Were he not lame, he would be a messenger. He knows no trade, unless (he consoles himself) he became a teacher. All the householders will give wedding-presents, and he will hire a room with the money and start keeping school; he knows quite enough to teach, especially little children. Let come what may if only he has a wife. There are Jews who have uglier wives, and who are worse cripples ... but there they are! A wife is a wife! Only not to live alone and eat "days!"
And he may yet succeed in getting one of the other two, and once more he begins to invent a Paradise. And he smiles on at the mud and the leaden clouds.
Hush! something has occurred to him. If he knew for certain that poor Lapei was fated to die of the pestilence, he would gladly marry her. At least, poor thing, she would have had a husband before she died. If only for a month. Why not? Is she not a Jewish daughter? It wouldn't hurt him, and it would be fair on the part of His blessed Name. He does not wish her death, heaven forbid! On the contrary, he is sorry for her; he feels and knows the meaning of "misery," of being all alone, always all alone.
One day, as Yössil, the beggar-student, was splashing through the mud, lost in thought, he suddenly felt himselfcaught hold of by the sleeve. He turned round in a fright and was still more alarmed on seeing before him—Dr. Savitzki.
Savitzki and Yössil had often passed each other outside the town, and Yössil had always taken off his torn cap and bowed low before the Christian. Savitzki, the first time, had spat out; the second time, he had thrown out an evil, anti-Semitic look; the third time, he had only glanced into Yössil's face. Later he half smiled—and to-day, for the first time, he had caught him by the sleeve.
They saw in each other's eyes that there was a link between them, that they had a common interest, a common hope, that something bound them together.
Savitzki was now quite alone in the town. At one time, he used to go in to the apothecary, but the latter had lately given him to understand, that he had done him harm; that people had grown afraid, on Savitzki's account, of buying bitter-water and castor oil, the apothecary's great stand-by.
The Christian townspeople had also begun to avoid him; they, too, believed that doctors poison people, and Savitzki was probably no better than the rest.
It was rumored that in some little place or other, a set of tramps had burnt the "barrack" and stoned the doctor. There was occasionally a gleam in the eyes of the townsfolk that boded no good.
Yössil got on without other people, Savitzki longed for someone to speak to. He wondered himself how it was that the lameZhidlak's[45]pitted face seemed so pleasantto him. True, he had a little business with him; it was possible the plague was already there, only people were hiding it. One might be able to learn something from the saidZhidlak.
Yössil, on being caught by the sleeve, had given a start; but he soon recovered himself, and did not even notice how quickly Savitzki let go of his dirty coat; he only saw that Savitzki was no longer angry, but smiling.
"Well," inquired Savitzki, in Polish, "no cholera?"
Yössil had once driven out with the town Dayan to a mill to guard wheat for Passover, and had there learned a few Polish words. He understood Savitzki's question; the word "cholera," in spite of the fact that it represented all his hopes, gave him a pang "in the seventh rib," his face twitched, but he composed himself and replied: "None, honored sir, none!" And without his being conscious of it, the answer rang sadly.
They soon parted. The day following they met again, advancing toward one another.
Yössil stood aside like a soldier saluting, but without putting his hand to his cap; Savitzki stopped a moment to ask:
"Well, not yet?"
"Not yet, honored sir, not yet!" was Yössil's reply.
The third day they met again and remained longer together.
Savitzki questioned him as to whether there was no talk anywhere of diarrhœa and sickness, cholereen, etc., or any other intestinal trouble.
Yössil could not understand everything Savitzki said, but he made a good shot, concluding that he was being asked about sicknesses of a suspicious nature.
"Nothing, honored sir, nothing!" he kept answering. He knew that so far all was quiet in the town.
"Nothing yet, but it will come!" was Savitzki's consoling observation as he walked away.
A little time passed, and they had got into the habit, when they met, of walking a few steps together; Savitzki continued to question and to receive the same reply: "Nothing, sir, nothing," and still he consoled himself and Yössil with: "It will come!"
"It must come!" he declared with assurance, and Yössil translated it into Hebrew: "And although it tarry, I expect it,"[46]and his heart expanded.
He wished the town no harm. Savitzki might wish for a great outbreak of the pestilence, he only desired a little one, a little tiny one. No one was to die, heaven forbid! A few householders should fall ill—nothing more would be necessary. That is all he asks. He does not wish that his greatest enemy should die.
This lasted a month. Savitzki even began to lose patience, and made Yössil a proposal. He felt sure something must be happening, only that people kept it hid. They were afraid of making it known—Jews are so nervous. So he proposed that Yössil should pry, find out, and tell him of only one hidden case, tell him of anything. He would be grateful to him.
———
Savitzki talked too quick for Yössil and too "high Polish," but he understood that Savitzki wished to make a spy of him and have him betray the Jewish sick.
"No," he thought, "no, Yössil is not going to turn informer!" He is resolved not to let out a word to Savitzki, and yet, in spite of himself, and for politeness' sake, he nodded in affirmation, and Savitzki walked away.
Yössil's determination not to tell tales strengthened, but there was no reason why he should not find out for himself if they were not concealing something, and he began to go in and out among the people assembled for daily prayer, to see if no one were missing; if he remarked any one's absence, he tried to discover the reason, but it came to nothing. It always turned out to be that the person had risked his life going out into a village to buy stores; or else he had quarrelled with his wife, and was ashamed to come to the house-of-study with a swollen cheek, or he had been to the Röfeh to have a tooth out and they couldn't stop the bleeding; and other such trifles that had no connection with the object of his interest. And every day he was able to report honestly to Savitzki: "Nothing, honored sir, nothing!"
Every day now they waited one for the other, and every day they talked longer together.
Yössil endeavored with all his might to make himself intelligible to Savitzki; he worked his hands and his feet, and Savitzki, who had learnt to understand the gestures, had often to save himself from Yössil's too energetic demonstrations.
Savitzki could not make out what Yössil was after, why he kept at a distance from Kohol, and why, as was clearly to be seen, he also wished for the pestilence—buthe had no time to busy himself with the problem—to fathom the mind of a Jew. It was probably a matter of business—perhaps he dealt in linen for winding-sheets. Perhaps he made coffins. But when he remarked that Yössil was growing depressed, that he was less sure than Savitzki that it must come to-morrow, he talked to him freely, gave him courage, and made him confident once more that the community would not escape.
To Savitzki it was clear as daylight that it would come. It was getting nearer and nearer—was it not in all the papers?
