin of
warm water, and Yossele cried, too. It was twelve
o'clock before the children were dressed and ready to
start, and then Sarah turned her attention to her hus-
band, arranged his trousers, took the spots out of his
coat with kerosene, sewed a button onto his vest. After
that she dressed herself, in her old-fashioned satin wed-
ding dress. At two o'clock they set forth, and took
their places in the car.

A PICNIC 361

"Haven't we forgotten anything?" asked Sarah of
her husband.

Shimiel counted his children and the traps. "No,
nothing, Sarah !" he said.

Doletzke went to sleep, the other children sat quietly
in their places. Sarah, too, fell into a doze, for she
was tired out with the preparations for the excursion.

All went smoothly till they got some way up town,
when Sarah gave a start.

"I don't feel very well — my head is so dizzy," she
said to Shmuel.

"I don't feel very well, either," answered Shmuel.
"I suppose the fresh air has upset us."

"I suppose it has," said his wife. "I'm afraid for
the children."

Scarcely had she spoken when Doletzke woke up,
whimpering, and was sick. Yossele, who was looking at
her, hegan to cry likewise. The mother scolded him, and
this set the other children crying. The conductor cast
a wrathful glance at poor Shmuel, who was so fright-
ened that he dropped the hand-bag with the provisions,
and then, conscious of the havoc he had certainly
brought about inside the bag by so doing, he lost his
head altogether, and sat there in a daze. Sarah was
hushing the children, but the look in her eyes told
Shmuel plainly enough what to expect once they had
left the car. And no sooner had they all reached the
ground in safety than Sarah shot out :

"So, nothing would content him but a picnic? Much
good may it do him ! You're a workman, and work-
men have no call to go gadding about !"

362 S. LIBIN

Shmuel was already weary of the whole thing, and
said nothing, but he felt a tightening of the heart.

He took up Yossele on one arm and Resele on the
other, and carried the bag with the presumably
smashed-up contents besides.

"Hush, my dears ! Hush, my babies !" he said. "Wait
a little and mother will give you some bread and sugar.
Hush, be quiet!" He went on, but still the children
cried.

Sarah carried Doletzke, and rocked her as she walked,
while Berele and Hannahle trotted alongside.

"He has shortened my days," said Sarah, "may his
be shortened likewise."

Soon afterwards they turned into the park.

"Let us find a tree and sit down in the shade," said
Shmuel. "Come, Sarah!"

"I haven't the strength to drag myself a step
further," declared Sarah, and she sank down like a
stone just inside the gate. Shmuel was about to speak,
but a glance at Sarah's face told him she was worn
out, and he sat down beside his wife without a word.
Sarah gave Doletzke the breast. The other children
began to roll about in the grass, laughed and played, and
Shmuel breathed easier.

Girls in holiday attire walked about the park, and
there were groups under the trees. Here was a hand-
some girl surrounded by admiring boys, and there a
handsome young man encircled by a bevy of girls.

Out of the leafy distance of the park came the melan-
choly song of a workman ; near by stood a man playing
on a fiddle. Sarah looked about her and listened, and

A PICNIC 363

by degrees her vexation vanished. It is true that her
heart was still sore, but it was not with the soreness of
anger. She was taking her life to pieces and thinking
it over, and it seemed a very hard and bitter one, and
when she looked at her husband and thought of his life,
she was near crying, and she laid her hands upon
his knee.

Shmuel also sat lost in thought. He was thinking
about the trees and the roses and the grass, and listening
to the fiddle. And he also was sad at heart.

"0 Sarah !" he sighed, and he would have said more,
but just at that moment it began to spot with rain, and
before they had time to move there came a downpour.
People started to scurry in all directions, but Shmuel
stood like a statue.

"Shlimm-mazel, look after the children !" commanded
Sarah. Shmuel caught up two of them, Sarah another
two or three, and they ran to a shelter. Doletzke began
to cry afresh.

"Mame, hungry!" began Berele.

"Hungry, hungry!" wailed Yossele. "I want to
eat!"

Shmuel hastily opened the hand-bag, and then for
the first time he saw what had really happened: the
bottle had broken, and the milk was flooding the bag;
the rolls and bananas were soaked, and the pineapple
(a damaged one to begin with) looked too nasty for
words. Sarah caught sight of the bag, and was so
angry, she was at a loss how to wreak vengeance on
her husband. She was ashamed to scream and scold in
the presence of other people, but she went up to him,

364 S. LIBIN

and whispered fervently into his ear, "The same to
you, my good man!"

The children continued to clamor for food.

"I'll go to the refreshment counter and buy a glass
of milk and a few rolls/' said Shmuel to his wife.

"Have you actually some money left?" asked Sarah.
"I thought it had all been spent on the picnic/*

"There are just five cents over."

"Well, then go and be quick about it. The poor
things are starving."

Shmuel went to the refreshment stall, and asked the
price of a glass of milk and a few rolls.

"Twenty cents, mister," answered the waiter.

Shmuel started as if he had burnt his finger, and
returned to his wife more crestfallen than ever.

"Well, Shlimm-mazel, where's the milk?" inquired
Sarah.

"He asked twenty cents."

"Twenty cents for a glass of milk and a roll? Are
you Montefiore?" Sarah could no longer contain her-
self. "They'll be the ruin of us! If you want to go
for another picnic, we shall have to sell the bedding."

The children never stopped begging for something
to eat.

"But what are we to do?" asked the bewildered
Shmuel.

"Do ?" screamed Sarah. "Go home, this very minute !"

Shmuel promptly caught up a few children, and they
left the park. Sarah was quite quiet on the way home,
merely remarking to her husband that she would settle
her account with him later.

A PICNIC 365

"I'll pay you out," she said, "for my satin dress, for
the hand-bag, for the pineapple, for the bananas, for
the milk, for the whole blessed picnic, for the whole of
my miserable existence."

"Scold away !" answered Shmuel. "It is you who
were right. I don't know what possessed me. A picnic,
indeed! You may well ask what next? A poor
wretched workman like me has no business to think of
anything beyond the shop."

Sarah, when they reached home, was as good as her
word. Shmuel would have liked some supper, as he
always liked it, even in slack times, but there was no
supper given him. He went to bed a hungry man, and
all through the night he repeated in his sleep :

"A picnic, oi, a picnic!"

24

MANASSEH

It was a stifling summer evening. I had just come
home from work, taken off my coat, unbuttoned my
waistcoat, and sat down panting by the window of my
little room.

There was a knock at the door, and without waiting
for my reply, in came a woman with yellow hair, and
very untidy in her dress.

I judged from her appearance that she had not come
from a distance. She had nothing on her head, her
sleeves were tucked up, she held a ladle in her hand,
and she was chewing something or other.

"I am Manasseh's wife," said she.

"Manasseh Gricklin's ?" I asked.

"Yes," said my visitor, "Gricklin's, Gricklin's/*

I hastily slipped on a coat, and begged her to be
seated.

Manasseh was an old friend of mine, he was a
capmaker, and we worked together in one shop.

And I knew that he lived somewhere in the same tene-
ment as myself, but it was the first time I had the honor
of seeing his wife.

"Look here," began the woman, "don't you work in
the same shop as my husband ?"

"Yes, yes," I said.

"Well, and now tell me," and the yellow-haired woman
gave a bound like a hyena, "how is it I see you come
home from work with all other respectable people, and
my husband not? And it isn't the first time, either,

MANASSEH 367

that he's gone, goodness knows where, and come home
two hours after everyone else. Where's he loitering
about?"

"I don't know," I replied gravely.

The woman brandished her ladle in such a way that
I began to think she meant murder.

"You don't know?" she exclaimed with a sinister
flash in her eyes. "What do you mean by that? Don't
you two leave the shop together? How can you help
seeing what becomes of him?"

Then I remembered that when Manasseh and I left
the shop, he walked with me a few blocks, and then
went off in another direction, and that one day, when
I asked him where he was going, he had replied, "To
some friends."

"He must go to some friends," I said to the woman.

"To some friends?" she repeated, and burst into
strange laughter. "Who? Whose? Ours? We're
greeners, we are, we have no friends. What friends
should he have, poor, miserable wretch ?"

"I don't know," I said, "but that is what he told
me."

"All right !" said Manasseh's wife. "I'll teach him a
lesson he won't forget in a hurry."

With these words she departed.

When she had left the room, I pictured to myself
poor consumptive Manasseh being taught a "lesson" by
his yellow-haired wife, and I pitied him.

Manasseh was a man of about thirty. His yellowish-
white face was set in a black beard; he was very thin,
always ailing and coughing, had never learnt to write,

368 S. LIBIN

and he read only Yiddish — a quiet, respectable man, I
might almost say the only hand in the shop who never
grudged a fellow-worker his livelihood. He had been
only a year in the country, and the others made sport
of him, but I always stood up for him, because I liked
him very much.

Wherever does he go, now? I wondered to myself,
and I resolved to find out.

Next morning I met Manasseh as usual, and at
first I intended to tell him of his wife's visit to me
the day before; but the poor operative looked so low-
spirited, so thoroughly unhappy, that I felt sure his
wife had already given him the promised "lesson," and
I hadn't the courage to mention her to him just then.

In the evening, as we were going home from the
workshop, Manasseh said to me :

"Did my wife come to see you yesterday?"

"Yes, Brother Manasseh," I answered. "She seemed
something annoyed with you."

"She has a dreadful temper," observed the workman.
"When she is really angry, she's fit to kill a man. But
it's her bitter heart, poor thing — she's had so many
troubles! We're so poor, and she's far away from her
family."

Manasseh gave a deep sigh.

"She asked you where I go other days after work?"
he continued.

"Yes."

"Would you like to know ?"

"Why not, Mister Gricklin !"

"Come along a few blocks further," said Manasseh,
"and I'll show you."

MANASSEH 369

"Come along !" I agreed, and we walked on together.

A few more blocks and Manasseh led me into a narrow
street, not yet entirely built in with houses.

Presently he stopped, with a contented smile. I
looked round in some astonishment. We were standing
alongside a piece of waste ground, with a meagre
fencing of stones and burnt wire, and utilized as a
garden.

"Just look," said the workman, pointing at the
garden, "how delightful it is! One so seldom sees
anything of the kind in New York."

Manasseh went nearer to the fence, and his eyes
wandered thirstily over the green, flowering plants, just
then in full beauty. I also looked at the garden. The
things that grew there were unknown to me, and I was
ignorant of their names. Only one thing had a familiar
look — a few tall, graceful "moons" were scattered here
and there over the place, and stood like absent-minded
dreamers, or beautiful sentinels. And the roses were in
bloom, and their fragrance came in wafts over the
fencing.

"You see the 'moons'?" asked Manasseh, in rapt
tones, but more to himself than to me. "Look how beau-
tiful they are! I can't take my eyes off them. I am
capable of standing and looking at them for hours.
They make me feel happy, almost as if I were at home
again. There were a lot of them at home !"

The operative sighed, lost himself a moment in
thought, and then said:

"When I smell the roses, I think of old days. We
had quite a large garden, and I was so fond of it!

370 S. LIBIN

When the flowers began to come out, I used to sit
there for hours, and could never look at it enough.
The roses appeared to be dreaming with their great
golden eyes wide open. The cucumbers lay along the
ground like pussy-cats, and the stalks and leaves spread
ever so far across the beds. The beans fought for
room like street urchins, and the pumpkins and the
potatoes — you should have seen them! And the flow-
ers were all colors — pink and blue and yellow, and
1 felt as if everything were alive, as if the whole
garden were alive — I fancied I heard them talking
together, the roses, the potatoes, the beans. I spent
whole evenings in my garden. It was dear to me
as my own soul. Look, look, look, don't the roses
seem as if they were alive?"

But I looked at Manasseh, and thought the con-
sumptive workman had grown younger and healthier.
His face was less livid, and his eyes shone with happi-
ness.

"Do you know," said Manasseh to me, as we walked
away from the garden, "I had some cuttings of rose-
trees at home, in a basket out on the fire-escape, and
they had begun to bud."

There was a pause.

"Well," I inquired, "and what happened?"

"My wife laid out the mattress to air on the top of
the basket, and they were all crushed."

Manasseh made on outward gesture with his hand,
and I asked no more questions.

The poky, stuffy shop in which he worked came
into my mind, and my heart was sore for him.

YOHRZEIT FOR MOTHER

The Ginzburgs' first child died of inflammation of
the lungs when it was two years and three months old.

The -young couple were in the depths of grief and
despair — they even thought seriously of committing
suicide.

But people do not do everything they think of doing.
Neither Ginzburg nor his wife had the courage to throw
themselves into the cold and grizzly arms of death.
They only despaired, until, some time after, a new-
born child bound them once more to life.

It was a little girl, and they named her Dvoreh,
after Ginzburg's dead mother.

The Ginzburgs were both free-thinkers in the full
sense of the word, and their naming the child after the
dead had no superstitious significance whatever.

It came about quite simply.

"Dobinyu," Ginzburg had asked his wife, "how shall
we call our daughter ?"

"I don't know," replied the young mother.

"No more do I," said Ginzburg.

"Let us call her Dvorehle," suggested Dobe, auto-
matically, gazing at her pretty baby, and very little
concerned about its name.

Had Ginzburg any objection to make? None at all,
and the child's name was Dvorehle henceforward. When
the first child had lived to be a year old, the parents
had made a feast-day, and invited guests to celebrate
their first-born's first birthday with them.

372 S. LIBIN

With the second child it was not so.

The Ginzburgs loved their Dvorehle, loved her pain-
fully, infinitely, but when it came to the anniversary
of her birth they made no rejoicings.

I do not think I shall be going too far if I say they
did not dare to do so.

Dvorehle was an uncommon child : a bright girlie,
sweet-tempered, pretty, and clever, the light of the
house, shining into its every corner. She could be a
whole world of delight to her parents, this wee Dvorehle.
But it was not the delight, not the happiness they had
known with the first child, not the same. That had been
so free, so careless. Now it was different: terrible pic-
tures of death, of a child's death, would rise up in
the midst of their joy, and their gladness sudden-
ly ended in a heavy sigh. They would be at the
height of enchantment, kissing and hugging the child
and laughing aloud, they would be singing to it and
romping with it, everything else would be forgotten.
Then, without wishing to do so, they would sudden-
ly remember that not so long ago it was another
child, also a girl, that went off into just the
same silvery little bursts of laughter — and now,
where is it ? — dead ! 0 how it goes through the heart !
The parents turn pale in the midst of their merry-
making, the mother's eyes fill with tears, and the father's
head droops.

"Who knows?" sighs Dobe, looking at their little
laughing Dvorehle. "Who knows ?"

Ginzburg understands the meaning of her question
and is silent, because he is afraid to say anything in
reply.

YQHRZEIT FOR MOTHER 373

It seems to me that parents who have buried their
first-born can never be really happy again.

So Dvorehle's first birthday was allowed to pass as
it were unnoticed. When it came to her second, it was
nearly the same thing, only Dobe said, "Ginzburg, when
our daughter is three years old, then we will have great
rejoicings I"

They waited for the day with trembling hearts. Their
child's third year was full of terror for them, because
their eldest-born had died in her third year, and they
felt as though it must be the most dangerous one for
their second child.

A dreadful conviction began to haunt them both, only
they were afraid to confess it one to the other. This
conviction, this fixed idea of theirs, was that when
Dvorehle reached the age of their eldest child when it
died, Death would once more call their household to
mind.

Dvorehle grew to be two years and eight months old.
0 it was a terrible time ! And — and the child fell ill,
with inflammation of the lungs, just like the other one.

0 pictures that arose and stood before the parents!
0 terror, 0 calamity! They were free-thinkers, the
Ginzburgs, and if any one had told them that they were
not free from what they called superstition, that the
belief in a Higher Power beyond our understanding
still had a root in their being, if you had spoken thus to
Ginzburg or to his wife, they would have laughed at you,
both of them, out of the depths of a full heart and with
laughter more serious than many another's words. But
what happened now is wonderful to tell.

374 S. LIBIN

Dobe, sitting by the sick child's cot, began to speak,
gravely, and as in a dream :

"Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps? Perhaps?"
She did not conclude.

"Perhaps what?" asked Ginzburg, impatiently.

"Why should it come like this ?" Dobe went on. "The
same time, the same sickness?"

"A simple blind coincidence of circumstances," re-
plied her husband.

"But so exactly — one like the other, as if somebody
had made it happen on purpose."

Ginzburg understood his wife's meaning, and answer-
ed short and sharp:

"Dobe, don't talk nonsense."

Meanwhile Dvorehle's illness developed, and the day
came on which the doctor said that a crisis would
occur within twenty-four hours. What this meant to
the Ginzburgs would be difficult to describe, but each
of them determined privately not to survive the loss
of their second child.

They sat beside it, not lifting their eyes from its
face. They were pale and dazed with grief and sleep-
less nights, their hearts half-dead within them, they
shed no tears, they were so much more dead than
alive themselves, and the child's flame of life flickered
and dwindled, flickered and dwindled.

A tangle of memories was stirring in Ginzburg's
head, all relating to deaths and graves. He lived
through the death of their first child with all details
— his father's death, his mother's — early in a summer
morning — that was- — that was — he recalls it — as though
it were to-day.

YOHRZEIT FOR MOTHER 375

"What is to-day?" he wonders. "What day of the
month is it?" And then he remembers, it is the first
of May.

"The same day," he murmurs, as if he were talk-
ing in his sleep.

"What the same day ?" asks Dobe.

"Nothing," says Ginzburg. "I was thinking of
something."

He went on thinking, and fell into a doze where
he sat.

He saw his mother enter the room with a soft step,
take a chair, and sit down by the sick child.

"Mother, save it!" he begs her, his heart is full to
bursting, and he begins to cry.

"Isrolik," says his mother, "I have brought a remedy
for the child that bears my name."

"Mame! ! I"

He is about to throw himself upon her neck and kiss
her, but she motions him lightly aside.

"Why do you never light a candle for my Yohrzeit ?"
she inquires, and looks at him reproachfully.

"Mame, have pity on us, save the child !"

"The child will live, only you must light me a
candle."

"Mame" (he sobs louder), "have pity!"

"Light my candle — make haste, make haste — "

"Ginzburg!" a shriek from his wife, and he awoke
with a start.

"Ginzburg, the child is dying! Fly for the doctor."

Ginzburg cast a look at the child, a chill went
through him, he ran to the door.

376 S. LIBIN

The doctor came in person.

"Our child is dying! Help save it!" wailed the
unhappy mother, and he, Ginzburg, stood and shivered
as with cold.

The doctor scrutinized the child, and said:

"The crisis is coming on." There was something
dreadful in the quiet of his tone.

"What can be done ?" and the Ginzburgs wrung their
hands.

"Hush! Nothing! Bring some hot water, bottles
of hot water! — Champagne! — Where is the medicine?
Quick!" commanded the doctor.

Everything was to hand and ready in an instant.

The doctor began to busy himself with the child,
the parents stood by pale as death.

"Well," asked Dobe, "what?"

"We shall soon know," said the doctor.

Ginzburg looked round, glided like a shadow into
a corner of the room, and lit the little lamp that stood
there.

"What is that for?" asked Dobe, in a fright.

"Nothing, Yohrzeit — my mother's," he answered in
a strange voice, and his hands never ceased trembling.

"Your child will live," said the doctor, and father
and mother fell upon the child's bed with their faces,
and wept.

The flame in the lamp burnt brighter and brighter.

SLACK TIMES THEY SLEEP

Despite the fact of the winter nights being long and
dark as the Jewish exile, the Breklins go to bed at
dusk.

But you may as well know that when it is dusk
outside in the street, the Breklins are already "way
on" in the night, because they live in a basement,
separated from the rest of the world by an air-shaft,
and when the sun gathers his beams round him be-
fore setting, the first to be summoned are those down
the Breklins' shaft, because of the time required for
them to struggle out again.

The same thing in the morning, only reversed. Peo-
ple don't usually get up, if they can help it, before it
is really light, and so it comes to pass that when
other people have left their beds, and are going about
their business, the Breklins are still asleep and mak-
ing the long, long night longer yet.

If you ask me, "How is it they don't wear their sides
out with lying in bed?" I shall reply: They do rise
with aching sides, and if you say, "How can people
be so lazy?" I can tell you, They don't do it out of
laziness, and they lie awake a great part of the time.

What's the good of lying in bed if one isn't asleep?

There you have it in a nutshell — it's a question of
the economic conditions. The Breklins are very poor,
their life is a never-ending struggle with poverty, and
they have come to the conclusion that the cheapest
way of waging it, and especially in winter, is to lie in

378 S. LIBIN

bed under a great heap of old clothes and rags of
every description.

Breklin is a house-painter, and from Christmas to
Purim (I beg to distinguish!) work is dreadfully slack.
When you're not earning a crooked penny, what are
you to do?

In the first place, you must live on "cash," that is,
on the few dollars scraped together and put by during
the "season," and in the second place, you must cut
down your domestic expenses, otherwise the money
won't hold out, and then you might as well keep your
teeth in a drawer.

But you may neither eat nor drink, nor live at
all to mention — if it's winter, the money goes all
the same: it's bitterly cold, and you can't do without
the stove, and the nights are long, and you want a
lamp.

And the Breklins saw that their money would not
hold out till Purim — that their Fast of Esther would
be too long. Coal was beyond them, and kerosene as
dear as wine, and yet how could they possibly spend
less? How could they do without a fire when it was
so cold? Without a lamp when it was so dark? And
the Breklins had an " idea " !

Why sit up at night and watch the stove and the
lamp burning away their money, when they might
get into bed, bury themselves in rags, and defy both
poverty and cold? There is nothing in particular to
do, anyhow. What should there be, a long winter even-
ing through? Nothing! They only sat and poured
out the bitterness in their heart one upon the other.

379

quarrelled, and scolded. They could do that in bed just
as well, and save firing and light into the bargain.

So, at the first approach of darkness, the bed was
made ready for Mr. Breklin, and his wife put to sleep
their only, three-year-old child. Avremele did not
understand why he was put to bed so early, but he
asked no questions. The room began to feel cold, and
the poor little thing was glad to nestle deep into the
bedcoverings.

The lamp and the fire were extinguished, the stove
would soon go out of itself, and the Breklin family
slept.

They slept, and fought against poverty by lying in
bed.

It was waging cheap warfare.

Having had his first sleep out, Breklin turns to
his wife:

"What do you suppose the time to be now, Yudith?"

Yudith listens attentively.

"It must be past eight o'clock," she says.

"What makes you think so?" asks Breklin.

"Don't you hear the clatter of knives and forks?
Well-to-do folk are having supper."

"We also used to have supper about this time, in
the Tsisin," said Breklin, and he gave a deep sigh of
longing.

"We shall soon forget the good times altogether,"
says Yudith, and husband and wife set sail once more
for the land of dreams.

A few hours later Breklin wakes with a groan.

380 S. LIBIN

"What is the matter?" inquires Yudith.

"My sides ache with lying."

"Mine, too," says Yudith, and they both begin yawn-
ing.

"What o'clock would it be now?" wonders Breklin,
and Yudith listens again.

"About ten o'clock," she tells him.

"No later? I don't believe it. It must be a great
deal later than that."

"Well, listen for yourself," persists Yudith, "and
you'll hear the housekeeper upstairs scolding somebody.
She's putting out the gas in the hall."

"Oi, weh is mir ! How the night drags !" sighs Brek-
lin, and turns over onto his other side.

Yudith goes on talking, but as much to herself as
to him :

"Upstairs they are still all alive, and we are asleep
in bed."

"Weh is mir, weh is mir!" sighs Breklin over and
over, and once more there is silence.

The night wears on.

"Are you asleep?" asks Breklin, suddenly.

"I wish I were ! Who could sleep through such a
long night? I'm lying awake and racking my brains."

"What over?" asks Breklin, interested.

"I'm trying to think," explains Yudith, "what we
can have for dinner to-morrow that will cost nothing,
and yet be satisfying."

"Oi, weh is mir !" sighs Breklin again, and is at
a loss what to advise.

"I wonder" (this time it is Yudith) "what o'clock it
is now!"

SLACK TIMES THEY SLEEP 381

"It will soon be morning," is Breklin's opinion.

"Morning? Nonsense!" Yudith knows better.

"It must be morning soon!" He holds to it.

"You are very anxious for the morning," says Yudith,
good-naturedly, "and so you think it will soon be here,
and I tell you, it's not midnight yet."

"What are you talking about? You don't know
what you're saying ! I shall go out of my mind."

"You know," says Yudith, "that Avremele always
wakes at midnight and cries, and he's still fast asleep."

'*Xo, Mame," comes from under Arvemele's heap of
rags.

"Come to me, my beauty! So he was awake after
all!" and Yudith reaches out her arms for the child.

"Perhaps he's cold," says Breklin.

"Are you cold, sonny?" asks Yudith.

"Cold, Mame!" replies Avremele.

Yudith wraps the coverlets closer and closer round
him, and presses him to her side.

And the night wears on.

"0 my sides!" groans Breklin.

''Mine, too!" moans Yudith, and they start another
conversation.

One time they discuss their neighbors; another time
the Breklins try to calculate how long it is since they
married, how much they spend a week on an average,
and what was the cost of Yudith's confinement.

It is seldom they calculate anything right, but talk-
ing helps to while away time, till the basement begins
to lighten, whereupon the Breklins jump out of bed,
as though it were some perilous hiding-place, and set
to work in a great hurry to kindle the stove.
25

ABRAHAM RAISIN

Born, 1876, in Kaidanov, Government of Minsk (Lithu-
ania), White Russia; traditional Jewish education; self-
taught in Russian language; teacher at fifteen, first in
Kaidanov, then in Minsk; first poem published in Perez's
Jiidische Bibliothek, in 1891; served in the army, in Kovno,
for four years; went to Warsaw in 1900, and to New York
in 1911; Yiddish lyric poet and novelist; occasionally writes
Hebrew; contributor to Spektor's Hausfreund, New York
Abendpost, and New York Arbeiterzeitung; co-editor of Das
zwanzigste Jahrhundert; in 1903, published and edited, in
Cracow, Das jiidische Wort, first to urge the claim of
Yiddish as the national Jewish language; publisher and
editor, since 1911, of Dos neie Land, in New York; collected
works (poems and tales), 4 vols., Warsaw, 1908-1912.

SHUT IN

Lebele is a little boy ten years old, with pale cheeks,
liquid, dreamy eyes, and black hair that falls in twisted
ringlets, but, of course, the ringlets are only seen when
his hat falls off, for Lebele is a pious little boy, who
never uncovers his head.

There are things that Lebele loves and never has, or
else he has them only in part, and that is why his eyes
are always dreamy and troubled, and always full of
longing.

He loves the summer, and sits the whole day in
Cheder. He loves the sun, and the Rebbe hangs his
caftan across the window, and the Cheder is darkened,
so that it oppresses the soul. Lebele loves the moon, the
night, but at home they close the shutters, and Lebele,
on his little bed, feels as if he were buried alive. And
Lebele cannot understand people's behaving so oddly.

It seems to him that when the sun shines in at the
window, it is a delight, it is so pleasant and cheerful,
and the Eebbe goes and curtains it — no more sun ! If
Lebele dared, he would ask:

"What ails you, Rebbe, at the sun? What harm
can it do you?"

But Lebele will never put that question: the Rebbe
is such a great and learned man, he must know best.
Ai, how dare he, Lebele, disapprove? He is only a
little boy. When he is grown up, he will doubtless
curtain the window himself. But as things are now,

386

Lebele is not happy, and feels sadly perplexed at the
behavior of his elders.

Late in the evening, he comes home from Cheder.
The sun has already set, the street is cheerful and
merry, the cockchafers whizz and, flying, hit him on
the nose, the ear, the forehead.

He would like to play about a bit in the street, let
them have supper without him, but he is afraid of his
father. His father is a kind man when he talks to
strangers, he is so gentle, so considerate, so confidential.
But to him, to Lebele, he is very unkind, always shout-
ing at him, and if Lebele comes from Cheder a few
minutes late, he will be angry.

"Where have you been, my fine fellow? Have you
business anywhere?"

Now go and tell him that it is not at all so bad out
in the street, that it's a pleasure to hear how the cock-
chafers whirr, that even the hits they give you on the
wing are friendly, and mean, "Hallo, old fellow!" Of
course it's a wild absurdity ! It amuses him, because
he is only a little boy, while his father is a great man,
who trades in wood and corn, and who always knows
the current prices — when a thing is dearer and when
it is cheaper. His father can speak the Gentile lan-
guage, and drive bargains, his father understands the
Prussian weights. Is that a man to be thought lightly
of? Go and tell him, if you dare, that it's delightful
now out in the street.

And Lebele hurries straight home. When he haa
reached it, his father asks him how many chapters
he has mastered, and if he answers five, his father hums

SHUT IN 387

a tune without looking at him; but if he says only
three, his father is angry, and asks:

"How's that? Why so little, ha?"

And Lebele is silent, and feels guilty before his father.

After that his father makes him translate a Hebrew
word.

"Translate Kimlunah !"

"Kimlunah means 'like a passing the night,' " answers
Lebele, terrified.

His father is silent — a sign that he is satisfied^ — and
they sit down to supper. Lebele's father keeps an eye
on him the whole time, and instructs him how to eat.

"Is that how you hold your spoon?" inquires the
father, and Lebele holds the spoon lower, and the food
sticks in his throat.

After supper Lebele has to say grace aloud and in
correct Hebrew, according to custom. If he mumbles a
word, his father calls out:

"What did I hear? what? once more, 'Wherewith
Thou dost feed and sustain us.' Well, come, say it!
Don't be in a hurry, it won't burn you !"

And Lebele says it over again, although he is in a
great hurry, although he longs to run out into the street,
and the words do seem to burn him.

When it is dark, he repeats the Evening Prayer by
lamplight; his father is always catching him making
a mistake, and Lebele has to keep all his wits about
him. The moon, round and shining, is already floating
through the sky, and Lebele repeats the prayers, and
looks at her, and longs after the street, and he gets
confused in his praying.

388 EAISIN

Prayers over, he escapes out of the house, puzzling
over some question in the Talmud against the morrow's
lesson. He delays there a while gazing at the moon,
as she pours her pale beams onto the Gass. But he
soon hears his father's voice:

"Come indoors, to bed !"

It is warm outside, there is not a breath of air
stirring, and yet it seems to Lebele as though a wind
came along with his father's words, and he grows cold,
and he goes in like one chilled to the bone, takes his
stand by the window, and stares at the moon.

"It is time to close the shutters — there's nothing to
sit up for!" Lebele hears his father say, and his
heart sinks. His father goes out, and Lebele sees the
shutters swing to, resist, as though they were being
closed against their will, and presently there is a loud
bang. No more moon ! — his father has hidden it !

A while after, the lamp has been put out, the room
is dark, and all are asleep but Lebele, whose bed is
by the window. He cannot sleep, he wants to be in
the street, whence sounds come in through the chinks.
He tries to sit up in bed, to peer out, also through the
chinks, and even to open a bit of the shutter, without
making any noise, and to look, look, but without suc-
cess, for just then his father wakes and calls out:

"What are you after there, eh? Do you want me to
come with the strap ?"

And Lebele nestles quietly down again into his pillow,
pulls the coverlet over his head, and feels as though
he were buried alive.

THE CHAEITABLE LOAN

The largest fair in Klemenke is "Ulas." The little
town waits for Ulas with a beating heart and extrava-
gant hopes. "Ulas," say the Klemenke shopkeepers and
traders, "is a Heavenly blessing; were it not for Ulas,
Klemenke would long ago have been 'aus Klemenke,'
America would have taken its last few remaining Jews
to herself."

But for Ulas one must have the wherewithal — the
shopkeepers need wares, and the traders, money.

Without the wherewithal, even Ulas is no good ! And
Chayyim, the dealer in produce, goes about gloomily.
There are only three days left before Ulas, and he
hasn't a penny wherewith to buy corn to trade with.
And the other dealers in produce circulate in the market-
place with caps awry, with thickly-rolled cigarettes in
their mouths and walking-sticks in their hands, and
they are talking hard about the fair.

"In three days it will be lively !" calls out one.

"Pshshsh," cries another in ecstasy, "in three days'
time the place will be packed !"

And Chayyim turns pale. He would like to call
down a calamity on the fair, he wishes it might rain,
snow, or storm on that day, so that not even a mad
dog should come to the market-place; only Chayyim
knows that Ulas is no weakling, Ulas is not afraid of
the strongest wind — Ulas is Ulas !

390 KAISIN

And Chayyim's eyes are ready to start out of his
head. A charitable loan — where is one to get a chari-
table loan? If only five and twenty rubles!

He asks it of everyone, but they only answer with a
merry laugh : '

"Are you mad ? Money — just before a fair ?"

And it seems to Chayyim that he really will go mad.

"Suppose you went across to Loibe-Bares?" suggests
his wife, who takes her full share in his distress.

"I had thought of that myself/' answers Chayyim,
meditatively.

"But what?" asks the wife.

Chayyim is about to reply, "But I can't go there, I
haven't the courage," only that it doesn's suit him to
be so frank with his wife, and he answers :

"Devil take him ! He won't lend anything !"

"Try ! It won't hurt," she persists.

And Chayyim reflects that he has no other resource,
that Loibe-Bares is a rich man, and living in the same
street, a neighbor in fact, and that he requires no money
for the fair, being a dealer in lumber and timber.

"Give me out my Sabbath overcoat!" says Chayyim
to his wife, in a resolute tone.

"Didn't I say so?" the wife answers. "It's the best
thing you can do, to go to him."

Chayyim placed himself before a half-broken looking-
glass which was nailed to the wall, smoothed his beard
with both hands, tightened his earlocks, and then took
off his hat, and gave it a polish with his sleeve.

"Just look and see if I haven't got any white on my
coat off the wall !"

THE CHARITABLE LOAN 391

"If you haven't ?" the wife answered, and began slap-
ping him with both hands over the shoulders.

"I thought we once had a little clothes-brush. Where
is it? ha?"

"Perhaps you dreamt it/' replied his wife, still slap-
ping him on the shoulders, and she went on, "Well, I
should say you had got some white on your coat!"

"Come, that'll do!" said Chayyim, almost angrily.
"I'll go now."

He drew on his Sabbath overcoat with a sigh, and
muttering, "Very likely, isn't it, he'll lend me money !"
he went out.

On the way to Loibe-Bares, Chayyim's heart began
to fail him. Since the day that Loibe-Bares came to
live at the end of the street, Chayyim had been in the
house only twice, and the path Chayyim was treading
now was as bad as an examination: the "approach"
to him, the light rooms, the great mirrors, the soft
chairs, Loibe-Bares himself with his long, thick beard
and his black eyes with their "gevirish" glance, the
lady, the merry, happy children, even the maid, who
had remained in his memory since those two visits — all
these things together terrified him, and he asked him-
self, "Where are you going to? Are you mad? Home
with you at once!" and every now and then he would
stop short on the way. Only the thought that Ulas
was near, and that he had no money to buy corn, drove
him to continue.

