“Oh! do not be afraid of us,Your royal, Eastern visitors.To worship, we have come from far,Led by a wondrous, shining star;For we have heard this glorious thingThat to the Jews is born a king.”
“Oh! do not be afraid of us,Your royal, Eastern visitors.To worship, we have come from far,Led by a wondrous, shining star;For we have heard this glorious thingThat to the Jews is born a king.”
Then came the Latin hymn with its chorus, in which I was supposed to join lustily; but throughout which I was silent.
“Eya! Eya! Virgo Deum genuit quern divina voluit potentia.” ...
“Eya! Eya! Virgo Deum genuit quern divina voluit potentia.” ...
It was a corrupt Latin and out of tune, which the boys sang; and when they had finished, they rose, conscious of the fact that there was something wrong with them or their audience, andthere was. I was in the thick of a desperate fight with thePany’sson who was trying to throw me. Ordinarily, he would not have had a difficult task; but my wounded, royal pride had given me unknown strength, and majestically I held my ground.
“Get down, you dirty peasant!” the lad cried viciously, while I, loudly protesting that I was not a peasant, fought him back until, coming to close quarters, we rolled on the floor, I holding him down with my hands and knees.
“Enough of this, you impudent fellow!” the angry voice of thePanysaid, as he lifted me roughly from the badly damaged form of his scion. “Enough of this! Get out of here!”
I was ready enough to go; but fate willed otherwise.
“Why didn’t you kneel?” thePanyasked, as I picked up my demoralized crown and the star, which in the scuffle had been ruthlessly torn from my mother’s yardstick, on top of which it had guided our footsteps.
“Because I am a king and not a peasant, and I won’t kneel to any one.”
Loud laughter greeted this speech, for it betrayed my race and religion. Mockingly, thePanytook me by the back of the neck.
“Ah, so!” he said; “that’s your new business, being a king. Now, you dirty littleSchid, get out of here, quick!” And down the broad stairway,which a few minutes before led me up to Paradise, I stumbled onto earth again.
With tears streaming down my blackened face and the acolyte’s garments half torn from my body, I tried to find my way out of the lower hall, the other two kings having basely deserted me—when a woman’s hand reached out to me in the dark. A very gentle touch it was, and it drew me into a warm and beautiful room. Then I saw that the woman was thePany’ssister, an “old maid” known all through the town for her piety and good works. She washed my face with warm water, and arranged my dress so that I would be better shielded from the cold; she filled my pockets with nuts and such sweets as she knew I could eat, and as she led me out, she kissed my forehead and said: “Our Lord was a little Jewish boy, just like you.” Then she kissed my lips and said, “In His name.”
I ran home through the increasing cold as fast as my feet could carry me, into my room and to bed, but spent a restless night. I dreamed of thePany’sson and of his sister, feeling kicks and kisses alternately. Then I travelled, far and farther, following the star, looking for the crib and the Child, but never finding them.
That Christmas morning I shall never forget. The maid found my bed full of vermin which had crawled out of the boys’ sheepskin coats, and the towels and toilet articles were a mass of stove-polish.It was a day of intensest suffering under punishment of various kinds, yet through it all I felt the kisses of thePany’ssister on my forehead and on my lips.
I was neither a Wise Man nor a king, yet I was wiser than I had been and I was as proud as a king, for I had not knelt at thePany’scommand and I had whipped his son.
TEN o’clock in the morning was the one tense hour of the day, for the omnibus was due to arrive and, with it, everything which connected our town with the outside world. Although most of the villagers expected neither letters nor friends, every one who had even a moment of leisure stepped to his front door when the omnibus came, and tried to catch a glimpse of the sleepy passengers who had spent a torturing night in the sombre, springless vehicle. In front of the Black Eagle Inn, congregated town loafers, children and the aged, who alone had leisure to watch the passengers alight.
This was an exciting procedure, for the omnibus was high, and its one window served also as exit, so that the passengers’ feet protruded through the small opening first, the bodies being drawn carefully after. It was a mirth-provoking performance, and as laughter was an indulgence not often experienced in our sober environment, all who could afford the leisure and the laughter awaited the daily diversion at the Black Eagle Inn.
On a certain Sabbath morning I had absented myself from the synagogue. It was a June day of rare beauty with a warm, wooing, gentle wind, calling the boy in me back to the creek, the willow-trees, the goslings and the Gentile boys and girls. While nature with its willows and its goslings had no objection to my “cutting” the synagogue service, its Gentile and ungenteel children objected seriously, and I was driven back to the dusty street, with its cobblestone pavement. There was nothing to do except go to the synagogue or join the crowd of loafers around the Black Eagle Inn, and I chose the latter, although at great peril; for to be caught loafing on the Sabbath, during the hours of morning service, was sure to bring dire consequences. The clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels were already heard, proceeding from a cloud of dust which came nearer and nearer as the omnibus swayed into sight. Its emaciated, weary horses responded to the whip of the driver as they made one last, brave effort at a gallop; then stopped at their accustomed place, steaming from heat and too weary even to whisk the gathering flies from their backs.
“How many passengers have you?” some one called to the driver.
“Three-quarters of a man,” he replied, laughing coarsely.
The crowd stood for a moment speechless, asthe leather curtain was thrown back and a wooden leg appeared; then carefully feeling for the foot-rest, came a real leg and foot. In due time the back followed, covered by a dusty blue coat, and the man stood before us—three-quarters of a man indeed; for above the wooden leg hung an empty coat sleeve.
From the depths of the vehicle the driver drew a brass-bound trunk. It was a strange-looking, gorgeous affair, and made almost as great a sensation among the astonished onlookers as the three-quarters of a man in the blue suit and brass buttons had made. A queer-looking, soft hat shaded his bearded face, in which I intuitively detected faint traces of our common, racial ancestry. He swung his cane at the gaping crowd and called out, in military language: “Right about, face! March!” The crowd obeyed mechanically, and he hobbled unmolested into the inn. I followed him, for two reasons: first, the synagogue service was just over and I was sure to be discovered in this forbidden spot. Secondly, this was a new species of humanity to me, as new as the sewing-machine which had come to our house about a week before, and as wonderful as the coal-oil lamp, the marvellous light of which now illuminated our home for the first time. Strange to say, all these had come from America, during the last fortnight.
“Why are you looking at me, youngster?” the man asked, shaking his empty sleeve at me. “Have you never seen three-quarters of a man before? What’s your name?”
While he waited for my reply, he took a pull at his bottle ofpalenka, the common drink of the peasants. When he heard my name, he stared at me less fiercely.
“Come here,” he said, patting my curly head. “I am a Jew myself.”
“You are not, you cannot be! No Jew ever drinkspalenka.”
“Boy,” he replied, pushing aside the empty bottle, “I am three-quarters of a man, but not even one-quarter a Jew. I have been to war, where I lost my arm and leg, and I have been in America, where I lost my Judaism.” Then with an air of abandonment, he ordered a pork roast for his dinner.
