When times are bad, even Torah, "the best ware,"[54]loses in value.
In the Lashewitz "academy," there remain only the head, Reb Yainkil, and one pupil.
The head of the academy is on old, thin Jew, with a long, pointed beard and old, extinguished eyes; Lemech, his beloved pupil, is a young man, likewise thin, tall, and pale, with black, curling ear-locks, dark, glowing eyes, heavily-ringed, dry lips, and sharp, quivering throat; both with garments open at the breast, withnoshirts, and both in rags; the teacher just drags about a pair of peasant boots; the pupil's shoes drop from his sockless feet.
That is all that remains of the celebrated academy!
The impoverished little town sent less and less food, gave fewer and fewer free meals to the poor students, and these crept away elsewhere! But Reb Yainkil intends to die here, and his pupil remains to close his eyelids!
And these two are often hungry. Eating little means sleeping little, and whole nights without sleep or food incline one to the Kabbalah! If one has to wake wholenights and hunger whole days, one may as well get something by it, if only fasting and flagellations, so long as these open the door to the world of mystery, of spirits, and of angels!
And they have been studying the Kabbalah for some time!
Now they are sitting at the one long table. With everyone else it is "after dinner," with them still "before breakfast." They are used to that. The teacher rolls his eyes and holds forth; the pupil sits with both hands supporting his head and listens.
"Therein," said the teacher, "are many degrees of attainment: one knows a bit of a tune, another half a one, another a whole. The Rebbe of blessed memory knew a whole one with the accompaniment. I," he added sadly, "have only been found worthy of a bit like that!"
He measured off a tiny piece of his bony finger and went on:
"There is one kind of tune that must have words, that is a low order of tune. But there is a higher kind: a tune that sings itself, but without words—a pure melody! Butthatmelody must have a voice—and lips, through which the voice issues! And lips, you see, are material things!
"And the voice itself is refined matter, certainly, but matter none the less. Let us say, the voice stands mid-way between the spiritual and the material.
"However that may be, the tune that finds expression through a voice and is dependent on lips is not pure, not entirely pure, not yet really spiritual!
"The real tune sings itself without a voice—it sings itself inside one, in the heart, in the thoughts!
"There you have the meaning of the words of King David: 'All my bones shall say,' etc. It ought to sing in the marrow of the bones, that is where the tune should be—that is the highest praise we can give to God. That is no human tone that has beenthought out! It is a fragment of the melody to which God created the world, of the soul He breathed into it. Thus sings the Heavenly Family, thus sang the Rebbe, whose memory be blessed!"
The teacher was interrupted by a shock-headed lad with a cord round his waist—a porter. He came into the house-of-study, put down on the table, beside the teacher, a dish of porridge with a piece of bread, said gruffly: "Reb Tebil sends the teacher some food," turned his back, and added, as he went out: "I'll come back presently for the dish."
Recalled by the rough tone from the divine harmonies, the teacher rose heavily, and went to the basin to wash, dragging his great boots.
He continued to speak as he went, but with less assurance, and the pupil followed him with greedy ears and glowing, dreaming eyes.
"But I," repeated Reb Yainkil, sadly, "was not even worthy of understanding to what category it belongs, of knowing under what heading it is classified. However," he added with a smile, "the initiatory mortifications and purifications, those Idoknow, and perhaps I will teach them you to-day."
The pupil's eyes seem about to start from their sockets with eagerness; he keeps his mouth open so as to catch every word. But the teacher is silent, he is washing hishands; he repeats the ritual formula, comes back to the table and says "Thou who bringest forth,"[55]with trembling lips.
He lifts the dish with shaking fingers, and the warm steam rises into his face; then he puts it down, takes the spoon in his right hand, and warms the left at the dish's edge; after which he masticates the rest of the bread with some salt between his tongue and his toothless gums.
Having warmed his face with his hands, he wrinkles his forehead, purses his thin lips, and begins to blow the porridge.
The pupil has not taken his eyes off him the whole time, and when the teacher's trembling mouth met the spoonful of porridge, something came over him, and he covered his face with both hands and withdrew within himself.
A few minutes later another boy came in with a bowl of porridge and some bread:
"Reb Yòsef sends the pupil some breakfast!"
But the pupil did not remove his hands from his face.
The teacher laid down his spoon and went up to the pupil. For a while he gazed at him with affectionate pride, then he wrapped his hand in the skirt of his kaftan, and touched him on the shoulder:
"They have brought you something to eat," he said gently, by way of rousing him. Slowly and sadly the pupil uncovered his face. It was paler than ever, and the black-ringed eyes had grown wilder.
"I know, Rebbe," he answered, "but I will not eat anything to-day."