"He won't lend anything — it's no use hoping." Chay-
yim was preparing himself as he walked for the shock
of disappointment; but he felt that if he gave way to

392 RAISIN

that extent, he would never be able to open his mouth
to make his request known, and he tried to cheer him-
self:

"If I catch him in a good humor, he will lend ! "Why
should he be afraid of lending me a few rubles over
the fair? I shall tell him that as soon as ever I have
sold the corn, he shall have the loan back. I will swear
it by wife and children, he will believe me — and I will
pay it back."

But this does not make Chayyim any the bolder,
and he tries another sort of comfort, another remedy
against nervousness.

"He isn't a bad man — and, after all, our acquaintance
won't date from to-day — we've been living in the same
street twenty years — Parabotzker Street — "

And Chayyim recollects that a fortnight ago, as
Loibe-Bares was passing his house on his way to the
market-place, and he, Chayyim, was standing in the
yard, he gave him the greeting due to a gentleman
("and I could swear I gave him my hand," Chayyim
reminded himself). Loibe-Bares had made a friendly
reply, he had even stopped and asked, like an old
acquaintance, "Well, Chayyim, and how are you getting
on ?" And Chayyim strains his memory and remembers
further that he answered on this wise:

"I thank you for asking! Heaven forgive me, one
does a little bit of business !"

And Chayyim is satisfied with his reply, "I answered
him quite at my ease."

Chayyim resolves to speak to him this time even more
leisurely and independently, not to cringe before him.

THE CHAEITABLE LOAN 393

Chayyim could already see Loibe-Bares' house in the
distance. He coughed till his throat was clear, stroked
his beard down, and looked at his coat.

"Still a very good coat!" he said aloud, as though
trying to persuade himself that the coat was still good,
so that he might feel more courage and more proper
pride.

But when he got to Loibe-Bares' big house, when the
eight large windows looking onto the street flashed into
his eyes, the windows being brightly illuminated from
within, his heart gave a flutter.

"Oi, Lord of the World, help !" came of its own
accord to his lips. Then he felt ashamed, and caught
himself up, "Ett, nonsense!"

As he pushed the door open, the "prayer" escaped
him once more, "Help, mighty God ! or it will be the
death of me !"

Loibe-Bares was seated at a large table covered with a
clean white table-cloth, and drinking while he talked
cheerfully with his household.

"There's a Jew come, Tate!" called out a boy of
twelve, on seeing Chayyim standing by the door.

"So there is !" called out a second little boy, still
more merrily, fixing Chayyim with his large, black,
mischievous eyes.

All the rest of those at table began looking at Chay-
yim, and he thought every moment that he must fall
of a heap onto the floor.

"It will look very bad if I fall," he said to himself,
made a step forward, and, without saying good evening,
stammered out:

394 RAISIN

"I just happened to be passing, you understand, and
I saw you sitting — so I knew you were at home — well, I
thought one ought to call — neighbors — "

"Well, welcome, welcome !" said Loibe-Bares, smiling.
"You've come at the right moment. Sit down."

A stone rolled off Chayyim's heart at this reply, and,
with a glance at the two little boys, he quietly took a
seat.

"Leah, give Eeb 'Chayyim a glass of tea," commanded
Loibe-Bares.

"Quite a kind man!" thought Chayyim. "May the
Almighty come to his aid !"

He gave his host a grateful look, and would gladly
have fallen onto the Gevir's thick neck, and kissed him.

"Well, and what are you about?" inquired his host.

"Thanks be to God, one lives !"

The maid handed him a glass of tea. He said,
"Thank you," and then was sorry : it is not the proper
thing to thank a servant. He grew red and bit his lips.

"Have some jelly with it!" Loibe-Bares suggested.

"An excellent man, an excellent man !" thought Chay-
yim, astonished. "He is sure to lend."

"You deal in something?" asked Loibe-Bares.

"Why, yes," answered Chayyim. "One's little bit of
business, thank Heaven, is no worse than other peo-
ple's!"

"What price are oats fetching now?" it occurred to
the Gevir to ask.

Oats had fallen of late, but it seemed better to Chay-
yim to say that they had risen.

"They have risen very much !" he declared in a mer-
cantile tone of voice.

THE CHARITABLE LOAN 395

"Well, and have you some oats ready?" inquired the
Gevir further.

"I've got a nice lot of oats, and they didn't cost
me much, either. I got them quite cheap," replied
Chayyim, with more warmth, forgetting, while he spoke,
that he hadn't had an ear of oats in his granary for
weeks.

"And you are thinking of doing a little speculating ?"
asked Loibe-Bares. "Are you not in need of any
money ?"

"Thanks be to God," replied Chayyim, proudly, "I
have never yet been in need of money."

"Why did I say that?" he thought then, in terror
at his own words. "How am I going to ask for a loan
now?" and Chayyim wanted to back the cart a little,
only Loibe-Bares prevented him by saying :

"So I understand you make a good thing of it, you
are quite a wealthy man."

"My wealth be to my enemies!" Chayyim wanted to
draw back, but after a glance at Loibe-Bares' shining
face, at the blue jar with the jelly, he answered proudly :

"Thank Heaven, I have nothing to complain of !"

"There goes your charitable loan !" The thought came
like a kick in the back of his head. "Why are you boast-
ing like that? Tell him you want twenty-five rubles
for Ulas — that he must save you, that you are in
despair, that — "

But Chayyim fell deeper and deeper into a contented
and happy way of talking, praised his business more
and more, and conversed with the Gevir as with an
equal.

396 RAISIN

But he soon began to feel he was one too many, that
he should not have sat there so long, or have talked in
that way. It would have been better to have talked
about the fair, about a loan. Now it is too late :

"I have no need of money!" and Chayyim gave a
despairing look at Loibe-Bares' cheerful face, at the
two little boys who sat opposite and watched him with
sly, mischievous eyes, and who whispered knowingly to
each other, and then smiled more knowingly still!

A cold perspiration covered him. He rose from his
chair.

"You are going already?" observed Loibe-Bares,
politely.

"Now perhaps I could ask him!" It flashed across
Chayyim's mind that he might yet save himself, but,
stealing a glance at the two boys with the roguish eyes
that watched him so slyly, he replied with dignity :

"I must ! Business ! There is no time !" and it seems
to him, as he goes toward the door, that the two little
boys with the mischievous eyes are putting out their
tongues after him, and that Loibe-Bares himself smiles
and says, "Stick your tongues out further, further still !"

Chayyim's shoulders seem to burn, and he makes haste
to get out of the house.

THE TWO BROTHERS

It is three months since Yainkele and Berele — two
brothers, the first fourteen years old, the second sixteen —
have been at the college that stands in the town of X — ,
five German miles from their birthplace Dalissovke,
after which they are called the "Dalissovkers."

Yainkele is a slight, pale boy, with black eyes that
peep slyly from beneath the two black eyebrows. Berele
is taller and stouter than Yainkele, his eyes are lighter,
and his glance is more defiant, as though he would
say, "Let me alone, I shall laugh at you all yet !"

The two brothers lodged with a poor relation, a
widow, a dealer in second-hand goods, who never came
home till late at night. The two brothers had no bed,
but a chest, which was broad enough, served instead,
and the brothers slept sweetly on it, covered with
their own torn clothes; and in their dreams they saw
their native place, the little street, their home, their
father with his long beard and dim eyes and bent back,
and their mother with her long, pale, melancholy face,
and they heard the little brothers and sisters quarrelling,
as they fought over a bit of herring, and they dreamt
other dreams of home, and early in the morning they
were homesick, and then they used to run to the Dalis-
sovke Inn, and ask the carrier if there were a letter for
them from home.

The Dalissovke carriers were good Jews with soft
hearts, and they were sorry for the two poor boys, who
26

398 RAISIN

were so anxious for news from home, whose eyes burned,
and whose hearts beat so fast, so loud, but the carriers
were very busy; they came charged with a thousand
messages from the Dalissovke shopkeepers and traders,
and they carried more letters than the post, but with
infinitely less method. Letters were lost, and parcels
were heard of no more, and the distracted carriers
scratched the nape of their neck, and replied to every
question :

"Directly, directly, I shall find it directly — no, I
don't seem to have anything for you — "

That is how they answered the grown people who
came to them; but our two little brothers stood and
looked at Lezer the carrier — a man in a wadded caftan,
summer and winter — with thirsty eyes and aching
hearts; stood and waited, hoping he would notice them
and say something, if only one word. But Lezer was
always busy : now he had gone into the yard to feed the
horse, now he had run into the inn, and entered into
a conversation with the clerk of a great store, who had
brought a list of goods wanted from a shop in Dal-
issovke.

And the brothers used to stand and stand, till the
elder one, Berele, lost patience. Biting his lips, and all
but crying with vexation, he would just articulate :

"Reb Lezer, is there a letter from father?"

But Reb Lezer would either suddenly cease to exist,
run out into the street with somebody or other, or be
absorbed in a conversation, and Berele hardly expected
the answer which Reb Lezer would give over his
shoulder :

THE TWO BROTHERS 399

"There isn't one — there isn't one."

"There isn't one !" Berele would say with a deep sigh,
and sadly call to Yainkele to come away. Mournfully,
and with a broken spirit, they went to where the day's
meal awaited them.

"I am sure he loses the letters !" Yainkele would say
a few minutes later, as they walked along.

"He is a bad man!" Berele would mutter with vex-
ation.

But one day Lezer handed them a letter and a small
parcel.

The letter ran thus:
"Dear Children,

Be good, boys, and learn with diligence. We send
you herewith half a cheese and a quarter of a pound
of sugar, and a little berry-juice in a bottle.

Eat it in health, and do not quarrel over it.
From me, your father,

CHAYYIM HECHT."

That day Lezer the carrier was the best man in the
world in their eyes, they would not have been ashamed
to eat him up with horse and cart for very love. They
wrote an answer at once — for letter-paper they used to
tear out, with fluttering hearts, the first, unprinted pages
in the Gemoreh — and gave it that evening to Lezer the
carrier. Lezer took it coldly, pushed it into the breast
of his coat, and muttered something like "All right !"

"What did he say, Berele?" asked Yainkele, anx-
iously.

"I think he said 'all right,' " Berele answered doubt-
fully.

400 RAISIN

"I think he said so, too," Yainkele persuaded himself.
Then he gave a sigh, and added fearfully :

"He may lose the letter !"

"Bite your tongue out!" answered Berele, angrily,
and they went sadly away to supper.

And three times a week, early in the morning, when
Lezer the carrier came driving, the two brothers flew,
not ran, to the Dalissovke Inn, to ask for an answer
to their letter; and Lezer the carrier grew more pre-
occupied and cross, and answered either with mumbled
words, which the brothers could not understand, and
dared not ask him to repeat, or else not at all, so that
they went away with heavy hearts. But one day they
heard Lezer the carrier speak distinctly, so that they
understood quite well :

"What are you doing here, you two? What do you
come plaguing me for? Letter? Fiddlesticks! How
much do you pay me ? Am I a postman ? Eh ? Be off
with you, and don't worry."

The brothers obeyed, but only in part: their hearts
were like lead, their thin little legs shook, and tears
fell from their eyes onto the ground. And they went
no more to Lezer the carrier to ask for a letter.

"I wish he were dead and buried!" they exclaimed,
but they did not mean it, and they longed all the time
just to go and look at Lezer the carrier, his horse and
cart. After all, they came from Dalissovke, and the
two brothers loved them.

One day, two or three weeks after the carrier sent
them about their business in the way described, the two

THE TWO BROTHERS 401

brothers were sitting in the house of the poor relation
and talking about home. It was summer-time, and a
Friday afternoon.

"I wonder what father is doing now," said Yainkele,
staring at the small panes in the small window.

"He must be cutting his nails/' answered Berele, with
a melancholy smile.

"He must be chopping up lambs' feet," imagined
Yainkele, "and Mother is combing Chainele, and
Chainele is crying."

"Now we've talked nonsense enough !" decided Berele.
"How can we know what is going on there ?"

"Perhaps somebody's dead !" added Yainkele, in sud-
den terror.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Berele. "When people
die, they let one know — "

"Perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us
the letter—"

"Ai, that's chatter enough !" Berele was quite cross.
"Shut up, donkey ! You make me laugh," he went on,
to reassure Yainkele, "they are all alive and well."

Yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he
gave a bound into the air, and exclaimed with eager
eyes:

"Berele, do what I say ! Let's write by the post !"

"Right you are!" agreed Berele. "Only I've no
money."

"I have four kopeks; they are over from the ten I
got last night. You know, at my 'Thursday' they give
me ten kopeks for supper, and I have four over.

402 KAISIN

"And I have one kopek," said Berele, "just enough
for a post-card."

"But which of us will write it ?" asked Yainkele.

"I," answered Berele, "I am the eldest, I'm a first-
born son."

"But I gave four kopeks !"

"A first-born is worth more than four kopeks."

"No! I'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?"

"Very well. Come and buy a card."

And the two brothers ran to buy a card at the post-
office.

"There will be no room for anything!" complained
Yainkele, on the way home, as he contemplated the
small post-card. "We will make little tiny letters, teeny
weeny ones !" advised Berele.

"Father won't be able to read them!"

"Never mind ! He will put on his spectacles. Come
along — quicker!" urged Yainkele. His heart was
already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted to pour
it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had
spent his entire fortune.

They reached their lodging, and settled down to write.

Berele began, and Yainkele stood and looked on.

"Begin higher up ! There is room there for a whole
line. Why did you put 'to my beloved Father' so low
down?" shrieked Yainkele.

"Where am I to put it, then ? In the sky, eh ?" asked
Berele, and pushed Yainkele aside.

"Go away, I will leave you half. Don't confuse me ! —
You be quiet!" and Yainkele moved away, and stared
with terrified eyes at Berele, as he sat there, bent double,

THE TWO BROTHERS 403

and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped the
pen, and reflected, and wrote again.

"That's enough !" screamed Yainkele, after a few
minutes.

"It's not the half yet," answered Berele, writing on.

"But I ought to have more than half I" said Yainkele,
crossly. The longing to write, to pour out his heart on-
to the post-card, was overwhelming him.

But Berele did not even hear: he had launched out
into such rhetorical Hebrew expressions as "First of all,
I let you know that I am alive and well," which he had
learnt in "The Perfect Letter- Writer," and his little
bits of news remained unwritten. He had yet to abuse
Lezer the carrier, to tell how many pages of the
Gemoreh he had learnt, to let them know they were
to send another parcel, because they had no "Monday"
and no "Wednesday," and the "Tuesday" was no better
than nothing.

And Berele writes and writes, and Yainkele can no
longer contain himself — he sees that Berele is taking up
more than half the card.

"Enough !" He ran forward with a cry, and seized
the penholder.

"Three words more !" begged Berele.

"But remember, not more than three !" and Yainkele's
eyes flashed. Berele set to work to write the three
words; but that which he wished to express required
yet ten to fifteen words, and Berele, excited by the
fact of writing, pecked away at the paper, and took up
yet another bit of the other half.

404 EAISIN

"You stop !" shrieked Yainkele, and broke into hys-
terical sobs, as he saw what a small space remained
for him.

"Hush ! Just 'from me, thy son,' " begged Berele,
"nothing else I"

But Yainkele, remembering that he had given a whole
vierer toward the post-card, and that they would read
so much of Berele at home, and so little of him, flew
into a passion, and came and tried to tear away the card
from under Berele's hands. "Let me put 'from me, thy
son' !" implored Berele.

"It will do without 'from me, thy son'!" screamed
Yainkele, although he felt that one ought to put it. His
anger rose, and he began tugging at the card. Berele
held tight, but Yainkele gave such a pull that the card
tore in two.

"What have you done, villain !" cried Berele, glaring
at Yainkele.

"I meant to do it!" wailed Yainkele.

"Oh, but why did you?" cried Berele, gazing in
despair at the two torn halves of the post-card.

But Yainkele could not answer. The tears choked
him, and he threw himself against the wall, tearing his
hair. Then Berele gave way, too, and the little room
resounded with lamentations.

LOST HIS VOICE

It was in the large synagogue in Klemenke. The
week-day service had come to an end. The town cantor
who sings all the prayers, even when he prays alone,
and who is longer over them than other people, had
already folded his prayer-scarf, and was humming the
day's Psalm to himself, to a tune. He sang the last
words "cantorishly" high:

"And He will be our guide until death." In the
last word "death" he tried, as usual, to rise artistically
to the higher octave, then to fall very low, and to rise
again almost at once into the height; but this time
he failed, the note stuck in his throat and came out
false.

He got a fright, and in his fright he looked round to
make sure no one was standing beside him. Seeing
only old Henoch, his alarm grew less, he knew that
old Henoch was deaf.

As he went out with his prayer-scarf and phylacteries
under his arm, the unsuccessful "death" rang in his
ears and troubled him.

"Plague take it," he muttered, "it never once hap-
pened to me before."

Soon, however, he remembered that two weeks ago,
on the Sabbath before the New Moon, as he stood pray-
ing with the choristers before the altar, nearly the same
thing had happened to him when he sang "He is our
God" as a solo in the Kedushah,

406 EAISIN

Happily no one remarked it — anyway the "bass" had
said nothing to him. And the memory of the unsuc-
cessful "Hear, 0 Israel" of two weeks ago and of to-
day's "unto death" were mingled together, and lay
heavily on his heart.

He would have liked to try the note once more as
he walked, but the street was just then full of people,
and he tried to refrain till he should reach home. Con-
trary to his usual custom, he began taking rapid steps,
and it looked as if he were running away from some-
one. On reaching home, he put away his prayer-scarf
without saying so much as good morning, recovered his
breath after the quick walk, and began to sing, "He
shall be our guide until death."

"That's right, you have so little time to sing in ! The
day is too short for you!" exclaimed the cantoress,
angrily. "It grates on the ears enough already !"

"How, it grates?" and the cantor's eyes opened wide
with fright, "I sing a note, and you say 'it grates'?
How can it grate?"

He looked at her imploringly, his eyes said: "Have
pity on me ! Don't say, 'it grates' ! because if it does
grate, I am miserable, I am done for!"

But the cantoress was much too busy and preoccupied
with the dinner to sympathize and to understand how
things stood with her husband, and went on :

"Of course it grates ! Why shouldn't it ? It deafens
me. When you sing in the choir, I have to bear it,
but when you begin by yourself — what?"

The cantor had grown as white as chalk, and only
just managed to say:

LOST HIS VOICE 407

"Grime, are you mad ? What are you talking about ?"

"What ails the man to-day I" exclaimed Grune, im-
patiently. "You've made a fool of yourself long enough !
Go and wash your hands and come to dinner !"

The cantor felt no appetite, but he reflected that
one must eat, if only as a remedy; not to eat would
make matters worse, and he washed his hands.

He chanted the grace loud and cantor-like, glancing
occasionally at his wife, to see if she noticed anything
wrong; but this time she said nothing at all, and he
was reassured. "It was my fancy — just my fancy !" he
said to himself. "All nonsense ! One doesn't lose one's
voice so soon as all that !"

Then he remembered that he was already forty years
old, and it had happened to the cantor Meyer Lieder,
when he was just that age —

That was enough to put him into a fright again. He
bent his head, and thought deeply. Then he raised it,
and called out loud :

"Grune!"

"Hush! What is it? What makes you call out in
that strange voice?" asked Grune, crossly, running in.

"Well, well, let me live !" said the cantor. "Why do
you say 'in that strange voice'? Whose voice was it?
eh ? What is the matter now ?"

There was a sound as of tears as he spoke.

"You're cracked to-day ! As nonsensical — Well, what
do you want?"

"Beat up one or two eggs for me !" begged the cantor,
softly.

408 RAISIN

"Here's a new holiday !" screamed Grune. "On a
Wednesday! Have you got to chant the Sabbath
prayers ? Eggs are so dear now — five kopeks apiece !"

"Grune," commanded the cantor, "they may be one
ruble apiece, two rubles, five rubles, one hundred rubles.
Do you hear? Beat up two eggs for me, and don't
talk!"

"To be sure, you earn so much money!" muttered
Grune.

"Then you think it's all over with me?" said the
cantor, boldly. "No, Grune!"

He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure about it
yet, there was still hope, it might be all a fancy, perhaps
it was imagination, but he was afraid to say all that,
and Grune did not understand what he stammered out.
She shrugged her shoulders, and only said, "Upon my
word !" and went to beat up the eggs.

The cantor sat and sang to himself. He listened
to every note as though he were examining some one.
Finding himself unable to take the high octave, he
called out despairingly:

"Grune, make haste with the eggs !" His one hope
lay in the eggs.

The cantoress brought them with a cross face, and
grumbled :

"He wants eggs, and we're pinching and starving —

The cantor would have liked to open his heart to
her, so that she should not think the eggs were what
he cared about; he would have liked to say, "Grune, I
think I'm done for!" but he summoned all his courage
and refrained.

LOST HIS VOICE 409

"After all, it may be only an idea," he thought.

And without eaying anything further, he began to
drink up the eggs as a remedy.

When they were finished, he tried to make a few
cantor-like trills. In this he succeeded, and he grew
more cheerful.

"It will be all right," he thought, "I shall not lose
my voice so soon as all that ! Never mind Meyer Lieder,
he drank ! I don't drink, only a little wine now and
again, at a circumcision."

His appetite returned, and he swallowed mouthful
after mouthful.

But his cheerfulness did not last : the erstwhile unsuc-
cessful "death" rang in his ears, and the worry returned
and took possession of him.

The fear of losing his voice had tormented the cantor
for the greater part of his life. His one care, his one
anxiety had been, what should he do if he were to
lose his voice? It had happened to him once already,
when he was fourteen years old. He had a tenor voice,
which broke all of a sudden. But that time he didn't
care. On the contrary, he was delighted, he knew that
his voice was merely changing, and that in six months
he would get the baritone for which he was impatiently
waiting. But when he had got the baritone, he knew
that when he lost that, it would be lost indeed
— he would get no other voice. So he took great care
of it — how much more so when he had his own house-
hold, and had taken the office of cantor in Klemenke!
Not a breath of wind was allowed to blow upon his
throat, and he wore a comforter in the hottest weather-

410 EAISIN

It was not so much on account of the Klemenke
householders — he felt sure they would not dismiss him
from his office. Even if he were to lose his voice
altogether, he would still receive his salary. It was
not brought to him to his house, as it was — he had to
go for it every Friday from door to door, and the
Klemenke Jews were good-hearted, and never refused
anything to the outstretched hand. He took care of
his voice, and trembled to lose it, only out of love for
the singing. He thought a great deal of the Klemenke
Jews — their like was not to be found — but in the inter-
pretation of music they were uninitiated, they had no
feeling whatever. And when, standing before the altar,
he used to make artistic trills and variations, and take
the highest notes, that was for himself — he had great
joy in it — and also for his eight singers, who were all
the world to him. His very life was bound up with
them, and when one of them exclaimed, "Oi, cantor!
Oi, how you sing !" his happiness was complete.

The singers had come together from various towns
and villages, and all their conversations and their stories
turned and wrapped themselves round cantors and
music. These stories and legends were the cantor's
delight, he would lose himself in every one of them,
and give a sweet, deep sigh:

"As if music were a trifle! As if a feeling were a
toy !" And now that he had begun to fear he was losing
his voice, it seemed to him the singers were different
people — bad people! They must be laughing at him
among themselves! And he began to be on his guard
against them, avoided taking a high note in their

LOST HIS VOICE 411

presence, lest they should find out — and suffered all
the more.

And what would the neighboring cantors say? The
thought tormented him further. He knew that he had
a reputation among them, that he was a great deal
thought of, that his voice was much talked of. He saw
in his mind's eye a couple of cantors whispering together,
and shaking their heads sorrowfully: they are pitying
him! "How sad! You have heard? The poor Kle-
menke cantor "

The vision quite upset him.

"Perhaps it's only fancy!" he would say to himself
in those dreadful moments, and would begin to sing,
to try his highest notes. But the terror he was in
took away his hearing, and he could not tell if his
voice were what it should be or not.

In two weeks time his face grew pale and thin, his
eyes were sunk, and he felt his strength going.

"What is the matter with you, cantor?" said a singer
to him one day.

"Ha, what is the matter?" asked the cantor, with a
start, thinking they had already found out. "You ask
what is the matter with me ? Then you know something
about it, ha !"

"No, I know nothing. That is why I ask you why
you look so upset."

"Upset, you say? Nothing more than upset, ha?
That's all?"

"The cantor must be thinking out some new piece
for the Solemn Days," decided the choir.

412 RAISIN"

Another month went by, and the cantor had not
got the better of his fear. Life had become distasteful
to him. If he had known for certain that his voice
was gone, he would perhaps have been calmer. Ver-
f alien ! No one can live forever (losing his voice and
dying was one and the same to him), but the uncer-
tainty, the tossing oneself between yes and no, the Oloni
ha-Tohu of it all, embittered the cantor's existence.

At last, one fine day, the cantor resolved to get at the
truth: he could bear it no longer.

It was evening, the wife had gone to the market for
meat, and the choir had gone home, only the eldest
singer, Yb'ssel "bass," remained with the cantor.

The cantor looked at him, opened his mouth and
shut it again; it was difficult for him to say what he
wanted to say.

At last he broke out with :

"Yossel !"

"What is it, cantor?"

"Tell me, are you an honest man?"

Yossel "bass" stared at the cantor, and asked :

"What are you asking me to-day, cantor?"

"Brother Yossel," the cantor said, all but weeping.
"Brother Yossel !"

That was all he could say.

"Cantor, what is wrong with you ?"

"Brother Yossel, be an honest man, and tell me the
truth, the truth !"

"I don't understand! What is the matter with you,
cantor ?"

"Tell me the truth: Do you notice any change in
me?"

LOST HIS VOICE 413

"Yes, I do," answered the singer, looking at the
cantor, and seeing how pale and thin he was. "A very
great change "

"Now I see you are an honest man, you tell me
the truth to my face. Do you know when it began ?"

"It will soon be a month," answered the singer.

"Yes, brother, a month, a month, but I felt — "

The cantor wiped off the perspiration that covered
his forehead, and continued:

"And you think, Yossel, that it's lost now, for good
and all?"

"That what is lost?" asked Yossel, beginning to be
aware that the conversation turned on something quite
different from what was in his own mind.

"What? How can you ask? Ah? What should I
lose ? Money ? I have no money — I mean — of course —
my voice."

Then Yossel understood everything — he was too
much of a musician not to understand. Looking com-
passionately at the cantor, he asked :

"For certain?"

"For certain?" exclaimed the cantor, trying to be
cheerful. "Why must it be for certain? Very likely
it's all a mistake — let us hope it is!"

Yossel looked at the cantor, and as a doctor behaves
to his patient, so did he :

"Take do!" he said, and the cantor, like an obedient
pupil, drew out do.

"Draw it out, draw it out! Four quavers — draw it
out !" commanded Yossel, listening attentively.

The cantor drew it out.
27

414 RAISIN

"Now, if you please, re!"

The cantor sang out re-re-re.

The singer moved aside, appeared to be lost in
thought, and then said, sadly:

"Gone I"

"Forever?"

"Well, are you a little boy? Are you likely to get
another voice ? At your time of life, gone is gone !"

The cantor wrung his hands, threw himself down
beside the table, and, laying his head on his arms, he
burst out crying like a child.

Next morning the whole town had heard of the mis-
fortune— that the cantor had lost his voice.

"It's an ill wind " quoted the innkeeper, a well-
to-do man. "He won't keep us so long with his trills
on Sabbath. I'd take a bitter onion for that voice of
his, any day !"

LATE

It was in sad and hopeless mood that Antosh watched
the autumn making its way into his peasant's hut. The
days began to shorten and the evenings to lengthen,
and there was no more petroleum in the hut to fill his
humble lamp; his wife complained too — the store of
salt was giving out; there was very little soap left,
and in a few days he would finish his tobacco. And
Antosh cleared his throat, spat, and muttered countless
times a day:

"No salt, no soap, no tobacco; we haven't got any-
thing. A bad business !"

Antosh had no prospect of earning anything in the
village. The one village Jew was poor himself, and
had no work to give. Antosh had only one hope left.
Just before the Feast of Tabernacles he would drive
a whole cart-load of fir-boughs into the little town and
bring a tidy sum of money home in exchange.

He did this every year, since buying his thin horse
in the market for six rubles.

"When shall you have Tabernacles?" he asked every
day of the village Jew. "Not yet," was the Jew's daily
reply. "But when shall you ?" Antosh insisted one day.

"In a week," answered the Jew, not dreaming how
very much Antosh needed to know precisely.

In reality there were only five more days to Taber-
nacles, and Antosh had calculated with business accuracy
that it would be best to take the fir-boughs into the town
two days before the festival. But this was really the
first day of it.

416 KAISIN

He rose early, ate his dry, black bread dipped in salt,
and drank a measure of water. Then he harnessed his
thin, starved horse to the cart, took his hatchet, and
drove into the nearest wood.

He cut down the branches greedily, seeking out the
thickest and longest.

"Good ware is easier sold," he thought, and the cart
filled, and the load grew higher and higher. He was
calculating on a return of three gulden, and it seemed
still too little, so that he went on cutting, and laid on
a few more boughs. The cart could hold no more, and
Antosh looked at it from all sides, and smiled con-
tentedly.

"That will be enough," he muttered, and loosened the
reins. But scarcely had he driven a few paces, when he
stopped and looked the cart over again.

"Perhaps it's not enough, after all?" he questioned
fearfully, cut down five more boughs, laid them onto
the already full cart, and drove on.

He drove slowly, pace by pace, and his thoughts
travelled slowly too, as though keeping step with the
thin horse.

Antosh was calculating how much salt and how much
soap, how much petroleum and how much tobacco he
could buy for the return for his ware. At length the
calculating tired him, and he resolved to put it off till
he should have the cash. Then the calculating would
be done much more easily.

But when he reached the town, and saw that the booths
were already covered with fir-boughs, he felt a pang at
his heart. The booths and the houses seemed to be

LATE 417

twirling round him in a circle, and dancing. But he
consoled himself with the thought that every year, when
he drove into town, he found many booths already
covered. Some cover earlier, some later. The latter
paid the best.

"I shall ask higher prices," he resolved, and all the
while fear tugged at his heart. He drove on. Two
Jewish women were standing before a house; they
pointed at the cart with their finger, and laughed aloud.

"Why do you laugh ?" queried Antosh, excitedly.

"Because you are too soon with your fir-boughs," they
answered, and laughed again.

"How too soon?" he asked, astonished. "Too soon —
too soon — " laughed the women.

"Pfui," Antosh spat, and drove on, thinking, "Berko
said himself, 'In a week.' I am only two days ahead."

A cold sweat covered him, as he reflected he might
have made a wrong calculation, founded on what Berko
had told him. It was possible that he had counted the
days badly — had come too late! There is no doubt:
all the booths are covered with fir-boughs. He will
have no salt, no tobacco, no soap, and no petroleum.

Sadly he followed the slow paces of his languid horse,
which let his weary head droop as though out of sym-
pathy for his master.

Meantime the Jews were crowding out of the syna-
gogues in festal array, with their prayer-scarfs and
prayer-books in their hands. When they perceived the
peasant with the cart of fir-boughs, they looked ques-
tioningly one at the other: Had they made a mistake
and begun the festival too early?

418 EAISIN

"What have you there?" some one inquired.

"What ?" answered Antosh, taken aback. "Fir-boughs !
Buy, my dear friend, I sell it cheap!" he begged in a
piteous voice.

The Jews burst out laughing.

'What should we want it for now, fool ?" "The festival
has begun!" said another. Antosh was confused with
his misfortune, he scratched the back of his head, and
exclaimed, weeping:

"Buy! Buy! I want salt, soap! I want petroleum."

The group of Jews, who had begun by laughing, were
now deeply moved. They saw the poor, starving peasant
standing there in his despair, and were filled with a
lively compassion.

"A poor Gentile — it's pitiful !" said one, sympathetic-
ally. "He hoped to make a fortune out of his fir-boughs,
and now !" observed another.

"It would be proper to buy up that bit of fir," said
a third, "else it might cause a Chillul ha-Shem." "On
a festival?" objected some one else.

"It can always be used for firewood," said another,
contemplating the cartful.

"Whether or no ! It's a festival "

"No salt, no soap, no petroleum — " It was the
refrain of the bewildered peasant, who did not under-
stand what the Jews were saying among themselves. He
could only guess that they were talking about him.
"Hold! he doesn't want money! He wants ware. Ware
without money may be given even on a festival," called
out one.

LATE 419

The interest of the bystanders waxed more lively.
Among them stood a storekeeper, whose shop was close
by. "Give him, Chayyim, a few jars of salt and other
things that he wants — even if it comes to a few gulden.
We will contribute."

"All right, willingly !" said Chayyim. "A poor Gen-
tile!"

"A precept, a precept! It would be carrying out a
religious precept, as surely as I am a Jew!" chimed
in every individual member of the crowd.

Chayyim called the peasant to him; all the rest
followed. He gave him out of the stores two jars of
salt, a bar of soap, a bottle of petroleum, and two
packets of tobacco.

The peasant did not know what to do for joy. He
could only stammer in a low voice, "Thank you ! thank
you !"

"And there's a bit of Sabbath loaf," called out one,
when he had packed the things away, "take that with
you!"

"There's some more!" and a second hand held some
out to him.

"More !"

"More !"

"And more!"

They brought Antosh bread and cake from all sides;
his astonishment was such that he could scarcely articu-
late his thanks.

The people were pleased with themselves, and Yainkel
Leives, a cheerful man, who was well supplied for the

420 RAISIN

festival, because his daughter's "intended" was staying
in his house, brought Antosh a glass of brandy :

"Drink, and drive home, in the name of God !"

Antosh drank the brandy with a quick gulp, bit off
a piece of cake, and declared joyfully, "I shall never
forget it !"

"Not at all a bad Gentile," remarked someone in the
crowd.

"Well, what would you have? Did you expect him
to beat you?" queried another, smiling.

The words "to beat" made a melancholy impression
on the crowd, and it dispersed in silence.

THE KADDISH

From behind the curtain came low moans, and low
words of encouragement from the old and experienced
Bobbe. In the room it was dismal to suffocation. The
seven children, all girls, between twenty-three and four
years old, sat quietly, each by herself, with drooping
head, and waited for something dreadful.

At a little table near a great cupboard with books
sat the "patriarch" Reb Selig Chanes, a tall, thin Jew,
with a yellow, consumptive face. He was chanting in
low, broken tones out of a big Gemoreh, and continually
raising his head, giving a nervous glance at the curtain,
and then, without inquiring what might be going on
beyond the low moaning, taking up once again his sad,
tremulous chant. He seemed to be suffering more than
the woman in childbirth herself.