I was grievously shocked, and to save even the remnant of a Jew in him, I suggested that he go home with me and eat a good,kosherSabbath dinner. Hospitality is a virtue of the Jewish home, and there was scarcely a Sabbath meal without some unfortunate at our table. I felt sure that mother would not object to this guest, especially if I made it clear to her that I had saved the man from eating pork roast.
I remember most vividly my going home with this Jewish soldier and the pride I felt in walking beside a man who had come from America.Doors and windows were opened, while black-eyed maidens and gray-haired matrons craned their necks to get a glimpse of the stranger. All that blessed Sabbath our house was the centre of attraction, and hundreds of inquiries had to be answered.
“Who was he?” An old townsman who, years ago, ran away from home, and after many adventures landed in America. He enlisted in the Federal army, was discharged, pensioned and had come home to die.
“Aye! Aye!” the townspeople said. “Who would have thought that one of us should come from America!”
That same day the brass-bound trunk was brought to our house, for mother took pity on the homeless man and told him to stay with us. She hoped to keep him from drinkingpalenkaand eating pork. The latter was not difficult, but thepalenka—that was impossible.
“The brass-bound trunk no doubt holds his treasures,” the neighbours said. Treasures indeed! His discharge from the army, which was framed and hung over his bed, a second suit of blue, a huge flag—the Stars and Stripes—a history of the Civil War in German, a book called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and the picture of a sad-faced man.
Every day I heard about the land of freedomfrom one who had been there, the German book I soon knew by heart, the flag I learned to love, and Abraham Lincoln, the sad-faced man, took the place of our patriarch Abraham in my heart and imagination.
“How is it,” I asked the old soldier, “that this man, who was a Christian, was called Abraham?”
“My boy,” he said, “he was a Christian; but he was as good a Jew as the patriarch Abraham. The great lawgiver, Moses, led his own people out of bondage; this man led a strange, African race out of slavery.” Then he read and translated to me “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and I have never forgotten a single incident in that vivid story. So thoroughly was I imbued by its spirit, that I gathered a group of boys to whom I preached my first revolutionary sermon. I pictured to them the sufferings of our poor and the harshness of our government as typified by the vicious judge and the cruel and venal police. I tried to exact an oath from the boys to help me free these peasant slaves and, if necessary, fight the judge and the police.
Fortunately for the government, my classmates would not enthuse; instead, they told the teacher, who tried to whip my revolutionary ideas out of me, and when I reached home almost too sore to walk, I found great comfort in looking into the sad face of Abraham Lincoln, my patronsaint and the inspirer of my passion for the common people.
“Uncle Joe,” as the old soldier wished to be called, drankpalenkaheavily and almost constantly; the three-quarters of a man wasted away until he was scarcely half a man, and we knew and he knew that the end was not far away. I was in his room one Saturday afternoon; my mother sat beside him holding his thin, bony hand and he was quite sober, as I believe he had not often been since coming to us.
“You think I am a bad man,” he said to my mother. “I drink, I smoke on the Sabbath, I do not lay the phylacteries. I am a bad man; but I have fought, I have suffered cold and hunger and I have fallen into bad habits.
“I think God will forgive me. I know He will if He is anything like Abraham Lincoln. He forgave me once. I was about to be shot,” he whispered hoarsely. “He forgave me, and when I come before Jehovah I shall call for Abraham Lincoln. He spoke a good word for me once—he will do it again.”
The old soldier looked around the room and his glance rested appealingly on the face of the sad-eyed man who had borne the sufferings and agonies of many men.
“Give that picture to the boy who brought me to you—let him have the book also. The flag you must wrap me in; let it be my shroud. Mydischarge I want buried with me and let them fire a salute over my grave; for it will be a soldier’s grave.”
Coming home the next day at noon, I heard the pious men of our community repeating verses spoken at the bedside of the dying. It was a weird lamentation that went up from those hoarse-throated men, and in the tumult of voices affirming faith in the God of Israel, “Uncle Joe’s” soul took its flight.
To induce the pious men, whose consent was necessary, to wrap his body in the Stars and Stripes, was difficult, but was finally accomplished through my mother’s importunity. The firing of the salute was out of the question, for no Jew owned a gun, and it would be sacrilege to hire a Gentile to use one.
The solemn procession came to the cemetery with its burden and they buried him after the manner of the Jews. But hardly had the last man left the grave when three shots were fired, startling young and old alike.
Istvan, the Hungarian shepherd, once a soldier himself, had yielded to my entreaties and paid this last tribute to a warrior.
Istvan was fined and imprisoned for shooting within the limits of the cemetery; I too was punished, and the common suffering created fellowship between us. Over and over again, while he was watching his sheep, I told himthe story of the life and death of Abraham Lincoln.
“Too bad,” he would say, “that he had a Jewish name. Too bad that his name was Abraham.”
NO man of another race than my own spoke kindly to me after I had developed some sense of race consciousness. “Little Jew” was the mildest term in which I was addressed, and it ranged to the cruel “Christ-Killer”—a rather questionable term to apply to a seven-year-old lad, who could not have looked very ferocious, with his blue eyes and his shock of curly blond hair. I knew I was guiltless of the last appellation, even if I understood its meaning, which I doubt; but I was quite sure I was a little Jew and every time I was called that, it hurt, as if I were smitten by a lash. I cannot help wincing yet when the word Jew is applied to me; I suppose it hurt because it was meant to. It is the mental attitude of the other man which makes me sensitive, rather than the name itself, which was one to conjure with through many a Golden Age.
One man—the only man who took me for just the boy I was and treated me as such—was the miller; and because he treated me kindly, and heroically controlled the rush of the mill-race and the turning of the mighty water-wheels, Iplaced him in my mind next to Jehovah in power. Whenever I try to visualize heaven, I invariably see the miller’s bleached face (which looked like one of the rolls baked from his flour) smiling at me from amongst the crowd of saints and I seem to hear him saying, as he used to say: “Hello, little fellow, come in and see my little girl and talk German to her.” That is just how he greeted me one day when decorously lifting my cap and saying in good German, “Guten Morgen, Herr Müller,” I passed tremblingly over the bridge, underneath which the water rushed tumultuously, ready to do the miller’s bidding in turning the huge wheels. What connection the wheels had with the endless clatter within I did not yet know; other mysteries were to disclose themselves first. There were the pigeons in their nests, and he lifted me high towards them and laughed when my outstretched hand was quickly withdrawn; for a mother bird did not like my intrusion. There was his hunting dog, which jumped at me and nearly frightened me out of my wits, but who merely wanted to tell me in his dog fashion that, as far as he was concerned, he had no race prejudices. And we were close friends—this dog and I—even related, later, for one of its young became my own—the only pet of my childhood.