Six weeks passed. The sharp frosts, for which the community was hoping, had not been, but the pestilence desired by Savitzki and Yössil delayed equally. Even Savitzki began to have his doubts, but encouraging Yössil, he encouraged himself in the matter. It was simply impossible that it should not come. Was there a less clean town anywhere? Where else did people eat so many gherkins, so much raw fruit, and as many onions? Where were they less well provided with cold water? There were perhaps two or three well-to-do people in the place with metal samovars; three to four houses where they made tea; in the rest they drank pear-drink after the Sholent[47]and old, putrid fish was sold galore.
It must come!
There were towns over which the pestilence had no power: Aix, Birmingham, and others whose namesYössil could not catch; but there people ate no Sholent, and tea was made with distilled water—that was different.
Meantime another week passed and nothing happened. On the contrary, it was reported that in Apte it had decreased considerably; Racheff was open again; in Tzoismir they had even closed the tea-house for poor people, which had been started to please the governor. Yössil began to think his sorry luck would make all his plans evaporate into thin air, that his town was also a kind of Birmingham, over which the pestilence had no power. He began to have his old bad nights and felt restless even in the day-time. The brides seemed further off than ever, and, except during the half-hour spent with Savitzki, he had no rest.
He saw the townsfolk growing unmistakably calmer; then it was said that the villages round about had returned to their normal state. The whole town revived; the women ceased to wail in the synagogue; the younger ones gave up coming to prayers at all, except now and again on Sabbath as before; the Röfeh's wife began to think of putting on her wig again. The bather's maid-servant was in people's mouths, and they had even reported her to the rabbi. The Maskil recommenced to write in Hebrew; dealers in produce, to drive out into the country; brokers, to make money; the Sunday market was crowded with peasants, the public-houses filled; salt, naphthaline, and other household wares began to sell. The town assumed its old aspect, window blinds disappeared; Savitzki's street came to life again.
Yössil's condition grew daily worse. His formermelancholy had returned in part. Instead of brides, he had the rope in the loft continually before his eyes. It beckons him and calls to him: Come, come! rid yourself of Kohol, rid yourself of this wretched life. But he resisted: Savitzki is a doctor, he must know. And Savitzki holds to his opinion.
One day Yössil did not meet Savitzki outside the town, and just the day he wanted him most.
Hardly had Yössil awoke, early that morning—it was still dark—when the beadle burst joyfully into the house-of-study, with "Do you hear, Yössil? The doctor and the student have left Raeheff! And last night, just at new moon, there was a hard frost, an iron frost. No fear of the pestilence now!" he cried out and ran to call people to prayers with the good news.
Yössil dressed quickly, that is, he threw round him the cloak he had been using as a covering, and began to move jerkily to and fro across the house-of-study, every now and then running to the window to see if it were daylight, if it were time to hasten out after Savitzki. Hardly had the day fairly broken, when he recited the morning prayers and ran, without having breakfasted, outside the town. He felt that without comfort from Savitzki his heart would burst.
He waited about, hungry, till midday; Savitzki did not come, he must wait—it had happened before that Savitzki did not appear till the afternoon.
He is hungry, very hungry, but it never occurs to him to go and buy food; he must wait for Savitzki. Without having seen him and received comfort from him, he could not swallow one bite. He will have another badnight; he will be drawn to the rope. No, let him fast for once! Another hour has passed, it begins to grow dark, the pallid spot of winter sun behind the clouds sinks lower and lower, and will shortly vanish behind Vassil's mill. He shivers with cold; he runs to warm himself, claps his hands together, and Savitzki does not come. He has never been so late before.
He began to think there must have been an accident; Savitzki must have been taken ill, or else (Yössil grows angry) he is playing cards, the Gentile! And the pale ball of sun sinks lower and lower, and in the other, clearer half of the sky appears a second pale misty spot like a sickle. That is the young moon, it is time for evening prayer.
Yössil loses all hope: Savitzki will not come now. The tears choke him. He hurries back to the house-of-study, to be at least in time for prayers.
He met scarcely anyone in the street, the men had all gone to pray, only here and there a woman's voice sounded cheerfully through the doors of the little shops and followed him to the steps of the house-of-study. His limbs shook beneath him from exhaustion; there must be some very good news to make the women laugh so loud.
He could hardly climb the stairs. Outside the door he stopped; he had not the courage to turn the handle; the people were not praying, but they were talking cheerily and all at once; heaven knows what the householders were all so happy about.
Suddenly he grew angry and flung open the door.
"And Savitzki," were the first words he heard, "has also, thank heaven, taken himself off."
"Really and truly?" someone asked.
"Saw it myself," said the other, "with my own eyes."
Yössil heard no more; his limbs gave way and his whole body was seized with trembling; he just dragged himself to a bench and sat there like one turned to stone, with great, staring eyes.
The happy assembly did not notice it. After Minchah and Maariv (some few only after a page of Gemoreh, or a chapter of Mishnayes), they went away and left Yössil alone as usual. Even the householder in whose house Yössil should have eaten that day's meals never thought of going up to him and asking why he had not been to breakfast, and why he was not coming back with him to supper; he just hurried home along with the rest, to tell his wife and children the good news, that Savitzki had gone, that they were rid ofthattreasure. It was not till the next day that Yössil was missed; then they said, bother wouldnothave taken him, and the beadle lighted the stove himself. The oven smoked and Yössil was talked about the whole day; he was the only one who could manage the stove. They began to wonder if he had gone to Palestine, or else to Argentina? It was true, he had nothing with which to pay his travelling expenses, but then he could always resort to begging.
It was only on the sixth day, when the town was looking for the arrival of an inspector of licenses, that the first shop-keeper who climbed up into the loft to hide a piece of imported velvet found Yössil hanging and already stark.
Down here, inthisworld, Bontzye Shweig's death made no impression at all. Ask anyone you like who Bontzye was,howhe lived, and what he died of; whether of heart failure, or whether his strength gave out, or whether his back broke under a heavy load, and they won't know. Perhaps, after all, he died of hunger.
If a tram-car horse had fallen dead, there would have been more excitement. It would have been mentioned in the papers, and hundreds of people would have crowded round to look at the dead animal—even the spot where the accident took place.
But the tramway horse would receive less attention if there were as many horses as men—a thousand million.
Bontzye lived quietly and died quietly. He passed throughourworld like a shadow.