"Lord of the World !" — it was the eldest daughter who
broke the stillness — "Let it be a boy for once! Help,
Lord of the "World, have pity !"

"Oi, thus might it be, Lord of the World!" chimed
in the second.

And all the girls, little and big, with broken heart
and prostrate spirit, prayed that there might be born
a boy.

Reb Selig raised his eyes from the Gemoreh, glanced
at the curtain, then at the seven girls, gave vent to a
deep-drawn Oi, made a gesture with his hand, and said
with settled despair, "She will give you another sister !"

The seven girls looked at one another in desperation ;

422 RAISIN

their father's conclusion quite crushed them, and they
had no longer even the courage to pray.

Only the littlest, the four-year-old, in the torn frock,
prayed softly:

"Oi, please God, there will be a little brother."

"I shall die without a Kaddish !" groaned Reb Selig.

The time drags on, the moans behind the curtain
grow louder, and Reb Selig and the elder girls feel that
soon, very soon, the "grandmother'' will call out in
despair, "A little girl!" And Reb Selig feels that the
words will strike home to his heart like a blow, and
he resolves to run away.

He goes out into the yard, and looks up at the sky.
It is midnight. The moon swims along so quietly and
indifferently, the stars seem to frolic and rock them-
selves like little children, and still Reb Selig hears, in
the "grandmother's" husky voice, "A girl I"

"Well, there will be no Kaddish ! Verfallen !" he says,
crossing the yard again. "There's no getting it by
force!"

But his trying to calm himself is useless; the fear
that it should be a girl only grows upon him. He loses
patience, and goes back into the house.

But the house is in a turmoil.

"What is it, eh ?"

"A little boy ! Tate, a boy ! Tatinke, as surely may
I be well !" with this news the seven girls fall upon him
with radiant faces.

"Eh, a little boy ?" asked Reb Selig, as though bewil-
dered, "eh? what?"

THE KADDISH 423

"A boy, Eeb Selig, a Kaddish!" announced the
"grandmother." "As soon as I have bathed him, I will
show him you !"

"A boy ... a boy ..." stammered Eeb Selig in
the same bewilderment, and he leant against the wall,
and burst into tears like a woman.

The seven girls took alarm.

"That is for joy," explained the "grandmother," "I
have known that happen before."

"A boy . . a boy !" sobbed Eeb Selig, overcome with
happiness, "a boy ... a boy ... a Kaddish !"

The little boy received the name of Jacob, but he
was called, by way of a talisman, Alter.

Eeb Selig was a learned man, and inclined to think
lightly of such protective measures; he even laughed at
his 'Cheike for believing in such foolishness; but, at
heart, he was content to have it so. Who could tell
what might not be in it, after all? Women sometimes
know better than men.

By the time Alterke was three years old, Eeb Seng's
cough had become worse, the sense of oppression on his
chest more frequent. But he held himself morally erect,
and looked death calmly in the face, as though he would
say, "Now I can afford to laugh at you — I leave a
Kaddish !"

"What do you think, Cheike," he would say to his
wife, after a fit of coughing, "would Alterke be able to
say Kaddish if I were to die to-day or to-morrow?"

"Go along with you, crazy pate !" Cheike would
exclaim in secret alarm. "You are going to live a long
while ! Is your cough anything new ?"

424 RAISIN

Selig smiled, "Foolish woman, she supposes I am
afraid to die. When one leaves a Kaddish, death is a
trifle."

Alterke was sitting playing with a prayer-book and
imitating his father at prayer, "A num-num — a num-
num."

"Listen to him praying !" and Cheike turned delight-
edly to her husband. "His soul is piously inclined !"

Selig made no reply, he only gazed at his Kaddish
with a beaming face. Then an idea came into his head :
Alterke will be a Tzaddik, will help him out of all his
difficulties in the other world.

"Mame, I want to eat !" wailed Alterke, suddenly.

He was given a piece of the white bread which was
laid aside, for him only, every Sabbath.

Alterke began to eat.

"Who bringest forth! Who bringest forth!" called
out Eeb Selig.

"Tan't !" answered the child.

"It is time you taught him to say grace," observed
Cheike.

And Eeb Selig drew Alterke to him and began to
repeat with him.

"Say:Boruch."

"Bo'uch," repeated the child after his fashion.

"Attoh."

"Attoh."

When Alterke had finished "Who bringest forth,"
Cheike answered piously Amen, and Eeb Selig saw
Alterke, in imagination, standing in the synagogue and
repeating Kaddish, and heard the congregation answer

THE KADDISH 425

Amen, and he felt as though he were already seated in
the Garden of Eden.

Another year went by, and Eeb Selig was feeling very
poorly. Spring had come, the snow had melted, and he
found the wet weather more trying than ever before. He
could just drag himself early to the synagogue, but
going to the afternoon service had become a difficulty,
and he used to recite the afternoon and later service
at home, and spend the whole evening with Alterke.

It was late at night. All the houses were shut. Eeb
Selig sat at his little table, and was looking into the
corner where Cheike's bed stood, and where Alterke
slept beside her. Selig had a feeling that he would die
that night. He felt very tired and weak, and with an
imploring look he crept up to Alterke's crib, and began
to wake him.

The child woke with a start.

"Alterke" — Keb Selig was stroking the little head —
"come to me for a little !"

The child, who had had his first sleep out, sprang
up, and went to his father.

Eeb Selig sat down in the chair which stood by the
little table with the open Gemoreh, lifted Alterke on-
to the table, and looked into his eyes.

"Alterke!"

"What, Tate?"

"Would you like me to die?"

"Like," answered the child, not knowing what "to
die" meant, and thinking it must be something nice.

426 RAISIN

"Will you say Kaddish after me?" asked Eeb Selig,
in a strangled voice, and he was seized with a fit of
coughing.

"Will say !" promised the child.

"Shall you know how?"

"Shall 1"

"Well, now, say : Yisgaddal."

"Yisdaddal," repeated the child in his own way.

"Veyiskaddash."

"Veyistaddash."

And Reb Selig repeated the Kaddish with him several
times.

The small lamp burnt low, and scarcely illuminated
Reb Selig's yellow, corpse-like face, or the little one
of Alterke, who repeated wearily the difficult, and to
him unintelligible words of the Kaddish. And Alterke,
all the while, gazed intently into the corner, where
Tate's shadow and his own had a most fantastic and
frightening appearance.

AVROHOM THE ORCHARD-KEEPER

When he first came to the place, as a boy, and went
straight to the house-of-study, and people, having
greeted him, asked "Where do you come from?" and he
answered, not without pride, "From the Government
of Wilna" — from that day until the day he was married,
they called him "the Wilner."

In a few years' time, however, when the house-of-
study had married him to the daughter of the Psalm-
reader, a coarse, undersized creature, and when, after
six months' "board" with his father-in-law, he became
a teacher, the town altered his name to "the Wilner
teacher." Again, a few years later, when he got a
chest affection, and the doctor forbade him to keep
school, and he began to deal in fruit, the town learnt
that his name was Avrohom, to which they added "the
orchard-keeper," and his name is "Avrohom the orchard-
keeper" to this day.

Avrohom was quite content with his new calling. He
had always wished for a business in which he need not
have to do with a lot of people in whom he had small con-
fidence, and in whose society he felt ill at ease.

People have a queer way with them, he used to think,
they want to be always talking! They want to tell
everything, find out everything, answer everything!

When he was a student he always chose out a place
in a corner somewhere, where he could see nobody, and
nobody could see him ; and he used to murmur the day's

428 RAISIN

task to a low tune, and his murmured repetition made
him think of the ruin in which Rabbi Jose, praying there,
heard the Bas-Kol mourn, cooing like a dove, over the
exile of Israel. And then he longed to float away to that
ruin somewhere in the wilderness, and murmur there like
a dove, with no one, no one, to interrupt him, not even the
Bas-Kol. But his vision would be destroyed by some hard
question which a fellow-student would put before him,
describing circles with his thumb and chanting to a shrill
Gemoreh-tune.

In the orchard, at the end of the Gass, however, which
Avrohom hired of the Gentiles, he had no need to
exchange empty words with anyone. Avrohom had no
large capital, and could not afford to hire an orchard
for more than thirty rubles. The orchard was conse-
quently small, and only grew about twenty apple-trees,
a few pear-trees, and a cherry-tree. Avrohom used to
move to the garden directly after the Feast of "Weeks,
although that was still very early, the fruit had not
yet set, and there was nothing to steal.

But Avrohom could not endure sitting at home any
longer, where the wife screamed, the children cried, and
there wag a continual "fair." What should he want
there? He only wished to be alone with his thoughts
and imaginings, and his quiet "tunes," which were
always weaving themselves inside him, and were nearly
stifled.

It is early to go to the orchard directly after the
Feast of Weeks, but Avrdhom does not mind, he is
drawn back to the trees that can think and hear so
much, and keep so many things to themselves.

AVROHOM THE ORCHARD-KEEPER 429

And Avrohom betakes himself to the orchard. He
carries with him, besides phylacteries and prayer-scarf,
a prayer-book with the Psalms and the "Stations," two
volumes of the Gemoreh which he owns, a few works by
the later scholars, and the Tales of Jerusalem ; he takes
his wadded winter garment and a cushion, makes them
into a bundle, kisses the Mezuzeh, mutters farewell, and
is off to the orchard.

As he nears the orchard his heart begins to beat loudly
for joy, but he is hindered from going there at once. In
the yard through which he must pass lies a dog. Later
on, when Avrohom has got to know the dog, he will even
take him into the orchard, but the first time there is a
certain risk — one has to know a dog, otherwise it barks,
and Avrohom dreads a bark worse than a bite — it goes
through one's head ! And Avrohom waits till the owner
comes out, and leads him through by the hand.

"Back already?" exclaims the owner, laughing and
astonished.

"Why not?" murmurs Avrohom, shamefacedly, and
feeling that it is, indeed, early.

"What shall you do?" asks the owner, graver. "There
is no hut there at all — last year's fell to pieces."

"Never mind, never mind," begs Avrohom, "it will
be all right."

"Well, if you want io come !" and the owner shrugs
his shoulders, and lets Avrohom into the orchard.

Avrohom immediately lays his bundle on the ground,
stretches himself out full length on the grass, and mur-
murs, "Good ! good !"

28 • •

430 RAISIN

At last he is silent, and listens to the quiet rustle of
the trees. It seems to him that the trees also wonder
at his coming so soon, and he looks at them beseechingly,
as though he would say :

"Trees — you, too! I couldn't help it ... it drew
me ..."

And soon he fancies that the trees have understood
everything, and murmur, "Good, good!"

And Avrohom already feels at home in the orchard.
He rises from the ground, and goes to every tree in
turn, as though to make its acquaintance. Then he con-
siders the hut that stands in the middle of the orchard.

It has fallen in a little certainly, but Avrohom is all
the better pleased with it. He is not particularly fond
of new, strong things, a building resembling a ruin is
somehow much more to his liking. Such a ruin is
inwardly full of secrets, whispers, and melodies. There
the tears fall quietly, while the soul yearns after some-
thing that has no name and no existence in time or
space. And Avrohom creeps into the fallen-in hut,
where it is dark and where there are smells of another
world. He draws himself up into a ball, and remains
hid from everyone.

But to remain hid from the world is not so easy.
At first it can be managed. So long as the fruit is
ripening, he needs no one, and no one needs him. "When
one of his children brings him food, he exchanges a few
words with it, asks what is going on at home, and how
the mother is, and he feels he has done his duty, if,
when obliged to go home, he spends there Friday night

AVKOHOM THE ORCHARD-KEEPER 431

and Saturday morning. That over, and the hot stew
eaten, he returns to the orchard, lies down under a
tree, opens the Tales of Jerusalem, goes to sleep reading
a fantastical legend, dreams of the Western Wall,
Mother Rachel's Grave, the Cave of Machpelah, and
other holy, quiet places — places where the air is full of
old stories such as are given, in such easy Hebrew, in
the Tales of Jerusalem.

But when the fruit is ripe, and the trees begin to
bend under the burden of it, Avrohom must perforce
leave his peaceful world, and become a trader.

When the first wind begins to blow in the orchard,
and covers the ground thereof with apples and pears,
Avrohom collects them, makes them into heaps, sorts
them, and awaits the market-women with their loud
tongues, who destroy all the peace and quiet of his
Grarden of Eden.

On Sabbath he would like to rest, but of a Sabbath
the trade in apples — on tick of course — is very lively
in the orchards. There is a custom in the town to
that effect, and Avrohom cannot do away with it.

tf

Young gentlemen and young ladies come into the
orchard, and hold a sort of revel; they sing and laugh,
they walk and they chatter, and Avrohom must listen
to it all, and bear it, and wait for the night, when he
can creep back into his hut, and need look at no one
but the trees, and hear nothing but the wind, and
sometimes the rain and the thunder.

But it is worse in the autumn, when the fruit is
getting over-ripe, and he can no longer remain in the
orchard. With a bursting heart he bids farewell to

432 RAISIN

the trees, to the hut in which he has spent so many
quiet, peaceful moments. He conveys the apples to a
shed belonging to the farm, which he has hired, ever
since he had the orchard, for ten gulden a month, and
goes back to the Gass.

In the Gass, at that time, there is mud and rain.
Town Jews drag themselves along sick and disheartened.
They cough and groan. Avrohom stares round him,
and fails to recognize the world.

"Bad!" he mutters. "Fe!" and he spits. "Where is
one to get to?"

And Avrohom recalls the beautiful legends in the
Tales of Jerusalem, he recalls the land of Israel.

There he knows it is always summer, always warm
and fine. And every autumn the vision draws him.

But there is no possibility of his being able to go
there — he must sell the apples which he has brought
from the orchard, and feed the wife and the children
he has "outside the land." And all through the autumn
and part of the winter, Avrohom drags himself about
with a basket of apples on his arm and a yearning
in his heart. He waits for the dear summer, when he
will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard,
in the hut, and be alone, where the town mud and
the town Jews with dulled senses shall be out of sight,
and the week-day noise, out of hearing.

HIBSH DAVID NAUMBEEG

Born, 1876, in Msczczonow, Government of Warsaw, Rus-
sian Poland, of Hasidic parentage; traditional Jewish
education in the house of his grandfather; went to Warsaw
in 1898; at present (1912) in America; first literary work
appeared in 1900; writer of stories, etc., in Hebrew and
Yiddish; co-editor of Ha-Zofeh, Der Freind, Ha-Boker;
contributor to Ha-Zeman, Heint, Ha-Dor, Ha-Shiloah, etc.;
collected works, 5 vols., Warsaw, 1908-1911.

THE KAV AND THE EAV'S SON

The Sabbath midday meal is over, and the Saken
Rav passes his hands across his serene and pious coun-
tenance, pulls out both earlocks, straightens his skull-
cap, and prepares to expound a passage of the Torah as
God shall enlighten him. There sit with him at table,
to one side of him, a passing guest, a Libavitch Chossid,
like the Eav himself, a man with yellow beard and ear-
locks, and a grubby shirt collar appearing above the
grubby yellow kerchief that envelopes his throat ; to the
other side of him, his son Sholem, an eighteen-year-old
youth, with a long pale face, deep, rather dreamy eyes,
a velvet hat, but no earlocks, a secret Maskil, who writes
Hebrew verses, and contemplates growing into a great
Jewish author. The Rebbetzin has been suffering two
or three months with rheumatism, and lies in another
room.

The Rav is naturally humble-minded, and it is no
trifle to him to expound the Torah. To take a passage
of the Bible and say, The meaning is this and that, is a
thing he hasn't the cheek to do. It makes him feel
as uncomfortable as if he were telling lies. Up to
twenty-five years of age he was a Misnaggid, but under
the influence of the Saken Rebbetzin, he became a Chos-
sid, bit by bit. Now he is over fifty, he drives to the
Eebbe, and comes home every time with increased faith
in the latter's supernatural powers, and, moreover, with
a strong desire to expound a little of the Torah him-
self; only, whenever a good idea comes into his head, it

436 NAUMBERG

oppresses him, because he has not sufficient self-con-
fidence to express it.

The difficulty for him lies in making a start. He
would like to do as the Rebbe does (long life to him !) —
give a push to his chair, a look, stern and somewhat
angry, at those sitting at table, then a groaning sigh.
But the Rav is ashamed to imitate him, or is partly
afraid, lest people should catch him doing it. He drops
his eyes, holds one hand to his forehead, while the other
plays with the knife on the table, and one hardly hears :

"When thou goest forth to war with thine enemy —
thine enemy — that is, the inclination to evil, oi, oi, —
a — " he nods his head, gathers a little confidence, con-
tinues his explanation of the passage, and gradually
warms to the part. He already looks the stranger
boldly in the face. The stranger twists himself into
a correct attitude, nods assent, but cannot for the life
of him tear his gaze from the brandy-bottle on the table,
and cannot wonder sufficiently at so much being allowed
to remain in it at the end of a meal. And when the
Rav comes to the fact that to be in "prison" means to
have bad habits, and "well-favored woman" means that
every bad habit has its good side, the guest can no longer
restrain himself, seizes the bottle rather awkwardly, as
though in haste, fills up his glass, spills a little onto the
cloth, and drinks with his head thrown back, gulping
it like a regular tippler, after a hoarse and sleepy "to
your health." This has a bad effect on the Rav's enthus-
iasm, it "mixes his brains," and he turns to his son for
help. To tell the truth, he has not much confidence
in his son where the Law is concerned, although he

437

loves him dearly, the boy being the only one of his chil-
dren in whom he may hope, with God's help, to have
comfort, and who, a hundred years hence, shall take over
from him the office of Eav in Saken. The elder son is
rich, but he is a usurer, and his riches give the Kav no
satisfaction whatever. He had had one daughter, but
she died, leaving some little orphans. Sholem is, there-
fore, the only one left him. He has a good head, and is
quick at his studies, a quiet, well-behaved boy, a little
obstinate, a bit opinionated, but that is no harm in a
boy, thinks the old man. True, too, that last week
people told him tales. Sholem, they said, read heret-
ical books, and had been seen carrying "burdens" on
Sabbath. But this the father does not believe, he
will not and cannot believe it. Besides, Sholem is
certain to have made amends. If a Talmid-Chochom
commit a sin by day, it should be forgotten by
nightfall, because a Talmid-Chochom makes amends,
it says so in the Gemoreh.

However, the Eav is ashamed to give his own exe-
gesis of the Law before his son, and he knows perfectly
well that nothing will induce Sholem to drive with him
to the Eebbe.

But the stranger and his brandy-drinking have so
upset him that he now looks at his son in a piteous
sort of way. "Hear me out, Sholem, what harm can it
do you?" says his look.

Sholem draws himself up, and pulls in his chair,
supports his head with both his hands, and gazes into
his father's eyes out of filial duty. He loves his father,
but in his heart he wonders at him; it seems to him

438 NAUMBERG

his father ought to learn more about his heretical lean-
ings— it is quite time he should — and he continues to
gaze in silence and in wonder, not unmixed with com-
passion, and never ceases thinking, "Upon my word,
Tate, what a simpleton you are !"

But when the Kav came in the course of his expo-
sition to speak of "death by kissing" (by the Lord),
and told how the righteous, the holy Tzaddikim, die
from the very sweetness of the Blessed One's kiss, a
spark kindled in Sholem's eyes, and he moved in his
chair. One of those wonders had taken place which do
frequently occur, only they are seldom remarked: the
Chassidic exposition of the Torah had suggested to
Sholem a splendid idea for a romantic poem !

It is an old commonplace that men take in, of what
they hear and see, that which pleases them. Sholem is
fascinated. He wishes to die anyhow, so what could
be more appropriate and to the purpose than that his
love should kiss him on his death-bed, while, in that
very instant, his soul departs?

The idea pleased him so immensely that immediately
after grace, the stranger having gone on his way, and
the Eav laid himself down to sleep in the other room,
Sholem began to write. His heart beat violently while
he made ready, but the very act of writing out a poem
after dinner on Sabbath, in the room where his father
settled the cases laid before him by the townsfolk, was
a bit of heroism well worth the risk. He took the
writing-materials out of his locked box, and, the pen
and ink-pot in one hand and a collection of manuscript
verse in the other, he went on tiptoe to the table.

THE BAV AND THE EAV'S SON 439

He folded back the table-cover, laid down his writing
apparatus, and took another look around to make sure
no one was in the room. He counted on the fact that
when the Bav awoke from his nap, he always coughed,
and that when he walked he shuffled so with his feet,
and made so much noise with his long slippers, that
one could hear him two rooms off. In short, there was
no need to be anxious.

He grows calmer, reads the manuscript poems, and
his face tells that he is pleased. Now he wants to
collect his thoughts for the new one, but something
or other hinders him. He unfastens the girdle round
his waist, rolls it up, and throws it into the Eav's soft
stuffed chair.

And now that there is nothing to disturb from with-
out, a second and third wonder must take place within :
the Eav's Torah, which was transformed by Sholem's
brain into a theme for romance, must now descend into
his heart, thence to pour itself onto the paper, and
pass, by this means, into the heads of Sholem's friends,
who read his poems with enthusiasm, and have sinful
dreams afterwards at night.

And he begins to imagine himself on his death-bed,
sick and weak, unable to speak, and with staring eyes.
He sees nothing more, but he feels a light, ethereal
kiss on his cheek, and his soul is aware of a sweet voice
speaking. He tries to take out his hands from under
the coverlet, but he cannot — he is dying — it grows
dark.

A still brighter and more unusual gleam comes into
Sholem's eyes, his heart swells with emotion seeking
an outlet, his brain works like running machinery, a

440 NAUMBERG

whole dictionary of words, his whole treasure of con-
ceptions and ideas, is turned over and over so rapidly
that the mind is unconscious of its own efforts. His
poetic instinct is searching for what it needs. His hand
works quietly, forming letter on letter, word on word.
Now and again Sholem lifts his eyes from the paper
and looks round, he has a feeling as though the four
walls and the silence were thinking to themselves:
"Hush, hush! Disturb not the poet at his work of
creation! Disturb not the priest about to offer sacri-
fice to God."

To the Rav, meanwhile, lying in the other room,
there had come a fresh idea for the exposition of the
Torah, and he required to look up something in a book.
The door of the reception-room opened, the Rav entered,
and Sholem had not heard him.

It was a pity to see the Rav's face, it was so con-
tracted with dismay, and a pity to see Sholem's when
he caught sight of his father, who, utterly taken aback,
dropt into a seat exactly opposite Sholem, and gave a
groan — was it ? or a cry ?

But he did not sit long, he did not know what one
should do or say to one's son on such an occasion; his
heart and his eyes inclined to weeping, and he retired
into his own room. Sholem remained alone with a very
sore heart and a soul opprest. He put the writing-
materials back into their box, and went out with the
manuscript verses tucked away under his Tallis-koton.

He went into the house-of-study, but it looked dread-
fully dismal ; the benches were pushed about anyhow,

THE EAV AND THE EAV'S SON 441

a sign that the last worshippers had been in a great
hurry to go home to dinner. The beadle was snoring
on a seat somewhere in a corner, as loud and as fast
as if he were trying to inhale all the air in the building,
so that the next congregation might be suffocated. The
cloth on the platform reading-desk was crooked and
tumbled, the floor was dirty, and the whole place looked
as dead as though its Sabbath sleep were to last till
the resurrection.

He left the house-of-study, walked home and back
again; up and down, there and back, many times over.
The situation became steadily clearer to him ; he wanted
to justify himself, if only with a word, in his father's
eyes; then, again, he felt he must make an end, free
himself once and for all from the paternal restraint,
and become a Jewish author. Only he felt sorry for his
father ; he would have liked to do something to comfort
him. Only what? Kiss him? Put his arms round
his neck? Have his cry out before him and say,
"Tatishe, you and I, we are neither of us to blame!"
Only how to say it so that the old man shall understand ?
That is the question.

And the Eav sat in his room, bent over a book in
which he would fain have lost himself. He rubbed
his brow with both hands, but a stone lay on his heart,
a heavy stone; there were tears in his eyes, and he was
all but crying. He needed some living soul before
whom he could pour out the bitterness of his heart, and
he had already turned to the Eebbetzin:

"Zelde !" he called quietly.

"A-h," sighed the Eebbetzin from her bed. "I feel
bad ; my foot aches, Lord of the World ! What is it ?"

443 NAUMBEEG

"Nothing, Zelde. How are you getting on, eh?"
He got no further with her; he even mentally repented
having so nearly added to her burden of life.

It was an hour or two before the Eav collected him-
self, and was able to think over what had happened.
And still he could not, would not, believe that his son,
Sholem, had broken the Sabbath, that he was worthy
of being stoned to death. He sought for some excuse
for him, and found none, and came at last to the con-
clusion that it was a work of Satan, a special onset of
the Tempter. And he kept on thinking of the Chassidic
legend of a Eabbi who was seen by a Chossid to smoke
a pipe on Sabbath. Only it was an illusion, a deception
of the Evil One. But when, after he had waited some
time, no Sholem appeared, his heart began to beat more
steadily, the reality of the situation made itself felt,
he got angry, and hastily left the house in search of
the Sabbath-breaker, intending to make an example of
him.

Hardly, however, had he perceived his son walking
to and fro in front of the house-of-study, with a look
of absorption and worry, than he stopped short. He
was afraid to go up to his son. Just then Sholem
turned, they saw each other, and the Eav had willy-
nilly to approach him.

"Will you come for a little walk?" asked the Eav
gently, with downcast eyes. Sholem made no reply,
and followed him.

They came to the Eruv, the Eav looked in all his
pockets, found his handkerchief, tied it round his neck,
and glanced at his son with a kind of prayer in his eye.
Sholem tied his handkerchief round his neck.

THE BAY AND THE EAV'S SON 443

When they were outside the town, the old man
coughed once and again and said:

"What is all this?"

But Sholem was determined not to answer a word,
and his father had to summon all his courage to con-
tinue :

"What is all this? Eh? Sabbath-breaking! It
is—"

He coughed and was silent.

They were walking over a great, broad meadow, and
Sholem had his gaze fixed on a horse that was moving
about with hobbled legs, while the Eav shaded his eyes
with one hand from the beams of the setting sun.

"How can anyone break the Sabbath? Come now, is
it right? Is it a thing to do? Just to go and break
the Sabbath ! I knew Hebrew grammar, and could write
Hebrew, too, once upon a time, but break the Sabbath !
Tell me yourself, Sholem, what you think ! When you
have bad thoughts, how is it you don't come to your
father? I suppose I am your father, ha?" the old man
suddenly fired up. "Am I your father ? Tell me — no ?
Am I perhaps not your father ?"

"For I am his father," he reflected proudly. "That
I certainly am, there isn't the smallest doubt about it!
The greatest heretic could not deny it!"

"You come to your father," he went on with more
decision, and falling into a Gemoreh chant, "and you
tell him all about it. What harm can it do to tell him ?
No harm whatever. I also used to be tempted by bad
thoughts. Therefore I began driving to the Eebbe
of Libavitch. One mustn't let oneself go! Do you
hear me, Sholem? One mustn't let oneself go!"

444 NAUMBEEG

The last words were long drawn out, the Eav em-
phasizing them with his hands and wrinkling his fore-
head. Carried away by what he was saying, he now
felt all but sure that Sholem had not begun to be a
heretic.

"You see," he continued very gently, "every now and
then we come to a stumbling-block, but all the same, we
should not — "

Meantime, however, the manuscript folio of verses
had been slipping out from under Sholem's Four-Cor-
ners, and here it fell to the ground. The Rav stood
staring, as though startled out of a sweet dream by the
cry of "fire." He quivered from top to toe, and seized
his earlocks with both hands. For there could be no
doubt of the fact that Sholem had now broken the Sab-
bath a second time — by carrying the folio outside the
town limit. And worse still, he had practiced deception,
by searching his pockets when they had come to the
Eruv, as though to make sure not to transgress by
having anything inside them.

Sholem, too, was taken by surprise. He hung his
head, and his eyes filled with tears. The old man was
about to say something, probably to begin again with
"What is all this ?" Then he hastily stopt and snatched
up the folio, as though he were afraid Sholem might get
hold of it first.

"Ha — ha — azoi !" he began panting. "Azoi ! A
heretic! A Goi."

But it was hard for him to speak. He might not
move from where he stood, so long as he held the papers,

THE KAV AND THE EAV'S SON 445

it being outside the Eruv. His ankles were giving way,
and he sat down to have a look at the manuscript.

"Aha! Writing!" he exclaimed as he turned the
leaves. "Come here to me," he called to Sholem, who
had moved a few steps aside. Sholem came and stood
obediently before him. "What is this ?" asked the Eav,
sternly.

"Poems !"

"What do you mean by poems? What is the good
of them?" He felt that he was growing weak again,
and tried to stiffen himself morally. "What is the good
of them, heretic, tell me!"

"They're just meant to read, Tatishe !"

"What do you mean by 'read'? A Jeroboam son of
Nebat, that's what you want to be, is it? A Jeroboam
son of Nebat, to lead others into heresy! No! I
won't have it ! On no account will I have it !"

The sun had begun to disappear; it was full time to
go home; but the Eav did not know what to do with
the folio. He was afraid to leave it in the field, lest
Sholem or another should pick it up later, so he got
up and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. Sholem
remained standing in his place, and tried to think of
nothing and to do nothing.

The old man finished "Sacrifices," tucked the folio
into his girdle, and, without moving a step, looked at
Sholem, who did not move either.

"Say the Afternoon Prayer, Shegetz!" commanded
the old man.

Sholem began to move his lips. And the Eav felt,
as he went on with the prayer, that this anger was cool-
29

446 NAUMBERG

ing down. Before he came to the Eighteen Benedictions,
he gave another look at his son, and it seemed madness
to think of him as a heretic, to think that Sholem ought
by rights to be thrown into a ditch and stoned to
death.

Sholem, for his part, was conscious for the first time
of his father's will: for the first time in his life, he
not only loved his father, but was in very truth subject
to him.

The flaming red sun dropt quietly down behind the
horizon just before the old man broke down with emo-
tion over "Thou art One," and took the sky and the
earth to witness that God is One and His Name is One,
and His people Israel one nation on the earth, to whom
He gave the Sabbath for a rest and an inheritance. The
Rav wept and swallowed his tears, and his eyes were
closed. Sholem, on the other hand, could not take his
eye off the manuscript that stuck out of his father's
girdle, and it was all he could do not to snatch it and
run away.

They said nothing on the way home in the dark, they
might have been coming from a funeral. But Sholem's
heart beat fast, for he knew his father would throw
the manuscript into the fire, where it would be burnt,
and when they came to the door of their house, he
stopped his father, and said in a voice eloquent of tears :

"Give it me back, Tatishe, please give it me back !"

And the Rav gave it him back without looking him
in the face, and said :

"Look here, only don't tell Mother! She is ill, she
mustn't be upset. She is ill, not of you be it spoken !"

MEYER BLINKIN

Born, 1879, In a village near Pereyaslav, Government of
Poltava, Little Russia, of Hasidic parentage; educated in
Kieff, where he acquired the trade of carpenter in order
to win the right of residence; studied medicine; began to
write in 1906; came to New York in 1908; writer of stories
to the number of about fifty, which have been published in
various periodicals; wrote also Der Sod, and Dr. Makower.

WOMEN
A PROSE POEM

Hedged round with tall, thick woods, as though
designedly, so that no one should know what happens
there, lies the long-drawn-out old town of Pereyaslav.

To the right, connected with Pereyaslav by a wooden
bridge, lies another bit of country, named — Pidvorkes.

The town itself, with its long, narrow, muddy streets,
with the crowded houses propped up one against the
other like tombstones, with their meagre grey walls
all to pieces, with the broken window-panes stuffed
with rags — well, the town of Pereyaslav was hardly to
be distinguished from any other town inhabited by
Jews.

Here, too, people faded before they bloomed. Here,
too, men lived on miracles, were fruitful and multi-
plied out of all season and reason. They talked of a
livelihood, of good times, of riches and pleasures, with
the same appearance of firm conviction, and, at the
same time the utter disbelief, with which one tells a
legend read in a book.

And they really supposed these terms to be mere in-
ventions of the writers of books and nothing more!
For not only were they incapable of a distinct con-
ception of their real meaning, but some had even
given up the very hope of ever being able to earn so
much as a living, and preferred not to reach out into
the world with their thoughts, straining them for

450 BLINKItf

nothing, that is, for the sake of a thing so plainly out
of the question as a competence. At night the whole
town was overspread by a sky which, if not grey with
clouds, was of a troubled and washed-out blue. But
the people were better off than by day. Tired out,
overwrought, exhausted, prematurely aged as they were,
they sought and found comfort in the lap of the
dreamy, secret, inscrutable night. Their misery was
left far behind, and they felt no more grief and pain.

An unknown power hid everything from them as
though with a thick, damp, stone wall, and they heard
and saw nothing.

They did not hear the weak voices, like the mewing
of blind kittens, of their pining children, begging all
day for food as though on purpose — as though they
knew there was none to give them. They did not
hear the sighs and groans of their friends and neigh-
bors, filling the air with the hoarse sound of furniture
dragged across the floor; they did not see, in sleep,
Death-from-hunger swing quivering, on threads of
spider-web, above their heads.

Even the little fires that flickered feverishly on their
hearths, and testified to the continued existence of
breathing men, even these they saw no longer. Silence
cradled everything to sleep, extinguished it, and caused
it to be forgotten.

Hardly, however, was it dawn, hardly had the first
rays pierced beneath the closed eyelids, before a whole
world of misery awoke and came to life again.

The frantic cries of hundreds of starving children,
despairing exclamations and imprecations and other

WOMEN 451

piteous sounds filled the air. One gigantic curse un-
coiled and crept from house to house, from door to
door, from mouth to mouth, and the population began
to move, to bestir themselves, to run hither and thither.

Half-naked, with parched bones and shrivelled skin,
with sunken yet burning eyes, they crawled over one
another like worms in a heap, fastened on to the bites
in each other's mouth, and tore them away —

But this is summer, and they are feeling compara-
tively cheerful, bold, and free in their movements.
They are stifled and suffocated, they are in a melting-
pot with heat and exhaustion, but there are counter-
balancing advantages; one can live for weeks at a time
without heating the stove; indeed, it is pleasanter in-
doors without fire, and lighting will cost very little,
now the evenings are short.

In winter it was different. An inclement sky, an
enfeebled sun, a sick day, and a burning, biting frost!

People, too, were different. A bitterness came over
them, and they went about anxious and irritable, with
hanging head, possessed by gloomy despair. It never
even occurred to them to tear their neighbor's bite
out of his mouth, so depressed and preoccupied did
they become. The days were months, the evenings
years, and the weeks — oh ! the weeks were eternities !

And no one knew of their misery but the winter
wind that tore at their roofs and howled in their all
but smokeless chimneys like one bewitched, like a lost
soul condemned to endless wandering.