I have some definite impressions of a peculiar, large living-room, which seemed rocked by therattling mill. I can recall certain pictures on the wall, for the Jewish home was devoid of such ornaments and these were the first secular pictures I had seen. There were German battles and portraits of Bismarck and the Prussian king. Four or five lads, sons of the miller, stood about and seemed to delight in my presence. All of them looked bleached, like the miller, and Martha, the only daughter, was of the same type; but lovely to me as a fairy, with her long, flaxen hair which hung heavily below her waist. Her rather pale and delicate face and her large, blue eyes fascinated me.
That living-room became the birthplace of my Germanic ideals—there I first heard the name of Bismarck, for the miller was a German to the core, and from him I heard wonderful anecdotes about Frederick the Great. There also I read with Martha the love-songs of Heine, Schiller and Goethe, declaiming them to her, no doubt, in the most sentimental manner. Out of it all grew a love life, so mystic and beautiful that I think of it every time the spring comes and I smell the faint tree odours in the early April days. Martha was about five years older than I, but she was more than twice as old in her physical and mental maturity, and I watched her growth with ill-concealed jealousy. The rounding of her form into womanhood caused me excruciating suffering. In frightful rage I once tore from herone of Schiller’s most sentimental ballads, which some young sprig had copied for her, and I forbade her to read it. I do not remember what she said or did but she was so gentle and sweet about it that I was heartily ashamed of myself.
I felt her slipping away from me and almost gone, when one night she went to a ball at the “Aristocratic Club.” Through one of the windows to which I had climbed I watched her dancing, and was twice thrown down by some Gentile lads, who expressed themselves quite freely as to the business a little Jew had looking in at Gentile folks’ balls. I had a deep impression that dancing as I saw it was not right. I cannot explain what I felt. I certainly was too young to see any immorality in it; but my intuitions were so strong that afterwards I felt as if Martha had either done a great wrong or that she had been grievously wronged. I think I must have inherited deep puritanic tendencies; for the orthodox Jew is puritanical, and although my mother allowed my sisters to dance, I know that she did not give her permission until after a great struggle. Once, I scarcely know how old I was, certainly not more than five, my sister was going to a ball in a rather décolleté gown, and her bare neck and arms so offended me that I forbade her going. When she dragged me away from the door to which I barred her way, I scratched her arm so badly that she had to remainat home. I have good reason to remember that event, for my older brother beat me so badly for the cowardly act that I did not sleep all night and had opportunity to repent. I did not embrace the opportunity for I felt that I had suffered in a good cause.
The miller’s daughter was lost to me in more than one way. Young snobs hung about when I came to call and “snubbed” me until I had no more courage to return. I suppose a year or more had passed since I had called on her, when I heard a rumour that she was ill. She had caught cold at a dance, I overheard the women say, and they were feeding her on raw eggs and a certain drink called chocolate, and that was a sign of wasting disease. One day her younger brother, a boy of about my own age, called for me. He said that his sister was dying and wished to see me. My beloved mother, who had smiled many a time over my devotion to the miller’s daughter, and had never opposed my visiting her but rather encouraged it on account of the German I spoke there, knew the solemnity of the occasion and saw to it that I was properly attired on this my last visit. The mill wheels were silent, the only time that I ever knew them so. The pigeons and rabbits were there, more numerous than ever, and the miller’s hunting dog, dear old friend that he was, greeted me fondly. The miller for once was not dusty fromflour and his face did not resemble a penny roll. He looked like a crushed man and when he saw me, his huge breast laboured as if the pent-up pain were ready to burst it. He made some inarticulate sounds as if he were trying to weep and could not. It was the first time I had seen a man suffer great heart agonies, and it tortured me. They led me into Martha’s bedroom. How wasted she was! Her blue eyes seemed strangely aglow, her nose so much larger than I had ever thought it, and her poor emaciated fingers picked at the bedclothing which covered her. I do not remember what she said, whether she spoke of living or dying. I just felt the pressure of the pain, and before they led me away I threw myself by her bed crying, and then a strange thing happened; her burning lips were upon my hot forehead, and her poor, thin fingers moved through my hair. I felt as if it were spring time again, as if we were looking for the fragrant violets which grew by the mill-race; and the sweet odour of trees seemed to fill the air.
I left the room bathed in hot tears, those very hot, scalding tears, which come from the very depths of one’s being, and as I went crying through the streets, a hoyden, a woman of ill repute—the lowest of the low—caught me and asked: “Little boy, why are you crying?” Then she too kissed me on the forehead. Truly, the very good and the very bad have no race prejudice.
BACK of our house was a long row of tenements, inhabited by the poorer class of Gentiles. These peasants were at the verge of starvation, although usually in the summer and autumn they lived rather comfortably, indulging in such luxuries aspalenka, salt pickles and smoked bacon, heavily covered by paprika. If in the winter they had cabbage soup and a scanty potful of beans they were fortunate; while only an occasional midnight incursion into some more fortunate neighbour’s kitchen brought a hasty mouthful of meat. My mother owned the tenements and as a result there was a certain deference paid me by these peasants, especially in the winter time, when I did not treat my mother’s well-stocked larder too honestly, answering their appeal for food.
Three races were represented by these tenants of ours; Slovaks, Magyars and Gypsies. The last named were the musicians of the town and had given up their nomadic habits, while the first two were almost literally “the hewers of wood and drawers of water.” I was on thebest terms with the Gypsies, especially with one who played the cornet and played it with all the fervour of his Gypsy nature. Whatever musical education I have, I purchased its beginning from him, paying in buttered rolls and Sabbath cakes for Schubert’s Serenade and the Swan Song from Lohengrin—two of my favourite songs even yet. The goose girl’s parents were our tenants during this period. Her father was a pseudo Magyar: that is, a Slav who had changed his name and swore in the Magyar language while he continued to drinkpalenkalike the Slovak he was, and beat or otherwise abused his family like the brute who is pretty much alike among all the fallen children of men. The goose girl had long ago stopped herding geese. She had been a nurse-maid and later a very indifferent house servant, accused by her many mistresses of theft, lying and excessive vanity. To the last named quality of her nature I could have borne abundant evidence, for she persuaded me on a moonlight night to bring her one of my younger sister’s ball dresses, which she put on in the shadow of a pear tree standing far back in our garden. As she emerged into the moonlight, looking to me like a fairy princess, she demanded my obeisance, and made me call her “Kis Aszonka,” which is the Hungarian term for a young lady of the upper class and is never applied to a peasant girl. As a peacock spreads his feathers, so thegoose girl spread the train of my sister’s gown, dragging it over the dewy grass, much to my dismay then and more to my sorrow the next day, when my sister discovered the green spots upon her best gown.
Not long after this, I heard that my childhood’s friend had run away from home. Her father cursed more than usual, her mother cried and the neighbours said: “I told you so.” When later I asked her father what had become of his daughter he replied: “I suppose she has gone to the devil.”