No wine was drunk at Bontzye's circumcision, no healths were proposed, and he made no beautiful speech when he was confirmed. He lived like a little dun-colored grain of sand on the sea-shore, among millions of his kind; and when the wind lifted him and blew him over to the other side of the sea, nobody noticed it.
When he was alive, the mud in the street preserved no impression of his feet; after his death, the wind overturned the little board on his grave. The grave-digger'swife found it a long way off from the spot, and boiled a potful of potatoes over it. Three days after that, the grave-digger had forgotten where he had laid him.
If Bontzye had been given a tombstone, then, in a hundred years or so, an antiquarian might have found it, and the name "Bontzye Shweig" would have echoed once again inourair.
A shadow! His likeness remained photographed in nobody's brain, in nobody's heart; not a trace of him remained.
"No kith, no kin!" He lived and died alone!
Had it not been for the human commotion, some one might have heard Bontzye's spine snap under its load; had the world been less busy, some one might have remarked that Bontzye (also a human being) went about with two extinguished eyes and fearfully hollow cheeks; that even when he had no load on his shoulders, his head drooped earthward as though, while yet alive, he were looking for his grave. Were there as few men as tramway horses, some one might perhaps have asked: What has happened to Bontzye?
When they carried Bontzye into the hospital, his corner in the underground lodging was soon filled—there were ten of his like waiting for it, and they put it up to auction among themselves. When they carried him from the hospital bed to the dead-house, there were twenty poor sick persons waiting for the bed. When he had been taken out of the dead-house, they brought in twenty bodies from under a building that had fallen in. Who knows how long he will rest in his grave? Who knows how many are waiting for the little plot of ground?
A quiet birth, a quiet life, a quiet death, and a quieter burial.
But it was not so in theotherworld.ThereBontzye's death made a great impression.
The blast of the great Messianic Shofar sounded through all the seven heavens: Bontzye Shweig has left the earth! The largest angels with the broadest wings flew about and told one another: Bontzye Shweig is to take his seat in the Heavenly Academy! In Paradise there was a noise and a joyful tumult: Bontzye Shweig! Just fancy! Bontzye Shweig!
Little child-angels with sparkling eyes, gold thread-work wings, and silver slippers, ran delightedly to meet him. The rustle of the wings, the tap-tap of the little slippers, and the merry laughter of the fresh, rosy mouths, filled all the heavens and reached to the Throne of Glory, and God Himself knew that Bontzye Shweig was coming.
Abraham, our father, stood in the gate, his right hand stretched out with a hearty greeting, and a sweet smile lit up his old face.
What are they wheeling through heaven?
Two angels are pushing a golden arm-chair into Paradise for Bontzye Shweig.
What flashed so brightly?
They were carrying past a gold crown set with precious stones—all for Bontzye Shweig.
"Before the decision of the Heavenly Court has been given?" ask the saints, not quite without jealousy.
"O," reply the angels, "that will be a mere formality.Even the prosecutor won't say a word against Bontzye Shweig. The case will not last five minutes."
Just consider: Bontzye Shweig!
———
When the little angels had met Bontzye in mid-air and played him a tune; when Abraham, our father, had shaken him by the hand like an old comrade; when he heard that a chair stood waiting for him in Paradise, that a crown lay ready for his head; and that not a word would be lost over his case before the Heavenly Court—Bontzye, just as in the other world, was too frightened to speak. His heart sank with terror. He is sure it is all a dream, or else simply a mistake.
He is used to both. He often dreamt, in the other world, that he was picking up money off the floor—there were whole heaps of it—and then he woke to find himself as poor as ever; and more than once people had smiled at him and given him a friendly word and then turned away and spit out.
"It is my luck," he used to think. And now he dared not raise his eyes, lest the dream should vanish, lest he should wake up in some cave full of snakes and lizards. He was afraid to speak, afraid to move, lest he should be recognized and flung into the pit.
He trembles and does not hear the angels' compliments, does not see how they dance round him, makes no answer to the greeting of Abraham, our father, and—when he is led into the presence of the Heavenly Court, he does not even wish it "good morning!"
He is beside himself with terror, and his fright increaseswhen he happens to notice the floor of the Heavenly Courthouse; it is all alabaster set with diamonds. "And my feet standing on it!" He is paralyzed. "Who knows what rich man, what rabbi, what saint they take me for—he will come—and that will be the end of me!"
His terror is such, he never even hears the president call out: "The case of Bontzye Shweig!" adding, as he hands the deeds to the advocate, "Read, but make haste!"
The whole hall goes round and round in Bontzye's eyes, there is a rushing in his ears. And through the rushing he hears more and more clearly the voice of the advocate, speaking sweetly as a violin.
"His name," he hears, "fitted him like the dress made for a slender figure by the hand of an artist-tailor."
"What is he talking about?" wondered Bontzye, and he heard an impatient voice break in with:
"No similes, please!"
"He never," continued the advocate, "was heard to complain of either God or man; there was never a flash of hatred in his eye; he never lifted it with a claim on heaven."
Still Bontzye does not understand, and once again the hard voice interrupts: "No rhetoric, please!"
"Job gave way—this one was more unfortunate—"
"Facts, dry facts!"
"When he was a week old, he was circumcised...."
"We want no realism!"
"The Mohel who circumcised him did not know his work—"
"Come, come!"
"And he kept silent," the advocate went on, "even when his mother died, and he was given a step-mother at thirteen years old—a serpent, a vixen."
"Can they mean me after all?" thought Bontzye.
"No insinuations against a third party!" said the president, angrily.
"She grudged him every mouthful—stale, mouldy bread, tendons instead of meat—andshedrank coffee with cream."
"Keep to the subject," ordered the president.
"She grudged him everything but her finger nails, and his black-and-blue body showed through the holes in his torn and fusty clothes. Winter time, in the hardest frost, he had to chop wood for her, barefoot, in the yard, and his hands were too young and too weak, the logs too thick, the hatchet too blunt. More than once he nearly dislocated his wrist; more than once his feet were nearly frost-bitten, but he kept silent, even to his father."
"To that drunkard?" laughs the accuser, and Bontzye feels cold in every limb.
"He never even complained to his father," finished up the advocate.
"And always alone," he continued, "no playmates, no school, nor teaching of any kind—never a whole garment—never a free moment."
"Facts, please!" reminded the president.
"He kept silent even later, when his father seized him by the hair in a fit of drunkenness, and flung himout into the street on a snowy winter's night. He quietly picked himself up out of the snow and ran whither his feet carried him.
"He kept silent all the way—however hungry he might be, he only begged with his eyes.