But there were bright stars in the abysmal dark-
ness; their one pride and consolation were the Pid-

452 BLINKIN

vorkes, the inhabitants of the aforementioned district
of that name. "Was it a question of the upkeep of a
Header or of a bath, the support of a burial-society,
of a little hospital or refuge, a Rabbi, of providing Sab-
bath loaves for the poor, flour for the Passover,
the dowry of a needy bride — the Pidvorkes were ready !
The sick and lazy, the poverty-stricken and hope-
less, found in them support and protection. The Pid-
vorkes! They were an inexhaustible well that no one
had ever found to fail them, unless the Pidvorke hus-
bands happened to be present, on which occasion alone
one came away with empty hands.

The fair fame of the Pidvorkes extended beyond
Pereyaslav to all poor towns in the neighborhood. Talk
of husbands — they knew about the Pidvorkes a hun-
dred miles round; the least thing, and they pointed
out to their wives how they should take a lesson from
the Pidvorke women, and then they would be equally
rich and happy..

It was not because the Pidvorkes had, within their
border, great, green velvety hills and large gardens
full of flowers that they had reason to be proud, or
others, to be proud of them; not because wide fields,
planted with various kinds of corn, stretched for miles
around them, the delicate ears swaying in sunshine and
wind ; not even because there flowed round the Pidvorkes
a river so transparent, so full of the reflection of the sky,
you could not decide which was the bluest of the two.
Pereyaslav at any rate was not affected by any of these
things, perhaps knew nothing of them, and certainly did
not wish to know anything, for whoso dares to let his

WOMEN 453

mind dwell on the like, sins against God. Is it a Jewish
concern ? A townf ul of men who have a God, and reli-
gious duties to perform, with reward and punishment,
who have that world to prepare for, and a wife and
children in this one, people must be mad (of the enemies
of Zion be it said!) to stare at the sky, the fields, the
river, and all the rest of it — things which a man on in
years ought to blush to talk about.

No, they are proud of the Pidvorke women, and
parade them continually. The Pidvorke women are no
more attractive, no taller, no cleverer than others. They,
too, bear children and suckle them, one a year, after
the good old custom; neither are they more thought of
by their husbands. On the contrary, they are the best
abused and tormented women going, and herein lies
their distinction.

They put up, with the indifference of all women alike,
to the belittling to which they are subjected by their
husbands ; they swallow their contempt by the mouthful
without a reproach, and yet they are exceptions, and yet
they are distinguished from all other women, as the
rushing waters of the Dnieper from the stagnant pools
in the marsh.

About five in the morning, when the men-folk turn
in bed, and bury their faces in the white feather pil-
lows, emitting at the same time strange, broken sounds
through their big, stupid, red noses — at this early hour
their wives have transacted half-a-day's business in the
market-place. Dressed in short, light skirts with blue
aprons, over which depends on their left a large
leather pocket for the receiving of coin and the giving

454 BLINKIN

out of change — one cannot be running every minute
to the cash-box — they stand in their shops with mis-
cellaneous ware, and toil hard. They weigh and meas-
ure, buy and sell, and all this with wonderful celerity.
There stands one of them by herself in a shop, and
tries to persuade a young, barefoot peasant woman to
buy the printed cotton she offers her, although the
customer only wants a red cotton with a large, flowery
pattern. She talks without a pause, declaring that the
young peasant may depend upon her, she would not
take her in for the world, and, indeed, to no one else
would she sell the article so cheap. But soon her eye
catches two other women pursuing a peasant man, and
before even making out whether he has any wares with
him or not, she leaves her customer and joins them. If
they run, she feels so must she. The peasant is sure
to be wanting grease or salt, and that may mean ten
kopeks' unexpected gain. Meantime she is not likely
to lose her present customer, fascinated as the latter
must be by her flow of speech.

So she leaves her, and runs after the peasant, who
is already surrounded by a score of women, shrieking,
one louder than the other, praising their ware to the
skies, and each trying to make him believe that he and
she are old acquaintances. But presently the tumult in-
creases, there is a cry, "Cheap fowls, who wants cheap
fowls?" Some rich landholder has sent out a supply
of fowls to sell, and all the women swing round towards
the fowls, keeping a hold on the peasant's cart with their
left hand, so that you would think they wanted to
drag peasant, horse, and cart along with them. They

WOMEN 455

bargain for a few minutes with the seller of fowls,
and advise him not to be obstinate and to take their
offers, else he will regret it later.

Suddenly a voice thunders, "The peasants are com-
ing!" and they throw themselves as for dear life upon
the cart-loads of produce ; they run as though to a con-
flagration, get under each other's feet, their eyes glisten
as though they each wanted to pull the whole market
aside. There is a shrieking and scolding, until one or
another gets the better of the rest, and secures the
peasant's wares. Then only does each woman remember
that she has customers waiting in her shop, and she runs
in with a beaming smile and tells them that, as they have
waited so long, they shall be served with the best and
the most beautiful of her store.

By eight o'clock in the morning, when the market
is over, when they have filled all the bottles left with
them by their customers, counted up the change and
their gains, and each one has slipped a coin into her
knotted handkerchief, so that her husband should not
know of its existence (one simply must! One is only
human — one is surely not expected to wrangle with him
about every farthing?) — then, when there is nothing
more to be done in the shops, they begin to gather
in knots, and every one tells at length the incidents
and the happy strokes of business of the day. They
have forgotten all the bad luck they wished each other,
all the abuse they exchanged, while the market was in
progress; they know that "Parnosseh is Parnosseh,"
and bear no malice, or, if they do, it is only if one
has spoken unkindly of another during a period of
quiet, on a Sabbath or a holiday.

456 BLINKIX

Each talks with a special enthusiasm, and deep in
her sunken eyes with their blue-black rings there burns
a proud, though tiny, fire, as she recalls how she got
the better of a customer, and sold something which
she had all but thrown away, and not only sold it,
but better than usual; or else they tell how late their
husbands sleep, and then imagine their wives are still
in bed, and set about waking them, "It's time to get
up for the market," and they at once pretend to be
sleepy — then, when they have already been and come
back!

And very soon a voice is heard to tremble with
pleasant excitement, and a woman begins to relate the
following :

"Just you listen to me : I was up to-day when God
Himself was still asleep." — "That is not the way to
talk, Sheine !" interrupts a second. — "Well, well, well ?"
(there is a good deal of curiosity). "And what hap-
pened?"— "It was this way: I went out quietly, so
that no one should hear, not to wake them, because
when Lezer went to bed, it was certainly one o'clock.
There was a dispute of some sort at the Rabbi's. You
can imagine how early it was, because I didn't even
want to wake Soreh, otherwise she always gets up when
I do (never mind, it won't hurt her to learn from her
mother!). And at half past seven, when I saw there
were no more peasants coming in to market, I went to
see what was going on indoors. I heard my man calling
me to wake up: 'Sheine, Sheine, Sheine!' and I go
quietly and lean against the bed, and wait to hear what
will happen next. Ijook here ! — There is no waking

WOMEN 457

her ! — Sheine ! It's getting-up time and past ! Are you
deaf or half-witted ? What' s come to you this morning ?'
I was so afraid I should laugh. I gave a jump and
called out, 0 woe is me, why ever didn't you wake me
sooner? Bandit! It's already eight o'clock!"

Her hearers go off into contented laughter, which
grows clearer, softer, more contented still. Each one
tells her tale of how she was wakened by her husband,
and one tells this joke: Once, when her husband had
called to rouse her (he also usually woke her after
market), she answered that on that morning she did
not intend to get up for market, that he might go
for once instead. This apparently pleases them still
better, for their laughter renews itself, more spon-
taneous and hearty even than before. Each makes a
witty remark, each feels herself in merry mood, and
all is cheerfulness.

They would wax a little more serious only when they
came to talk of their daughters. A woman would
begin by trying to recall her daughter's age, and beg
a second one to help her remember when the girl was
born, so that she might not make a mistake in the
calculation. And when it came to one that had a
daughter of sixteen, the mother fell into a brown
study; she felt herself in a very, very critical posi-
tion, because when a girl comes to that age, one ought
soon to marry her. And there is really nothing to
prevent it: money enough will be forthcoming, only
let the right kind of suitor present himself, one, that
is, who shall insist on a well-dowered bride, because
otherwise — what sort of a suitor do you call that? She

458 BLINKIN

will have enough to live on, they will buy a shop for her,
she is quite capable of managing it — only let Heaven
send a young man of acceptable parentage, so that
one's husband shall have no need to blush with shame
when he is asked about his son-in-law's family and
connections.

And this is really what they used to do, for when
their daughters were sixteen, they gave them in mar-
riage, and at twenty the daughters were "old," much-
experienced wives. They knew all about teething,
chicken-pox, measles, and more besides, even about
croup. If a young mother's child fell ill, she hastened
to her bosom crony, who knew a lot more than she,
having been married one whole year or two sooner,
and got advice as to what should be done.

The other would make close inquiry whether the
round swellings about the child's neck increased in
size and wandered, that is, appeared at different times
and different places, in which case it was positively
nothing serious, but only the tonsils. But if they re-
mained in one place and grew larger, the mother must
lose no time, but must run to the doctor.

Their daughters knew that they needed to lay by
money, not only for a dowry, but because a girl ought
to have money of her own. They knew as well as their
mothers that a bridegroom would present himself and
ask a lot of money (the best sign of his being the
right sort!), and they prayed God for the same with-
out ceasing.

No sooner were they quit of household matters than
they went over to the discussion of their connections
and alliances — it was the greatest pleasure they had.

WOMEN 459

The fact that their children, especially their daugh-
ters, were so discreet that not one (to speak in a good
hour and be silent in a bad!) had as yet ever (far be
it from the speaker to think of such a thing!) given
birth to a bastard, as was known to happen in other
places — this was the crowning point of their joy and
exultation.

It even made up to them for the other fact, that they
never got a good word from their husbands for their
hard, unnatural toil.

And as they chat together, throwing in the remark
that "the apple never falls far from the tree," that
their daughters take after them in everything, the
very wrinkles vanish from their shrivelled faces, a
spring of refreshment and blessedness wells up in their
hearts, they are lifted above their cares, a feeling of
relaxation conies over them, as though a soothing balsam
had penetrated their strained and weary limbs.

Meantime the daughters have secrets among them-
selves. They know a quantity of interesting things
that have happened in their quarter, but no one else
gets to know of them; they are imparted more with
the eyes than with the lips, and all is quiet and con-
fidential.

And if the great calamity had not now befallen the
Pidvorkes, had it not stretched itself, spread its claws
with such an evil might, had the shame not been so
deep and dreadful, all might have passed off quietly as
always. But the event was so extraordinary, so cruelly
unique — such a thing had not happened since girls
were girls, and bridegrooms, bridegrooms, in the Pid-

460 BLINKIN

vorkes — that it inevitably became known to all. Not
(preserve us !) to the men — they know of nothing, and
need to know of nothing — only to the women. But
how much can anyone keep to oneself? It will rise
to the surface, and lie like oil on the water.

From early morning on the women have been hiss-
ing and steaming, bubbling and boiling over. They
are not thinking of Parnosseh; they have forgotten all
about Parnosseh; they are in such a state, they hare
even forgotten about themselves. There is a whole
crowd of them packed like herrings, and all fire and
flame. But the male passer-by hears nothing of what
they say, he only sees the troubled faces and the droop-
ing heads; they are ashamed to look into one another's
eyes, as though they themselves were responsible for
the great affliction. An appalling misfortune, an
overwhelming sense of shame, a yellow-black spot on
their reputation weighs them to the ground. Unclean-
ness has forced itself into their sanctuary and defiled
it; and now they seek a remedy, and means to save
themselves, like one drowning; they want to heal the
plague spot, to cover it up, so that no one shall find
it out. They stand and think, and wrinkle the brows
so used to anxiety; their thoughts evolve rapidly, and
yet no good result comes of it, no one sees a way of
escape out of the terrifying net in which the worst
of all evil has entangled them. Should a stranger
happen to come upon them now, one who has heard
of them, but never seen them, he would receive a shock.
The whole of Pidvorkes looks quite different, the
women, the streets, the very sun shines differently, with

WOMEN 461

pale and narrow beams, which, instead of cheering,
seem to burden the heart.

The little grey-curled clouds with their ragged edges,
which have collected somewhere unbeknown, and race
across the sky, look down upon the women, and whisper
among themselves. Even the old willows, for whom the
news is no novelty, for many more and more complicated
mysteries have come to their knowledge, even they look
sad, while the swallows, by the depressed and gloomy
air with which they skim the water, plainly express
their opinion, which is no other than this : God is pun-
ishing the Pidvorkes for their great sin, what time they
carried fire in their beaks, long ago, to destroy the
Temple.

God bears long with people's iniquity, but he rewards
in full at the last.

The peasants driving slowly to market, unmolested
and unobstructed, neither dragged aside nor laid forcible
hold of, were singularly disappointed. They began to
think the Jews had left the place.

And the women actually forgot for very trouble that
it was market-day. They stood with hands folded, and
turned feverishly to every newcomer. What does she
say to it? Perhaps she can think of something to
advise.

No one answered; they could not speak; they had
nothing to say; they only felt that a great wrath had
been poured out on them, heavy as lead, that an evil
spirit had made its way into their life, and was keeping
them in a perpetual state of terror ; and that, were they
now to hold their peace, and not make an end, God
30

462 BLINKIN

Almighty only knows what might come of it! No one
felt certain that to-morrow or the day after the same
thunderbolt might not fall on another of them.

Somebody made a movement in the crowd, and there
was a sudden silence, as though all were preparing to
listen to a weak voice, hardly louder than stillness itself.
Their eyes widened, their faces were contracted with
annoyance and a consciousness of insult. Their
hearts beat faster, but without violence. Suddenly there
was a shock, a thrill, and they looked round with
startled gaze, to see whence it came, and what was
happening. And they saw a woman forcing her way
frantically through the crowd, her hands working, her
lips moving as in fever, her eyes flashing fire, and her
voice shaking as she cried : "Come on and see me settle
them ! First I shall thrash him, and then I shall go for
her! We must make a cinder-heap of them; it's all we
can do."

She was a tall, bony woman, with broad shoulders,
who had earned for herself the nickname Cossack, by
having, with her own hands, beaten off three peasants
who wanted to strangle her husband, he, they declared,
having sold them by false weight — it was the first time
he had ever tried to be of use to her.

"But don't shout so, Breindel!" begged a woman's
voice.

"What do you mean by 'don't shout' ! Am I going
to hold my tongue? Never you mind, I shall take no
water into my mouth. I'll teach them, the apostates,
to desecrate the whole town!"

"But don't shout so !" beg several more.

WOMEN 463

Breindel takes no notice. She clenches her right
fist, and, fighting the air with it, she vociferates louder
than ever:

"What has happened, women? What are you fright-
ened of? Look at them, if they are not all a little
afraid! That's what brings trouble. Don't let us be
frightened, and we shall spare ourselves in the future.
We shall not be in terror that to-morrow or the day
after (they had best not live to hear of it, sweet Father
in Heaven!) another of us should have this come upon
her!"

BreindePs last words made a great impression. The
women started as though someone had poured cold
water over them without warning. A few even began to
come forward in support of Breindel's proposal. Soreh
Leoh said: She advised going, but only to him, the
bridegroom, and telling him not to give people occasion
to laugh, and not to cause distress to her parents, and
to agree to the wedding's taking place to-day or to-mor-
row, before anything happened, and to keep quiet.

"I say, he shall not live to see it; he shall not be
counted worthy to have us come begging favors of him !"
cried an angry voice.

But hereupon rose that of a young woman from
somewhere in the crowd, and all the others began to
look round, and no one knew who it was speaking. At
first the young voice shook, then it grew firmer and
firmer, so that one could hear clearly and distinctly
what was said :

"You might as well spare yourselves the trouble of
talking about a thrashing; it's all nonsense; besides,

464 BLINKIN

why add to her parents' grief by going to them ? Isn't
it bad enough for them already? If we really want to
do something, the best would be to say nothing to any-
body, not to get excited, not to ask anybody's help, and
let us make a collection out of our own pockets. Never
mind! God will repay us twice what we give. Let
us choose out two of us, to take him the money quietly,
so that no one shall know, because once a whisper of it
gets abroad, it will be carried over seven seas in no
time; you know that walls have ears, and streets, eyes."

The women had been holding their breath and looking
with pleasurable pride at young Malkehle, married only
two months ago and already so clever! The great
thick wall of dread and shame against which they had
beaten their heads had retreated before Malkehle's soft
words; they felt eased; the world grew lighter again.
Every one felt envious in her heart of hearts of her to
whose apt and golden speech they had just listened.
Everyone regretted that such an excellent plan had not
occurred to herself. But they soon calmed down, for
after all it was a sister who had spoken, one of their
own Pidvorkes. They had never thought that Malkehle,
though she had been considered clever as a girl, would
take part in their debate; and they began to work out
a plan for getting together the necessary money, only so
quietly that not a cock should crow.

And now their perplexities began ! Not one of them
could give such a great sum, and even if they all clubbed
together, it would still be impossible. They could man-
age one hundred, two hundred, three hundred rubles,
but the dowry was six hundred, and now he says, that

WOMEN 465

unless they give one thousand, he will break off the
engagement. What, says he, there will be a summons
out against him ? Very likely ! He will just risk it. The
question went round: Who kept a store in a knotted
handkerchief, hidden from her husband? They each
had such a store, but were all the contents put together,
the half of the sum would not be attained, not by a long
way.

And again there arose a tempest, a great confusion of
women's tongues. Part of the crowd started with fiery
eloquence to criticise their husbands, the good-for-noth-
ings, the slouching lazybones; they proved that as their
husbands did nothing to earn money, but spent all their
time "learning," there was no need to be afraid of them ;
and if once in a way they wanted some for themselves,
nobody had the right to say them nay. Others said that
the husbands were, after all, the elder, one must and
should ask their advice ! They were wiser and knew best,
and why should they, the women (might the words not be
reckoned as a sin!), be wiser than the rest of the world
put together? And others again cried that there was no
need that they should divorce their husbands because a
girl was with child, and the bridegroom demanded the
dowry twice over.

The noise increased, till there was no distinguishing
one voice from another, till one could not make out
what her neighbor was saying: she only knew that
she also must shriek, scold, and speak her mind. And
who knows what would have come of it, if Breindel-
Cossack, with her powerful gab, had not begun to shout,
that she and Malkehle had a good idea, which would

466 BLINKIN

please everyone very much, and put an end to the
whole dispute.

All became suddenly dumb ; there was a tense silence,
as at the first of the two recitals of the Eighteen Bene-
dictions; the women only cast inquiring looks at Mal-
kehle and Breindel, who both felt their cheeks hot.
Breindel, who, ever since the wise Malkehle had spoken
such golden words, had not left her side, now stepped
forward, and her voice trembled with emotion and pleas-
ant excitement as she said : "Malkehle and I think like
this : that we ought to go to Chavvehle, she being so wise
and so well-educated, a doctor's wife, and tell her the
whole story from beginning to end, so that she may ad-
vise us, and if you are ashamed to speak to her your-
selves, you should leave it to us two, only on the condi-
tion that you go with us. Don't be frightened, she is
kind; she will listen to us."

A faint smile, glistening like diamond dust, shone on
all faces; their eyes brightened and their shoulders
straightened, as though just released from a heavy bur-
den. They all knew Chavvehle for a good and gracious
woman, who was certain to give them some advice; she
did many such kindnesses without being asked ; she had
started the school, and she taught their children for
nothing; she always accompanied her husband on his
visits to the sick-room, and often left a coin of her own
money behind to buy a fowl for the invalid. It was
even said that she had written about them in the news-
papers ! She was very fond of them. When she talked
with them, her manner was simple, as though they were
her equals, and she would ask them all about everything,

WOMEN 467

like any plain Jewish housewife. And yet they were
conscious of a great distance between them and Chaweh.
They would have liked Chaweh to hear nothing of them
but what was good, to stand justified in her eyes as (ten
times lehavdil) in those of a Christian. They could not
have told why, but the feeling was there.

They are proud of Chaweh; it is an honor for them
each and all (and who are they that they should venture
to pretend to it?) to possess such a Chaweh, who was
highly spoken of even by rich Gentiles. Hence this
embarrassed smile at the mention of her name; she
would certainly advise, but at the same time they
avoided each other's look. The wise Malkeh had the
same feeling, but she was able to cheer the rest. Never
mind ! It doesn't matter telling her. She is a Jewish
daughter, too, and will keep it to herself. These things
happen behind the "high windows" also. Whereupon
they all breathed more freely, and went up the hill to
Chaweh. They went in serried ranks, like soldiers,
shoulder to shoulder, relief and satisfaction reflected in
their faces. All who met them made way for them,
stood aside, and wondered what it meant. Some of
their own husbands even stood and looked at the march-
ing women, but not one dared to go up to them and ask
what was doing. Their object grew dearer to them at
every step. A settled resolve and a deep sense of good-
will to mankind urged them on. They all felt that they
were going in a good cause, and would thereby bar the
road to all such occurrences in the future.

The way to Chaweh was long. She lived quite out-
side the Pidvorkes, and they had to go through the whole

468 BLINKIN

market-place with the shops, which stood close to one
another, as though they held each other by the hand, and
then only through narrow lanes of old thatched peasant
huts, with shy little window-panes. But beside nearly
every hut stood a couple of acacia-trees, and the foam-
white blossoms among the young green leaves gave a
refreshing perfume to the neighborhood. Emerging
from the streets, they proceeded to\vards a pretty hill
planted with pink flowering quince-trees. A small,
clear stream flowed below it to the left, so deceptively
clear that it reflected the hillside in all its natural
tints. You had to go quite close in order to make sure
it was only a delusion, when the stream met your gaze
as seriously as though there were no question of it at all.

On the top of the hill stood Chavveh's house, adorned
like a bride, covered with creepers and quinces, and with
two large lamps under white glass shades, upheld in the
right hands of two statues carved in white marble.
The distance had not wearied them; they had walked
and conversed pleasantly by the way, each telling a
story somewhat similar to the one that had occasioned
their present undertaking.

"Do you know," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer,
"mine tried to play me a trick with the dowry, too ? It
was immediately before the ceremony, and he insisted
obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles were
given to him in addition to what had been promised to
him, he would not go under the marriage canopy !"

"Well, if it hadn't been Zorah, it would have been
Chayyim Treitel," observed some one, ironically.

WOMEN 469

They all laughed, but rather weakly, just for the
sake of laughing; not one of them really wished to part
from her husband, even in cases where he disliked her,
and they quarrelled. No indignity they suffered at their
husbands' hands could hurt them so deeply as a wish
on his part to live separately. After all they are man
and wife. They quarrel and make it up again.

And when they spied Chavvehle's house in the dis-
tance, they all cried out joyfully, with one accord :

"There is Chavvehle's house !" Once more they forgot
about themselves; they were filled with enthusiasm for
the common cause, and with a pain that will lie forever
at their heart should they not do all that sinful man
is able.

The wise Malkehle's heart beat faster than anyone's.
She had begun to consider how she should speak to
Chavvehle, and although apt, incisive phrases came into
her head, one after another, she felt that she would
never be able to come out with them in Chavvehle's
presence ; were it not for the other women's being there,
she would have felt at her ease.

All of a sudden a voice exclaimed joyfully, "There
we are at the house !" All lifted their heads, and their
eyes were gladdened by the sight of the tall flowers
arranged about a round table, in the shelter of a widely-
branching willow, on which there shone a silver samovar.
In and out of the still empty tea-glasses there stole
beams of the sinking sun, as it dropt lower and lower
behind the now dark-blue hill.

"What welcome guests !" Chaweh met them with a
sweet smile, and her eyes awoke answering love and
confidence in the women's hearts.

470 t BLINKIN

Not a glance, not a movement betrayed surprise on
Chavvehle's part, any more than if she had been expect-
ing them everyone.

They felt that she was behaving like any sage, and
were filled with a sense of guilt towards her.

Chavvehle excused herself to one or two other guests
who were present, and led the women into her summer-
parlor, for she had evidently understood that what they
had come to say was for her ears only.

They wanted to explain at once, but they couldn't,
and the two who of all found it hardest to speak
were the selected spokeswomen, Breindel-Cossack and
Malkehle the wise. Chavvehle herself tried to lead them
out of their embarrassment.

"You evidently have something important to tell me,"
she said, "for otherwise one does not get a sight of you."

And now it seemed more difficult than ever, it seemed
impossible ever to tell the angelic Chavvehle of the bad
action about which they had come. They all wished
silently that their children might turn out one-tenth
as good as she was, and their impulse was to take
Chavvehle into their arms, kiss her and hug her, and
cry a long, long time on her shoulder; and if she cried
with them, it would be so comforting.

Chavvehle was silent. Her great, wide-open blue eyes
grew more and more compassionate as she gazed at the
faces of her sisters; it seemed as though they were
reading for themselves the sorrowful secret the women
had come to impart.

And the more they were impressed with her tactful
behavior, and the more they felt the kindness of her gaze,

WOMEN 471

the more annoyed they grew with themselves, the more
tongue-tied they became. The silence was so intense
as to be almost seen and felt. The women held their
breath, and only exchanged roundabout glances, to find
out what was going on in each other's mind; and they
looked first of all at the two who had undertaken to
speak, while the latter, although they did not see this,
felt as if every one's gaze was fixed upon them, wonder-
ing why they were silent and holding all hearts by a
thread.

Chavvehle raised her head, and spoke sweetly :

"Well, dear sisters, tell me a little of what it is
about. Do you want my help in any matter ? I should
be so glad "

"Dear sisters" she called them, and lightning-like it
flashed through their hearts that Chavveh was, indeed,
their sister. How could they feel otherwise when they
had it from Chavveh herself? Was she not one of their
own people? Had she not the same God? True, her
speech was a little strange to them, and she was not
overpious, but how should God be angry with such a
Chavveh as this? If it must be, let him punish them
for her sin; they would willingly suffer in her place.

The sun had long set; the sky was grey, save for one
red streak, and the room had grown dark. Chavvehle
rose to light the candles, and the women started and
wiped their tearful eyes, so that Chavveh should not
remark them. Chavveh saw the difficulty they had in
opening their hearts to her, and she began to speak to
them of different things, offered them refreshment

472 BLItfKItf

according to their several tastes, and now Malkehle felt
a little more courageous, and managed to say :

"N"o, good, kind Chavvehle, we are not hungry. We
have come to consult with you on a very important
matter I"

And then Breindel tried hard to speak in a soft voice,
but it sounded gruff and rasping:

"First of all, Chaweh, we want you to speak to us
in Yiddish, not in Polish. We are all Jewish women,
thank God, together !"

€havvehle, who had nodded her head during the
whole of Breindel's speech, made another motion of
assent with her silken eyebrows, and replied :

"I will talk Yiddish to you with pleasure, if that is
what you prefer."

"The thing is this, Chavvehle," began Shifreh, the
wholesale dealer, "it is a shame and a sorrow to tell, but
when the thunderbolt has fallen, one must speak. You
know Eochel Esther Leoh's. She is engaged, and the
wedding was to have been in eight weeks — and now she,
the good-for-nothing, is with child — and he, the son of
perdition, says now that if he isn't given more than
five hundred rubles, he won't take her "

Chavvehle was deeply troubled by their words. She
saw how great was their distress, and found, to her
regret, that she had little to say by way of consolation.

"I feel with you," she said, "in your pain. But do
not be so dismayed. It is certainly very bad news, but
these things will happen, you are not the first "

She wanted to say more, but did not know how to
continue.

WOMEN 473

"But what are we to do?" asked several voices at
once. "That is what we came to you for, dearie, for you
to advise us. Are we to give him all the money he
asks, or shall they both know as much happiness as
we know what to do else? Or are we to hang a stone
round our necks and drown ourselves for shame ? Give
us some advice, dear, help us !"

Then Chavvehle understood that it was not so much
the women who were speaking and imploring, as their
stricken hearts, their deep shame and grief, and it was
with increased sympathy that she answered them:

"What can I say to help you, dear sisters? You
have certainly not deserved this blow; you have enough
to bear as it is — things ought to have turned out quite
differently; but now that the misfortune has happened,
one must be brave enough not to lose one's head, and
not to let such a thing happen again, so that it should
be the first and last time! But what exactly you
should do, I cannot tell you, because I don't know!
Only if you should want my help or any money, I will
give you either with the greatest pleasure."

They understood each other

The women parted with Chavveh in great gladness,
and turned towards home conscious of a definite pur-
pose. Now they all felt they knew just what to do, and
were sure it would prevent all further misfortune and
disgrace.

They could have sung out for joy, embraced the hill,
the stream, the peasant huts, and kissed and fondled
them all together. Mind you, they had even now no
definite plan of action, it was just Chavvehle's sympathy

474 BLINKIN

that had made all the difference — feeling that Chaweh
was with them! Wrapped in the evening mist, they
stepped vigorously and cheerily homewards.

Gradually the speed and the noise of their march
increased, the air throbbed, and at last a high, sharp
voice rose above the rest, whereupon they grew stiller,
and the women listened.

"I tell you what, we won't beat them. Only on
Sabbath we must all come together like one man, break
into the house-of-study just before they call up to the
Eeading of the Law, and not let them read till they
have sworn to agree to our sentence of excommuni-
cation !

"She is right !"

"Excommunicate him!"

"Tear him in pieces !"

"Let him be dressed in robe and prayer-scarf, and
swear by the eight black candles that he "

"Swear! Swear!"

The noise was dreadful. No one was allowed to
finish speaking. They were all aflame with one fire
of revenge, hate, and anger, and all alike athirst for
justice. Every new idea, every new suggestion was
hastily and hotly seized upon by all together, and there
was a grinding of teeth and a clenching of fists. Nature
herself seemed affected by the tumult, the clouds flew
faster, the stars changed their places, the wind whistled,
the trees swayed hither and thither, the frogs croaked,
there was a great boiling up of the whole concern.

"Women, women," cried one, "I propose that we go
to the court of the Shool, climb into the round mill-

WOMEN 475

stones, and all shout together, so that they may know
what we have decided."

"Eight ! Right ! To the Shool !" cried a chorus of
voices.

A common feeling of triumph running through them,
they took each other friendly-wise by the hand, and
made gaily for the court of the Shool. When they got
into the town, they fell on each other's necks, and kissed
each other with tears and joy. They knew their plan
was the best and most excellent that could be devised,
and would protect them all from further shame and
trouble.

The Pidvorkes shuddered to hear their tread.

All the remaining inhabitants, big and little, men
and women, gathered in the court of the Shool, and
stood with pale faces and beating hearts to see what
would happen.

The eyes of the young bachelors rolled uneasily, the
girls had their faces on one another's shoulders, and
sobbed.

Breindel, agile as a cat, climbed on to the highest
millstone, and proclaimed in a voice of thunder :

"Seeing that such and such a thing has happened, a
great scandal such as is not to be hid, and such as we do
not wish to hide, all we women have decided to excom-
municate "

Such a tumult arose that for a minute or two Breindel
could not be heard, but it was not long before every-
one knew who and what was meant.

"We also demand that neither he nor his nearest
friends shall be called to the Eeading of the Law;

476 BLINKIN

that people shall have nothing to do with them till
after the wedding!"

"Nothing to do with them! Nothing to do with
them !" shook the air.

"That people shall not lend to them nor borrow of
them, shall not come within their four ells !" continued
the voice from the millstone.

"And she shall be shut up till her time comes, so that
no one shall see her. Then we will take her to the
burial-ground, and the child shall be born in the burial-
ground. The wedding shall take place by day, and
without musicians. — "

"Without musicians !"

"Without musicians !"

"Without musicians !"

"Serve her right !"

"She deserves worse !"

A hundred voices were continually interrupting the
speaker, and more women were climbing onto the mill-
stones, and shouting the same things.

"On the wedding-day there will be great black candles
burning throughout the whole town, and when the
bride is seated at the top of the marriage-hall, with her
hair flowing loose about her, all the girls shall surround
her, and the Badchen shall tell her, 'This is the way we
treat one who has not held to her Jewishness, and has
blackened all our faces ' "

"Yes !"

"Yes!"

"So it is!"

"The apostates !"

WOMEN 477

The last words struck the hearers' hearts like poisoned
arrows. A deathly pallor, born of unrealized terror at
the suggested idea, overspread all their faces, their
feelings were in a tumult of shame and suffering. They
thirsted and longed after their former life, the time
before the calamity disturbed their peace. Weary and
wounded in spirit, with startled looks, throbbing pulses,
and dilated pupils, and with no more than a faint hope
that all might yet be well, they slowly broke the stillness,
and departed to their homes.

31

LOB SCHAPIEO

Born, about 1880, in the Government of Kieff, Little Rus-
sia; came to Chicago in 1906, and to New York for a short
time in 1907-1908; now (1912) in business in Switzerland;
contributor to Die Zukunft, New York; collected works,
Novellen, 1 vol., Warsaw, 1910.

IF IT WAS A DREAM

Yes, it was a terrible dream ! But when one is only
nine years old, one soon forgets, and Meyer was nine a
few weeks before it came to pass.

Yes, and things had happened in the house every now
and then to remind one of it, but then Meyer lived
more out of doors than indoors, in the wild streets of
New York. Tartilov and New York — what a differ-
ence ! New York had supplanted Tartilov, effaced it
from his memory. There remained only a faint occa-
sional recollection of that horrid dream.

If it really was a dream!

It was this way : Meyer dreamt that he was sitting in
Cheder learning, but more for show's sake than seriously,
because during the Days of Penitence, near the close of
the session, the Eebbe grew milder, and Cheder less
hateful. And as he sat there and learnt, he heard a
banging of doors in the street, and through the window
saw Jews running to and fro, as if bereft of their senses,
flinging themselves hither and thither exactly like leaves
in a gale, or as when a witch rises from the ground in
a column of dust, and whirls across the road so suddenly
and unexpectedly that it makes one's flesh creep. And
at the sight of this running up and down in the street,
the Rebbe collapsed in his chair white as death, his
under lip trembling.

Meyerl never saw him again. He was told later
that the Rebbe had been killed, but somehow the news

482 SCHAPIEO

gave him no pleasure, although the Eebbe used to beat
him; neither did it particularly grieve him. It prob-
ably made no great impression on his mind. After all,
what did it mean, exactly? Killed? and the question
slipped out of his head unanswered, together with the
Rebbe, who was gradually forgotten.

And then the real horror began. They were two days
hiding away in the bath-house — he and some other little
boys and a few older people — without food, without
drink, without Father and Mother. Meyer was not
allowed to get out and go home, and once, when he
screamed, they nearly suffocated him, after which he
sobbed and whimpered, unable to stop crying all at
once. Now and then he fell asleep, and when he woke
everything was just the same, and all through the terror
and the misery he seemed to hear only one word, Goyim,
which came to have a very definite and terrible meaning
for him. Otherwise everything was in a maze, and as
far as seeing goes, he really saw nothing at all.