I do not know how long a time had passed since her disappearance, when a certain spring came with unusual rapture, swept across the meadows, drove the ice out of the river in a night and climbed the foothills of the Carpathians, leaving the big mountains still covered by snow. It was a Sunday and May-day, the Gypsies had gone to the houses of the nobility and also to the lesser folk, in whose pockets they suspected small change which they would lure out by their stirring music. The peasant lads had gathered at the inn and were boasting of their prowess in climbing May-poles and of their eagerness to climb an unusually tall and smooth one, at whose top tempting prizes of coloured neckerchiefs and bottles ofpalenkaawaited the man who could make his boast true. The room in which the peasants gathered was a bare one,although a few coloured prints of anæmic-looking saints hung upon the once whitewashed wall. In one corner on the beaten earth floor was a bundle of straw which served as beds for poorer wayfarers, while the better furnished adjoining room was reserved for the higher class of guests, none of whom had yet arrived, as it was still early. Even when a boy I had a curious interest in people and always disregarded class distinctions. I wanted to see that May-day celebration as the peasants saw it. I wasn’t merely curious; I know that I celebrated with them. I felt sorry if the rain spoiled their holidays and that day was unusually happy because the weather was fine. A square-jawed, heavy-faced lad, whom my mother had hired to work in the field, was my sponsor and guide. He wore his very best and most gorgeous garments and from his rakish hat hung rather defiantly the feather of a cock with whose erstwhile owner, this youth, whose name was Shimek, shared his predilection for a fight. “First music, then a fight and after the fight, a girl to love.” This was Shimek’s Sunday program, although to do him justice, he went to church in the morning. One must not believe, though, that he was seriously concerned about his soul; for the plan of salvation, if he ever thought of it, was expressed by him in the song, sung by just such youths through many generations:
“He who can dance wellAnd payeth the fiddlerAngels will lift himUp into heaven.”
“He who can dance wellAnd payeth the fiddlerAngels will lift himUp into heaven.”
While they had no fiddler to make merry for them, they had the goose girl’s father—who could evoke music out of a threshing flail. This he did by rubbing the flail over one of his fingers which he held on the table. The result was a rumbling sound, not unlike the monotonous notes of a bass viol. In a quavering voice he began singing to his accompaniment a familiar song, the swinging melody of which was snatched from his lips by the ever ready Shimek, who knew every song born in the merry heart of the Slovak and who taught me many of them, none of which I have forgotten. This is the song he sang:
“On the white mountainThe peasant ploweth,Has a fine daughter,Grant her me, Heaven!”
“On the white mountainThe peasant ploweth,Has a fine daughter,Grant her me, Heaven!”
All the half-drunk guests sang the chorus:
“Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp,Grant her me, Heaven!Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”
“Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp,Grant her me, Heaven!Hey, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”
Above the noisy chorus came the rumbling of Matushek’s improvised instrument which he rubbed over his fingers until the blood came spurting out. Even then he would not stop, until every verse was sung:
“O! if I had her,I would rejoice so.Three hundred dollarsQuickly I’d earn.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.“Dear little woman!Three hundred dollars!I’d make her travelIn a closed carriage.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.“Servants in front of her,Servants behind her,And they must call herMy high-born lady.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”
“O! if I had her,I would rejoice so.Three hundred dollarsQuickly I’d earn.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.
“Dear little woman!Three hundred dollars!I’d make her travelIn a closed carriage.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.
“Servants in front of her,Servants behind her,And they must call herMy high-born lady.Huy, zuppy, zuppy, zupp.”
Many times the crowd sang the ringing chorus, accompanying it with their feet upon the floor and their fists upon the table. As they sang, the sound of bells came nearer and nearer, not clear enough at first to disturb the revellers. Then it grew louder and louder, until just before it stopped, some one heard it. The tumult ceased and every one ran to the door to see the omnibus whose coming was still the event of the day. It had undergone some changes since I first knew it in my early boyhood, although the changes were only external. Upon its new covering of leather was printed in three languages, “Omnibus to Hodowin, tour et retour, one florin.” The “tour et retour” was the same in all the languages and at first puzzled every oneexcept a few of the elect who, thanks to some French phrases which had filtered into our community, understood its meaning. To proceed rearward out of the stage was doubly difficult that day, as each of the passengers, who were all women, had a baby wrapped closely in a linen sheet, hanging from her shoulders. Some fifteen women finally drew themselves and their precious burdens out of the tunnel of the stage, and from the depths of sundry wrappings one could hear the voices of their charges. The fact that they could be heard at all out of the mass of feather pillows and linen sheets unto which they had sunk, proved their great lung capacity.
When the last passenger had left the stage, the peasants returned to the room which they had so lately deserted—followed by the women, who silenced the cries of the infants with milk, out of bottles in various stages of uncleanliness. The women themselves ate heartily of the rye bread which was sold them at the inn and drank freely of thepalenkagenerously offered by the numerous Sunday guests.
Just one woman held her baby close to her breast and shamefacedly nourished it in the darkest corner she could find. She was the mother of her child. The other women, most of them much older than she, had been in Vienna and gathered these little ones as they would have garnered any remunerative crop.
In a high gray house facing the general hospital, these little ones were born, thousands of them every month, tens of thousands every year; some of them born on fine linen, out of love, most of them born on coarse cotton, out of love’s counterfeit; but all of them born out of wedlock.
Because the young mother wore the garb of the city, I felt free to talk to her. I addressed her in German and when she lifted her face and looked into mine, I recognized the long lost goose girl. Shimek, my guardian during these festal hours, recognized her as quickly as I had. “Boze muy, boze muy,” he cried, “it is Katuska!”
Her father, stick in hand, jumped to his feet at the mention of his daughter’s name and before we knew it the stick had fallen upon her head, and she was crying piteously while the baby, too, lifted up its voice. Mockingly the old man walked up and down before his daughter and called her “Kis Aszonka.” “With whose baby have I the honour of making acquaintance?” he asked. I do not recollect all that happened but the stick suddenly came down more heavily than before upon the girl’s back. “A bastard brat!” her father cried; “a bastard brat!” he repeated, almost insane from anger. “No, not into my house—not into my house!” Slamming the door of the inn behind him he left his daughter among the gaping crowd of men. Shimek drewme aside and whispered: “Would I stand by him if he took the goose girl and her baby into the loft above the stable? Would I intercede with my mother in his behalf if she should object?”
I remember distinctly the feeling which came over me when I held that poor little waif in my arms and carried it as far as the loft in which Shimek was domiciled, while he led the goose girl who was too weak to walk alone. I then felt for the first time what I have since felt a thousand times when holding children in my arms: a joyous sense of relationship which no one can dispute and the children cannot repudiate. I hovered around that stable many a day and heard with aching heart the crying of the baby.
My mother visited the goose girl in the stable loft and her baby in the manger. She made some kind of satisfactory arrangements with Shimek; for that evening we saw him, Katuska and the baby, sitting under the pear tree in the garden. He was singing lustily the love-song he had carelessly thrown at many a maiden before:
“Will you take my heart?Will you give your heart?I am yours, my love,You’re my turtle doveHiy, hiy,Will you be my love?”