"It was a wild, wet night in spring time, when he reached the great town; he fell like a drop into the ocean, and yet he passed that same night under arrest. He kept silent and never asked why, for what. He was let out, and looked about for the hardest work. And he kept silent. Harder than the work itself was the finding of it—and he kept silent.
"Bathed in a cold sweat, crushed together under heavy loads, his empty stomach convulsed with hunger—he kept silent.
"Bespattered with mud, spat at, driven with his load off the pavement and into the street among the cabs, carts, and tramways, looking death in the eyes every moment—he kept silent.
"He never calculated how many pounds' burden go to a groschen, how many times he fell on an errand worth a dreier; how many times he nearly panted out his soul going after his pay; he never calculated the difference between other people's lot and his—he kept silent.
"And he never insisted loudly on his pay; he stood in the door-way like a beggar, with a dog-like pleading in his eyes—Come again later! and he went like a shadow to come again later, and beg for his wage more humbly than before.
"He kept silent even when they cheated him of part, or threw in a false coin.
"He took everything in silence."
"They mean me after all," thought Bontzye.
———
"Once," continued the advocate, after a sip of water, "a change came into his life: there came flying along a carriage on rubber tires drawn by two runaway horses. The driver already lay some distance off on the pavement with a cracked skull. The terrified horses foamed at the mouth, sparks shot from their hoofs, their eyes shone like fiery lamps on a winter's night—and in the carriage, more dead than alive, sat a man.
"And Bontzye stopped the horses. And the man he had saved was a charitable Jew, who was not ungrateful.
"He put the dead man's whip into Bontzye's hands, and Bontzye became a coachman. More than that—he was provided with a wife, and more still—with a child.
"And Bontzye kept silent!"
"Me, they mean me!" Bontzye assured himself again, and yet had not the courage to give a glance at the Heavenly Court.
He listens to the advocate further:
"He kept silent also when his protector became bankrupt and did not pay him his wages.
"He kept silent when his wife ran away from him, leaving him a child at the breast.
"He was silent also fifteen years later, when the child had grown up and was strong enough to throw him out of the house."
"Me, they mean me!" Now he is sure of it.
———
"He kept silent even," began the angelic advocateonce more in a still softer and sadder voice, "when the same philanthropist paid all his creditors their due but him—and even when (riding once again in a carriage with rubber tires and fiery horses) he knocked Bontzye down and drove over him.
"He kept silent. He did not even tell the police who had done for him."
———
"He kept silent even in the hospital, where one may cry out.
"He kept silent when the doctor would not come to his bedside without being paid fifteen kopeks, and when the attendant demanded another five—for changing his linen.
"He kept silent in the death-struggle—silent in death.
"Not a word against God; not a word against men!
"Dixi!"
———
Once more Bontzye trembled all over, he knew that after the advocate comes the prosecutor. Who knows whathewill say?
Bontzye himself had remembered nothing of his life.
Even in the other world he forgot every moment what had happened in the one before. The advocate had recalled everything to his mind. Who knows what the prosecutor will not remind him of?
"Gentlemen," begins the prosecutor, in a voice biting and acid as vinegar—but he breaks off.
"Gentlemen," he begins again, but his voice is milder, and a second time he breaks off.
Then, from out the same throat, comes in a voice that is almost gentle:
"Gentlemen!Hewas silent! I will be silent, too!"
There is a hush—and there sounds in front a new, soft, trembling voice:
"Bontzye, my child," it speaks like a harp, "my dear child Bontzye!"
And Bontzye's heart melts within him. Now he would lift up his eyes, but they are blinded with tears; he never felt such sweet emotion before. "My child!" "My Bontzye!"—no one, since his mother died, had spoken to him with such words in such a voice.
"My child," continued the presiding judge, "you have suffered and kept silent; there is no whole limb, no whole bone in your body, without a scar, without a wound, not a fibre of your soul that has not bled—and you kept silent.
"There they did not understand. Perhaps you yourself did not know that you might have cried out, and that at your cry the walls of Jericho would have shaken and fallen. You yourself knew nothing of your hidden power.
"In the other world your silence was not understood, butthatis the world of delusion; in the world of truth you will receive your reward.
"The Heavenly Court will not judge you; the Heavenly Court will not pass sentence on you; they will not apportion you a reward. Take what you will! Everything is yours!"
Bontzye looks up for the first time. He is dazzled; everything shines and flashes and streams with light.
"Taki?" he asks shyly.
"Yes, really!" answers the presiding judge with decision; "really, I tell you, everything is yours; everything in heaven belongs to you. Because all that shines and sparkles is only the reflection of your hidden goodness, a reflection of your soul. You only take of what is yours."
"Taki?" asks Bontzye again, this time in a firmer voice.
"Taki! taki! taki!" they answer him from all sides.
"Well, if it is so," Bontzye smiles, "I would like to have every day, for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter."
The Court and the angels looked down, a little ashamed; the prosecutor laughed.
When travelling in the provinces after Jewish statistics, I one day met with a Jew dragging himself step by step through the heavy sand. He looks ill, can hardly walk, hardly put one foot before the other. I feel sorry for him and take him into my conveyance. He gets in, gives me a "peace be with you," and asks me every sort of question. I answer, and end by inquiring:
"And you, friend, whence are you?"
"From the dead town," he answers calmly.
I thought he was joking.
"Where is it?" I ask. "Behind the hills of darkness?"
"Where?" he smiles. "It's just in Poland!"
"In our country, a town like that?"
"There it is!" he said; "there it is! Although the nations of the world do not know of it, and have never given it a Gentile name, it is a genuinely Jewish town."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say! You know geography, and you think everything is down in it; not at all. We Jews live without geography. We are not 'down,' and yet they come to us from far and near. What is the good of geography? Every driver knows the way.
"You don't believe me?" he asks.
I am silent.
"And yet it's true; our rabbi corresponds with all the Geonim[49]in the world. Questions and answers concerning the most important matters come and go—everything is arranged somehow—it just depends. Not long ago, for instance, an elderly grass-widow was released from the marriage-tie. Well, of course, the main thing is not the grass-widow, but the dialectics!"[50]
He goes on:
"All the Einiklich[51]know of our town. They come, praise God, often—and, praise God, not in vain."
"It is the first time I ever heard of a dead town."
"That's rather strange! I suppose you keep yourself rather aloof..... And yet it is a truly Jewish town, a real Jewish metropolis. It has everything a town needs, even two or three lunatics! And it has a reputation for commerce, too!"