Later, when they came out again, nobody troubled
about him, or came to see after him, and a stranger
took him home. And neither his father nor his mother
had a word to say to him, any more than if he had just
come home from Cheder as on any other day.

Everything in the house was broken, they had twisted
his father's arm and bruised his face. His mother lay
on the bed, her fair hair tossed about, and her eyes
half-closed, her face pale and stained, and something
about her whole appearance so rumpled and sluttish —
it reminded one of a tumbled bedquilt. His father
walked up and down the room in silence, looking at no

IF IT WAS A DREAM 483

one, his bound arm in a white sling, and when Meyerl,
conscious of some invisible calamity, burst out crying,
his father only gave him a gloomy, irritated look, and
continued to span the room as before.

In about three weeks' time they sailed for America.
The sea was very rough during the passage, and his
mother lay the whole time in her berth, and was very
sick. Meyerl was quite fit, and his father did nothing
but pace the deck, even when it poured with rain, till
they came and ordered him down-stairs.

Meyerl never knew exactly what happened, but once
a Gentile on board the ship passed a remark on his
father, made fun of him, or something^ — and his father
drew himself up, and gave the other a look — nothing
more than a look! And the Gentile got such a fright
that he began crossing himself, and he spit out, and his
lips moved rapidly. To tell the truth, Meyerl was
frightened himself by the contraction of his father's
mouth, the grind of his teeth, and by his eyes, which
nearly started from his head. Meyerl had never seen
him look like that before, but soon his father was once
more pacing the deck, his head down, his wet collar
turned up, his hands in his sleeves, and his back slightly
bent.

When they arrived in New York City, Meyerl began
to feel giddy, and it was not long before the whole of
Tartilov appeared to him like a dream.

It was in the beginning of winter, and soon the snow
fell, the fresh white snow, and it was something like !
Meyerl was now a "boy," he went to "school," made
snowballs, slid on the slides, built little fires in the

484 SCHAPIRO

middle of the street, and nobody interfered. He went
home to eat and sleep, and spent what you may call
his "life" in the street.

In their room were cold, piercing draughts, which
made it feel dreary and dismal. Meyer's father, a lean,
large-boned man, with a dark, brown face and black
beard, had always been silent, and it was but seldom
he said so much as "Are you there, Tzippe? Do you
hear me, Tzippe?" But now his silence was frighten-
ing ! The mother, on the other hand, used to be full of
life and spirits, skipping about the place, and it was
"Shloimeh!" here, and "Shloimeh!" there, and her
tongue wagging merrily! And suddenly there was an
end of it all. The father only walked back and forth
over the room, and she turned to look after him like a
child in disgrace, and looked and looked as though for-
ever wanting to say something, and never daring to say
it. There was something new in her look, something
dog-like ! Yes, on my word, something like what there
was in the eyes of Mishke the dog with which Meyerl
used to like playing "over there," in that little town in
dreamland. Sometimes Meyerl, waking suddenly in the
night, heard, or imagined he heard, his mother sobbing,
while his father lay in the other bed puffing at his cigar,
but so hard, it was frightening, because it made a little
fire every time in the dark, as though of itself, in the air,
just over the place where his father's black head must
be lying. Then Meyerl's eyes would shut of themselves,
his brain was confused, and his mother and the glowing
sparks and the whole room sank away from him, and
Meyerl dropped off to sleep.

IF IT WAS A DEEAM 485

Twice that winter his mother fell ill. The first time
it lasted two days, the second, four, and both times the
illness was dangerous. Her face glowed like an oven,
her lower lip bled beneath her sharp white teeth, and yet
wild, terrifying groans betrayed what she was suffering,
and she was often violently sick, just as when they were
on the sea.

At those times she looked at her husband with eyes
in which there was no prayer. Mishke once ran a thorn
deep into his paw, and he squealed and growled angrily,
and sucked his paw, as though he were trying to swallow
it, thorn and all, and the look in his eyes was the look
of Meyerl's mother in her pain.

In those days his father, too, behaved differently, for,
instead of walking to and fro across the room, he ran,
puffing incessantly at his cigar, his brow like a thunder-
cloud and occasional lightnings flashing from his eyes.
He never looked at his wife, and neither of them looked
at Meyerl, who then felt himself utterly wretched and
forsaken.

And — it is very odd, but — it was just on these
occasions that Meyerl felt himself drawn to his home.
In the street things were as usual, but at home it was
like being in Shool during the Solemn Days at the
blowing of the ram's horn, when so many tall "fathers"
stand with prayer-scarfs over their heads, and hold their
breath, and when out of the distance there comes, un-
folding over the heads of the people, the long, loud blast
of the Shofar.

And both times, when his mother recovered, the
shadow that lay on their home had darkened, his father

486 SCHAPIEO

was gloomier than ever, and his mother, when she
looked at him, had a still more crushed and dog-like
expression, as though she were lying outside in the dust
of the street.

The snowfalls became rarer, then they ceased alto-
gether, and there came into the air a feeling of some-
thing new — what exactly, it would have been hard for
Meyerl to say. Anyhow it was something good, very
good, for everyone in the street was glad of it, one could
see that by their faces, which were more lightsome and

gay-

On the Eve of Passover the sky of home cleared a
little too, street and house joined hands through the
windows, opened now for the first time since winter
set in, and this neighborly act of theirs cheered Meyerl's
heart.

His parents made preparations for Passover, and poor
little preparations they were: there was no Matzes-
baking with its merry to-do; a packet of cold, stale
Matzes was brought into the house; there was no pail
of beet-root soup in the corner, covered with a coarse
cloth of unbleached linen; no dusty china service was
fetched from the attic, where it had lain many years
between one Passover and another; his father brought
in a dinner service from the street, one he had bought
cheap, and of which the pieces did not match. But the
exhilaration of the festival made itself felt for all that,
and warmed their hearts. At home, in Tartilov, it had
happened once or twice that Meyerl had lain in his
little bed with open eyes, staring stock-still, with terror,
into the silent blackness of the night, and feeling as if

IF IT WAS A DREAM 487

he were the only living soul in the whole world, that is,
the whole house; and the sudden crow of a cock would
be enough on these occasions to send a warm current of
relief and security through his heart.

His father's face looked a little more cheerful. In the
daytime, while he dusted the cups, his eyes had some-
thing pensive in them, but his lips were set so that you
thought: There, now, now they are going to smile!
The mother danced the Matzeh pancakes up and down
in the kitchen, so that they chattered and gurgled in the
frying-pan. When a neighbor came in to borrow a cook-
ing pot, Meyerl happened to be standing beside his
mother. The neighbor got her pot, the women ex-
changed a few words about the coming holiday, and then
the neighbor said, "So we shall soon be having a rejoi-
cing at your house?" and with a wink and a smile she
pointed at his mother with her finger, whereupon Meyerl
remarked for the first time that her figure had grown
round and full. But he had no time just then to think
it over, for there came a sound of broken china from the
next room, his mother stood like one knocked on the
head, and his father appeared in the door, and said :

"Go !"

His voice sent a quiver through the window-panes,
as if a heavy wagon were just crossing the bridge
outside at a trot, the startled neighbor turned, and
whisked out of the house.

Meyerl's parents looked ill at ease in their holiday
garb, with the faces of mourners. The whole ceremony
of the Passover home service was spoilt by an atmos-
phere of the last meal on the Eve of the Fast of the

488 SCHAPIRO

Destruction of the Temple. And when Meyerl, with
the indifferent voice of one hired for the occasion, sang
out the "Why is this night different?" his heart shrank
together; there was the same hush round about him as
there is in Shool when an orphan recites the first
"Sanctification" for his dead parents.

His mother's lips moved, but gave forth no sound;
from time to time she wetted a finger with her tongue,
and turned over leaf after leaf in her service-book, and
from time to time a large, bright tear fell over her
beautiful but depressed face onto the book, or the white
table-cloth, or her dress. His father never looked at her.
Did he see she was crying? Meyerl wondered. Then,
how strangely he was reciting the Haggadah! He
would chant a portion in long-drawn-out fashion, and
suddenly his voice would break, sometimes with a gur-
gle, as though a hand had seized him by the throat and
closed it. Then he would look silently at his book, or
his eye would wander round the room with a vacant
stare. Then he would start intoning again, and again
his voice would break.

They ate next to nothing, said grace to themselves in
a whisper, after which the father said :

"Meyer, open the door!"

Not without fear, and the usual uncertainty as to the
appearance of the Prophet Elijah, whose goblet stood
filled for him on the table, Meyerl opened the door.

"Pour out Thy wrath upon the Gentiles, who do not
know Thee !"

A slight shudder ran down between Meyerl's shoul-
ders, for a strange, quite unfamiliar voice had sounded

IF IT WAS A DEEAM 489

through the room from one end to the other, shot up
against the ceiling, flung itself down again, and gone
flapping round the four walls, like a great, wild bird in
a cage. Meyerl hastily turned to look at his father, and
felt the hair bristle on his head with fright: straight
and stiff as a screwed-up fiddle-string, there stood beside
the table a wild figure, in a snow-white robe, with a
dark beard, a broad, bony face, and a weird, black flame
in the eyes. The teeth were ground together, and the
voice would go over into a plaintive roar, like that of a
hungry, bloodthirsty animal. His mother sprang up
from her seat, trembling in every limb, stared at him
for a few seconds, and then threw herself at his feet.
Catching hold of the edge of his robe with both hands,
she broke into lamentation:

"Shloimeh, Shloimeh, you'd better kill me!
Shloimeh ! kill me ! oi, oi, misfortune !"

Meyerl felt as though a large hand with long finger-
nails had introduced itself into his inside, and turned
it upside down with one fell twist. His mouth opened
widely and crookedly, and a scream of childish terror
burst from his throat. Tartilov had suddenly leapt
wildly into view, affrighted Jews flew up and down
the street like leaves in a storm, the white-faced Eebbe
sat in his chair, his under lip trembling, his mother
lay on her bed, looking all pulled about like a rumpled
counterpane. Meyerl saw all this as clearly and sharply
as though he had it before his eyes, he felt and knew
that it was not all over, that it was only just begin-
ning, that the calamity, the great calamity, the real
calamity, was still to come, and might at any moment

490 SCHAPIRO

descend upon their heads like a thunderbolt, only what
it was he did not know, or ask himself, and a second
time a scream of distraught and helpless terror escaped
his throat.

A few neighbors, Italians, who were standing in the
passage by the open door, looked on in alarm, and
whispered among themselves, and still the wild curses
filled the room, one minute loud and resonant, the next
with the spiteful gasping of a man struck to death.

"Mighty God! Pour out Thy wrath on the peoples
who 'have no God in their hearts ! Pour out Thy wrath
upon the lands where Thy Name is unknown ! 'He has
devoured, devoured my body, he has laid waste, laid
waste my house !' ';

"Thy wrath shall pursue them,
Pursue them — o'ertake them !
O'ertake them — destroy them,
From under Thy heavens !"

SHALOM ASCH

Born, 1881, in Kutno, Government of Warsaw, Russian
Poland; Jewish education and Hasidic surroundings; began
to write in 1900, earliest works being in Hebrew; Sippurim
was published in 1903, and A Stadtel in 1904; wrote his
first drama in 1905; distinguished for realism, love of na-
ture, and description of patriarchal Jewish life in the vil-
lages; playwright; dramas: Gott von Nekomoh, Meschiach's
Zeiten, etc.; collected works, Schriften, Warsaw, 1908-1912
(in course of publication).

A SIMPLE STOEY

Feigele, like all young girls, is fond of dressing and
decking herself out.

She has no time for these frivolities during the week,
there is work in plenty, no evil eye ! and sewing to do ;
rent is high, and times are bad. The father earns
but little, and there is a deal wanting towards her
three hundred rubles dowry, beside which her mother
trenches on it occasionally, on Sabbath, when the family
purse is empty.

"There are as many marriageable young men as dogs,
only every dog wants a fat bone," comes into her head.

She dislikes much thinking. She is a young girl
and a pretty one. Of course, one shouldn't be conceited,
but when she stands in front of the glass, she sees
her bright face and rosy cheeks and the fall of her
black hair. But she soon forgets it all, as though she
were afraid that to rejoice in it might bring her ill-
luck.

Sabbath it is quite another thing — there is time and to
spare, and on Sabbath Feigele's toilet knows no end.

The mother calls, "There, Feigele, that's enough!
You will do very well as you are." But what should
old-fashioned women like her know about it ? Anything
will do for them. Whether you've a hat and jacket on
or not, they're just as pleased.

But a young girl like Feigele knows the difference.
He is sitting out there on the bench, he, Eleazar, with
32

494 ASCH

a party of his mates, casting furtive glances, which he
thinks nobody sees, and nudging his neighbor, "Look,
fire and flame!" and she, Feigele, behaves as though
unaware of his presence, walks straight past, as
coolly and unconcernedly as you please, and as though
Eleazar might look and look his eyes out after her, take
his own life, hang himself, for all she cares.

But, 0 Feigele, the vexation and the heartache when
one fine day you walk past, and he doesn't look at you,
but at Malkeh, who has a new hat and jacket that
suit her about as well as a veil suits a dog — and yet
he looks at her, and you turn round again, and yet
again, pretending to look at something else (because it
isn't proper), but you just glance over your shoulder,
and he is still looking after Malkeh, his whole face
shining with delight, and he nudges his mate, as to
say, "Do you see?" 0 Feigele, you need a heart of
adamant, if it is not to burst in twain with mortifica-
tion!

However, no sooner has Malkeh disappeared down
a sidewalk, than he gets up from the bench, dragging
his mate along with him, and they follow, arm-in-arm,
follow Feigele like her shadow, to the end of the avenue,
where, catching her eye, he nods a "Good Sabbath!"
Feigele answers with a supercilious tip-tilt of her head,
as much as to say, "It is all the same to me, I'm sure;
I'll just go down this other avenue for a change," and,
lo and behold, if she happens to look around, there is
Eleazar, too, and he follows, follows like a wearisome
creditor.

A SIMPLE STOKY 495

And then, 0 Feigele, such a lovely, blissful feeling
comes over you. Don't look, take no notice of him,
walk ahead stiffly and firmly, with your head high, let
him follow and look at you. And he looks, and he
follows, he would follow you to the world's end, into
the howling desert. Ha, ha, how lovely it feels !

But once, on a Sabbath evening, walking in the
gardens with a girl friend, and he following, Feigele
turned aside down a dark path, and sat down on a
bench behind a bushy tree.

He came and sat down, too, at the other end of the
bench.

Evening: the many branching trees overshadow and
obscure, it grows dark, they are screened and hidden
from view.

A breeze blows, lightly and pleasantly, and cools the
air.

They feel it good to be there, their hearts beat in
the stillness.

Who will say the first word?

He coughs, ahem ! to show that he is there, but she
makes no sign, implying that she neither knows who
he is, nor what he wants, and has no wish to learn.

They are silent, they only hear their own beating
hearts and the wind in the leaves.

"I beg your pardon, do you know what time it is?"

"No, I don't," she replies stiffly, meaning, "I know
quite well what you are after, but don't be in such a
hurry, you won't get anything the sooner."

The girl beside her gives her a nudge. "Did you
hear that?" she giggles.

496 ASCH

Feigele feels a little annoyed with her. Does the
girl think she is the object? And she presently pre-
pares to rise, but remains, as though glued to the seat.

"A beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Yes, a beautiful evening."

And so the conversation gets into swing, with a ques-
tion from him and an answer from her, on different
subjects, first with fear and fluttering of the heart, then
they get closer one to another, and become more confi-
dential. When she goes home, he sees her to the door,
they shake hands and say, "Till we meet again !"

And they meet a second and a third time, for young
hearts attract each other like a magnet. At first, of
course, it is accidental, they meet by chance in the
company of two other people, a girl friend of hers and
a chum of his, and then, little by little, they come to
feel that they want to see each other alone, all to them-
selves, and they fix upon a quiet time and place.

And they met. ,

They walked away together, outside the town, between
the sky and the fields, walked and talked, and again,
conscious that the talk was an artificial one, were even
more gladly silent. Evening, and the last sunbeams
were gliding over the ears of corn on both sides of the
way. Then a breeze came along, and the ears swayed
and whispered together, as the two passed on between
them down the long road. Night was gathering, it grew
continually darker, more melancholy, more delightful.

"I have been wanting to know you for a long time,
Feigele."

"I know. You followed me like a shadow."

A SIMPLE STORY 497

They are silent.

"What are you thinking about, Feigele ?"

"What are you thinking about, Eleazar ?"

And they plunge once more into a deep converse
about all sorts of things, and there seems to be no reason
why it should ever end.

It grows darker and darker.

They have come to walk closer together.

Now he takes her hand, she gives a start, but his hand
steals further and further into hers.

Suddenly, as dropt from the sky, he bends his face,
and kisses her on the cheek.

A thrill goes through her, she takes her hand out of
his and appears rather cross, but he knows it is put on,
and very soon she is all right again, as if the incident
were forgotten.

An hour or two go by thus, and every day now they
steal away and meet outside the town.

And Eleazar began to frequent her parents' house,
the first time with an excuse — he had some work for
Feigele. And then, as people do, he came to know when
the work would be done, and Feigele behaved as though
she had never seen him before, as though not even
knowing who he was, and politely begged him to take
a seat.

So it came about by degrees that Eleazar was con-
tinually in and out of the house, coming and going
as he pleased and without stating any pretext whatever.

Feigele's parents knew him for a steady young man,
he was a skilled artisan earning a good wage, and they
knew quite well why a young man comes to the home

498 ASCH

of a young girl, but they feigned ignorance, thinking
to themselves, "Let the children get to know each other
better, there will be time enough to talk it over after-
wards."

Evening : a small room, shadows moving on the walls,
a new table on which burns a large, bright lamp, and
sitting beside it Feigele sewing and Eleazar reading
aloud a novel by Shomer.

Father and mother, tired out with a whole day's work,
sleep on their beds behind the curtain, which shuts
off half the room.

And so they sit, both of them, only sometimes Eleazar
laughs aloud, takes her by the hand, and exclaims with
a smile, "Feigele !"

"What do you want, silly?"

"Nothing at all, nothing at all."

And she sews on, thinking, "I have got you fast
enough, but don't imagine you are taking somebody
from the street, just as she is; there are still eighty
rubles wanting to make three hundred in the bank."

And she shows him her wedding outfit, the shifts and
the bedclothes, of which half lie waiting in the drawers.

They drew closer one to another, they became more
and more intimate, so that all looked upon them as
engaged, and expected the marriage contract to be drawn
up any day. Feigele's mother was jubilant at her daugh-
ter's good fortune, at the prospect of such a son-in-law,
such a golden son-in-law !

Reb Yainkel, her father, was an elderly man, a worn-
out peddler, bent sideways with the bag of junk con-
tinually on his shoulder.

A SIMPLE STORY 499

Now he, too, has a little bit of pleasure, a taste of
joy, for which God be praised !

Everyone rejoices, Feigele most of all, her cheeks
look rosier and fresher, her eyes darker and brighter.

She sits at her machine and sews, and the whole room
rings with her voice :

"Un was ich hob' gewollt, hob' ich ausgefiihrt,
Soil ich azoi leben!
Ich hob' gewollt a shenem Choson,
Hot' mir Gott gegeben."

In the evening comes Eleazar.

"Well, what are you doing?"

"What should I be doing? Wait, I'll show you some-
thing."

"What sort of thing?"

She rises from her place, goes to the chest that stands
in the stove corner, takes something out of it, and hides
it under her apron.

"Whatever have you got there ?" he laughs.

"Why are you in such a hurry to know?" she asks,
and sits down beside him, brings from under her apron
a picture in fine woolwork, Adam and Eve, and shows
it him, saying:

"There, now you see! It was worked by a girl I
know — for me, for us. I shall hang it up in our room,
opposite the bed."

"Yours or mine ?"

"You wait, Eleazar ! You will see the house I shall
arrange for you — a paradise, I tell you, just a little
paradise! Everything in it will have to shine, so that
it will be a pleasure to step inside."

500 ASCH

"And every evening when work is done, we two shall
sit together, side by side, just as we are doing now,"
and he puts an arm around her.

"And you will tell me everything, all about every-
thing," she says, laying a hand on his shoulder, while
with the other she takes hold of his chin, and looks
into his eyes.

They feel so happy, so light at heart.

Everything in the house has taken on an air of kindli-
ness, there is a soft, attractive gloss on every object in
the room, on the walls and the table, the familiar things
make signs to her, and speak to her as friend to friend.

The two are silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"Look," she says to him, and takes her bank-book out
of the chest, "two hundred and forty rubles already. I
shall make it up to three hundred, and then you won't
have to say, 'I took you just as you were/ *'

"Go along with you, you are very unjust, and I'm
cross with you, Feigele."

"Why? Because I tell you the truth to your face?"
she asks, looking into his face and laughing.

He turns his head away, pretending to be offended.

"You little silly, are you feeling hurt? I was only
joking, can't you see ?"

So it goes on, till the old mother's face peeps out from
behind the curtain, warning them that it is time to
go to rest, when the young couple bid each other good-
night.

Reb Yainkel, Feigele's father, fell ill.
It was in the beginning of winter, and there was
war between winter and summer: the former sent a

A SIMPLE STORY 501

snowfall, the latter a burst of sun. The snow turned
to mud, and between times it poured with rain by the
bucketful.

This sort of weather made the old man ill : he became
weak in the legs, and took to his bed.

There was no money for food, and still less for firing,
and Feigele had to lend for the time being.

The old man lay abed and coughed, his pale, shrivelled
face reddened, the teeth showed between the drawn lips,
and the blue veins stood out on his temples.

They sent for the doctor, who prescribed a remedy.

The mother wished to pawn their last pillow, but
Feigele protested, and gave up part of her wages, and
when this was not enough, she pawned her jacket — any-
thing sooner than touch the dowry.

And he, Eleazar, came every evening, and they sat
together beside the well-known table in the lamplight.

"Why are you so sad, Feigele ?"

"How can you expect me to be cheerful, with father
so ill?"

"God will help, Feigele, and he will get better."

"It's four weeks since I put a farthing into the
savings-bank."

"What do you want to save for?"

"What do I want to save for?" she asked with a
startled look, as though something had frightened her.
"Are you going to tell me that you will take me without
a dowry?"

"What do you mean by 'without a dowry' ? You are
worth all the money in the world to me, worth my whole
life. What do I want with your money? See here, my

503 ASCH

five fingers, they can earn all we need. I have two
hundred rubles in the bank, saved from my earnings.
What do I want with more?"

They are silent for a moment, with downcast eyes.
"And your mother?" she asks quietly.

"Will you please tell me, are you marrying my mother
or me? And what concern is she of yours?"

Feigele is silent.

"I tell you again, I'll take you just as you are — and
you'll take me the same, will you ?"

She puts the corner of her apron to her eyes, and
cries quietly to herself.

There is stillness around. The lamp sheds its bright-
ness over the little room, and casts their shadows onto
the walls.

The heavy sleeping of the old people is audible behind
the curtain.

And her head lies on his shoulder, and her thick
black hair hides his face.

"How kind you are, Eleazar," she whispers through
her tears.

And she opens her whole heart to him, tells him how
it is with them now, how bad things are, they have
pawned everything, and there is nothing left for to-
morrow, nothing but the dowry !

He clasps her lovingly, and dries her cheeks with her
apron end, saying: "Don't cry, Feigele, don't cry. It
will all come right. And to-morrow, mind, you are to
go to the postoffice, and take a little of the dowry, as
much as you need, until your father, God helping, is
well again, and able to earn something, and then . . . "

A SIMPLE STOKY 503

"And then ..." she echoes in a whisper.
"And then it will all come right," and his eyes flash
into hers. "Just as you are ..." he whispers.
And she looks at him, and a smile crosses her face.
She feels so happy, so happy.

Next morning she went to the postoffice for the first
time with her bank-book, took out a few rubles, and gave
them to her mother.

The mother sighed heavily, and took on a grieved
expression; she frowned, and pulled her head-kerchief
down over her eyes.

Old Reb Yainkel lying in bed turned his face to the
wall.

The old man knew where the money came from, he
knew how his only child had toiled for those few rubles.
Other fathers gave money to their children, and he took
it-
It seemed to him as though he were plundering the
two young people. He had not long to live, and he
was robbing them before he died.

As he thought on this, his eyes glazed, the veins on
his temple swelled, and his face became suffused with
blood.

His head is buried in the pillow, and turns to the
wall, he lies and thinks these thoughts.

He knows that he is in the way of the children's
happiness, and he prays that he may die.

And she, Feigele, would like to come into a fortune
all at once, to have a lot of money, to be as rich as any
great lady.

504 ASCH

And then suppose she had a thousand rubles now,
this minute, and he came in: "There, take the whole
of it, see if I love you! There, take it, and then you
needn't say you love me for nothing, just as I am."

They sit beside the father's bed, she and her Eleazar.

Her heart overflows with content, she feels happier
than she ever felt before, there are even tears of joy
on her cheeks.

She sits and cries, hiding her face with her apron.

He takes her caressingly by the hands, repeating in
his kind, sweet voice, "Feigele, stop crying, Feigele,
please !"

The father lies turned with his face to the wall, and
the beating of his heart is heard in the stillness.

They sit, and she feels confidence in Eleazar, she
feels that she can rely upon him.

She sits and drinks in his words, she feels him rolling
the heavy stones from off her heart.

The old father has turned round and looked at them,
and a sweet smile steals over his face, as though he
would say, "Have no fear, children, I agree with you,
I agree with all my heart."

And Feigele feels so happy, so happy . . .

The father is still lying ill, and Feigele takes out one
ruble after another, one five-ruble-piece after another.

The old man lies and prays and muses, and looks at
the children, and holds his peace.

His face gets paler and more wrinkled, he grows
weaker, he feels his strength ebbing away.

A SIMPLE STORY 505

Feigele goes on taking money out of the savings-bank,
the stamps in her book grow less and less, she knows
that soon there will be nothing left.

Old Reb Yainkel wishes in secret that he did not
require so much, that he might cease to hamper other
people !

He spits blood-drops, and his strength goes on dimin-
ishing, and so do the stamps in Feigele's book. The
day he died saw the last farthing of Feigele's dowry
disappear after the others.

Feigele has resumed her seat by the bright lamp,
and sews and sews till far into the night, and with every
seam that she sews, something is added to the credit of
her new account.

This time the dowry must be a larger one, because
for every stamp that is added to the account-book there
is a new grey hair on Feigele's black head.

A JEWISH CHILD

The mother came out of the bride's chamber, and
cast a piercing look at her husband, who was sitting
beside a finished meal, and was making pellets of bread
crumbs previous to saying grace.

"You go and talk to her ! I haven't a bit of strength
left!"

"So, Eochel-Leoh has brought up children, has she,
and can't manage them ! Why ! People will be pointing
at you and laughing — a ruin to your years !"

"To my years?! A ruin to yours! My children, are
they? Are they not yours, too? Couldn't you stay at
home sometimes to care for them and help me to bring
them up, instead of trapesing round — the black year
knows where and with whom ?"

"Rochel, Eochel, what has possessed you to start a
quarrel with me now? The bridegroom's family will
be arriving directly."

"And what do you expect me to do, Moishehle, eh ? !
For God's sake! Go in to her, we shall be made a
laughing-stock."

The man rose from the table, and went into the next
room to his daughter. The mother followed.

On the little sofa that stood by the window sat a
girl about eighteen, her face hidden in her hands, her
arms covered by her loose, thick, black hair. She was
evidently crying, for her bosom rose and fell like a
stormy sea. On the bed opposite lay the white silk
wedding-dress, the Chuppeh-Kleid, with the black,

A JEWISH CHILD 507

silk Shool-Kleid, and the black stuff morning-dress,
which the tailor who had undertaken the outfit had
brought not long ago. By the door stood a woman
with a black scarf round her head and holding boxes
with wigs.

"Channehle! You are never going to do me this
dishonor ? to make me the talk of the town ?" exclaimed
the father. The bride was silent.

"Look at me, daughter of Moisheh Groiss ! It's all
very well for Genendel Freindel's daughter to wear a
wig, but not for the daughter of Moisheh Groiss? Is
that it?"

"And yet Genendel Freindel might very well think
more of herself than you: she is more educated than
you are, and has a larger dowry," put in the mother.

The bride made no reply.

"Daughter, think how much blood and treasure it
has cost to help us to a bit of pleasure, and now you
want to spoil it for us? Remember, for God's sake,
what you are doing with yourself ! We shall be excom-
municated, the young man will run away home on foot"!"

"Don't be foolish," said the mother, took a wig out
of a box from the woman by the door, and approached
her daughter. "Let us try on the wig, the hair is just
the color of yours," and she laid the strange hair on
the girl's head.

The girl felt the weight, put up her fingers to her
head, met among her own soft, cool, living locks, the
strange, dead hair of the wig, stiff and cold, and it
flashed through her, Who knows where the head to which
this hair belonged is now? A shuddering enveloped

508 ASCH

her, and as though she had come in contact with some-
thing unclean, she snatched off the wig, threw in onto
the floor and hastily left the room.

Father and mother stood and looked at each other
in dismay.

The day after the marriage ceremony, the bride-
groom's mother rose early, and, bearing large scissors,
and the wig and a hood which she had brought from
her home as a present for the bride, she went to dress
the latter for the "breakfast."

But the groom's mother remained outside the room,
because the bride had locked herself in, and would open
her door to no one.

The groom's mother ran calling aloud for help to her
husband, who, together with a dozen uncles and brothers-
in-law, was still sleeping soundly after the evening's
festivity. She then sought out the bridegroom, an
eighteen-year-old boy with his mother's milk still on
his lips, who, in a silk caftan and a fur cap, was moving
about the room in bewildered fashion, his eyes on the
ground, ashamed to look anyone in the face. In the
end she fell back on the mother of the bride, and these
two went in to her together, having forced open the
door between them.

"Why did you lock yourself in, dear daughter. There
is no need to be ashamed."

"Marriage is a Jewish institution !" said the groom's
mother, and kissed her future daughter-in-law on both
cheeks.

The girl made no reply.

A JEWISH CHILD 509

"Your mother-in-law has brought you a wig and a
hood for the procession to the Shool/' said her own
mother.

The band had already struck up the "Good Morning"
in the next room.

"Come now, Kallehshi, Kalleh-leben, the guests are
beginning to assemble."

The groom's mother took hold of the plaits in order
to loosen them.

The bride bent her head away from her, and fell on
her own mother's neck.

"I can't, Mame-leben ! My heart won't let me, Mame-
kron !"

She held her hair with both hands, to protect it from
the other's scissors.

"For God's sake, my daughter, my life," begged the
mother.

"In the other world you will be plunged for this
into rivers of fire. The apostate who wears her own
hair after marriage will have her locks torn out with
red hot pincers," said the other with the scissors.

A cold shiver went through the girl at these words.

"Mother-life, mother-crown!" she pleaded.

Her hands sought her hair, and the black silky tresses
fell through them in waves. Her hair, the hair which
had grown with her growth, and lived with her life, was
to be cut off, and she was never, never to have it again —
she was to wear strange hair, hair that had grown on
another person's head, and no one knows whether that
other person was alive or lying in the earth this long
33

510 ASCH

time, and whether she might not come any night to
one's bedside, and whine in a dead voice :

"Give me back my hair, give me back my hair !"

A frost seized the girl to the marrow, she shivered
and shook.

Then she heard the squeak of scissors over her head,
tore herself out of her mother's arms, made one snatch
at the scissors, flung them across the room, and said in
a scarcely human voice:

"My own hair ! May God Himself punish me !"

That day the bridegroom's mother took herself off
home again, together with the sweet-cakes and the geese
which she had brought for the wedding breakfast for her
own guests. She wanted to take the bridegroom as well,
but the bride's mother said: "I will not give him back
to you ! He belongs to me already !"

The following Sabbath they led the bride in proces-
sion to the Shool wearing her own hair in the face of
all the town, covered only by a large hood.

But may all the names she was called by the way
find their only echo in some uninhabited wilderness.

A summer evening, a few weeks after the wedding:
The young man had just returned from the Stiibel,
and went to his room. The wife was already asleep,
and the soft light of the lamp fell on her pale face,
showing here and there among the wealth of silky-
black hair that bathed it. Her slender arms were flung
round her head, as though she feared that someone
might come by night to shear them off while she slept.
He had come home excited and irritable: this was the
fourth week of his married life, and they had not yet

A JEWISH CHILD 511

called him up to the Reading of the Law, the Chassidim
pursued him, and to-day Chayyim Moisheh had blamed
him in the presence of the whole congregation, and had
shamed him, because she, his wife, went about in her
own hair. "You're no better than a clay image," Reb
Chayyim Moisheh had told him. "What do you mean
by a woman's saying she won't ? It is written : 'And he
shall rule over thee.' "

And he had come home intending to go to her and
say : "Woman, it is a precept in the Torah ! If you
persist in wearing your own hair, I may divorce you
without returning the dowry," after which he would
pack up his things and go home. But when he saw
his little wife asleep in bed, and her pale face peeping
out of the glory of her hair, he felt a great pity for
her. He went up to the bed, and stood a long while
looking at her, after which he called softly:

"Channehle . . . Channehle . . . Channehle ..."

She opened her eyes with a frightened start, and
looked round in sleepy wonder:

"Nosson, did you call? What do you want?

"Nothing, your cap has slipped off," he said, lifting
up the white nightcap, which had fallen from her head.

She flung it on again, and wanted to turn towards
the wall.

"Channehle, Channehle, I want to talk to you."

The words went to her heart. The whole time since
their marriage he had, so to say, not spoken to her.
During the day she saw nothing of him, for he spent
it in the house-of-study or in the Stiibel. When he
came home to dinner, he sat down to the table in
silence. When he wanted anything, he asked for it

512 ASCH

speaking into the air, and when really obliged to
exchange a word with her, he did so with his eyes fixed
on the ground, too shy to look her in the face. And now
he said he wanted to talk to her, and in such a gentle
voice, and they two alone together in their room !

"What do you want to say to me ?" she asked softly.

"Channehle," he began, "please, don't make a fool
of me, and don't make a fool of yourself in people's eyes.
Has not God decreed that we should belong together?
You are my wife and I am your husband, and is it
proper, and what does it look like, a married woman
wearing her own hair ?"

Sleep still half dimmed her eyes, and had altogether
clouded her thought and will. She felt helpless, and
her head fell lightly towards his breast.

"Child," he went on still more gently, "I know you
are not so depraved as they say. I know you are a pious
Jewish daughter, and His blessed Name will help us,
and we shall have pious Jewish children. Put away
this nonsense ! Why should the whole world be talking
about you? Are we not man and wife? Is not your
shame mine?"