“Will you take my heart?Will you give your heart?I am yours, my love,You’re my turtle doveHiy, hiy,Will you be my love?”
There was only one answer which the goose girl could give him and as soon as the bans were read in church, the marriage was solemnized. Mother and I were guests of honour and that which I enjoyed most about the wedding was, that I held the baby while the priest spoke the words which united in holy wedlock—Shimek and the goose girl.
IN some villages scattered along the highways which led from our town, feeling against the Jews was especially marked. I do not know how to account for this, although wherever race antagonisms have developed, one finds that in certain communities prejudice is very strong, while others are practically immune from it. The village of Rovensko was feared by all Jews, who never passed through it after sundown; for they would have been assaulted. Even in broad daylight they were never safe from insult. Frequently raids against the Jews in our own town were organized in Rovensko and whenever we met a peasant from there on our streets we immediately knew him to be an enemy. Boys in the adolescent period seemed to be most vicious and many a time I had to suffer from their fists and still more from their jibes and taunting songs.
The leader of this gang of boys was a foundling who had been brought to the village by a childless widow. Her tender heart-strings were so wrapped about the lad that when the timecame to send him back to the “Big Gray Mother,” as the foundlings’ home was called, she decided to adopt him and did so without the consent of the authorities. The boy was unusually handsome, his face betraying a rather fine type of ancestry and only as he grew older did his features become coarse. When he was drunk, and that was often, one could not distinguish him from the rest of the Rovensko lads. Hatred of the Jews seemed to be an absorbing and consuming passion with him. He had broken into the synagogue and polluted the sacred scrolls; he had invaded the Jewish cemetery and levelled many a headstone. It was he who was most active in the periodical Easter raids against our community; yet in spite of my fear of him or perhaps because of it, I developed a fondness for him. He was big, strong, fearless; and, strange to say, reciprocated my feeling. A number of times he saved me from rough treatment by his comrades. Once when they had hurt me and I was crying, he offered dangerous consolation in the form of a green apple, which he drew from the folds of his shirt.
One day there was a rumour that his parents were searching for him, that the judge had received money to repay the widow for her care of the boy and that fine clothing had been sent him. The rumours were confirmed when he appeared on the streets in a fashionable Viennesesuit, smoking a long, Hungarian cigar and treating everybody topalenka, himself taking wine until he was drunk, after which he drankpalenkawith the peasants. That night, he and his comrades marched through the streets, breaking as many window-panes in Jewish homes as they could find, and spreading terror in all hearts. What remained of the night he passed in jail and was kept there, first, because he deserved it and secondly because the policeman wanted to help him spend his money. The courthouse and the jail were opposite our house and one evening I saw him coming out, pale and blear-eyed, his fashionable clothing creased and crumpled and his linen soiled. Something impelled me to speak to him and invite him to come and drink a cup of coffee in our kitchen. Perhaps it was gratitude for his kindness to me or possibly it was to heap coals of fire upon his head; more likely it was merely the boy’s chance to worship a hero; at any rate, he drank two cups of coffee and as he crunched the sugar between his teeth, I ventured to ask him why he hated the Jews. “It’s in the blood,” he said. “When I see a Jew I get angry and feel like hitting him over the head.” Then he put his rough fingers into my hair and pulled it until my cries brought my mother. When he saw her, he left the kitchen with an oath, banging the door behind him. My mother took me to task for wasting our goodcoffee on an enemy and we seriously discussed this terrible question of being a Jew, of being hated by the Gentiles and hating in turn. I do not recall just what she said, but I know she tried to prove to me that the differences between the races were so great that we could not help hating one another. When I insisted that I did not and could not hate even this our arch-enemy, she took me into her arms and our argument ended in kisses as was often the case.
An unusual thing happened a little later which put nearly the whole town in a ferment. A carriage came from the far-away railroad station and its occupants, a prosperous and intelligent-looking couple, alighted at the courthouse. I remember the woman’s beautiful costume, her fine figure and especially her sad face. There was much discussion in our house as to whether or not she was a Jewess. Quickly the news spread through the town that the foundling’s parents had arrived and that they would take him back to Vienna. An officious policeman began the search for Anton, which was the foundling’s name, and when the lucky boy appeared he was the envy of all the town. When the doors of the courthouse closed upon him, half the population gathered to witness his triumphant reappearance with his parents, whose wealth was regarded as fabulous and their social rank high.
After what seemed to me a very long time the doors were opened violently and Anton, rushing out like a madman, ran down the street as fast as his legs could carry him. The gentleman led the lady to the carriage. Her face was hidden against his breast and she was crying bitterly. Then they drove away while the inquisitive bystanders wondered what had happened.
From that time on, Anton never took part in any raid against the Jews; not because he had become a peaceful citizen—he had more fights on his hands than before; for whenever his former comrades wished to taunt him, they called him “Jew,” which so enraged him that he would fight to the blood; for hewasa Jew.
THE town was being turned upside down; at least it seemed so to those of us who had lived in its undisturbed atmosphere, from year’s end to year’s end. A prince—the crown prince was to pass through it on his way to the maneuvres;—so churches and synagogue vied with each other in preparing a worthy welcome. The Catholics, representing the ruling minority, were to head the procession, the Lutherans would follow and the Jews, of course, were to come last. The children had been given an important part in the program, and my mother was busy many days drilling me for my part, as I was to be the spokesman for the Jewish children.
I won this place of honour in a competitive declamation of a speech of welcome prepared by our teacher, and day or night there was nothing on my lips but its fine sounding and well-rounded phrases. I have not forgotten that eventful day for many reasons. I wore a new suit, and a stiff collar which belonged to my sister and had to be fastened to me by various artificial devices. I recall the great relief which followed, when mytask was done after the countless times I had practiced my bow and my speech; but above all, I saw a prince, a lad only a few years older than myself—wearing the uniform of a cavalry officer, his coat covered by glittering stars and crosses, his weary face looking out of a frame of heavy, black hair.
There were princes in my fairy tales and often in my dreams; but now a real prince had materialized, and so great was the pomp which surrounded him and so overwrought were my nerves, that I was not the least disillusioned by the reality. A brass band headed the procession, which moved from the market square to thePany’scastle, where the prince was domiciled. Following the band came representatives of the Catholic Church, with all the splendour that she can display even in so small and wretched a parish. The priests, in their most elaborate vestments, looked to me like demi-gods, and the poor, pinched peasant lads, now clothed in the gorgeous garb of acolytes, were fit attendants for these deities; the county and town dignitaries came next, then distinguished citizens carrying banners, and last came the school children, singing patriotic Magyar songs. In the next division were the Lutherans, and what they lacked in splendid church vestments, they made up in the gorgeous attire of the Slavic peasant men and women, in whose garmentscolour ran such riot that even the most discordant tints were forced to blend harmoniously. On the outskirts of the market-place, the Jews gathered; a motley group of sober-looking, bearded men. It was difficult to organize them into an orderly procession. Not only were military habits distasteful to them, but they were such strong individualists that to march together and keep step with one another was as difficult as to keep in time or tune, while they said their prayers or chanted in the synagogue.