"Is anything taken in or out?"
"What? What do you say?" asks the Jew, not quite clear as to my meaning. "Are you speaking of articles of trade?"
I nod my head.
"Certainly!" he answers. "They take away prayer-scarfs and leather belts, and bring in Corfu Esrogîm and earth of Palestine. But that isn't the chief thing, the chief thing is the business done in the town itself!Drink-shops, lodging homes for travellers, old clothes—according to custom—"
"A poor town?"
"What do you mean by rich and poor? There is Parnosseh! The very poor go about begging either in the place or in the neighborhood—mostly in the place itself! Whoever holds out a hand is given something! Others try for some easy work, they do broker-business, or pick up things in the streets and earn an honest crust. The Almighty is faithful! The orphans are given free meals by the householders and study in the Talmud Torah. The orphan girls become maid-servants, cooks, or find a living elsewhere. Widows, divorced women, and grass-widows (there have been a lot of grass-widows lately[52]) sit over charcoal braziers, and when the fumes go to their head, they dream that rolls hang on the trees ready baked. Others livequitedecently!"
"On what?"
"On what? What do other people live on? A poor man hopes; a trader swallows air, and the one who digs—graves, I mean—is never out of employment—"
Is he joking, the dried-up, little, old Jew, the bag-of-bones with the odd gleam in his deeply sunken eyes? On his bony face, covered with a skin like yellow parchment, not the trace of a smile! Only his voice has something odd about it.
"What sort of a townisit, anyway?" I ask again.
"What do you mean? It's a town like any other! There's a Shool, and they say that once there were all sorts of animals painted on the walls, beasts and birds—out of Perek Shirah[53]—and on the ceiling all sorts of musical instruments, such as were played upon by King David, on whom be peace. I never saw it so, but the old men tell of it."
"And nowadays?"
"Nowadays? Dust and spider-webs. There's only a wooden chain, carved out of one piece, that hangs from the beam, and falls very prettily to one side of the Ark to the right of the curtain, which was itself the gift of pious women. Nobody remembers who made the chain, but it was an artist, there's no doubt! Such a chain!
"In the Shool," he continued, "you see only the common people, artisans, except tailors, who form a congregation apart, and butchers and drivers, who have hired a place of their own to pray in. The Shool can hardly read Hebrew! The well-to-do householders—sons of the Law—assemble in the house-of-study, a large one with piles of books! The Chassidîm, again, pray in rooms apart!"
"And are there dissensions?"
"Many men, many minds! In the grave, on the other hand, there is peace; one burial ground for all; and the men's bath—the women's bath—are there for all alike."
"What else have you in your town?"
"What more would you have? There was a refuge for wayfarers, and it was given up; wayfarers can sleep in the house-of-study—at night it's empty—and we have a Hekdesh."
"A hospital, you mean?"
"Not a hospital at all, just a Hekdesh, two rooms. At one time they were occupied by the bather, then it was arranged that the bather should content himself with one room, and that the other should be used for the Hekdesh; there are not more than three sick women in it altogether: one poor thing, an old woman with paralyzed legs, who lies all of a heap; a second with all her limbs paralyzed, and beside these, a crazy grass-widow. Three corners are taken up with beds, in the fourth stands a chimney-stove; in the middle there is a dead-house, in case of need!"
"You are laughing at me, friend," I break in, "that is Tziachnovke! Tziachnovke itself with its commerce and charities and good works! Why do you call it the dead town?"
"Because it is a dead town! I am speaking of a town which, from the day it was built, hung by a hair, and now the hair has snapt, it hangs in the air. It hangs by nothing at all. And because it hangs by nothing and floats in mid-air, it is a dead town; if you like, I will tell you about it."
"By all means—most interesting!"
Meanwhile night is falling, one half of the sky grows blood-red and fiery, over there is the sunset. On our other hand, the moon is swimming into view out of a light mist, like the face of a bride peeping out of herwhite veil. The pale beams, as they spread over the earth, mix with the quivering shadows of the sad, still night.
Uncanny!—
We drive into a wood. The moon-rays steal in after us between the trembling leaves.
On the ground, among the fallen leaves and twigs, there dance little circles of light, like silver coins. There is something magical in the illumination, in the low breathing of the wood.
I glance at the wayfaring Jew, his appearance has changed. It is melancholy and serious, and his expression is so simple and honest. Can it all be true?
Ha!I will listen to what he has to say.
"The town hung by a hair from the first," said the narrator, "because it was started in a part where no Jewish town was allowed to be! It was not till the first Minyan was complete that people held a meeting and decided to reckon themselves as belonging to a town in the neighborhood. On this pretense they built a bath, a Shool, and after that, a men's bath, and bought a piece of land for a burial ground.
"And when all that was finished, they sent people of backstair influence to have it all endorsed."
"Head downward?"
"Isn't that always the way with us? How should it be otherwise?"
"I don't know!"
"However, that's how it was! And the thing was not so underhand as you suppose.
"There was a Jew who was very rich, and this richJew, as is usually the case, was a little, not to say very much, in with the authorities, and everything was in his name; it washisShool,hisbath,hiswomen's bath—even tohisburial ground—and nothing was said; as I tell you, he was a person of influence!
"And when the paper came from high quarters, he was to transcribe it in the name of the community and stop paying sop-money to the local police."
"And then the rich man said: 'To my account'?"
"No, my dear sir, such rich people didn't exist in those days. 'To my account' was a thing unknown; but hear what happened, what things may come to pass!
"It was not the Gevir, but the envoy who caused the trouble. He made off, half-way, with the money and the papers, and left the freshly-baked community like a grass-widow with a family."
"Did they send another?"
"Not so soon as all that! Before it was known that the first had absconded, or anything about it, the Gevir died and left, among other things, an heir who was a minor; he couldn't sign a paper till he was twenty-one!"
"So they hurried up?"
"Of course, as soon as he was twenty-one, they meant to send another envoy, and perhaps two."
"And meanwhile it was entered in the communal records?"
"That's where it is! The records remembered and the people forgot! Some say the record was burnt, that the trustee took the record, said Havdoleh over it, set fire to a little brandy, and—good-bye!
"The community, meanwhile, was growing; Jews,praise God, soon multiply. And they come in from other places; one person brings in a son-in-law, another a daughter-in-law, in a word, it grew. And the Gevir's heirs disappeared as though on purpose! The widow married again and left, one son after another went to seek his fortune elsewhere, to take a look 'round. The youngest remained. Kohol appointed him a guardian and married him, and gave him an experienced partner."