It seemed to her as though someone, at once very far
away and very near, had come and was talking to her.
Nobody had ever yet spoken to her so gently and con-
fidingly. And he was her husband, with whom she
would live so long, so long, and there would be children,
and she would look after the house !

She leant her head lightly against him.

"I know you are very sorry to lose your hair, the orna-
ment of your girlhood, I saw you with it when I was a

A JEWISH CHILD 513

guest in your home. I know that God gave you grace and
loveliness, I know. It cuts me to the heart that your
hair must be shorn off, but what is to be done? It is
a rule, a law of our religion, and after all we are Jews.
We might even, God forbid, have a child conceived to
ue in sin, may Heaven watch over and defend us."

She said nothing, but remained resting lightly in his
arm, and his face lay in the stream of her silky-black
hair with its cool odor. In that hair dwelt a soul, and he
was conscious of it. He looked at her long and earnestly,
and in his look was a prayer, a pleading with her for
her own happiness, for her happiness and his.

"Shall I?" ... he asked, more with his eyes than
with his lips.

She said nothing, she only bent her head over hisi
lap.

He went quickly to the drawer, and took out a pair
of scissors.

She laid her head in his lap, and gave her hair as a
ransom for their happiness, still half-asleep and dream-
ing. The scissors squeaked over her head, shearing off
one lock after the other, and Channehle lay and dreamt
through the night.

On waking next morning, she threw a look into the
glass which hung opposite the bed. A shock went
through her, she thought she had gone mad, and was in
the asylum ! On the table beside her lay her shorn hair,
dead!

She hid her face in her hands, and the little room was
filled with the sound of weeping !

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER

The market lies foursquare, surrounded on every side
by low, whitewashed little houses. From the chimney
of the one-storied house opposite the well and inhabited
by the baker, issues thick smoke, which spreads low over
the market-place. Beneath the smoke is a flying to
and fro of white pigeons, and a tall boy standing out-
side the baker's door is whistling to them.

Equally opposite the well are stalls, doors laid across
two chairs and covered with fruit and vegetables, and
around them women, with head-kerchiefs gathered
round their weary, sunburnt faces in the hottest weather,
stand and quarrel over each other's wares.

"It's certainly worth my while to stand quarrelling
with you! A tramp like you keeping a stall !"

Yente, a woman about forty, whose wide lips have
just uttered the above, wears a large, dirty apron, and
her broad, red face, with the composed glance of the eyes
under the kerchief, gives support to her words.

"Do you suppose you have got the Almighty by the
beard? He is mine as well as yours!" answers Taube,
pulling her kerchief lower about her ears, and angrily
stroking down her hair.

A new customer approached Yente's stall, and Taube,
standing by idle, passed the time in vituperations.

"What do I want with the money of a fine lady like
you? You'll die like the rest of us, and not a dog will
say Kaddish for you," she shrieked, and came to a
sudden stop, for Taube had intended to bring up the

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 515

subject of her own son Yitzchokel, when she remembered
that it is against good manners to praise one's own.

Yente, measuring out a quarter of pears to her cus-
tomer, made answer:

"Well, if you were a little superior to what you are,
your husband wouldn't have died, and your child
wouldn't have to be ashamed of you, as we all know he
is."

Whereon Taube flew into a rage, and shouted :

"Hussy ! The idea of my son being ashamed of me !
May you be a sacrifice for his littlest finger-nail, for
you're not worthy to mention his name !"

She was about to burst out weeping at the accusation
of having been the cause of her husband's death and of
causing her son to be ashamed of her, but she kept back
her tears with all her might in order not to give pleasure
to Yente.

The sun was dropping lower behind the other end of
the little town, Jews were hurrying across the market-
place to Evening Prayer in the house-of-study street,
and the Cheder-boys, just let out, began to gather round
the well.

Taube collected her few little baskets into her arms
(the door and the chairs she left in the market-place;
nobody would steal them), and with two or three parting
curses to the rude Yente, she quietly quitted the scene.

Walking home with her armful of baskets, she thought
of her son Yitzchokel.

Yente's stinging remarks pursued her. It was not
Yente's saying that she had caused her husband's death
that she minded, for everyone knew how hard she had

516 ASCH

worked during his illness, it was her saying that Yitz-
chokel was ashamed of her, that she felt in her "ribs."
It occurred to her that when he came home for the night,
he never would touch anything in her house.

And thinking this over, she started once more abusing
Yente.

"Let her not live to see such a thing, Lord of the
World, the One Father !"

It seemed to her that this fancy of hers, that Yitz-
chokel was ashamed of her, was all Yente's fault, it was
all her doing, the witch!

"My child, my Yitzchokel, what business is he of
yours ?" and the cry escaped her :

"Lord of the World, take up my quarrel, Thou art
a Father to the orphaned, Thou shouldst not forgive her
this!"

"Who is that? Whom are you scolding so, Taube?"
called out Necheh, the rich man's wife, standing in the
door of her shop, and overhearing Taube, as she scolded
to herself on the walk home.

"Who should it be, housemistress, who but the hussy,
the abortion, the witch," answered Taube, pointing with
one finger towards the market-place, and, without so
much as lifting her head to look at the person speaking
to her, she went on her way.

She remembered, as she walked, how, that morn-
ing, when she went into Necheh's kitchen with a fowl,
she heard her Yitzchokel's voice in the other room dis-
puting with Necheh's boys over the Talmud. She knew
that on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his "day" at Necheh's
table, and she had taken the fowl there that day

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 517

on purpose, so that her Yitzchokel should have a good
plate of soup, for her poor child was but weakly.

When she heard her son's voice, she had been about
to leave the kitchen, and yet she had stayed. Her Yitz-
chokel disputing with Necheh's children? What did
they know as compared with him ? Did they come up to
his level? "He will be ashamed of me," she thought
with a start, "when he finds me with a chicken in my
hand. So his mother is a market-woman, they will say,
there's a fine partner for you !" But she had not left
the kitchen. A child who had never cost a farthing,
and she should like to know how much Necheh's chil-
dren cost their parents ! If she had all the money that
Yitzchokel ought to have cost, the money that ought
to have been spent on him, she would be a rich woman
too, and she stood and listened to his voice.

"Oi, he should have lived to see Yitzchokel, it would
have made him well." Soon the door opened, Necheh's
boys appeared, and her Yitzchokel with them. His
cheeks flamed.

"Good morning!" he said feebly, and was out at the
door in no time. She knew that she had caused him
vexation, that he was ashamed of her before his com-
panions.

And she asked herself : Her child, her Yitzchokel, who
had sucked her milk, what had Necheh to do with him ?
And she had poured out her bitterness of heart upon
Yente's head for this also, that her son had cost her
parents nothing, and was yet a better scholar than
Necheh's children, and once more she exclaimed :

"Lord of the World ! Avenge my quarrel, pay her out
for it, let her not live to see another day !"

518 ASCH

Passers-by, seeing a woman walking and scolding
aloud, laughed.

.flight came on, the little town was darkened.

Taube reached home with her armful of baskets,
dragged herself up the steps, and opened the door.

"Maine, it's Ma-a-me !" came voices from within.

The house was full of smoke, the children clustered
round her in the middle of the room, and never ceased
calling out Mame ! One child's voice was tearful :
"Where have you been all day ?" another's more cheerful :
"How nice it is to have you back!" and all the voices
mingled together into one.

"Be quiet! You don't give me time to draw my
breath !" cried the mother, laying down the baskets.

She went to the fireplace, looked about for something,
and presently the house was illumined by a smoky lamp.

The feeble shimmer lighted only the part round the
hearth, where Taube was kindling two pieces of stick —
an old dusty sewing-machine beside a bed, sign of a
departed tailor, and a single bed opposite the lamp,
strewn with straw, on which lay various fruits, the odor
of which filled the room. The rest of the apartment
with the remaining beds lay in shadow.

It is a year and a half since her husband, Lezer the
tailor, died. While he was still alive, but when his
cough had increased, and he could no longer provide
for his family, Taube had started earning something on
her own account, and the worse the cough, the harder
she had to toil, so that by the time she became a widow,
she was already used to supporting her whole family.

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 519

The eldest boy, Yitzchokel, had been the one conso-
lation of Lezer the tailor's cheerless existence, and Lezer
was comforted on his death-bed to think he should
leave a good Kaddish behind him.

When he died, the householders had pity on the deso-
late widow, collected a few rubles, so that she might
buy something to traffic with, and, seeing that Yitzchokel
was a promising boy, they placed him in the house-of-
etudy, arranged for him to have his daily meals in the
houses of the rich, and bade him pass his time over
the Talmud.

Taube, when she saw her Yitzchokel taking his meals
with the rich, felt satisfied. A weakly boy, what could
she give him to eat ? There, at the rich man's table, he
had the best of everything, but it grieved her that he
should eat in strange, rich houses — she herself did not
know whether she had received a kindness or the reverse,
when he was taken off her hands.

One day, sitting at her stall, she spied her Yitzchokel
emerge from the Shool-Gass with his Tefillin-bag under
his arm, and go straight into the house of Reb Zindel
the rich, to breakfast, and a pang went through her
heart. She was still on terms, then, with Yente, because
immediately after the death of her husband everyone
had been kind to her, and she said :

"Believe me, Yente, I don't know myself what it is.
"What right have I to complain of the householders?
They have been very good to me and to my child, made
provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he
were no market-woman's son, but the child of gentle-
folk, and yet every day when I give the other children

520 ASCH

their dinner, I forget, and lay a plate for my Yitzchokel
too, and when I remember that he has his meals at
other people's hands, I begin to cry."

"Go along with you for a foolish woman!" answered
Yente. "How would he turn out if he were left to
you ? What is a poor person to give a child to eat, when
you come to think of it?"

"You are right, Yente," Taube replied, "but when I
portion out the dinner for the others, it cuts me to the
heart,"

And now, as she sat by the hearth cooking the chil-
dren's supper, the same feeling came over her, that they
had stolen her Yitzchokel away.

When the children had eaten and gone to bed, she
stood the lamp on the table, and began mending a shirt
for Yitzchokel.

Presently the door opened, and he, Yitzchokel, came
in.

Yitzchokel was about fourteen, tall and thin, his pale
face telling out sharply against his black cloak beneath
his black cap.

"Good evening !" he said in a low tone.

The mother gave up her place to him, feeling that she
owed him respect, without knowing exactly why, and it
was borne in upon her that she and her poverty together
were a misfortune for Yitzchokel.

He took a book out of the case, sat down, and opened
it.

The mother gave the lamp a screw, wiped the globe
with her apron, and pushed the lamp nearer to him.

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 521

"Will you have a glass of tea, Yitzchokel ?" she asked
softly, wishful to serve him.

"No, I have just had some."

"Or an apple?"

He was silent.

The mother cleaned a plate, laid two apples on it,
and a knife, and placed it on the table beside him.

He peeled one of the apples as elegantly as a grown-up
man, repeated the blessing aloud, and ate.

When Taube had seen Yitzchokel eat an apple, she
felt more like his mother, and drew a little nearer to
him.

And Yitzchokel, as he slowly peeled the second apple,
began to talk more amiably:

"To-day I talked with the Dayan about going some-
where else. In the house-of-study here, there is nothing
to do, nobody to study with, nobody to ask how and
where, and in which book, and he advises me to go to
the Academy at Makove; he will give me a letter to
Eeb Chayyim, the headmaster, and ask him to befriend
me."

When Taube heard that her son was about to leave
her, she experienced a great shock, but the words, Dayan,
Eosh-Yeshiveh, mekarev-sein, and other high-sounding
bits of Hebrew, which she did not understand, overawed
her, and she felt she must control herself. Besides, the
words held some comfort for her : Yitzchokel was hold-
ing counsel with her, with her — his mother !

"Of course, if the Dayan says so," she answered piously.

"Yes," Yitzchokel continued, "there one can hear
lectures with all the commentaries; Eeb Chayyim, the

523 ASCH

author of the book "Light of the Torah," is a well-
known scholar, and there one has a chance of getting to
be something decent."

His words entirely reassured her, she felt a certain
happiness and exaltation, because he was her child,
because she was the mother of such a child, such a son,
and because, were it not for her, Yitzchokel would not
be there at all. At the same time her heart pained her.
and she grew sad.

Presently she remembered her husband, and burst
out crying:

"If only he had lived, if only he could have had this
consolation !" she sobbed.

Yitzchokel minded his book.

That night Taube could not sleep, for at the thought
of Yitzchokel's departure the heart ached within her.

And she dreamt, as she lay in bed, that some great
Rabbis with tall fur caps and long earlocks came in and
took her Yitzchokel away from her; her Yitzchokel was
wearing a fur cap and locks like theirs, and he held a
large book, and he went far away with the Rabbis, and
she stood and gazed after him, not knowing, should
she rejoice or weep.

Next morning she woke late. Yitzchokel had already
gone to his studies. She hastened to dress the children,
and hurried to the market-place. At her stall she fell
athinking, and fancied she was sitting beside her son,
who was a Rabbi in a large town; there he sits in shoes
and socks, a great fur cap on his head, and looks into
a huge book. She sits at his right hand knitting a

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 523

sock, the door opens, and there appears Yente carrying
a dish, to ask a ritual question of Taube's son.

A customer disturbed her sweet dream.

After this Taube sat up whole nights at the table, by
the light of the smoky lamp, rearranging and mending
Yitzchokel's shirts for the journey; she recalled with
every stitch that she was sewing for Yitzchokel, who was
going to the Academy, to sit and study, and who, every
Friday, would put on a shirt prepared for him by his
mother.

Yitzchokel sat as always on the other side of the table,
gazing into a book. The mother would have liked to
speak to 'him, but she did not know what to say.

Taube and Yitzchokel were up before daylight.

Yitzchokel kissed his little brothers in their sleep, and
said to his sleeping little sisters, "Remain in health" ; one
sister woke and began to cry, saying she wanted to go
with him. The mother embraced and quieted her
softly, then she and Yitzchokel left the room, carrying
his box between them.

The street was still fast asleep, the shops were still
closed, behind the church belfry the morning star shone
coldly forth onto the cold morning dew on the roofs,
and there was silence over all, except in the market-
place, where there stood a peasant's cart laden with
fruit. It was surrounded by women, and Yente's voice
was heard from afar:

"Five gulden and ten groschen, and I'll take the lot !"

And Taube, carrying Yitzchokel's box behind him,
walked thus through the market-place, and, catching
sight of Yente, she looked at her with pride.

524 ASCH

They came out behind the town, onto the highroad,
and waited for an "opportunity" to come by on its way
to Lentschitz, whence Yitzchokel was to proceed to
Kutno.

The sky was grey and cold, and mingled in the
distance with the dingy mist rising from the fields, and
the road, silent and deserted, ran away out of sight.

They sat down beside the barrier, and waited for the
"opportunity."

The mother scraped together a few twenty-kopek-
pieces out of her pocket, and put them into his bosom,
twisted up in his shirt.

Presently a cart came by, crowded with passengers.
She secured a seat for Yitzchokel for forty groschen, and
hoisted the box into the cart.

"Go in health! Don't forget your mother!" she
cried in tears.

Yitzchokel was silent.

She wanted to kiss her child, but she knew it was
not the thing for a grown-up boy to be kissed, so she
refrained.

Yitzchokel mounted the cart, the passengers made
room for him among them.

"Remain in health, mother!" he called out as the
cart set off.

"Go in health, my child! Sit and study, and don't
forget your mother !" she cried after him.

The cart moved further and further, till it was climb-
ing the hill in the distance.

Taube still stood and followed it with her gaze; and
not till it was lost to view in the dust did she turn and
walk back to the town.

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 525

She took a road that should lead her past the
cemetery.

There was a rather low plank fence round it, and the
gravestones were all to be seen, looking up to Heaven.

Taube went and hitched herself up onto the fence, and
put her head over into the "field," looking for something
among the tombs, and when her eyes had discovered a
familiar little tombstone, she shook her 'head :

"Lezer, Lezer! Your son has driven away to the
Academy to study Torah !"

Then she remembered the market, where Yente must
by now have bought up the whole cart-load of fruit.
There would be nothing left for her, and she hurried
into the town.

She walked at a great pace, and felt very pleased with
herself. She was conscious of having done a great thing,
and this dissipated her annoyance at the thought of
Yente acquiring all the fruit.

Two weeks later she got a letter from Yitzchokel, and,
not being able to read it herself, she took it to Reb
Yochanan, the teacher, that he might read it for her.

Reb Yochanan put on his glasses, cleared 'his throat
thoroughly, and began to read :

"Le-Immi ahuvossi hatzenuoh" . . .

"What is the translation ?" asked Taube.

"It is the way to address a mother," explained Reb
Yochanan, and continued.

Taube's face had brightened, she put her apron to her
eyes and wept for joy.

The reader observed this and read on.
34

526 ASCH

"What is the translation, the translation, Eeb Yocha-
nan?" the woman kept on asking.

"Never mind, it's not for you, you wouldn't under-
stand— it is an exposition of a passage in the Gemoreh."

She was silent, the Hebrew words awed her, and she
listened respectfully to the end.

"I salute Immi ahuvossi and Achoissai, Sarah and
Goldeh, and Ochi Yakov; tell him to study diligently.
I have all my 'days' and I sleep at Eeb Chayyim's,"
gave out Eeb Yochanan suddenly in Yiddish.

Taube contented herself with these few words, took
back the letter, put it in her pocket, and went back to
her stall with great joy.

"This evening," she thought, "I will show it to the
Dayan, and let him read it too."

And no sooner had she got home, cooked the dinner,
and fed the children, than she was off with the letter
to the Dayan.

She entered the room, saw the tall bookcases filled
with books covering the walls, and a man with a white
beard sitting at the end of the table reading.

"What is it, a ritual question ?" asked the Dayan from
his place.

"No."

"What then?"

"A letter from my Yitzchokel."

The Dayan rose, came up and looked at her, took the
letter, and began to read it silently to himself.

"Well done, excellent, good ! The little fellow knows
what he is saying," said the Dayan more to himself than
to her.

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 527

Tears streamed from Taube's eyes.

"If only he had lived ! if only he Bad lived !"

"Shechitas chutz . . . Rambam . . . Tossafos is right
..." went on the Dayan.

"Her Yitzchokel, Taube the market-woman's son,"
she thought proudly.

"Take the letter," said the Dayan, at last, "I've read
it all through."

"Well, and what?" asked the woman.

"What? What do you want then?"

"What does it say?" she asked in a low voice.

"There is nothing in it for you, you wouldn't under-
stand," replied the Dayan, with a smile.

Yitzchokel continued to write home, the Yiddish
words were fewer every time, often only a greeting to
his mother. And she came to Reb Yochanan, and he
read her the Yiddish phrases, with which she had to
be satisfied. "The Hebrew words are for the Dayan,"
she said to herself.

But one day, "There is nothing in the letter for you,"
said Reb Yochanan.

"What do you mean ?"

"Nothing," he said shortly.

"Read me at least what there is."

"But it is all Hebrew, Torah, you won't understand."

"Very well, then, I won't understand ..."

"Go in health, and don't drive me distracted."

Taube left him, and resolved to go that evening to
the Dayan.

"Rebbe, excuse me, translate this into Yiddish," she
said, handing him the letter.

The Dayan took the letter and read it.

528 ASCH

"Nothing there for you/' he said.

"Kebbe," said Taube, shyly, "excuse me, translate the
Hebrew for me !"

"But it is Torah, an exposition of a passage in the
Torah. You won't understand."

"Well, if you would only read the letter in Hebrew,
but aloud, so that I may hear what he says."

"But you won't understand one word, it's Hebrew !"
persisted the Dayan, with a smile.

"Well, I won't understand, that's all," said the
woman, "but it's my child's Torah, my child's!"

The Dayan reflected a while, then he began to read
aloud.

Presently, however, he glanced at Taube, and remem-
bered he was expounding the Torah to a woman ! And
he felt thankful no one had heard him.'

"Take the letter, there is nothing in it for you," he
said compassionately, and sat down again in his place.

"But it is my child's Torah, my YitzchokePs letter,
why mayn't I hear it? What does it matter if I don't
understand ? It is my own child !"

The Dayan turned coldly away.

When Taube reached home after this interview, she
sat down at the table, took down the lamp from the
wall, and looked silently at the letter by its smoky
light.

She kissed the letter, but then it occurred to her that
she was defiling it with her lips, she, a sinful woman!

She rose, took her husband's prayer-book from the
bookshelf, and laid the letter between its leaves.

Then with trembling lips she kissed the covers of the
book, and placed it once more in the bookcase.

THE SINNEE

So that you should not suspect me of taking his part,
I will write a short preface to my story.

It is written: "A man never so much as moves his
finger, but it has been so decreed from above," and what-
soever a man does, he fulfils God's will — even animals
and birds (I beg to distinguish!) carry out God's
wishes: whenever a bird flies, it fulfils a precept,
because God, blessed is He, formed it to fly, and an ox
the same when it lows, and even a dog when it barks — •
all praise God with their voices, and sing hymns to
Him, each after his manner.

And even the wicked who transgresses fulfils God's
will in spite of himself, because why? Do you suppose
he takes pleasure in transgressing? Isn't he certain
to repent? Well, then? He is just carrying out the
will of Heaven.

And the Evil Inclination himself ! Why, every time
he is sent to persuade a Jew to sin, he weeps and sighs :
Woe is me, that I should be sent on such an errand !

After this little preface, I will tell you the story
itself.

Formerly, before the thing happened, he was called
Reb Avrohom, but afterwards they ceased calling him
by his name, and said simply the Sinner.

Reb Avrohom was looked up to and respected by the
whole town, a God-fearing Jew, beloved and honored
by all, and mothers wished they might have children
like him.

530 ASCH

He sat the whole day in the house-of-study and
learned. Not that he was a great scholar, but he was
a pious, scrupulously observant Jew, who followed the
straight and beaten road, a man without any pride.
He used to recite the prayers in Shool together with the
strangers by the door, and quite quietly, without any
shouting or, one may say, any special enthusiasm. His
prayer that rose to Heaven, the barred gates opening
before it till it entered and was taken up into the
Throne of Glory, this prayer of his did not become a
diamond there, dazzling the eye, but a softly glistening
pearl.

And how, you ask, did he come to be called the
Sinner? On this wise: You must know that everyone,
even those who were hardest on him after the affair,
acknowledged that he was a great lover of Israel, and
I will add that his sin and, Heaven defend us, his
coming to such a fall, all proceeded from his being such
a lover of Israel, such a patriot.

And it was just the simple Jew, the very common folk,
that he loved.

He used to say : A Jew who is a driver, for instance,
and busy all the week with his horses and cart, and
soaked in materialism for six days at a stretch, so that
he only just manages to get in his prayers — when he
comes home on Sabbath and sits down to table, and the
bed is made, and the candles burning, and his wife and
children are round him, and they sing hymns together,
well, the driver dozing off over his prayer-book and for-
getting to say grace, I tell you, said Reb Avrohom, the
Divine Presence rests on his 'house and rejoices and

THE SINNER 531

says, "Happy am I that I chose me out this people,"
for such a Jew keeps Sabbath, rests himself, and his
horse rests, keeps Sabbath likewise, stands in the stable,
and is also conscious that it is the 'holy Sabbath, and
when the driver rises from his sleep, he leads the animal
out to pasture, waters it, and they all go for a walk
with it in the meadow.

And this walk of theirs is more acceptable to God,
blessed is He, than repeating "Bless the Lord, 0 my
soul." It may be this was because he himself was of
humble origin ; he had lived till he was thirteen with his
father, a farmer, in an out-of-the-way village, and igno-
rant even of his letters. True, his father had taken a
youth into the house to teach him Hebrew, but Reb
Avrohom as a boy was very wild, wouldn't mind his
book, and ran all day after the oxen and horses.

He used to lie out in the meadow, hidden in the long
grasses, near him the horses with their heads down pull-
ing at the grass, and the view stretched far, far away,
into the endless distance, and above him spread the
wide sky, through which the clouds made their way, and
the green, juicy earth seemed to look up at it and say :
"Look, sky, and see how cheerfully I try to obey God's
behest, to make the world green with grass !" And the
sky made answer : "See, earth, how I try to fulfil God's
command, by spreading myself far and wide !" and the
few trees scattered over the fields were like witnesses
to their friendly agreement. And little Avrohom lay
and rejoiced in the goodness and all the work of God.
Suddenly, as though he had received a revelation from
Heaven, he went home, and asked the youth who was

532 ASCH

his teacher, "What blessing should one recite on feeling
happy at sight of the world ?" The youth laughed, and
said : "You stupid boy ! One says a blessing over bread
and water, but as to saying one over this world — who
ever heard of such a thing?"

Avrohom wondered, "The world is beautiful, the sky
so pretty, the earth so sweet and soft, everything is so
delightful to look at, and one says no blessing over it
all!"

At thirteen he had left the village and come to the
town. There, in the house-of-study, he saw the head
of the Academy sitting at one end of the table, and
around it, the scholars, all reciting in fervent, appealing
tones that went to his heart.

The boy began to cry, whereupon the head of the
Academy turned, and saw a little boy with a torn hat,
crying, and his hair coming out through the holes, and
his boots slung over his shoulder, like a peasant lad
fresh from the road. The scholars laughed, but the
Eosh ha-Yeshiveh asked him what he wanted.

"To learn," he answered in a low, pleading voice.

The Rosh ha-Yeshiveh had compassion on him, and
took him as a pupil. Avrohom applied himself earnestly
to the Torah, and in a few days could read Hebrew and
follow the prayers without help.

And the way he prayed was a treat to watch. You
should have seen him! He just stood and talked, as
one person talks to another, quietly and affectionately,
without any tricks of manner.

Once the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh saw him praying, and
said before his whole Academy, "I can learn better than

THE SINNEE 533

he, but when it comes to praying, I don't reach to his
ankles." That is what he said.

So Eeb Avrohom lived there till he was grown up,
and had married the daughter of a simple tailor. Indeed,
he learnt tailoring himself, and lived by his ten fingers.
By day he sat and sewed with an open prayer-book
before him, and recited portions of the Psalms to him-
self. After dark he went into the house-of-study, so
quietly that no one noticed him, and passed half the
night over the Talmud.

Once some strangers came to the town, and spent
the night in the house-of-study behind the stove. Sud-
denly they heard a thin, sweet voice that was like a
tune in itself. They started up, and saw him at his
book. The small lamp hanging by a cord poured a dim
light upon him where he sat, while the walls remained
in shadow. He studied with ardor, with enthusiasm,
only his enthusiasm was not for beholders, it was all
within; he swayed slowly to and fro, and his shadow
swayed with him, and he softly chanted the Gemoreh.
By degrees his voice rose, his face kindled, and his eyes
began to glow, one could see that his very soul was
resolving itself into his chanting. The Divine Presence
hovered over him, and he drank in its sweetness. And
in the middle of his reading, he got up and walked about
the room, repeating in a trembling whisper, "Lord of
the World ! 0 Lord of the World !"

Then his voice grew as suddenly calm, and he stood
still, as though he had dozed off where he stood, for
pure delight. The lamp grew dim, and still he stood
and stood and never moved.

534 ASCH

Awe fell on the travellers behind the stove, and they
cried out. He started and approached them, and they
had to close their eyes against the brightness of his
face, the light that shone out of his eyes ! And he stood
there quite quietly and simply, and asked in a
gentle voice why they had called out. Were they cold?

And 'he took off his cloak and spread it over them.

Next morning the travellers told all this, and declared
that no sooner had the cloak touched them than they
had fallen asleep, and they had seen and heard nothing
more that night. After this, when the whole town had
got wind of it, and they found out who it was that night
in the house-of-study, the people began to believe that
he was a Tzaddik, and they came to him with Petitions,
as Chassidim to their Rebbes, asking 'him to pray for
their health and other wants. But when they brought
him such a petition, he would smile and say: "Believe
me, a little boy who says grace over a piece of bread
which his mother has given him, he can help you more
than twenty such as I."

Of course, his words made no impression, except that
they brought more petitions than ever, upon which he
said:

"You insist on a man of flesh and blood such as I be-
ing your advocate with God, blessed is He. Hear a par-
able : To what shall we liken the thing ? To the light of
the sun and the light of a small lamp. You can rejoice
in the sunlight as much as you please, and no one can
take your joy from you; the poorest and most humble
may revive himself with it, so long as his eyes can behold
it, and even though a man should sit, which God forbid,

THE SINNER 535

in a dungeon with closed windows, a reflection will
make its way in through the chinks, and he shall rejoice
in the brightness. But with the poor light of a lamp
it is otherwise. A rich man buys a quantity of lamps
and illumines his house, while a poor man sits in dark-
ness. God, blessed be He, is the great light that shines
for the whole world, reviving and refreshing all His
works. The whole world is full of His mercy, and His
compassion is over all His creatures. Believe me, you
have no need of an advocate with Him; God is your
Father, and you are His dear children. How should
a child need an advocate with his father?"

The ordinary folk heard and were silent, but our
people, the Chassidim, were displeased. And I'll tell
you another thing, I was the first to mention it to the
Rebbe, long life to him, and he, as is well known, com-
manded Eeb Avrohom to his presence.

So we set to work to persuade Reb Avrohom and
talked to him till he had to go with us.

The journey lasted four days.

I remember one night, the moon was wandering in
a blue ocean of sky that spread ever so far, till it mingled
with a cloud, and she looked at us, pitifully and appeal-
ingly, as though to ask us if we knew which way she
ought to go, to the right or to the left, and presently
the cloud came upon her, and she began struggling to
get out of it, and a minute or two later she was free
again and smiling at us.

Then a little breeze came, and stroked our faces, and
we looked round to the four sides of the world, and it
seemed as if the whole world were wrapped in a prayer-

536 ASCH

scarf woven of mercy, and we fell into a slight melan-
choly, a quiet sadness, but so sweet and pleasant, it
felt like on Sabbath at twilight at the Third Meal.

Suddenly Eeb Avrdhom exclaimed: "Jews, have you
said the blessings on the appearance of the new moon?"
We turned towards the moon, laid down our bundles,
washed our hands in a little stream that ran by the
roadside, and repeated the blessings for the new moon.

He stood looking into the sky, his lips scarcely moving,
as was his wont. "Sholom Alechem I" he said, turning
to me, and his voice quivered like a violin, and his eyes
called to peace and unity. Then an awe of Eeb Avrohom
came over me for the first time, and when we had fin-
ished sanctifying the moon our melancholy left us, and
we prepared to continue our way.

But still he stood and gazed heavenward, sighing:
"Lord of the Universe! How beautiful is the world
which Thou hast made by Thy goodness and great
mercy, and these are over all Thy creatures. They all
love Thee, and are glad in Thee, and Thou art glad in
them, and the whole world is full of Thy glory."

I glanced up at the moon, and it seemed that she
was still looking at me, and saying, "I'm lost; which
way am I to go ?"

We arrived Friday afternoon, and had time enough
to go to the bath and to greet the Rebbe.

He, long life to him, was seated in the reception-room
beside a table, his long lashes low over his eyes, leaning
on his left hand, while he greeted incomers with his
right. We went up to him, one at a time, shook hands,
and said "Sholom Alechem," and he, long life to him,

THE SINNEE 537

said nothing to us. Eeb Avrohom also went up to him,
and held out his hand.

A change came over the Eebbe, he raised his eyelids
with his fingers, and looked at Eeb Avrohom for some
time in silence.

And Eeb Avrohom looked at the Eebbe, and was silent
too.

The Chassidim were offended by such impertinence.

That evening we assembled in the Eebbe's house-of-
study, to usher in the Sabbath. It was tightly packed
with Jews, one pushing the other, or seizing hold of his
girdle, only beside the ark was there a free space left, a
semicircle, in the middle of which stood the Eebbe and
prayed.

But Eeb Avrohom stood by the door among the poor
guests, and prayed after his fashion.

"To Kiddush !" called the beadle.

The Eebbe's wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law
now appeared, and their jewelry, their precious stones,
and their pearls, sparkled and shone.

The Eebbe stood and repeated the prayer of Sancti-
fication.

He was slightly bent, and his grey beard swept his
breast. His eyes were screened by his lashes, and he
recited the Sanctification in a loud voice, giving to every
word a peculiar inflection, to every sign an expression
of its own.

"To table !" was called out next.

At the head of the table sat the Eebbe, sons and sons-
in-law to the left, relations to the right of him, then
the principal aged Jews, then the rich.

538 ASCH

The people stood round about.

The Rebbe ate, and began to serve out the leavings, to
his sons and sons-in-law first, and to the rest of those
sitting at the table after.

Then there was silence, the Rebbe began to expound
the Torah. The portion of the week was Numbers,
chapter eight, and the Rebbe began :

"When a man's soul is on a low level, enveloped,
Heaven defend us, in uncleanness, and the Divine spark
within the soul wishes to rise to a higher level, and
cannot do so alone, but must needs be helped, it is a
Mitzveh to help her, to raise her, and this Mitzveh is
specially incumbent on the priest. This is the meaning
of 'the seven lamps shall give light over against the
candlestick,' by which is meant the holy Torah. The
priest must bring the Jew's heart near to the Torah ; in
this way he is able to raise it. And who is the priest?
The righteous in his generation, because since the
Temple was destroyed, the saint must be a priest, for
thus is the command from above, that he shall be the
priest ..."

"Avrohom!" the Rebbe called suddenly, "Avrohom!
Come here, I am calling you."

The other went up to him.

"Avrohom, did you understand? Did you make out
the meaning of what I said?

"Your silence," the Rebbe went on, "is an acknowl-
edgment. I must raise you, even though it be against
my will and against your will."

There was dead stillness in the room, people waiting
to hear what would come next.

THE SINNER 539

"You are silent?" asked the Rebbe, now a little
sternly.

"You want to be a raiser of souls? Have you, bless
and preserve us, bought the Almighty for yourself ? Do
you think that a Jew can approach nearer to God, blessed
is He, through you? That you are the 'handle of the
pestle' and the rest of the Jews nowhere? God's grace
is everywhere, whichever way we turn, every time we
move a limb we feel God ! Everyone must seek Him in
his own heart, because there it is that He has caused
the Divine Presence to rest. Everywhere and always
can the Jew draw near to God ..."

Thus answered Reb Avrohom, but our people, the
Rebbe's followers, shut his mouth before he had made an
end, and had the Rebbe not held them back, they would
have torn him in pieces on the spot.

"Leave him alone !" he commanded the Chassidim.

And to Reb Avrohom he said :

"Avrohom, you have sinned !"

And from that day forward he was called the Sinner,
and was shut out from everywhere. The Chassidim
kept their eye on him, and persecuted him, and he was
not even allowed to pray in the house-of-study.

And I'll tell you what I think: A wicked man, even
when he acts according to his wickedness, fulfils God's
command. And who knows? Perhaps they were both
right !