Finally some order was brought into the chaos, and this, the last division of the procession, moved, the rabbi leading with the president of the congregation. When I saw the straggling lines of Jews following, bent as if the burden of ages was upon their backs, I felt thoroughly ashamed of them. The crowd of bystanders did not help my mood any, for they jeered us from the time we started until we reached the courtyard, where the ceremonial of welcome was to take place. ThePany’scastle was a two-storied, unostentatious building, hidden behind a grove of acacia trees. Chiselled out of the same gray stone as the building was a tribune flanked by a double stairway, at the top of which the prince stood, surrounded by his retinue.
We cheered him loudly at a given signal, and sang the national anthem as harmoniously as wecould, considering that we sang it in three languages. Then came addresses of welcome by the Magyar officials, who almost prostrated themselves. The Catholic priest, his trailing robe carried by two acolytes, advanced; he would have made obeisance, but the prince bowed low before this representative of the church and kissed his hand. The scene made an indelible impression upon my mind, although of course I did not then understand its significance. The Lutheran pastor followed and made a ringing address, pleading for his poor and oppressed people—a speech which cost him his official head. Then our rabbi walked hesitatingly up the time-worn steps, making his address in corrupt German and in so low a voice that no one heard it, not even the prince, who talked to his attendants during its delivery. The crowd was tired out when I made my way towards the prince, led by my teacher. I have since counted the steps which led to the tribune and found that there were just nine of them; that day they looked like at least ninety; in fact they seemed to stretch endlessly upwards, and at their head, far out of my reach, stood the prince. A desperate courage took hold of me. I made my oft practiced courtesy and immediately caught the attention of the prince and the crowd.
I was a lad of seven or eight and as I look at my picture of that time, I find that I had a headtoo large for my body, a mass of curly, blond hair which emphasized its size and, my eyes being blue, complexion fair and features regular, I did not look Jewish.
I delivered my address, retaining in some measure my self-possession: I did not look at the prince but at my dear mother, to whom this moment was the proudest in my life, for when my speech was finished, the prince beckoned to me. Then the two remaining steps between him and me appeared to stretch out interminably, and it seemed an age before I reached the place where he stood. He put his hand on my head, and said some kind words, after which he turned to his attendants and said in the Magyar language: “Too bad, too bad that he is a Jew. He doesn’t look or act like one.” Of course, I was the envied of all beholders, Jews and Gentiles alike, but I was a very unhappy boy. I cried all that evening and when mother put me to bed, she could not stop my tears, in spite of her telling me of King David and King Solomon, who were Jews yet were great kings, and as far as we knew we might be their descendants. After she left me, I spent nearly the whole night between sleeping and waking;—the thought uppermost in my mind being how terrible a thing it was to be a Jew, and that perhaps it might happen to me as it did in the fairy tales, that I was not really my mother’s son, but stolen by a witch or a fairy out of some castle, and that in due time I should be released from this captivity and return in triumph to my lordly estate. Towards morning I must have slept soundly, for I felt keen disappointment when I opened my eyes and saw the same narrow room with its bare walls and the high cupboard with its modest treasures. By the well-known fragrance of the breakfast coffee which filled my nostrils, I knew that my mother was not a queen or I a prince, but that I was just a little Jewish boy, whom many people despised and some pitied. The fact that I was more than a nine days’ wonder after this did not atone for the terrible words of the prince, which kept ringing in my ears, “Too bad he is a Jew!”
WHEN the Master asked His disciples to take no thought for the morrow, He asked what to the Jew was the most difficult attitude of mind,—at least to the Jewish mind as I knew it. In my childhood, the Jewish characteristic was to be burdened by care to the degree that full, unqualified pleasure seemed impossible. Even to-day, when I meet men who come from Jewish homes in the Old World, they invariably tell me that news from home is never unreservedly good, and letters are dreaded, because they always tell of persecutions that were, are, or will be; of business which is bad, health which is worse and death which comes, leaving so little hope behind. The all-absorbing cares of these Jewish homes are the dowry and marriage of the daughters and the fear of military service for the sons. Mothers begin to lay aside linen and feather pillows for the marriage portion before a girl is out of her swaddling clothes, and money is early put into the bank for the same purpose; so that, unless the family is in more than comfortablecircumstances, this compels strictest economy and in many cases causes acute suffering.
Among very poor people, it is no rare thing to see mothers begging from door to door for aid in securing a dowry; and to marry off a daughter well, is great good fortune, while to marry her under any circumstances seems to be a compelling duty.
Worry about the sons has in it an admixture of terror. The Jew has no passion for war and every reason to dread it. Persecution has made him timid and he finds that non-resistance is a necessary virtue. Physical courage is not one of his great assets. I have always felt the lack of it and have already called attention to my dread of firearms.
Perhaps one of the strongest factors in making Jewish parents fear the proscription of their sons was the fact that in many cases military service meant a complete breaking away from Jewish customs. The lads themselves had no pleasure in store for them in their association with Gentile comrades and officers who were never too considerate of their feelings. No small wonder then, that everything which could be done legitimately or illegitimately was done to free a son from military service. The rich and unscrupulous bribed the examining military physician and the poor sometimes tried a prolongeddebauch to make the desired impression of physical unfitness.
There were two great virtues which my mother constantly preached and practiced; charity and contentment. The first kept her from speaking ill of her neighbours and the second saved her from unnecessary worry. Yet I knew that after my brother’s name was posted on the courthouse doors among the list of those to present themselves for physical examination, she lay awake many a night and I often saw traces of tears on her face. “As God wills,” was her characteristic expression, and it seemed to be the will of God that her son should be found fit to serve the Hungarian king in the seventy-third infantry regiment. It was a dreary day in our house, as if some one had died. We walked about on tiptoe and never raised our voices. Only the brother most concerned seemed cheerful or at least pretended to be. He was sworn in at the dirty jail, where the peasant lads were locked up, for fear they might get drunk before they came to that solemn ceremony. Then he returned home, awaiting the command to join his regiment.