"Who led him about by the nose?"
"According to the law of Moses and of Israel!
"He had trouble with the partner and more still with the wife; and he signed a forged check and took himself off, bankrupt; townspeople and strangers collected and made a great noise, the case was heard in court, down came an inspector, no money to be seen anywhere, the wife hid the furniture, the inspector took possession of the Shool and the burial ground!
"The little town was thunderstruck, it was a bolt from the blue with a vengeance! Because, you see, the whole thing had been kept dark to the last minute!
"And all of a sudden, the community was seen hanging, as it were, by a hair!
"What was to be done? They drove to lawyers. What could they advise in a case like that? The best thing would be to have an auction, the inspector would sell the things and the community buy them at any cost. The community was no community? The papers had been lost by the way? They must find another Gevir, and buy in his name! The great thing was not to wait till the Gevir should die or go away!
"The advice seemed good, Kohol was quite used to loss of money; but there was not onlyoneGevir, there were several! And heaps willing to act as diplomatic envoys. Whose name should they use? Who should be taken for an envoy? All were willing and might be offended. So they held a meeting and talked it over. And they talked it over till the talk became a dispute, and whenwehave a dispute, it isn't settled in a hurry. Now and again it looks like peace, the flame of discord burns low, comes a peacemaker and pours oil on it, and it blazes up again and—blazes on!"
The Jew wiped his pale forehead and continued:
"Meanwhile something happened, something not to be believed!
"Only," he added with a smile, "it is night and the creature who walks the sky at night (he points at the moon) is called 'truth,' and at night, specially in such a quiet one, everything is credible."
"Well, yes"—I allow unwillingly.
"The story is a dreadful one.
"The inspector put his foot on the 'holy ground,' the corpses heard and must have grown angry—the tombstones move—the corpses rise up from beneath them—you believe me?"
"I am no heretic," I replied, "heaven forbid! And I believe in the immortality of the soul, only—"
"Only, friend, only?"
"I always thought, that only the soul remained—the soul that flies into heaven; but the body that goes into the grave, the image that decays—anyhow, it cannot move without the soul—cannot rise again."
"Well said!" he praises me. "May I ever hear the like!
"I am glad," he said, "that you are book-learned; but, my friend, you have forgotten the world of illusion! You say the soul goes to heaven, into the sky—very well—but to which part? One goes into Paradise, the other into Gehenna. Paradise is for the souls of the righteous, Gehenna for the souls of the wicked. The one, for his good deeds, receives a share of Leviathan, of Behemoth, wine of the ages,—the other, for his sins, boiling pitch; but that only means reward and punishment, and why reward and punishment? Because so long as a man lives, he has a free choice. If he wishes to do what is good, he does it, if to do evil, he does evil, and as he makes his bed,ha?so he lies.
"But what is the sentence passed when a man was no man, when his life was no life, and he did nothing, neither good nor evil, because he could not do anything? He had no choice, and he slept away his life and lived in a dream. What is such a soul entitled to? Gehenna? What for? It never so much as killed a fly. Paradise? For what? It never dipped a hand in cold water to gain it."
"Whatdoesbecome of such a soul?"
"Nothing! It goes on living in a world of illusion, it does not detach itself from the body; but just as it dreamt before that it livedonthe earth, so it dreams now that it livesinthe earth!
"No one in our town ever really died, because no one ever really lived! No one did either good or evil, there were no sinners and no righteous—only sleepy-headsand souls in a world of illusion. When such a sleepy-head is laid in the grave, it remains a sleepy-head—only in another lodging—that's all.
"And so dying with us was a perfect comedy! Because if a feather was put under the nose of aliveman, would he stir to brush it away? Not he! And the same with a fly. They left off troubling about Parnosseh—they simply left off troubling about anything at all!
"So it went on.... There are many towns like it, and when it happens, as it has happened with us, that a corpse creeps out of its grave, it doesn't begin to remember that it has made its last confession of sins and drawn its last breath. No sooner have the potsherds fallen from its eyes than it goes straight to the house-of-study, to the bath, or else home to supper—it remembers nothing about having died!"
I do not know if it is the moon's fault, or whether I am not quite myself, but I hear, believe, and even ask:
"Did all the corpses rise? All?"
"Who can tell? Do they keep a register? There may have been a few heretics who thought it was the final resurrection and lay low; but there rose a whole community; they rose and fled before the inspector into the nearest wood!"
"Why into a wood?"
"They couldn't go into the town, because it was daylight, and it is not the thing to appear in winding-sheets by daylight—they might have frightened the young mothers."
"True. And the inspector?"
"You ask about a Gentile? He saw nothing. Perhapshe was tipsy—nothing—he did his work, made his inventory."
"And sold the things?"
"Nothing, there was as yet no one to buy."
"And the corpses?"
"Ah—the corpses!"
———
He rests for a moment and then goes on:
"Hardly had night fallen, when the corpses came back into the town; each one went to his home, stole in at the door, the window, or down the chimney—went hastily to the wardrobe, took out some clothes, dressed himself, yawned, and lay down somewhere to sleep.
"Next morning there was a whole townfull of corpses."
"And the living said nothing?"
"They never remarked; they were taken up with the dispute; their heads were full of it, they were all at sixes and sevens! And really, when you come to think of it, how much difference is there between a dead-alive person and a walking corpse in winding-sheets? When a son saw his father, he spat out three times, indignant with himself: 'To think of the dream I had—I dreamt I said Kaddish for my father and inherited him! May such dreams plague my enemies.'
"A widow saw her husband, and gave him a hearty slap. He had deceived her, the wretch! made game of her! and she, foolish woman that she was, had made him new winding-sheets!"
"And supposing she had married again?"
"How should she have? In the course of the dispute some one set fire to the Shool and to the house-of-study and to the wedding canopy; everything, you may say, was burnt. They accused pretty well everybody in turn—"
"And after that?"
"Nothing; the corpses had come to life and the living began to die out, for want of room, for want of air—but specially of hunger—"
"Was there a famine?"
"No more than anywhere else! But therewasone for all that. The corpses took their place at the prayer-meetings and at the table at home as well. People didn't know why, but there were suddenly not enough spoons. All ate out of one dish, and there were not enough spoons. Every house-mistress knows that she has as many spoons as there are people in the house, so she thinks there has been a robbery! The pious say: Witchcraft! But as they came to see the spoons were missing everywhere, and there was not food to go round, then they said: A famine! and they hungered, and they are hungering still."