"The fourth fast?" asked the teacher, wondering, "and without me?" he added, with a playful pretense at being hurt.
"It is another kind of fast," answered the pupil, "it is a penance."
"What do you mean?Youand a penance?"
"Yes, Rebbe! A penance. A minute ago, when you began to eat, I was tempted to break the commandment: 'Thou shalt not covet!'"
———
Late that night the pupil woke the teacher. They slept on the benches in the Kläus, opposite to one another.
"Rebbe, Rebbe!" he called in a weak voice.
"What is it?" and the teacher started up in alarm.
"Just now I attained to a higher degree!"
"How so?" inquired the teacher, still half asleep.
"It sang within me!"
The teacher sat up:
"How so? how so?"
"I don't know myself, Rebbe," replied the pupil in his feeble tones, "I couldn't sleep, and I thought over what you told me. I wanted to get to know the tune—and I was so sorrowful, because I could not, that I began to weep—everything in me wept; all my limbs wept before the Creator.
"Then I made the invocations you taught me—and, wonderful to say, not with my lips, but somehow inside me—with my whole self. Suddenly it grew light; I shut my eyes, and still it was light to me, very light, brilliantly light."
"There!" and the teacher sat bending toward him.
"And I had such pleasant feelings as I lay in the light, and I seemed to weigh nothing at all, no more than if my body had been a feather, I felt as if I could fly."
"You see, you see, you see!"
"Then I felt merry and lively, I wanted to laugh—my face never moved, nor my lips either, and yet I laughed—and so heartily."
"You see, you see, you see!"
"Then there was a humming inside me like the beginning of a melody."
The teacher sprang down from his bench, and was across the room.
"Well, well?"
"Then I heard something begin to sing within me."
"What did you feel like? Tell me quick!"
"I felt as though all the doors of sense in me were shut, and as though something sang within me—as it ought to do—without any words, like ... like...."
"How was it? How was it?"
"No, I can't! I knew, before—and then the singing turned into—into—"
"Into what? What became of it?"
"A kind of playing—as though (lehavdîl) there were a fiddle inside me—or as if Yoneh, the musician, were sitting there and playing hymns, as he does at the Rebbe's dinner-table. Only it was better, more beautiful, more spiritual. And without a voice, without any voice at all—it wasallspiritual."
"Happy, happy, happy, are you!"
"Now it's all gone (sadly), the doors of sense are reopened, and I am so tired, I am so—so—tired, that I—
"Rebbe!" he called out suddenly, clapping a hand to his heart, "Rebbe, say the confession of sins with me! They have come for me! They have come for me! There is a singer wanted in the Heavenly Family! An angel with white wings! Rebbe, Rebbe! Hear, O Israel! Hear, O Is—"
———
The entire little town wished as one man that it might die as blessed a death; but the Rebbe was not satisfied.
"Another fast or two," he groaned, "and he would have died beneath the Divine kiss!"[56]
It was at the end of the good, and the beginning of the bad, years. Black clouds had appeared in the sky, but it was believed that the wind[57]—the spirit of the times, I mean—would soon disperse them, that they would pour out their heart somewhere in the wilderness.
In Europe's carefully-tended vineyard the bitter root was already cleaving the sod and sending out prickly, poisonous shoots, but look, look! now the gardener will see it and tear it out root and all. That was the idea. It was supposed that the nineteenth century had caught a cold, a feverish chill, in its old age. That it would end in a serious illness, a fit of insanity, never occurred to anyone.
How far away America was for us in those days! Not a Jew troubled himself as to what a plate of porridge looked like over there, or wondered whether people wore their skull-caps on their feet. Palestinian Esrogîm were as seldom mentioned as Barons Hirsch and Edward de Rothschild.[58]
Astronomy calculates beforehand every eclipse of the sun or moon. Psychology is not so advanced. Theworld-soul grows suddenly dark, the body is seized with a sort of convulsion, and science cannot foretell the hour—the thing is difficult enough to believe in after it has happened—it is not to be explained. And yet people were uneasy—rumor followed rumor from every side.
It was resolved, among other things, to inquire into the common, workaday Jewish life, to find out what went on in the little towns, what men were hoping for, how they made a living, what they were about, what the people said.
——
My first halting-place was Tishewitz. I took lodgings with an acquaintance, Reb Bòruch. He sent for the beadle and a few householders.
While I was waiting for them, I stood by the window and looked at the market-place. The market-place is a large square bounded on each side by a row of grimy, tumbledown houses, some roofed with straw, but the majority, with shingle. All are one-storied with a broad veranda supported by rotten beams.
Pushing out from the veranda and not far apart, one from the other, stand the huckstresses over the stalls with rolls, bread, peas, beans, and various kinds of fruit.