When the summons finally came, it was a call to arms—to war. Austria had been apportioned the unruly Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in her self-confident fashion, hoped to pacify its half-savage inhabitants byinvading their territory with a brass band, regiments of soldiers and a superabundance of useless officers. The untamed Slavs, who spurned Moslem rule and had fought for freedom in their mountains, were not eager to exchange masters, so from behind the rocks they fired their crude blunderbusses and from safe ambush fell upon the trim Hapsburg soldiers. Regiment after regiment was sent, thousands and tens of thousands of soldiers were slain, the national debt leaped into hundreds of millions and the poor women all over that beautiful and unhappy country began making bandages and picking lint for the wounded. The regiment to which my brother belonged was ordered to the front, but before it left he obtained a two days’ furlough to visit his mother. It was the Jewish New Year’s day; one of the most solemn of all holy days. When early in the evening he came, I remember with what awe I handled his uniform, the dread I felt of his bayonet, fearing to touch it, and the general atmosphere of gloom which pervaded the house. Mother cried all day, we children wept with her and my brother walked up and down in his bright uniform, manfully trying to keep back his own tears. In the evening he had to leave us and it was as sad a leave-taking as I ever have witnessed.
A few days later, the postmaster himself came to our house with a message, which containedthe sad news that my brother had been fatally wounded in the first engagement in which his regiment took part. That night my mother started for the far-away city. I begged to go with her. When she refused to let me, I threw myself in front of the horses, and when I was lifted from the ground I determined not to allow mother to face the misfortune alone. Unseen by any one, I ran through an orchard, across the creek to the highway, and when the carriage came, I jumped onto the protruding rear springs and made myself as comfortable as possible. Early in the morning, when the driver was changing horses, I was discovered, chilled to the bone and hungry; but happy because I was too far away from home to be sent back and could be with my mother in the great sorrow which awaited her.
She dragged herself from hospital to hospital, until our clothes were saturated by the odour of ether, our ears ringing from the groans of dying men, and our hearts heavy to the breaking point. Upon a bit of level soil, scarce in that stony country, soldiers were digging trenches, into which carts full of human bodies were literally dumped, and at each trench mother’s eyes searched for her first-born son. As they threw the last cartful of these torn and soiled temples of the spirit into a trench, her heroic strength gave way, for she saw my brother’s black hairmatted from blood, and his handsome young face distorted by the pain he had suffered. It was hard to recognize him but she knew it was her son, because he wore the ring she herself had taken from the finger of her dead husband, and put there.
The experience of that day aged my mother and aged me, but it put a new sort of courage into me. I felt enraged by what I saw. I knew that a great wrong was being practiced against the children of men, a wrong which must be righted;—above all, I had seen Slav, Magyar, Jew and Gentile, one in death, so much alike that a Jewish mother scarcely knew her own child; my wise mother talked it all over with me. “Yes, my boy, we are made of the same clay and I believe we have the same spirit in us, no matter what our race or faith.” “Then, mother,” I said, “if we are all alike, why do we hate each other and kill each other?” But she was not wise enough to answer that question.
OF the comforts and luxuries by which the American child seems to be surfeited, I knew few or none. Sweets I tasted only in the form of Sabbath cake, an occasional piece of loaf sugar, purloined from the pantry, or a sheet of sugar paper, a delicacy whose delights still linger in my memory. This confection was a by-product of the candy shop, and was the sticky substance left in a cornucopia, out of which the Bohemian candy-maker squeezed artistic decorations onto the cakes he made. These “Skarnitzel,” as they were called, were highly prized by the children; they were of many flavours, but all, whether vanilla, lemon or rose, smelled strongly of snuff tobacco, evidence of the artist’s bad habits.
Books and especially newspapers were also scarce, but the candy-maker was a great reader and a sceptic towards religion. After he had read his papers he used them in the manufacture of the afore-mentioned confection, so that “Skarnitzel” became a by-product, not only of fancy cakes, but also savoured of Bohemian literature. I was one of the best customers the candy-makerhad, and, while frankly confessing that I licked the sweets from the paper with great gusto and skill, I soon learned to appreciate the literature which remained. Both from the sanitary and the mental standpoint this confection was unwholesome. One winter, after disposing of the covering sweets, I read fragments from the works of Thomas Paine, and another season I reached the bitterest parts of one of Ingersoll’s savage attacks upon the Bible. I suppose I did not understand what I read, but it fitted into my rebellious mood and I soon began to make propaganda for my unbelief. When the candy-maker discovered that he had a disciple, he took pains to fill the gaps which remained in my mind, after reading the philosophy of scepticism in so fragmentary a way.
For hours I would sit in his bake shop and while he was decorating cakes or making gorgeously coloured stick candy, he led me into the outskirts of the scientific view of creation, in a crude but, to me, satisfactory manner. The world was self-created, there was no God, no Adam, no Eve, no flood, no patriarchs and no revelation on Sinai. Moses was a shrewd leader who used Egyptian magic to impress the barbaric Israelites. The candy-maker was particularly severe with the heroes of the New Testament, and no less so with Jesus Himself. I recall just one sentence of his argument against the divinityof the Master. “If He was a God, why did He let them crucify Him? Why did He not come down from the cross and kill His enemies?” Of course, I did not know how old this argument was until I read the New Testament for myself. At school during the recess I gathered my classmates, who were all my seniors (for I made two and three grades each year), and repeated to them what I had heard, amplifying it not a little.
One day, when I was holding forth, I indulged in a bit of prophecy—“The time will come,” I said, “when no one will keep the Sabbath and the Passover, when we will not eat unleavened bread or believe in God.” Just then the teacher who gave us religious instruction came in. He had evidently listened to what I said, and, taking me by my curly hair, proceeded to drag me out of my seat and make a prophecy which is much more likely to come true than my own. “When you are dead and gone,” he said, “and the worms shall have eaten your body, millions of people will keep the Sabbath and the holy days; and the time willnevercome when men will not believe in God.” Then he demanded that I recant my unbelief, but being of fairly stern stuff, I refused. He then told me to lie down on a chair, and drew forth a grape-vine switch, the customary instrument of punishment. Again he commanded that I take back what I had said andagain I refused, and the switch descended upon me. This order of exercises was repeated until I felt the trickling blood on my back, but not until I rolled from the chair half lifeless, did he stop the “torture of the heretic.” I did not say anything to my mother about it, but when I went to bed, she discovered my blood-stained clothing and knew by the groans I could not suppress and by my fever, that I was in great pain. The next day the doctor came and the news of my punishment spread through the town. The candy-maker, the direct cause of my suffering, called on me and after hearing my side of the story, left the house in a boiling rage. He went directly to school and thrashed the teacher so fiercely that he was in bed nearly as long as I was. Thus justice seemed to be meted out.
Some time after this, the candy-maker became ill from a painful and torturing disease. Death was coming in a very grim way to claim him. One day he sent for me. I was shocked by his wasted frame, his face pale and haggard, and his eyes looking into another world. He took both my hands and drew me to him, half over the bed, so that my face touched his bushy beard, and with trembling lips he began to make amends for the wrong he had done me. Trying to lead my own wayward little soul back the same way his was travelling, he said: “My boy, there is a God and I always knew it; Idenied Him with my lips, but in my heart I felt Him. I denied Him and Heaven and Hell, because I had grievously sinned against Him years ago, and I wanted to make myself believe that there was no God to punish, and no Hell in which to suffer. Now I can see it all, as clear as day.” Then, embracing me with his trembling arms, he continued, “I denied my Saviour, Jesus, and that’s the greatest sin of all; for He loves me, poor, wretched sinner, and I don’t dare die without telling you how grievously I offended Him.”