———
"And in a short time the corpses outnumbered the living; now they are the community and the leaders of the community! They do not beget children and increase naturally—not that, but when anyone dies, they steal him away off his bed, out of the grave—and there is a fresh corpse going about the town.
"And what is lacking to them? They have no cares,no fear of death—they eat for the purpose of saying grace—they don't want the food, they have no craving for it—let alone drink and lodging; a hundred corpses can sleep in one room—they don't require air!
"And they have no worries, because whence do worries spring? From knowing! 'The more knowledge, the more sorrow, but the dead man does not trouble.' It's not his affair! He doesn't wish to know and heneedn'tknow—he wanders in a world of illusion.
"He keeps away from living concerns; he has no questions, no anxieties, no heart-ache, no one is conscious of his liver!
"Who do you think is our rabbi? Once it was a live man and a man of action; now he, too, is a corpse; he wanders in a world of illusion, and goes on giving decisions by rote as in a dream.
"Who are his assistants? People like him—half-decayed corpses.
"And they solve ritual questions for the living and the dead, they know everything and do everything; they say blessings, unite in wedlock. Who is it stands at the platform? A corpse! He has the face of a corpse, the voice of a corpse; if it happen that a cock crows suddenly, he runs away.
"And the Gevirîm, the almsgivers, the agitators, the providers, the whole lot—what are they? Dead men, long dead and long buried!"
———
"And you, friend? What are you?"
"I? I am half-dead," answers the Jew. He jumps down from the conveyance and disappears among the trees.
As in all the Jewish towns in Galicia, big and little, so in the one where my parents lived, there was a lunatic.
And as in most cases, so in this one, the lunatic was afraid of nobody, neither of Kohol, nor of the rabbi or his assistants, not even of the bather or the grave-digger, who are treated with respect by the richest men. On the other hand, the whole of the little town, Kohol with all the Jewish authorities and the bather and the grave-digger, trembled before the lunatic, closed door and window at his approach. And although the poor lunatic had never said an abusive word, never touched any one with his little finger, everybody called him names, many people hit him, and the street boys threw mud and stones at him.
I always felt sorry for the lunatic. He attracted me, somehow, I wanted to talk to him, to console him, to give him a friendly pat; but it was impossible to approach him; I should have received part of the stones and mud with which he was bombarded by the others. I was quite a little boy, and I wore a nice suit from Lemberg or Cracow, and I wished to preserve my shoulders from stones and my suit from mud; so I remained at a distance.
The little town in which my parents lived and whereI spent my childhood, dressed in clothes made by the tailors of Lemberg and Cracow, was a fortress, surrounded by moats, water, earthworks, and high walls.
On the walls were batteries, and these were protected by soldiers with muskets, who marched up and down, serious and silent. Hardly had darkness fallen, when the iron drawbridge was raised from over the moat, all the gates were closed, and the little town was cut off from the rest of the world till early next morning. At every gate stood a watchman, fully armed.
A short while ago, in the day-time, we were all free, we could go in and out without applying for leave to the major in command; one might bathe in the river outside the town, and even lie stretched out on the green bank and gaze into the sky or out into the wide world, as one chose. No one made any objection, and even if one did not return, no questions were asked. But at night all was to be quiet in the town, no one was to go out or to come in. "Lucky," I used to think to myself, "that they let in the moon."
And as long as I may live, I shall never forget the twilights there, the fall of night. As the shades deepened, a shudder went through the whole town, men and houses seemed suddenly to grow smaller and cower together. The bridge was raised, the iron chains grated against the huge blocks; and the rasp of the iron, the harsh, broken sounds, went through one's very bones. Then gate on gate fell to. Every evening it was the same thing, and yet every evening people's limbs trembled, a dull apathy overspread their faces, and their eyes were as the eyes of the dead. Eye-lids fell heavyas lead; the heart seemed to stop beating, one scarcely breathed. Then a patrol would march down the streets, with a clatter of trailing swords and great water-boots; the bayonets glistened, and the patrol shouted: "Wer da?" To which one had to reply: "A citizen, an inhabitant," otherwise there was no saying what might not happen. Many preferred to remain behind lock and key—they were afraid of being seen in the street.
———
One day I had the following adventure: I had been bathing in the river, and either I lost myself in thought, or in staring about, or I simply forgot that after day comes night. Suddenly I see them raise the bridge; there is a grating in the ears, the gates swing to, and my heart goes by leaps and bounds. No help for it! I must pass the night outside the walls—and strange to say, night after night, as I lay in my warm bed at home, I had dreamt of the free world outside the fortress; and now that my dreams had come true, I was frightened. There ensued the usual dispute between head and heart. The head cried: Steady! Now, for once, you may enjoy the free air and the starry sky to the full! And the heart, all the while, struggled and fluttered like a caged bird. Then from heart to head rose as it were a vapor, a mist, and the clear reasoning became obscured, and was swallowed up in the cloud.
There was a rushing noise in my ears, a flickering before my eyes. Every sound, however light, every motion of a twig or a blade of grass made me shudder, and threw me on to the ground with fright.
I hid my face in the sand. Whether or not I slept, and how long I lay there, I cannot tell! But I suddenly heard someone breathing close to me; I spring up and—I am not alone! Two well-known, deep, black eyes are gazing at me in all candor and gentleness.
It is the lunatic.
"What are you doing here?" I ask in smothered tones.
"I never sleep in the town!" he answers sadly, and his glance is so gentle, the voice so brotherly, that I recover myself completely and lose all fear.
"Once upon a time," I reflected, "lunatics were believed to be prophets—it is still so in the East—and I wonder, perhaps he is one, too! Is he not persecuted like a prophet? Don't they throw stones at him as at a prophet? Don't his eyes shine like stars? Doesn't his voice sound like the sweetest harp? Does he not bear the sorrows of all, and suffer for a whole generation? Perhaps he also knows what shall be hereafter!"
I have a try and begin to question him, and he answers so softly and sweetly, that I think sometimes it is all a dream, the dream of a summer's night outside the fortress.
"Do you believe in the days of the Messiah?" I ask him.
"Of course!" he answers gently and confidently, "hemustcome!"
"He must?!"
"O, surely! All wait for him, even the heavens and the earth wait! If it were not so, no one would care to live, to dip a hand in cold water—and if people liveas they do and show theywantto live, it is a sign they all feel that Messiah is coming, that he must come, that he is already on the way."