ISAAC DOB BERKOWITZ

Born, 1885, in Slutzk, Government of Minsk (Lithuania),
White Russia; was in America for a short time in 1908; con-
tributor to Die Zukunft; co-editor of Ha-Olam, Wilna;
Hebrew and Yiddish writer; collected works: Yiddish,
Gesammelte Schriften, Warsaw, 1910; Hebrew, Sippurim,
Cracow, 1910.

35

COUSTMT

544 BERKOWITZ

his father, brass buttons to his coat and a purse full of
silver rubles, and piped to the village girls of an evening
on the most cunning kind of whistle.

How often it had happened that Feivke could not be
found, and did not even come home to bed ! But his
parents troubled precious little about him, seeing that
he was growing up a wild, dissolute boy, and the dis-
pleasure of Heaven rested on his head.

Feivke was not a timid child, but there were two
things he was afraid of: God and dawening. Feivke
had never, to the best of his recollection, seen God,
but he often heard His name, they threatened him with
It, glanced at the ceiling, and sighed. And this em-
bittered somewhat his sweet, free days. He felt that the
older he grew, the sooner he would have to present
himself before this terrifying, stern, and unfamiliar
God, who was hidden somewhere, whether near or far
he could not tell. One day Feivke all but ran a danger.
It was early on a winter morning; there was a cold,
wild wind blowing outside, and indoors there was a
black stranger Jew, in a thick sheepskin, breaking open
the tin charity boxes. The smith's wife served the
stranger with hot potatoes and sour milk, whereupon
the stranger piously closed his eyes, and, having
reopened them, caught sight of Feivke through the
white steam rising from the dish of potatoes — Feivke,
huddled up in a corner — and beckoned him nearer.

"Have you begun to learn, little boy?" he
questioned, and took his cheek between two pale, cold
fingers, which sent a whiff of snuff up Feivke's nose.
His mother, standing by the stove, reddened, and made

COUNTRY FOLK 545

some inaudible answer. The black stranger threw up
his eyes, and slowly shook his head inside the wide
sheepskin collar. This shaking to and fro of his head
boded no good, and Feivke grew strangely cold inside.
Then he grew hot all over, and, for several nights after,
thousands of long, cold, pale fingers pursued and
pinched him in his dreams.

They had never yet taught him to recite his prayers.
Kozlov was a lonely village, far from any Jewish set-
tlement. Every Sabbath morning Feivke, snug in bed,
watched his father put on a mended black cloak, wrap
himself in the Tallis, shut his eyes, take on a bleating
voice, and, turning to the wall, commence a series of
bows. Feivke felt that his father was bowing before
God, and this frightened him. He thought it a very
rash proceeding. Feivke, in his father's place, would
sooner have had nothing to do with G-od. He spent
most of the time while his father was at his prayers
cowering under the coverlet, and only crept out when
he heard his mother busy with plates and spoons, and
the pungent smell of chopped radishes and onions pene-
trated to the bedroom.

Winters and summers passed, and Feivke grew to
be seven years old, just such a Feivke as we have
described. And the last summer passed, and gave way
to autumn.

That autumn the smith's wife was brought to bed
of a seventh child, and before she was about again,
the cold, damp days were upon them, with the misty
mornings, when a fish shivers in the water. And the
days of her confinement were mingled for the lonely

546 BEEKOWITZ

village Jewess with the Solemn Days of that year into
a hard and dreary time. She went slowly about the
house, as in a fog, without help or hope, and silent as a
shadow. That year they all led a dismal life. The
elder children, girls, went out to service in the neigh-
boring towns, to make their own way among strangers.
The peasants had become sharper and worse than for-
merly, and the smith's strength was hot what it had
been. So his wife resolved to send the two men of the
family, Mattes and Feivke, to a Minyan this Yom
Kippur. Maybe, if two went, God would not be able to
resist them, and would soften His heart.

One morning, therefore, Mattes the smith washed,
donned his mended Sabbath cloak, went to the window,
and blinked through it with his red and swollen eyes.
It was the Eve of the Day of Atonement. The room
was well-warmed, and there was a smell of freshly-
stewed carrots. The smith's wife went out to seek
Feivke through the village, and brought him home
dishevelled and distracted, and all of a glow. She had
torn him away from an early morning of excitement
and delight such as could never, never be again. Mikita,
the son of the village elder, had put his father's brown
colt into harness for the first time. The whole contin-
gent of village boys had been present to watch the fiery
young animal twisting between the shafts, drawing loud
breaths into its dilated and quivering nostrils, looking
wildly at the surrounding boys, and stamping impa-
tiently, as though it would have liked to plow away the
earth from under its feet. And suddenly it had given
a bound and started careering through the village with

COUNTRY FOLK 547

the cart behind it. There was a glorious noise and
commotion! Feivke was foremost among those who,
in a cloud of dust and at the peril of their life, had
dashed to seize the colt by the reins.

His mother washed him, looked him over from the
low-set leather hat down to his great, black feet, stuffed
a packet of food into his hands, and said :

"Go and be a good and devout boy, and God will
forgive you."

She stood on the threshold of the house, and looked
after her two men starting for a distant Minyan. The
bearing of seven children had aged and weakened the
once hard, obstinate woman, and, left standing alone
in the doorway, watching her poor, barefoot, perverse-
natured boy on his way to present himself for the
first time before God, she broke down by the Mezuzeh
and wept.

Silently, step by step, Feivke followed his father
between the desolate stubble fields. It was a good ten
miles' walk to the large village where the Minyan as-
sembled, and the fear and the wonder in Feivke's
heart increased all the way. He did not yet quite under-
stand whither he was being taken, and what was to
be done with him there, and the impetus of the brown
colt's career through the village had not as yet sub-
sided in his head. Why had Father put on his black
mended cloak ? Why had he brought a Tallis with him,
and a white shirt-like garment? There was certainly
some hour of calamity and terror ahead, something was
preparing which had never happened before.

548 BERKOWITZ

They wenf by the great Kozlov wood, wherein every
tree stood silent and sad for its faded and fallen leaves.
Feivke dropped behind his father, and stepped aside into
the wood. He wondered : Should he run away and hide
in the wood ? He would willingly stay there for the rest
of his life. He would foregather with Nasta, the barrel-
maker's son, he of the knocked-out eye; they would
roast potatoes out in the wood, and now and again,
stolen-wise, milk the village cows for their repast. Let
them beat him as much as they pleased, let them kill
him on the spot, nothing should induce him to leave
the wood again!

But no! As Feivke walked along under the silent
trees and through the fallen leaves, and perceived
that the whole wood was filled through and through
with a soft, clear light, and heard the rustle of the
leaves beneath his step, a strange terror took hold of
him. The wood had grown so sparse, the trees so dis-
colored, and he should have to remain in the stillness
alone, and roam about in the winter wind !

Mattes the smith had stopped, wondering, and was
blinking around with his sick eyes.

"Feivke, where are you?"

Feivke appeared out of the wood.

"Feivke, to-day you mustn't go into the wood. To-
day God may yet — to-day you must be a good boy,"
said the smith, repeating his wife's words as they
came to his mind, "and you must say Amen."

Feivke hung his head and Iboked at his great, bare,
black feet. "But if I don't know how," he said sul-
lenly.

COUNTEY FOLK 549

"It's no great thing to say Amen !" his father replied
encouragingly. "When you hear the other people say
it, you can say it, too! Everyone must say Amen,
then God will forgive them," he added, recalling again
his wife and her admonitions.

Feivke was silent, and once more followed his father
step by step. What will they ask him, and what is he
to answer? It seemed to him now that they were go-
ing right over away yonder where the pale, scarcely-
tinted sky touched the earth. There, on a hill, sits
a great, old God in a large sheepskin cloak. Everyone
goes up to him, and He asks them questions, which
they have to answer, and He shakes His head to and
fro inside the sheepskin collar. And what is he, a wild,
ignorant little boy, to answer this great, old God ?

Feivke had committed a great many transgressions
concerning which his mother was constantly admonish-
ing him, but now he was thinking only of two great
transgressions committed recently, of which his mother
knew nothing. One with regard to Anishka the beggar.
Anishka was known to the village, as far back as it
could remember, as an old, blind beggar, who went
the round of the villages, feeling his way with a long
stick. And one day Feivke and another boy played
him a trick: they placed a ladder in his way, and
Anishka stumbled and fell, hurting his nose. Some peas-
ants had come up and caught Feivke. Anishka sat in the
middle of the road with blood on his face, wept bit-
terly, and declared that God would not forget his
blood that had been spilt. The peasants had given
the little Zhydek a sound thrashing, but Feivke felt

550 BEEKOWITZ

now as if that would not count: God would certainly
remember the spilling of Anishka's blood.

Feivke's second hidden transgression had been com-
mitted outside the village, among the graves of the
peasants. A whole troop of boys, Feivke in their midst,
had gone pigeon hunting, aiming at the pigeons with
stones, and a stone of Feivke's had hit the naked fig-
ure on the cross that stood among the graves. The
Gentile boys had started and taken fright, and those
among them who were Feivke's good friends told him
he had actually hit the son of God, and that the thing
would have consequences; it was one for which people
had their heads cut off.

These two great transgressions now stood before him,
and his heart warned him that the hour had come when
he would be called to account for what he had done to
Anishka and to God's son. Only he did not know what
answer he could make.

By the time they came near the windmill belonging
to the large strange village, the sun had begun to set.
The village river with the trees beside it were visible
a long way off, and, crossing the river, a long high
bridge.

"The Minyan is there," and Mattes pointed his finger
at the thatched roofs shining in the sunset.

Feivke looked down from the bridge into the deep,
black water that lay smooth and still in the shadow
of the trees. The bridge was high and the water deep !
Feivke felt sick at heart, and his mouth was dry.

"But, Tate, I won't be able to answer," he let out in
despair.

COUNTRY FOLK 551

"What, not Amen? Eh, eh, you little silly, that is
no great matter. Where is the difficulty? One just
ups and answers!" said his father, gently, but Feivke
heard that the while his father was trying to quiet him,
his own voice trembled.

At the other end of the bridge there appeared the
great inn with the covered terrace, and in front of
the building were moving groups of Jews in holiday
garb, with red handkerchiefs in their hands, women in
yellow silk head-kerchiefs, and boys in new clothes hold-
ing small prayer-books. Feivke remained obstinately
outside the crowd, and hung about the stable, his black
eyes staring defiantly from beneath the worn-out leather
cap. But he was not left alone long, for soon there
came to him a smart, yellow-haired boy, with restless
little light-colored eyes, and a face like a chicken's, cov-
ered with freckles. This little boy took a little bottle
with some essence in it out of his pocket, gave it a
twist and a flourish in the air, and suddenly applied it
to Feivke's nose, so that the strong waters spurted into
his nostril. Then he asked :

"To whom do you belong ?"

Feivke blew the water out of his nose, and turned
his head away in silence.

"Listen, turkey, lazy dog ! What are you doing there ?
Have you said Minchah?"

"N-no ..."

"Is the Jew in a torn cloak there your father?"

"Y-yes ... T-tate ..."

The yellow-haired boy took Feivke by the sleeve.

"Come along, and you'll see what they'll do to your
father."

552 BERKOWITZ

Inside the room into which Feivke was dragged by his
new friend, it was hot, and there was a curious, un-
familiar sound. Feivke grew dizzy. He saw Jews bow-
ing and bending along the wall and beating their
breasts — now they said something, and now they wept
in an odd way. People coughed and spat sobbingly,
and blew their noses with their red handkerchiefs.
Chairs and stiff benches creaked, while a continual clat-
ter of plates and spoons came through the wall.

In a corner, beside a heap of hay, Feivke saw his
father where he stood, looking all round him, blinking
shamefacedly and innocently with his weak, red eyes.
Round him was a lively circle of little boys whispering
with one another in evident expectation.

"That is his boy, with the lip," said the chicken-face,
presenting Feivke.

At the same moment a young man came up to Mattes.
He wore a white collar without a tie and with a pointed
brass stud. This young man held a whip, which he
brandished in the air like a rider about to mount his
horse.

"Well, Reb Smith."

"Am I ... I suppose I am to lie down ?" asked Mat-
tes, subserviently, still smiling round in the same shy
and yet confiding manner.

"Be so good as to lie down."

The young man gave a mischievous look at the boys,
and made a gesture in the air with the whip.

Mattes began to unbutton his cloak, and slowly and
cautiously let himself down onto the hay, whereupon
the young man applied the whip with might and main,
and his whole face shone.

COUNTRY FOLK 553

"One, two, three! Go on, Rebbe, go on!" urged the
boys, and there were shouts of laughter.

Feivke looked on in amaze. He wanted to go and
take his father by the sleeve, make him get up and
escape, but just then Mattes raised himself to a sitting
posture, and began to rub his eyes with the same shy
smile.

"Now, Rebbe, this one!" and the yellow-haired boy
began to drag Feivke towards the hay. The others
assisted. Feivke got very red, and silently tried to
tear himself out of the boy's hands, making for the
door, but the other kept his hold. In the doorway
Feivke glared at him with his obstinate black eyes,
and said:

"I'll knock your teeth out !"

"Mine? You? You booby, you lazy thing! This
is our house ! Do you know, on New Year's Eve I went
with my grandfather to the town ! I shall call Leibrutz.
He'll give you something to remember him by!"

And Leibrutz was not long in joining them. He
was the inn driver, a stout youth of fifteen, in a
peasant smock with a collar stitched in red, other-
wise in full array, with linen socks and a handsome
bottle of strong waters against faintness in his hands.
To judge by the size of the bottle, his sturdy looks belied
a peculiarly delicate constitution. He pushed towards
Feivke with one shoulder, in no friendly fashion, and
looked at him with one eye, while he winked with the
other at the freckled grandson of the host.

"Who is the beauty?"

554 BERKOWITZ

"How should I know? A thief most likely. The
Kozlov smith's boy. He threatened to knock out my
teeth."

"So, so, dear brother mine !" sang out Leibnitz, with
a cold sneer, and passed his five fingers across Feivke's
nose. "We must rub a little horseradish under his
eyes, and he'll weep like a beaver. Listen, you Kozlov
urchin, you just keep your hands in your pockets, be-
cause Leibrutz is here ! Do you know Leibnitz ? Lucky
for you that I have a Jewish heart: to-day is Yom
Kippur."

But the chicken-faced boy was not pacified.

"Did you ever see such a lip? And then he comes
to our house and wants to fight us !"

The whole lot of boys now encircled Feivke with
teasing and laughter, and he stood barefooted in their
midst, looking at none of them, and reminding one of
a little wild animal caught and tormented.

It grew dark, and quantities of soul-lights were set
burning down the long tables of the inn. The large
building was packed with red-faced, perspiring Jews,
in flowing white robes and Tallesim. The Confession
was already in course of fervent recital, there was a
great rocking and swaying over the prayer-books and
a loud noise in the ears, everyone present trying to
make himself heard above the rest. Village Jews are
simple and ignorant, they know nothing of "silent pray-
er" and whispering with the lips. They are deprived
of prayer in common a year at a time, and are distant
from the Lord of All, and when the Awful Day comes,
they want to take Him by storm, by violence. The

COUNTRY FOLK 555

noisiest of all was the prayer-leader himself, the young
man with the white collar and no tie. He was from
town, and wished to convince the country folk that he
was an adept at his profession and to be relied on.
Feivke stood in the stifling room utterly confounded.
The prayers and the wailful chanting passed over his
head like waves, his heart was straitened, red sparks
whirled before his eyes. He was in a state of continual
apprehension. He saw a snow-white old Jew come
out of a corner with a scroll of the Torah wrapped in
a white velvet, gold-embroidered cover. How the gold
sparkled and twinkled and reflected itself in the illumi-
nated beard of the old man ! Feivke thought the moment
had come, but he saw it all as through a mist, a long
way off, to the sound of the wailful chanting, and as
in a mist the scroll and the old man vanished together.
Feivke's face and body were flushed with heat, his
knees shook, and at the same time his hands and feet
were cold as ice.

Once, while Feivke was standing by the table facing
the bright flames of the soul-lights, a dizziness came
over him, and he closed his eyes. Thousands of little
bells seemed to ring in his ears. Then some one gave
a loud thump on the table, and there was silence all
around. Feivke started and opened his eyes. The
sudden stillness frightened him, and he wanted to move
away from the table, but he was walled in by men in
white robes, who had begun rocking and swaying anew.
One of them pushed a prayer-book towards him, with
great black letters, which hopped and fluttered to Feivke's
eyes like so many little black birds.

556 BERKOWITZ

He shook visibly, and the men looked at him in
silence: "Nu-nu, mi-mi!" He remained for some
time squeezed against the prayer-book, hemmed in by
the tall, strange men in robes swaying and praying over
his head. A cold perspiration broke out over him, and
when at last he freed himself, he felt very tired and
weak. Having found his way to a corner close to his
father, he fell asleep on the floor.

There he had a strange dream. He dreamt that
he was a tree, growing like any other tree in a wood,
and that he saw Anishka coming along with blood on
his face, in one hand his long stick, and in the other
a stone — and Feivke recognized the stone with which
he had hit the crucifix. And Anishka kept turning his
head and making signs to some one with his long stick,
calling out to him that here was Feivke. Feivke looked
hard, and there in the depths of the wood was God
Himself, white all over, like freshly-fallen snow. And
God suddenly grew ever so tall, and looked down at
Feivke. Feivke felt God looking at him, but he could
not see God, because there was a mist before his eyes.
And Anishka came nearer and nearer with the stone
in his hand. Feivke shook, and cold perspiration oozed
out all over him. He wanted to run away, but he
seemed to be growing there like a tree, like all the other
trees of the wood.

Feivke awoke on the floor, amid sleeping men, and
the first thing he saw was a tall, barefoot person all
in white, standing over the sleepers with something
in his hand. This tall, white figure sank slowly onto
its knees, and, bending silently over Mattes the smith,

COUNTRY FOLK 557

who lay snoring with the rest, it deliberately put a
bottle to his nose. Mattes gave a squeal, and sat up
hastily.

"Ha, who is it?" he asked in alarm.

It was the young man from town, the prayer-leader,
with a bottle of strong smelling-salts.

"It is I," he said with a degage air, and smiled.
"Never mind, it will do you good! You are fasting,
and there is an express law in the Chayye Odom on the
subject."

"But why me?" complained Mattes, blinking at him
reproachfully. "What have I done to you?"

Day was about to dawn. The air in the room had
cooled down; the soul-lights were still playing in the
dark, dewy window-panes. A few of the men bedded
in the hay on the floor were waking up. Feivke stood
in the middle of the room with staring eyes. The
young man with the smelling-bottle came up to him
with a lively air.

"0 you little object! What are you staring at me
for ? Do you want a sniff ? There, then, sniff !"

Feivke retreated into a corner, and continued to
stare at him in bewilderment.

No sooner was it day, than the davvening recom-
menced with all the fervor of the night before, the room
was as noisy, and very soon nearly as hot. But it had
not the same effect on Feivke as yesterday, and he was no
longer frightened of Anishka and the stone — the
whole dream had dissolved into thin air. When they
once more brought out the scroll of the Law in its
white mantle, Feivke was standing by the table, and
36

558 BERKOWITZ

looked on indifferently while they uncovered the black,
shining, crowded letters. He looked indifferently at
the young man from town swaying over the Torah, out
of which he read fluently, intoning with a strangely
free and easy manner, like an adept to whom all this
was nothing new. Whenever he stopped reading, he
threw back his head, and looked down at the people
with a bright, satisfied smile.

The little boys roamed up and down the room in
socks, with smelling-salts in their hands, or yawned
into their little prayer-books. The air was filled with
the dust of the trampled hay. The sun looked in at
a window, and the soul-lights grew dim as in a mist.
It seemed to Feivke he had been at the Minyan a
long, long time, and he felt as though some great mis-
fortune had befallen him. Fear and wonder continued
to oppress him, but not the fear and wonder of yes-
terday. He was tired, his body burning, while his
feet were contracted with cold. He got away outside,
stretched himself out on the grass behind the inn and
dozed, facing the sun. He dozed there through a good
part of the day. Bright red rivers flowed before his
eyes, and they made his brains ache. Some one, he did
not know who, stood over him, and never stopped rock-
ing to and fro and reciting prayers. Then — it was
his father bending over him with a rather troubled
look, and waking him in a strangely gentle voice :

"Well, Feivke, are you asleep? You've had nothing
to eat to-day yet ?"

"No ..."

COUNTRY FOLK 559

Feivke followed his father back into the house on
his unsteady feet. Weary Jews with pale and length-
ened noses were resting on the terrace and the benches.
The sun was already low down over the village and
shining full into the inn windows. Feivke stood by one
of the windows with his father, and his head swam
from the bright light. Mattes stroked his chin-beard
continually, then there was more davvening and more
rocking while they recited the Eighteen Benedictions.
The Benedictions ended, the young man began to trill,
but in a weaker voice and without charm. He was sick
of the whole thing, and kept on in the half-hearted way
with which one does a favor. Mattes forgot to look
at his prayer-book, and, standing in the window, gazed
at the tree-tops, which had caught fire in the rays of
the setting sun. Nobody was expecting anything of
him, when he suddenly gave a sob, so loud and so pite-
ous that all turned and looked at him in astonishment.
Some of the people laughed. The prayer-leader had
just intoned "Michael on the right hand uttereth
praise," out of the Afternoon Service. What was there
to cry about in that ? All the little boys had assembled
round Mattes the smith, and were choking with laugh-
ter, and a certain youth, the host's new son-in-law, gave
a twitch to Mattes' Tallis:

"Reb Kozlover, you've made a mistake!"
Mattes answered not a word. The little fellow with
the freckles pushed his way up to him, and imitating
the young man's intonation, repeated, "Reb Kozlover,
you've made a mistake!"

560 BERKOWITZ

Feivke looked wildly round at the bystanders, at his
father. Then he suddenly advanced to the freckled boy,
and glared at him with his black eyes.

"You, you — kob tebi biessi!" he hissed in Little-
Russian.

The laughter and commotion increased; there was
an exclamation : "Rascal, in a holy place I" and
another: "Aha! the Kozlover smith's boy must be a
first-class scamp !" The prayer-leader thumped angrily
on his prayer-book, because no one was listening to
him.

Feivke escaped once more behind the inn, but the
whole company of boys followed him, headed by Leib-
rutz the driver.

"There he is, the Kozlov lazy booby!" screamed the
freckled boy. "Have you ever heard the like? He
actually wanted to fight again, and in our house ! What
do you think of that?"

Leibnitz went up to Feivke at a steady trot and
with the gesture of one who likes to do what has to
be done calmly and coolly.

"Wait, boys! Hands off! We've got a remedy for
him here, for which I hope he will be thankful."

So saying, he deliberately took hold of Feivke from
behind, by his two arms, and made a sign to the boy
with yellow hair.

"Now for it, Aarontche, give it to the youngster!"

The little boy immediately whipped the smelling-
bottle out of his pocket, took out the stopper with a
flourish, and held it to Feivke's nose. The next mo-
ment Feivke had wrenched himself free, and was mak-

COUNTRY FOLK 561

ing for the chicken-face with nails spread, when he
received two smart, sounding boxes on the ears, from
two great, heavy, horny hands, which so clouded his
brain that for a minute he stood dazed and dumb.
Suddenly he made a spring at Leibrutz, fell upon his
hand, and fastened his sharp teeth in the flesh. Leib-
rutz gave a loud yell.

There was a great to-do. People came running out
in their robes, women with pale, startled faces called
to their children. A few of them reproved Mattes for
his son's behavior. Then they dispersed, till there
remained behind the inn only Mattes and Feivke. Mat-
tes looked at his boy in silence. He was not a talk-
ative man, and he found only two or three words to
say:

"Feivke, Mother there at home — and you — here?"

Again Feivke found himself alone on the field, and
again he stretched himself out and dozed. Again, too,
the red streams flowed before his eyes, and someone
unknown to him stood at his head and recited pray-
ers. Only the streams were thicker and darker, and the
davvening over his head was louder, sadder, more pene-
trating.

It was quite dark when Mattes came out again, took
Feivke by the hand, set him on his feet, and said,
"Now we are going home."

Indoors everything had come to an end, and the
room had taken on a week-day look. The candles were
gone, and a lamp was burning above the table, round
which sat men in their hats and usual cloaks, no robes to
be seen, and partook of some refreshment. There

562 BERKOWITZ

was no more davvening, but in Feivke's ears was the
same ringing of bells. It now seemed to him that he
saw the room and the men for the first time, and
the old Jew sitting at the head of the table, presiding
over bottles and wine-glasses, and clicking with his
tongue, could not possibly be the old man with the silver-
white beard who had held the scroll of the Law to
his breast.

Mattes went up to the table, gave a cough, bowed
to the company, and said, "A good year !"

The old man raised his head, and thundered so loudly
that Feivke's face twitched as with pain :

"Ha?"

"I said — I am just going — going home — home again
— so I wish — wish you — a good year!"

"Ha, a good year ? A good year to you also ! Wait,
have a little brandy, ha ?"

Feivke shut his eyes. It made him feel bad to have
the lamp burning so brightly and the old man talk-
ing so loud. Why need he speak in such a high, rasp-
ing voice that it went through one's head like a saw?

"Ha ? Is it your little boy who scratched my Aaront-
che's face ? Ha ? A rascal is he ? Beat him well !
There, give him a little brandy, too — and a bit of cake !
He fasted too, ha? But he can't recite the prayers?
Fie ! You ought to be beaten ! Ha ? Are you going
home? Go in health! Ha? Your wife has just been
confined? — Perhaps you need some money for the holi-
days? Ha? What do you say?"

Mattes and Feivke started to walk home. Mattes
gave a look at the clear sky, where the young half-

COUNTKY FOLK 563

moon had floated into view. "Mother will be expect-
ing us," he said, and began to walk quickly. Feivke
could hardly drag his feet.

On the tall bridge they were met by a cool breeze
blowing from the water. Once across the bridge, Mat-
tes again quickened his pace. Presently he stopped to
look around — no Feivke ! He turned back and saw
Feivke sitting in the middle of the road. The child
was huddled up in a silent, shivering heap. His teeth
chattered with cold.

"Feivke, what is the matter? Why are you sitting
down? Come along home!"

"I won't" — Feivke clattered out with his teeth — "I
c-a-n-'t— "

"Did they hit you so hard, Feivke ?"

Feivke was silent. Then he stretched himself out
on the ground, his hands and feet quivering.

"Cold—."

"Aren't you well, Feivke?"

The child made an effort, sat up, and looked fixedly
at his father, with his black, feverish eyes, and sud-
denly he asked:

"Why did you cry there? Tate, why? Tell me,
why?!"

"Where did I cry, you little silly ? Why, I just cried
— it's Yom Kippur. Mother is fasting, too — get up,
Feivke, and come home. Mother will make you a poul-
tice," occurred to him as a happy thought.

"No ! Why did you cry, while they were laughing ?"
Feivke insisted, still sitting in the road and shaking'
like a leaf. "One mustn't cry when they laugh, one
mustn't !"

564 BEKKOWITZ

And he lay down again on the damp ground.

"Feivele, come home, my son !"

Mattes stood over the boy in despair, and looked
around for help. From some way off, from the tall
bridge, came a sound of heavy footsteps growing loud-
er and louder, and presently the moonlight showed the
figure of a peasant.

"Ai, who is that? Matke the smith? What are you
doing there? Are you casting spells? Who is that
lying on the ground?"

"I don't know myself what I'm doing, kind soul.
That is my boy, and he won't come home, or he can't.
What am I to do with him?" complained Mattes to
the peasant, whom he knew.

"Has he gone crazy? Give him a kick ! Ai, you little
lazy devil, get up!" Feivke did not move from the
spot, he only shivered silently, and his teeth chattered.

"Ach, you devil ! What sort of a boy have you there,
Matke? A visitation of Heaven! Why don't you beat
him more? The other day they came and told tales
of him — Agapa said that — "

"I don't know, either, kind soul, what sort of a boy
he is," answered Mattes, and wrung his hands in des-
peration.

Early next morning Mattes hired a conveyance, and
drove Feivke to the town, to the asylum for the sick
poor. The smith's wife came out and saw them start,
and she stood a long while in the doorway by the
Mezuzeh.

COUNTRY FOLK 565

And on another fine autumn morning, just when the
villagers were beginning to cart loads of fresh earth
to secure the village against overflowing streams, the
village boys told one another the news of Feivke's
death.

THE LAST OF THEM

They had been Rabbonim for generations in the
Misnagdic community of Mouravanke, old, poverty-
stricken Mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor, hidden
away in the thick woods. Generation on generation of
them had been renowned far and near, wherever a
Jewish word was spoken, wherever the voice of the
Torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study.

People talked of them everywhere, as they talk of
miracles when miracles are no more, and of consolation
when all hope is long since dead — talked of them as
great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their great-
grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of
the great seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he
left them as an inheritance of times gone by.

For as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp
shining in the darkness, such was the lustre of the
family of the Rabbonim of Mouravanke.

That was long ago, ever so long ago, when Mouravanke
lay buried in the dark Lithuanian forests. The old,
low, moss-grown houses were still set in wide, green
gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the
hop twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden
fencing. Well-to-do Jews still went about in linen
pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with dry herbs. People
got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch
the whole week through, and Jewish families ate rye-
bread and groats-pottage.

THE LAST OF THEM 567

A new baby brought no anxiety along with it. People
praised God, carried the pitcher to the well, filled it,
and poured a quart of water into the pottage. The
newcomer was one of God's creatures, and was assured
of his portion along with the others.

And if a Jew had a marriageable daughter, and could
not afford a dowry, he took a stick in his hand, donned
a white shirt with a broad mangled collar, repeated the
"Prayer of the Highway," and set off on foot to
Volhynia, that thrice-blessed wonderland, where people
talk with a "Chirik," and eat Challeh with saffron even
in the middle of the week — with saffron, if not with
honey.

There, in Volhynia, on Friday evenings, the rich
Jewish householder of the district walks to and fro
leisurely in his brightly lit room. In all likelihood, he
is a short, plump, hairy man, with a broad, fair beard,
a gathered silk sash round his substantial figure, a cheery
singsong "Sholom-Alechem" on his mincing, "chiriky"
tongue, and a merry crack of the thumb. The Lithua-
nian guest, teacher or preacher, the shrunk and
shrivelled stranger with the piercing black eyes, sits in a
corner, merely moving his lips and gazing at the floor —
perhaps because he feels ill at ease in the bright, nicely-
furnished room; perhaps because he is thinking of his
distant home, of his wife and children and his marriage-
able daughter; and perhaps because it has suddenly all
become oddly dear to him, his poor, forsaken native
place, with its moiling, poverty-struck Jews, whose week
is spent pitch-burning in the forest ; with its old, warm
houses-of -study ; with its celebrated giants of the Torah,

568 BERKOWITZ

bending with a candle in their hand over the great hoary
Gemorehs.

And here, at table, between the tasty stuffed fish and
the soup, with the rich Volhynian "stuffed monkeys,"
the brusque, tongue-tied guest is suddenly unable to
contain himself, and overflows with talk about his
corner in Lithuania.

"Whether we have our Eabbis at home ? ! N-nu ! !"
And thereupon he holds forth grandiloquently, with
an ardor and incisiveness born of the love and the
longing at his heart. The piercing black eyes shoot
sparks, as the guest tells of the great men of
Mouravanke, with their fiery intellects, their iron per-
severance, who sit over their books by day and by night.
From time to time they take an hour and a half's doze,
falling with their head onto their fists, their beards
sweeping the Gemoreh, the big candle keeping watch
overhead and waking them once more to the study of the
Torah.

At dawn, when the people begin to come in for the
Morning Prayer, they walk round them on tiptoe,
giving them their four-ells' distance, and avoid meet-
ing their look, which is apt to be sharp and burning.
"That is the way we study in Lithuania !"
The stout, hairy householder, good-natured and cred-
ulous, listens attentively to the wonderful tales, loosens
the sash over his pelisse in leisurely fashion, unbuttons
his waistcoat across his generous waist, blows out his
cheeks, and sways his head from side to side, because —
one may believe anything of the Lithuanians !

THE LAST OF THEM 569

Then, if once in a long, long while the rich
Volhynian householder stumbled, by some miracle or
other, into Lithuania, sheer curiosity would drive him
to take a look at the Lithuanian celebrity. But he
would stand before him in trembling and astonishment,
as one stands before a high granite rock, the summit of
which can barely be discerned. Is he terrified by the
dark and bushy brows, the keen, penetrating looks, the
deep, stern wrinkles in the forehead that might have
been carved in stone, they are so stiffly fixed? Who
can say? Or is he put out of countenance by the
cold, hard assertiveness of their speech, which bores
into the conscience like a gimlet, and knows of no
mercy ? — for from between those wrinkles, from beneath
those dark brows, shines out the everlasting glory of
the Shechinah.

Such were the celebrated Eabbonim of Mouravanke.

They were an old family, a long chain of great men,
generation on generation of tall, well-built, large-boned
Jews, all far on in years, with thick, curly beards. It
was very seldom one of these beards showed a silver
hair. They were stern, silent men, who heard and saw
everything, but who expressed themselves mostly by
means of their wrinkles and their eyebrows rather than
in words, so that when a Mouravanke Rav went so far
as to say "N-nu," that was enough.

The dignity of Eav was hereditary among them,
descending from father to son, and, together with the
Rabbinical position and the eighteen gulden a week
salary, the sou inherited from his father a tall, old read-
ing-desk, smoked and scorched by the candles, in the old

570 BERKOWITZ

house-of -study in the corner by the ark, and a thick,
heavy-knotted stick, and an old holiday pelisse of
lustrine, the which, if worn on a bright Sabbath-day in
summer-time, shines in the sun, and fairly shouts to be
looked at.

They arrived in Mouravanke generations ago, when
the town was still in the power of wild highwaymen,
called there "Hydemakyes," with huge, terrifying
whiskers and large, savage dogs. One day, on Hoshanah
Kabbah, early in the morning, there entered the house-
of-study a tall youth, evidently village-born and from a
long way off, barefoot, with turned-up trousers, his
boots slung on a big, knotted stick across his shoulders,
and a great bundle of big Hoshanos. The youth stood
in the centre of the house-of-study with his mouth open,
bewildered, and the boys quickly snatched his willow
branches from him. He was surrounded, stared at,
questioned as to who he was, whence he came, what he
wanted. Had he parents ? Was he married ? For some
time the youth stood silent, with downcast eyes, then
he bethought himself, and answered in three words:
"I want to study !"