A paroxysm of pain took hold of him and they sent for the priest, that he might administer the last communion. I left the room, but lingered in the workshop, among half-finished cakes and dried up candy papers. My eyes wandered to the Bohemian newspapers, pamphlets and books, many of which I had read, and whose half-truths and lies had so misled me. Then came the solemn tinkling of bells, which announced the coming of the priest and the acolytes. I can hear it now—a high note and a low-toned bell, and the shuffling steps of those who came to minister in the name of a forgiving God. An austere look this smoothly shaven priest wore; as if he were a judge rather than an advocate. I followed him into the sick-room but I do not recall a word he said; yet the solemn chanting melody of those Latin phrases I have often in my ears. He left, and again the highnote and low-toned bell—dying away in the distance.
I stayed in that room until dusk; I think I waited more than two hours, and all the time the sick man cried in varying tones of agony: “Yeshishe! Yeshishe! Boshe muy! Boshe muy!” “Jesus, my Jesus!” “My God! My God!”
Then there was silence and the watchers lighted the candles.
IN a country where brass buttons, gold braid and epaulets are of supreme consequence, the man who bore all these insignia of office was an important individual indeed. Of such a man our town boasted. Sheriff—Justice of the Peace—Tax-gatherer, he felt the weight of his onerous duties, or rather he let those feel it who did not pay proper respect to his lordship—the “Kisbir”—as this manifold official was called.
The sound of his drum woke the sleepy town, for it meant that such news as it needed to hear would be announced. Much too long for the news-hungry crowd did he continue the imperative beat upon his drum, and it was at such a time, when I crowded too close to him, that he played with his drumsticks on my head and did it hard enough to make a decided impression.
There were usually three classes of news announced: First: news of the state, which meant taxes; the date of prescription, or some new law to be enforced. Second: news of the church, which related to feast or fast days; local news which concerned lost dogs and their owners, cattlewhich had been prematurely killed, whose meat was for sale at reduced prices, and lastly, the sale of property left by those who had no further use for their feather-beds, wash-tubs, sheepskin coats and kindred mundane things.
On this particular day, the crier informed us that the state would send its examining officers on the 26th of April and that all men of military age must present themselves at the town hall (which made mothers and sweethearts tremble and weep). He then announced that the late candy-maker’s estate would be brought under the hammer, and that all those who cared to buy his furniture, tools of his trade or anything pertaining thereto, were invited to be at the market-place in front of the statue of St. Florian, at ten o’clock the next morning.
Of course, I felt myself personally concerned and while I should not have hesitated to buy some of the remnants of the candy-maker’s stock in trade, what I really wanted, and wanted with all my heart, was his books and papers, reposing in a case, which I also coveted. The man who attended such auctions, as his business, was a Jew of unsavoury reputation, who kept a pawnshop and had all the characteristics which are supposed to go with that calling. He was there the next morning by St. Florian and with unerring eye had picked out the things which were worth buying. I was sure that amongthem was the attractive bookcase, upon which my eyes lovingly rested. I had no money, beyond the few pennies which mother gave me and which I always managed to spend; so I appealed to my brother, to whom I painted in alluring colours the wealth of literature contained in that library.
Feather-beds, tables and benches, cake pans and what not were scattered among the Gentile buyers without serious competition, but the fate of the bookcase, for which my brother began to bid, hung long in the balance—because when the pawnbroker discovered that another Jew wanted it, he scented big values. Not until the fabulous sum of twentyflorinswas reached did the drumstick fall, bringing the coveted treasure into my possession.
And what a commotion those books caused in our immediate family. My pious uncle was notified by the disappointed pawnbroker that a veritable arsenal of infidelity had come into my possession, and way into the small hours of that night the battle raged around it. The little bookcase stood upon the parlour table, its sliding doors warped just enough not to move without serious exertion on my part; but each book was visible through the glass which had been washed and scrubbed for the first time in many years. While mother herself had many misgivings about the books, she resisted my guardian’s attemptto destroy them, and that very night, by the light from our new coal-oil lamp, I took an inventory of my first library. A bound volume of the Gartenlaube, a German illustrated weekly, in which I followed Marlitt’s sentimental stories to their happy endings; a set of the works of Zschoke, a half forgotten Swiss author, whose stories and sketches teemed from the altruistic motive; Don Quixote, whose satire and irony I did not then understand; Auerbach’s village stories, which not only disclosed to me sympathetically the virtues of German peasant folk, but helped me to follow their fortunes in America. This edition was illustrated, and on the banks of the Ohio, where the hero of that story had settled, the artist had drawn a tropic jungle of palms and bamboo, within which crouched fierce lions and fiercer looking wild men. That, however, was not the only time I found text and illustrations at logger-heads.
Of Schiller there was a broken set, “The Robbers,” “The Maid of Orleans,” and his early poems; of Goethe only the first part of “Faust,” which I learned by heart, and each word of it has remained in my memory till now. The book which most impressed me and had the largest influence upon my life was Lessing’s “Nathan der Weise.”
That drama of tolerance came to me with all its prophetic vigour; it spoke to me as I felt I must some day speak, and the story of the three rings,spoken by the Jew Nathan, has remained the pivotal point of my philosophy of religion.
Unfortunately I fell heir in this collection to many books which were coarse in their language and brutal in their attack upon religion and certain phases of morality. They helped to confuse an already overstrained mind and awakened the man in me long before nature intended that I should cease to be a boy. Among the papers I found a number of copy-books, written full and close. They were an attempt at a diary or autobiography, written at odd times. Their frequent perusal made me so moody and introspective that my mother hid them from me and gradually I forgot all about them. Two years ago I visited my sister who has inherited the homestead and who, with rare filial devotion, has preserved the familiar objects of our childhood’s life; although civilization has brought to our town modern furniture, antique rugs and even sectional bookcases, which have claimed much room for themselves. Upon the same table, I found the same bookcase and the same books—the latter all intact; for the generation of youth which followed me has become thoroughly Magyarized and is proud of the fact that it can’t read German.
Every page to which I turned spoke to me, recalling my bitter-sweet boyhood, and I recognized that, after all, these books were the compass which guided my early life, although so often it seemedwithout guidance, and many a time was fast upon the rocks. There I also discovered the long-lost copy-books. They were wrapped in a Bohemian newspaper and tied by mother’s fingers with a bit of broad, white tape. I transcribe some parts of this autobiography; for the candy-maker, too, struggled against the current and helped draw me into the stream. Much of what he wrote is unprintable, for after all, he tried to write an honest autobiography. What I translated I have left unaltered, for it sounded so natural. He spoke as abruptly and to the point as he wrote.