"Is it true," I question further, "that first there will be dreadful wars, and false Messiahs, on account of whom people will tear one another like wild beasts, till the earth be soaked with blood? Is it true that rivers of blood will flow from east to west and from north to south, and all the animals and beasts drink human blood, all the fields and gardens and wild places and roads be swamped with human blood, and that in the middle of this bloody time thetrueMessiah will come—therightone? Is that true?"
"True!"
"And people will know him?"
"Everyone will know him. Nobody will be mistaken. He will be Messiah in every look, in every word, in every limb, in every glance. He will have no armies with him, he will ride on no horse, and there will be no sword at his side—"
"Then, what?"
"He will have wings—Messiah will have wings, and then everyone will have wings. It will be like this: suddenly there will be born a child with wings, and then a second, a third, and so it will go on. At first people will be frightened, by degrees they will get used to it, until there has arisen a whole generation with wings, a generation that will no longer struggle in the mud over a Parnosseh-worm."
He talked on like this for some time, but I had already ceased to understand him. Only his voice wasso sadly-sweet that I sucked it up like a sponge. The day was breaking when he ceased—they had opened the gates and were letting down the bridge.
Since the night spent outside the fortress, the life within it had grown more unbearable still. The old walls, the rasping iron drawbridge, the iron doors, the sentinels and patrols, the hoarsely-angry "Wer da?" the falsely-servile: "A citizen, an inhabitant!" the eternal quivering of the putty-colored faces, the startled, half-extinguished eyes, the market with its cowering, aimlessly restless shadows of men—the whole thing weighed on me like lead—not to be able to breathe, not to feel free! And my heart grew sick with a great longing. And I resolved to go to meet the Messiah.
———
I got into the first conveyance that presented itself. The driver turned round and asked:
"Where to?"
"Wherever you please," I answered, "only a great way—a great way off from here!"
"For how long?"
"For as long as the horse can go!"
The driver gathered up the reins, and we set off.
We drove on and on. Other fields, other woods, other villages, other towns, everything different; but the difference was only on the surface, below that everything was the same. When I looked into things, I saw everywhere the same melancholy, every face wore a look of frightened cunning, speech was everywhere broken and halting—the world seemed overspread with a mournfulmist that hid every gleam of light and extinguished every joy. Everything shrank together and stifled. And I kept shouting: "Go on!" But I depended on the driver, and the driver, on the horse—the horse wants to eat, and we are obliged to stop.
I step into the inn. A large room, divided into two by means of an old curtain, reaching from one wall to the other. On my side of the curtain, three men sit round a large table. They do not remark me, and I have time to look them over. They represent three generations. The oldest is gray as a pigeon, but he sits erect and gazes with sharp eyes and without spectacles into a large book, lying before him on the table. The old face is grave, the old eyes unerring in their glance, and the old man and the book are blent into one by the white beard, whose silver points rest on the pages. At his right hand sits a younger man, who must be his son; it is the same face, only younger, less unmoved, more nervous, at times more drawn and weary. He also gazes into a book, but through glasses. The book is smaller, and he holds it nearer to his eyes, resting it against the edge of the table. He is of middle age; beard and ear-locks just silvered over. He rocks himself to and fro. It seems every time as if his body wished to tear itself away from the book, only the book draws it back. He rocks himself, and the lips move inaudibly. Every now and then he glances at the old man, who does not notice it.
To the old man's left sits the youngest, probably a grandson, a young man with glossy black hair and a burning, restless glance. He also is looking at a book,but the book is quite small, and he holds it close to his bright, unquiet eyes. He continually lowers it, however, and throws a glance of mingled fear and respect at the old man, another, with a half-ironic smile, at his father, and then leans over to hear what is going on, on the further side of the curtain. And from the further side of the curtain come moans as of a woman in child-birth—
I am about to cough, so that they may be aware of me. At this moment a fold of the curtain is pushed aside and there appear two women: an old one with a sharp, bony face and sharp eyes, and one of middle age with a gentle, rather flabby face and uncertain glance. They stand looking at the men, and waiting to be questioned. The oldest does not see them—his soul has melted into the soul of the book. The middle-aged man has seen them, and is wondering how best to rouse his father; the youngest starts up—
"Mother! Grandmother! Well?"
The father rises anxiously from his chair; the grandfather only pushes the book a little away from him, and lifts his eyes to the women.
"How is she?" inquires the young one further, with a trembling voice.
"She is over it!"
"Over it! over it!" stammers the young one.
"Mother, won't you say, Good luck to you?" asks the second. The old one reflects a moment and then asks:
"What has happened? Even if it is a girl—"
"No!"—the grandmother speaks for the first time—"it is a boy."
"Still-born?"
"No, it lives!" answers the old woman, and yet there is no joy in her tone.
"A cripple? Defective?"
"It has marks! On both shoulders—"
"What sort of marks?"
"Of wings—"
"Of wings?"
"Yes, of wings, and they are growing—"
The old man remains sitting in perplexity, the second is lost in wonder, the youngest fairly leaps for joy.
"Good, good! Let them grow, may they grow into wings, big, strong ones! Good, good!"
"What is there to be glad about?" inquires his father.
"A dreadful deformity!" sighs the old man.
"Why so?" asks the grandson.
"Wings," said the old man, sternly, "raise one into the height—when one has wings one cannot keep to the earth."
"Much it matters!" retorts the grandson, defiantly. "One is quit of living here and wallowing in the mud, one lives in the height. Is heaven not better than earth?"
The old man grows pale, and the son takes up the word:
"Foolish child! What is one to live on in the height? Air doesn't go far. There are no inns to hire up there,no 'contracts' to sign. There's no one of whom to buy a bit of shoe-leather—in the height—"
The old man interrupts him: "In the height," he says in hard tones, "there is no Shool, no house-of-study, no Kläus to pray and read in; in the height, there is no pathway, trodden out by past generations—in the height, one wanders and gets lost, because one does not know the road. One is a free bird, but woe to the free bird in the hour of doubt and despondency!"
"What do you mean?" and the young man starts up with burning cheeks and eyes.
But the grandmother is beforehand with him:
"What fools men are," she exclaims, "how they talk! And the rabbi? Do you suppose the rabbi is going to let him be circumcised? Is he likely to allow a blessing to be spoken over a child with wings?"
———
I give a start. The night spent outside the town, the drive, and the child with wings were all a dream.