And from that moment he remained in the old build-
ing, and people began to tell wonderful tales of his power
of perseverance — of how a tall, barefoot youth, who
came walking from a far distance, had by dint of
determination come to be reckoned among the great
men in Israel; of how, on a winter midnight, he would
open the stove doors, and study by the light of the
glowing coals; of how he once forgot food and drink
for three days and three nights running, while he stood

THE LAST OF THEM 571

over a difficult legal problem with wrinkled brows, his
eyes piercing the page, his fingers stiffening round the
handle of his stick, and he motionless; and when sud-
denly he found the solution, he gave a shout "ISTu !" and
came down so hard on the desk with his stick that the
whole house-of-study shook. It happened just when
the people were standing quite quiet, repeating the
Eighteen Benedictions.

Then it was told how this same lad became Rav in
Mouravanke, how his genius descended to his children
and children's children, till late in the generations,
gathering in might with each generation in turn. They
rose, these giants, one after the other, persistent investi-
gators of the Law, with high, wrinkled foreheads, dark,
bushy brows, a hard, cutting glance, sharp as steel.

In those days Mouravanke was illuminated as with
seven suns. The houses-of -study were filled with
students; voices, young and old, rang out over the
Gemorehs, sang, wept, and implored. Worried and
tired-looking fathers and uncles would come into the
Shools with blackened faces after the day's pitch-
burning, between Afternoon and Evening Prayer, range
themselves in leisurely mood by the doors and the stove,
cock their ears, and listen. Jewish drivers, who convey
people from one town to another, snatched a minute
the first thing in the morning, and dropped in with
their whips under their arms, to hear a passage in the
Gemoreh expounded. And the women, who washed the
linen at the pump in summer-time, beat the wet clothes
to the melody of the Torah that came floating into the
street through the open windows, sweet as a long-
expected piece of good news.

572 BERKOWITZ

Thus Mouravanke came to be of great renown, be-
cause the wondrous power of the Mouravanke Rab-
bonim, the power of concentration of thought, grew from
generation to generation. And in those days the old
people went about with a secret whispering, that if there
should arise a tenth generation of the mighty ones, a new
thing, please God, would come to pass among Jews.

But there was no tenth generation; the ninth of
the Mouravanke Rabbonim was the last of them.

He had two sons, but there was no luck in the house
in his day: the sons philosophized too much, asked too
many questions, took strange paths that led them far
away.

Once a rumor spread in Mouravanke that the Rav's
eldest son had become celebrated in the great world
because of a book he had written, and had acquired
the title of "professor." When the old Rav was told
of it, he at first remained silent, with downcast eyes.
Then he lifted them and ejaculated :

"Nu !"

And not a word more. It was only remarked that
he grew paler, that his look was even more piercing,
more searching than before. This is all that was ever
said in the town about the Rav's children, for no one
cared to discuss a thing on which the old Rav himself
was silent.

Once, however, on the Great Sabbath, something
happened in the spacious old house-of-study. The Rav
was standing by the ark, wrapped in his Tallis, and
expounding to a crowded congregation. He had a
clear, resonant, deep voice, and when he sent it thunder-

THE LAST OF THEM 573

ing over the heads of his people, the air seemed to catch
fire, and they listened dumbfounded and spellbound.

Suddenly the old man stopped in the midst of his
exposition, and was silent. The congregation thrilled
with speechless expectation. For a minute or two the
Rav stood with his piercing gaze fixed on the people,
then he deliberately pulled aside the curtain before the
ark, opened the ark doors, and turned to the congre-
gation :

"Listen, Jews ! I know that many of you are think-
ing of something that has just occurred to me, too. You
wonder how it is that I should set myself up to expound
the Torah to a townful of Jews, when my own children
have cast the Torah behind them. Therefore I now
open the ark and declare to you, Jews, before the holy
scrolls of the Law, I have no children any more. I am
the last Rav of our family !"

Hereupon a piteous wail came from out of the women's
Shool, but the Rav's sonorous voice soon reduced them
to silence, and once more the Torah was being ex-
pounded in thunder over the heads of the open-mouthed
assembly.

Years, a whole decade of them, passed, and still the
old Rav walked erect, and not one silver hair showed in
his curly beard, and the town was still used to see him
before daylight, a tall, solitary figure carrying a stick
and a lantern, on his way to the large old Bes ha-
Midrash, to study there in solitude — until Mouravanke
began to ring with the fame of her Charif, her great
new scholar.
37

5?4 BERKOWITZ

He was the son of a poor tailor, a pale, thin youth,
with a pointed nose and two sharp, black eyes, who had
gone away at thirteen or so to study in celebrated, dis-
tant academies, whence his name had spread round and
about. People said of him, that he was growing up
to be a Light of the Exile, that with his scholastic
achievements he would outwit the acutest intellects of
all past ages ; they said that he possessed a brain power
that ground "mountains" of Talmud to powder. News
came that a quantity of prominent Jewish communities
had sent messengers, to ask him to come and be their
Rav.

Mouravanke was stirred to its depths. The house-
holders went about greatly perturbed, because their Rav
was an old man, his days were numbered, and he had
no children to take his place.

So they came to the old Rav in his house, to ask his
advice, whether it was possible to invite the Mouravanke
Charif, the tailor's son, to come to them, so that he
might take the place of the Rav on his death, in a
hundred and twenty years — seeing that the said young
Charif was a scholar distinguished by the acuteness of
his intellect the only man worthy of sitting in the seat
of the Mouravanke Rabbonim.

The old Rav listened to the householders with low-
ering brows, and never raised his eyes, and he answered
them one word :

"Nu!"

So Mouravanke sent a messenger to the young Charif,
offering him the Rabbinate. The messenger was swift,
and soon the news spread through the town that the
Charif was approaching.

THE LAST OF THEM 575

When it was time for the householders to go forth
out of the town, to meet the young Charif, the old
Rav offered to go with them, and they took a chair for
him to sit in while he waited at the meeting-place.
This was by the wood outside the town, where all
through the week the Jewish townsfolk earned their
bread by burning pitch. Begrimed and toil-worn Jews
were continually dropping their work and peeping out
shamefacedly between the tree-stems.

It was Friday, a clear day in the autumn. She
appeared out of a great cloud of dust — she, the travel-
ling-wagon in which sat the celebrated young Charif.
Sholom-Alechems flew to meet him from every side,
and his old father, the tailor, leant back against a tree,
and wept aloud for joy.

Now the old Rav declared that he would not allow the
Charif to enter the town till he had heard him, the
Charif, expound a portion of the Torah.

The young man accepted the condition. Men, women,
and little children stood expectant, all eyes were fast-
ened on the tailor's son, all hearts beat rapidly.

The Charif expounded the Torah standing in the
wagon. At first he looked fairly scared, and his sharp
black eyes darted fearfully hither and thither over the
heads of the silent crowd. Then came a bright idea,
and lit up his face. He began to speak, but his was
not the familiar teaching, such as everyone learns and
understands. His words were like fiery flashes appear-
ing and disappearing one after the other, lightnings that
traverse and illumine half the sky in one second of time,
a play of swords in which there are no words, only the
clink and ring of finely-tempered steel.

576 BERKOWITZ

The old Rav sat in his chair leaning on his old,
knobbly, knotted stick, and listened. He heard, but
evil thoughts beset him, and deep, hard wrinkles cut
themselves into his forehead. He saw before him the
Charif, the dried-up youth with the sharp eyes and the
sharp, pointed nose, and the evil thought came to him,
"Those are needles, a tailor's needles," while the long,
thin forefinger with which the Charif pointed rapidly
in the air seemed a third needle wielded by a tailor in
a hurry.

"You prick more sharply even than your father,"
is what the old Rav wanted to say when the Charif
ended his sermon, but he did not say it. The whole
assembly was gazing with caught breath at his half-
closed eyelids. The lids never moved, and some thought
wonderingly that he had fallen into a doze from sheer
old age.

Suddenly a strange, dry snap broke the stillness, the
old Rav started in his chair, and when they rushed
forward to assist him, they found that his knotted,
knobbly stick had broken in two.

Pale and bent for the first time, but a tall figure still,
the old Rav stood up among his startled flock. He
made a leisurely motion with his hand in the direction
of the town, and remarked quietly to the young Charif :

"Nu, now you can go into the town !"

That Friday night the old Rav came into the house-
of-study without his satin cloak, like a mourner. The
congregation saw him lead the young Rav into the corner
near the ark, where he sat him down by the high old
desk, saying:

THE LAST OF THEM 577

"You will sit here."

He himself went and sat down behind the pulpit
among the strangers, the Sabbath guests.

For the first minute people were lost in astonishment ;
the next minute the house-of-study was filled with
wailing. Old and young lifted their voices in lamenta-
tion. The young Eav looked like a child sitting behind
the tall desk, and he shivered and shook as though with
fever.

Then the old Eav stood up to his full height and
commanded :

"People are not to weep !"

All this happened about the Solemn Days. Mou-
ravanke remembers that time now, and speaks of it at
dusk, when the sky is red as though streaming with
fire, and the men stand about pensive and forlorn, and
the women fold their babies closer in their aprons.

At the close of the Day of Atonement there was a
report that the old Eav had breathed his last in robe
and prayer-scarf.

The young Charif did not survive him long. He died
at his father's the tailor, and his funeral was on a wet
Great Hosannah day. Aged folk said he had been
summoned to face the old Eav in a lawsuit in the
Heavenly Court.

A FOLK TALE

THE CLEVER RABBI

The power of man's imagination, said my Grand-
mother, is very great. Hereby hangs a tale, which, to
our sorrow, is a true one, and as clear as daylight.

Listen attentively, my dear child, it will interest you
very much.

Not far from this town of ours lived an old Count, who
believed that Jews require blood at Passover, Christian
blood, too, for their Passover cakes.

The Count, in his brandy distillery, had a Jewish over-
seer, a very honest, respectable fellow.
. The Count loved him for his honesty, and was very
kind to him, and the Jew, although he was a simple man
and no scholar, was well-disposed, and served the Count
with heart and soul. He would have gone through fire
and water at the Count's bidding, for it is in the nature
of a Jew to be faithful and to love good men.

The Count often discussed business matters with him,
and took pleasure in hearing about the customs and
observances of the Jews.

One day the Count said to him, "Tell me the truth, do
you love me with your whole heart ?"

"Yes," replied the Jew, "I love you as myself."

"Not true!" said the Count. "I shall prove to you
that you hate me even unto death."

"Hold !" cried the Jew. "Why does my lord say such
terrible things ?"

The Count smiled and answered : "Let me tell you ! I
know quite well that Jews must have Christian blood for

582 A FOLK TALE

their Passover feast. Now, what would you do if I were
the only Christian you could find ? You would have to
kill me, because the Eabbis have said so. Indeed, I can
scarcely hold you to blame, since, according to your false
notions, the Divine command is precious, even when it
tells us to commit murder. I should be no more to you
than was Isaac to Abraham, when, at God's command,
Abraham was about to slay his only son. Know, how-
ever, that the God of Abraham is a God of mercy and
lovingkindness, while the God the Rabbis have created is
full of hatred towards Christians. How, then, can you
say that you love me ?"

The Jew clapped his hands to his head, he tore his
hair in his distress and felt no pain, and with a broken
heart he answered the Count, and said: "How long
will you Christians suffer this stain on your pure hearts ?
How long will you disgrace yourselves? Does not my
lord know that this is a great lie ? I, as a believing Jew,
and many besides me, as believing Jews — we ourselves,
I say, with our own hands, grind the corn, we keep the
flour from getting damp or wet with anything, for if
only a little dew drop onto it, it is prohibited for us
as though it had yeast.

"Till the day on which the cakes are baked, we keep
the flour as the apple of our eye. And when the flour
is baked, and we are eating the cakes, even then we are
not sure of swallowing it, because if our gums should
begin to bleed, we have to spit the piece out. And in
face of all these stringent regulations against eating the
blood of even beasts and birds, some people say that
Jews require human blood for their Passover cakes,

THE CLEVE& MBBI 583

and swear to it as a fact ! What does my lord suppose
we are likely to think of such people? We know that
they swear falsely — and a false oath is of all things the
worst."

The Count was touched to the heart by these words,
and these two men, being both upright and without
guile, believed one the other.

The Count believed the Jew, that is, he believed that
the Jew did not know the truth of the matter, because
he was poor and untaught, while the Eabbis all the time
most certainly used blood at Passover, only they kept it
a secret from the people. And he said as much to the
Jew, who, in his turn, believed the Count, because he
knew him to be an honorable man. And so it was that
he began to have his doubts, and when the Count, on
different occasions, repeated the same words, the Jew
said to himself, that perhaps after all it was partly true,
that there must be something in it — the Count would
never tell him a lie !

And he carried the thought about with him for some
time.

The Jew found increasing favor in his master's eyes.
The Count lent him money to trade with, and God pros-
pered the Jew in everything he undertook. Thanks to
the Count, he grew rich.

The Jew had a kind heart, and was much given to
good works, as is the way with Jews.

He was very charitable, and succored all the poor in
the neighboring town. And he assisted the Eabbis and
the pious in all the places round about, and earned

584 A FOLK TALE

for himself a great and beautiful name, for he was
known to all as "the benefactor."

The Eabbis gave him the honor due to a pious
and influential Jew, who is a wealthy man and char-
itable into the bargain.

But the Jew was thinking :

"Now the Eabbis will let me into the secret which
is theirs, and which they share with those only who are
at once pious and rich, that great and pious Jews must
have blood for Passover."

For a long time he lived in hope, but the Eabbis told
him nothing, the subject was not once mentioned. But
the Jew felt sure that the Count would never have lied
to him, and he gave more liberally than before, thinking,
"Perhaps after all it was too little."

He assisted the Eabbi of the nearest town for a whole
year, so that the Eabbi opened his eyes in astonishment.
He gave him more than half of what is sufficient for a
livelihood.

When it was near Passover, the Jew drove into the
little town to visit the Eabbi, who received him with
open arms, and gave him honor as unto the most power-
ful and wealthy benefactor. And all the representative
men of the community paid him their respects.

Thought the Jew, "Now they will tell me of the
commandment which it is not given to every Jew to
observe."

As the Eabbi, however, told him nothing, the Jew
remained, to remind the Eabbi, as it were, of his duty.

"Eabbi," said the Jew, "I have something very par-
ticular to say to you! Let us go into a room where we
two shall be alone."

THE CLEVER RABBI 585

So the Rabbi went with him into an empty room, shut
the door, and said:

"Dear friend, what is your wish ? Do not be abashed,
but speak freely, and tell me what I can do for you."

"Dear Rabbi, I am, you must know, already ac-
quainted with the fact that Jews require blood at Pass-
over. I know also that it is a secret belonging only to the
Rabbis, to very pious Jews, and to the wealthy who give
much alms. And I, who am, as you know, a very char-
itable and good Jew, wish also to comply, if only
once in my life, with this great observance.

"You need not be alarmed, dear Rabbi ! I will never
betray the secret, but will make you happy forever, if
you will enable me to fulfil so great a command.

"If, however, you deny its existence, and declare that
Jews do not require blood, from that moment I become
your bitter enemy.

"And why should I be treated worse than any other
pious Jew? I, too, want to try to perform the great
commandment which God gave in secret. I am not
learned in the Law, but a great and wealthy Jew, and
one given to good works, that am I in very truth !"

You can fancy — said my Grandmother — the Rabbi's
horror on hearing such words from a Jew, a simple coun-
tryman. They pierced him to the quick, like sharp
arrows.

He saw that the Jew believed in all sincerity that his
coreligionists used blood at Passover.

How was he to uproot out of such a simple heart the
weeds sown there by evil men?

586 A FOLK TALE

The Eabbi saw that words would just then be useless.

A beautiful thought came to him, and he said : "So
be it, dear friend ! Come into the synagogue to-morrow
at this time, and I will grant your request. But till then
you must fast, and you must not sleep all night, but
watch in prayer, for this is a very grave and dreadful
thing."

The Jew went away full of gladness, and did as the
Eabbi had told him. Next day, at the appointed time,
he came again, wan with hunger and lack of sleep.

The Eabbi took the key of the synagogue, and they
went in there together. In the synagogue all was quiet.

The Eabbi put on a prayer-scarf and a robe, lighted
some black candles, threw off his shoes, took the Jew by
the hand, and led him up to the ark.

The Eabbi opened the ark, took out a scroll of the
Law, and said:

"You know that for us Jews the scroll of the Law is
the most sacred of all things, and that the list of denun-
ciations occurs in it twice.

"I swear to you by the scroll of the Law : If any Jew,
whosoever he be, requires blood at Passover, may all the
curses contained in the two lists of denunciations be on
my head, and on the head of my whole family !"

The Jew was greatly startled.

He knew that the Eabbi had never before sworn an
oath, and now, for his sake, he had sworn an oath so
dreadful !

The Jew wept much, and said:

"Dear Eabbi, I have sinned before God and before
you. I pray you, pardon me and give me a hard penance,

THE CLEVER RABBI 587

as hard as you please. I will perform it willingly, and
may God forgive me likewise !"

The Rabbi comforted him, and told no one what had
happened, he only told a few very near relations, just to
show them how people can be talked into believing the
greatest foolishness and the most wicked lies.

May God — said my Grandmother — open the eyes of
all who accuse us falsely, that they may see how use-
less it is to trump up against us things that never were
seen or heard.

Jews will be Jews while the world lasts, and they will
become, through suffering, better Jews with more Jewish
hearts.

GLOSSARY AND NOTES

[Abbreviations: Dimin. = diminutive; Ger. = German,
corrupt German, and Yiddish; Heb. = Hebrew, and Ara-
maic; pi. = plural; Russ. = Russian ; Slav. = Slavic; trl. =
translation.

Pronunciation: The transliteration of the Hebrew words
attempts to reproduce the colloquial "German" (Ash-
kenazic) pronunciation. Ch is pronounced as in the German
Dach.]

ADDITIONAL SERVICE. See EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS.
AL-CHET (Heb.). "For the sin"; the first two words of

each line of an Atonement Day prayer, at every mention

of which the worshipper beats the left side of his breast

with his right fist.

ALEF-BES (Heb.). The Hebrew alphabet.
ASHBE (Heb.). The first word of a Psalm verse used re-
peatedly in the liturgy.

Acs KLEMENKE! (Ger.). Klemenke is done for!
Azoi (= Ger. also). That's the way it is!
BADCHEN (Heb.). A wedding minstrel, whose quips often

convey a moral lesson to the bridal couple, each of

whom he addresses separately.
BAB-MITZVEH (Heb.). A boy of thirteen, the age of religious

majority.
BAS-KOL (Heb.). "The Daughter of the Voice"; an echo;

a voice from Heaven.
BEIGEL (Ger.). Ring-shaped roll.
BES HA-MIDBASH (Heb.). House-of-study, used for prayers,

too.

BITTUL-TOBAH (Heb.). Interference with religious study.
BOBBE (Slav.). Grandmother; midwife.
BOBSHTSH (Russ.). Sour soup made of beet-root.
CANTONTST (Ger.). Jewish soldier under Czar Nicholas I,

torn from his parents as a child, and forcibly estranged

from Judaism.

38

590 GLOSSARY AND NOTES

CHALLEH (Heb.). Loaves of bread prepared for the Sabbath,
over which the blessing is said; always made of wheat
flour, and sometimes yellowed with saffron.

CHABIF (Heb.). A Talmudic scholar and dialectician.

CHASSIDIM (sing. Chossid) (Heb.). "Pious ones"; followers
of Israel Baal Shem, who opposed the sophisticated in-
tellectualism of the Talmudists, and laid stress on
emotionalism in prayer and in the performance of other
religious ceremonies. The Chassidic leader is called
Tzaddik ("righteous one"), or Rebbe. See art. " Ha-
sidim," In the Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vi.

CHATTED ODOM. A manual of religious practice used exten-
sively by the common people.

CHEDEB (pi. Chedorim) (Heb.). Jewish primary school.

CHU-UUL HA-SHEM (Heb.). "Desecration of the Holy
Name"; hence, scandal.

CHIBIK (Heb.). Name of the vowel " i " ; in Volhynia " u "
is pronounced like " i."

DAWENING. Saying prayers.

DAT AN (pi. Dayonim) (Heb.). Authority on Jewish re-
ligious law, usually assistant to the Rabbi of a town.

DIN TORAH (Heb.). Lawsuit.

DBEIER, DREIEBLECH (Ger.). A small coin.

EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS. The nucleus of each of the three
daily services, morning, afternoon, evening, and of the
" Additional Service " inserted on Sabbaths, festivals,
and the Holy Days, between the morning and afternoon
services. Though the number of benedictions is actually
nineteen, and at some of the services is reduced to
seven, the technical designation remains " Eighteen
Benedictions." They are usually said as a " silent
prayer " by the congregation, and then recited aloud by
the cantor, or precentor.

EBETZ YISBOEL (Heb.). Palestine.

EBEV (Heb.). Eve.

EBUV (Heb.). A cord, etc., stretched round a town, to mark
the limit beyond which no " burden " may be carried
on the Sabbath.

GLOSSAKY AND NOTES 591

FAST OF ESTHEB. A fast day preceding Purim, the Feast of

Esther.
" FOUNTAIN OF JACOB." A collection of all the legends, tales,

apologues, parables, etc., in the Babylonian Talmud.
FouB-CoBNEBS (trl. of Arba Kanfos). A fringed garment

worn under the ordinary clothes; called also Tallis-

koton. See Deut. xxii. 12.

FOUB ELLS. Minimum space required by a human being.
FOUB QUESTIONS. Put by the youngest child to his father

at the Seder.
GANZE GOYIM (Ger. and Heb.). Wholly estranged from

Jewish life and customs. See Goi.
GASS (Ger.). The Jews' street.
GEHENNA (Heb.). The nether world; hell.
GEMOREH (Heb.). The Talmud, the Rabbinical discussion

and elaboration of the Mishnah; a Talmud folio. It is

usually read with a peculiar singsong chant, and the

reading of argumentative passages is accompanied by a

gesture with the thumb. See, for instance, pp. 17 and

338.
GEMOBEH-KOPLECH (Heb. and Ger.). A subtle, keen mind;

precocious.

GEVIB (Heb.). An influential, rich man. — GEVIBISH, apper-
taining to a Gevir.
Goi (pi. Goyim) (Heb.). A Gentile; a Jew estranged from

Jewish life and customs.

GOTTINYU (Ger. with Slav, ending). Dear God.
GBEAT SABBATH, THE. The Sabbath preceding Passover.
HAGGADAH (Heb.). The story of the Exodus recited at

the home service on the first two evenings of Passover.
HOSHANAH (pi. Hoshanos) (Heb.). Osier withe for the

Great Hosannah.
HOSHANAH-RABBAH (Heb.). The seventh day of the Feast

of Tabernacles; the Great Hosannah.
HOSTBE CHASSIDIM. Followers of the Rebbe or Tzaddik who

lived at Hostre.

592 GLOSSARY AND NOTES

KADDISH (Heb.). Sanctiflcation, or doxology, recited by
mourners, specifically by children in memory of parents
during the first eleven months after their death, and
thereafter on every anniversary of the day of their
death; applied to an only son, on whom will devolve the
duty of reciting the prayer on the death of his parents;
sometimes applied to the oldest son, and to sons in
general.

KALLEH (Heb.) Bride.

KALLEH-LEBEN (Heb. and Ger.). Dear bride.

KALLEHSHI (Heb. and Russ. dimin.). Dear bride.

KASHA (Slav.). Pap.

KEDUSHAH (Heb.). Sanctification; the central part of the
public service, of which the " Holy, holy, holy," forms a
sentence.

KERBEL, KEBBLECH (Ger.). A ruble.

KIDDUSH (Heb.). Sanctification; blessing recited over wine
in ushering in Sabbaths and holidays.

KLAUS (Ger.). "Hermitage"; a conventicle; a house-of-
study.

KOB TEBI BIESSI (Little Russ.) " Demons take you! "

KOL NIDRE (Heb.). The first prayer recited at the syna-
gogue on the Eve of the Day of Atonement.

KOSHER (Heb.). Ritually clean or permitted.

KOSHER-TANZ (Heb. and Ger.). Bride's dance.

KOST (Ger.). Board. — AUF KOST. Free board and lodging
given to a man and his wife by the latter's parents
during the early years of his married life.

"LEARN." Studying the Talmud, the codes, and the com-
mentaries.

LE-CHAYYIM (Heb.). Here's to long life!

LEHAVDIL (Heb.). "To distinguish." Elliptical for "to
distinguish between the holy and the secular " ; equiva-
lent to " excuse the comparison "; " pardon me for men-
tioning the two things in the same breath," etc.

GLOSSARY AND NOTES 593

LIKKUTE ZEVI (Heb.). A collection of prayers.

LOKSHEN. Macaroni. — TORAS-LOKSHEN, macaroni made in
approved style.

MAABIV (Heb.). The Evening Prayer, or service.

MAGGID (Heb.). Preacher.

MAHARSHO (MAHARSHO). Hebrew initial letters of Morenu
ha-Rab Shemuel Edels, a great commentator.

MALKES (Heb.). Stripes inflicted on the Eve of the Day of
Atonement, in expiation of sins. See Deut. xxv. 2, 3.

MASKIL (pi. Maskilim) (Heb.). An "intellectual." The
aim of the " intellectuals " was the spread of modern
general education among the Jews, especially in Eastern
Europe. They were reproached with secularizing He-
brew and disregarding the ceremonial law.

MATZES (Heb.). The unleavened bread used during Pass-
over.

MECHUTENESTE (Heb.). Mother-in-law; prospective mother-
in-law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between
the parents of a couple about to be married.

MECHUTTON (Heb.). Father-in-law; prospective father-in-
law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between
the parents of a couple about to be married.

MEHEBEH (Heb.). The "quick" dough for the Matzes.

MELAMMED (Heb.). Teacher.

MEZUZEH (Heb.). " Door-post; " Scripture verses attached to
the door-posts of Jewish houses. See Deut. vi. 9.

MIDBASH (Heb.). Homiletic exposition of the Scriptures.

MINCHAH (Heb.). The Afternoon Prayer, or service.

MIN HA-MEZAB (Heb.). "Out of the depth," Ps. 118. 5.

MINYAN (Heb.). A company of ten men, the minimum for a
public service; specifically, a temporary congregation,
gathered together, usually in a village, from several
neighboring Jewish settlements, for services on New
Year and the Day of Atonement.

594 GLOSSAKY AND NOTES

MISHNAH (Heb.). The earliest code (ab. 200 C. E.) after
the Pentateuch, portions of which are studied, during
the early days of mourning, in honor of the dead.

MISNAGGID (pi. Misnagdim) (Heb.). "Opponents" of the
Chassidim. The Misnagdic communities are led by
a Rabbi (pi. Rabbonim), sometimes called Rav.

MITZVEH (Heb.). A commandment, a duty, the doing of
which is meritorious.

NASHEBS (Ger.). Gourmets.

NISHKOSHE (Ger. and Heb.). Never mind!

NISSAN (Heb.). Spring month (March-April), in which
Passover is celebrated.

OLENU (Heb.). The concluding prayer in the synagogue
service.

OLOM HA-SHEKEB (Heb.). "The world of falsehood," this
world.

OLOM HA-TOHU (Heb.). World of chaos.

OLOM HO-EMESS (Heb.). "The world of truth," the world-
to-come.

PABNOSSEH (Heb.). Means of livelihood; business; sus-
tenance.

PIYYUTIM (Heb.). Liturgical poems for festivals and Holy
Days recited in the synagogue.

POBUSH (Heb.). Recluse.

PBAYEB OF THE HIGHWAY. Prayer on setting out on a
journey.

PBAYEB-SCABF. See TALLIS.

PUD (Russ.). Forty pounds.

PUBIM (Heb.). The Feast of Esther.

RASHI (RASHI). Hebrew initial letters of Rabbi Solomon
ben Isaac, a great commentator; applied to a certain
form of script and type.

RAV (Heb.). Rabbi.

REBBE. Sometimes used for Rabbi; sometimes equivalent to
Mr.; sometimes applied to the Tzaddik of the Chassidim;
and sometimes used as the title of a teacher of young
children.

GLOSSAKY AND NOTES 595

REBBETZIN. Wife of a Rabbi.

ROSH-YESHIVEH (Rosh ha-Yeshiveh) (Heb.). Headmaster of

a Talmudic Academy.
SCAPE-FOWLS (trl. of Kapporos). Roosters or hens used in

a ceremony on the Eve of the Day of Atonement.
SEDEB (Heb.). Home service on the first two Passover

evenings.
SELICHES (Heb.). Penitential prayers.

SEVENTEENTH OF TAMMUZ. Fast in commemoration of the

first breach made in the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchad-
nezzar.
SHALOM (Heb. in Sefardic pronunciation). Peace. See

SHOLOM ALECHEM.
SHAMASH (Heb.). Beadle.
SHECHINAH (Heb.). The Divine Presence.
SHEGETZ (Heb.). "Abomination;" a sinner; a rascal.
SHLIMM-MAZEL (Ger. and Heb.). Bad luck; luckless fellow.
SHMOOREH-MATZES (Heb.). Unleavened bread specially

guarded and watched from the harvesting of the wheat

to the baking and storing.
SHOCHET (Heb.). Ritual slaughterer.
SHOFAB (Heb.). Ram's horn, sounded on New Year's Day

and the Day of Atonement. See Lev. xxiii. 24.
SHOLOM (SHALOM) ALECHEM (Heb.). "Peace unto you";

greeting, salutation, especially to one newly arrived

after a journey.
SHOMEB. Pseudonym of a Yiddish author, Nahum M.

Schaikewitz.

SHOOL (Ger., Schul'). Synagogue.
SHULCHAN ABUCH (Heb.). The Jewish code.
SILENT PRAYEB. See EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS.
SOLEMN DAYS. The ten days from New Year to the Day of

Atonement inclusive.
SOUL-LIGHTS. Candles lighted in memory of the dead.

596 GLOSSARY AND NOTES

STUFFED MONKEYS. Pastry filled with chopped fruit and
spices.

TALLIS (popular plural formation, Tallesim) (Heb.). The
prayer-scarf.

TALLIS-KOTON (Heb.). See FOUB-COBNEBS.

TALMID-CHOCHEM (Heb.). Sage; scholar.

TALMUD TOBAH (Heb.). Free communal school.

TANO (Heb.). A Rabbi cited in the Mishnah as an authority.

TABABAM. Noise; tumult; ado.

TATE, TATISHE (Ger. and Russ. dimin.). Father.

TEFILLIN-SACKLECH (Heb. and Ger.). Phylacteries bag.

TISHO-B'OV (Heb.). Ninth of Ab, day of mourning and fast-
ing to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem;
hence, colloquially, a sad day.

TOBAH (Heb.). The Jewish Law in general, and the Penta-
teuch in particular.

TSISIN. Season.

TZADDIK (pi. Tzaddikim) (Heb.). "Righteous"; title of
the Chassidic leader.

U-MIPNE CHATOENU (Heb.). " And on account of our sins,"
the first two words of a prayer for the restoration of
the sacrificial service, recited in the Additional Service
of the Holy Days and the festivals.

U-NEsANNEH-ToiKEr (Heb.). "And we ascribe majesty,"
the first two words of a Piyyut recited on New Year
and on the Day of Atonement.

VEBFALLEN! (Ger.). Lost; done for.

VEBSHOK (Russ.). Two inches and a quarter.

VIEBEB (Ger.). Four kopeks.

VIVAT. Toast.

YESHIVEH (Heb.). Talmud Academy.

YOHBZEIT (Ger.). Anniversary of a death.

YOM KIPPUB (Heb.). Day of Atonement.

YOM-TOV (Heb.). Festival.

ZHYDEK (Little Russ.). Jew.

GLOSSAEY AND NOTES 597

P. 15. " It was seldom that parties went ' to law ' . . . .
before the Rav." — The Rabbi with his Dayonim gave
civil as well as religious decisions.

P. 15. " Milky Sabbath." — All meals without meat. In con-
nection with fowl, ritual questions frequently arise.

P. 16. f "Reuben's ox gores Simeon's cow." — Reuben and
Simeon are fictitious plaintiff and defendant in the
Talmud; similar to John Doe and Richard Roe.

P. 17. " He described a half-circle," etc. — See under
GEMOBEH.

P. 57. " Not every one is worthy of both tables! " — Worthy
of Torah and riches.

P. 117. " They salted the meat." — The ritual ordinance re-
quires that meat should be salted down for an hour
after it has soaked in water for half an hour.

P. 150. "Puts off his shoes!" — To pray in stocking-feet
is a sign of mourning and a penance.

P. 190. " We have trespassed," etc. — The Confession of
Sins.

P. 190. " The beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows,"
etc. — See MALKES.

P. 197. "With the consent of the All-Present," etc. — The
introduction to the solemn Kol Nidre" prayer.

P. 220. " He began to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-
scarf," etc. — They are worn first when a boy is Bar-
Mitzveh (which see) ; Ezrielk was married at the age of
thirteen.

P. 220. " He could not even break the wine-glass," etc. —
A marriage custom.

P. 220. "Waving of the sacrificial fowls." — See SCAPE-
FOWLS.

P. 220. " The whole company of Chassidim broke some
plates." — A betrothal custom.

P. 227. " Had a double right to board with their parents
' forever.' " — See Kb'st.

598 GLOSSARY AND NOTES

P. 271. " With the consent of the All-Present," etc. — See

note under p. 197.
P. 273. " Nothing was lacking for their journey from the

living to the dead." — See note under p. 547.

P. 319. " Give me a teacher who can tell," etc. — Reference
to the story of the heathen who asked, first of Shammai,
and then of Hillel, to be taught the whole of the Jewish
Law while standing on one leg.

P. 326. " And those who do not smoke on Sabbath, raised
their eyes to the sky." — To look for the appearance of
three stars, which indicate nightfall, and the end of
the Sabbath.

P. 336. " Jeroboam the son of Nebat." — The Rabbinical type
for one who not only sins himself, but induces others to
sin, too.

P. 401. " Thursday." — See note under p. 516.

P. 403. " Monday," " Wednesday," " Tuesday." — See note
under p. 516.

P. 427. " Six months' ' board.' " — See K8st.

P. 443. " I knew Hebrew grammar, and could write He-
brew, too." — See MASKIL.

P. 445. " A Jeroboam son of Nebat." — See note under p. 336.

P. 489. " In a snow-white robe." — The head of the house is
clad in his shroud at the Seder on the Passover.

P. 516. " She knew that on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his
' day '," etc. — At the houses of well-to-do families meals
were furnished to poor students, each student having a
specific day of the week with a given family throughout
the year.

P. 547. " Why had he brought .... a white shirt-like gar-
ment? " — The worshippers in the synagogue on the Day
of Atonement wear shrouds.

P. 552. " Am I .... I suppose I am to lie down? " — See
MALKES.

GLOSSARY AND NOTES 599

P. 574. " In a hundred and twenty years." — The age at-
tained by Moses and Aaron; a good old age. The
expression is used when planning for a future to come
after the death of the person spoken to, to imply that
there is no desire to see his days curtailed for the sake
of the plan.

IDING DKT. JUi. 1 1959

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