The market-women are in a state of great commotion. I must have impressed them very much.
"Bad luck to you!" screams one, "don't point at him with your finger; he can see!"
"Hold your tongue!"
The women know that I have come to take notes in writing. They confide the secret one to another so softly that I overhear every word, even inside the house.
"They say it is he himself!"
"It is a good thing the poor sheep have shepherds who are mindful of them. All the same, ifthatShepherd[59]did not help, much good it would be!"
"One cannot understand whythatShepherd should require such messengers" (in allusion to my shaven beard and short-skirted coat).
Another is more liberal in her views, and helps herself out of the difficulty by means of the Röfeh.
"Take a Röfeh," she says, "he is likewise a heretic, and yet he also is permitted—"
"That is another thing altogether, he is a private individual, but is it so hard to find good Jews for public affairs?"
"They'd better," opines another, "have sent a few hundred rubles. They might let the writing be and welcome, even though my son werenotmade a general!"[60]
Sitting at the table, I saw without being seen. I was hidden from the street, but I could see half the market-place. Meantime, mine host had finished his prayers, put off Tallis and Tefillin, poured out a little brandy, and drunk my health in it.
"Long life and peace to you!" he said.
I answer, "God send better times and Parnosseh!"
I envy my host—Parnosseh is all he wants.
He adds impressively:
"And there willhaveto be Parnosseh! Is there not a God in the world? And the 'good Jews' will pray and do what they can."
I interrupt him and ask why, although he has confidence in his own business, although he knows quite well "He who gives life gives food"—why he exerts himself so, and lies awake whole nights thinking: To-morrow, later, this time next year. Hardly has a Jew put on his wedding garments, when he begins to think how to buy others for his children—and then, when it comes to All-Israel, his trust is so great that it does not seem worth while to dip one's hand in cold water for it—why is this?
"That," he says, "is something quite different. All-Israel is another thing. All-Israel is God's affair—God is mindful of it, and then, in case there should be forgetfulness before the throne of His glory, there are those who will remind Him. But as for private affairs, that's a different matter. Besides, how much longer can the misery of Israel last? Itmustcome to an end some time, either because the measure of guilt is full, or the measure of merit is full. But Parnosseh is quite another thing!"
——
I forgot to tell you that the rabbi of the little town would neither come to see me nor allow me to visit him.
He sent to tell me that it was not his business, that hewas a poor, weakly creature, besides which he had been sitting now for several weeks over a knotty question of "meat in milk," and then, the principal thing, he was at loggerheads with Kohol, because they would not increase his salary by two gulden a week.
There came, however, three householders and two beadles.
I began with mine host. He has no wife, and before I could put in a word, he excused himself for it by asking, "How long do you suppose she has been dead?" lest I should reproach him for not having found another to fill her place.
Well, to be brief, I set him down a widower, three sons married, one daughter married, two little boys and one little girl at home.
And here he begs me at once to put down that all the sons—except the youngest, who is only four years old "and Messiah will come beforeheis liable to serve"—that all the others are defective[61]in one way or other.
With the exception of the two eldest sons, I already know the whole family.
The married daughter lives in her father's house and deals in tobacco, snuff, tea, and sugar; also, in foodstuffs; also, I think, in rock-oil and grease. I had bought some sugar of her early that morning. She is about twenty-eight years old. A thin face, a long hooked nose that seems to be trying to count the black and decaying teeth in her half-opened mouth, cracked, blue-gray lips—her father's image. Her sister, a young girl, is like her; butshe has "Kallah-Chen,"[62]her face is fresher and pinker, the teeth whiter, and altogether she is not so worn and neglected-looking. I also see the two little boys—pretty little boys—they must take after their mother: red cheeks, and shy, restless eyes; their twisted black curls are full of feathers; but they have ugly ways: they are always shrugging their little shoulders and writhing peevishly. They wear stuff cloaks, dirty, but whole.
The mother cannot have died more than a short time ago, long enough for the cloaks to get dirty, not long enough for them to be torn. Who is there to look after them now? The eldest sister has four children, a husband who is a scholar, and the shop—the little Kallah maiden serves her father's customers at the bar; the father himself has no time.
"What is your business?" I ask him.
"Percentage."
"Do you mean usury?"
"Well, call it usury, if you like. It doesn't amount to anything either way. Do you know what?" he exclaims, "take all my rubbish and welcome, bills of exchange, deeds—everything for twenty-five per cent, only pay me in cash. I will give up the usury, even the public house! Would to God I could get away to Palestine—but give me the cash! Take the whole concern and welcome! You imagine that we live on usury—it lives on us! People don't pay in, the debt increases. The more it increases, the less it's worth, and the poorer am I, upon my faith!"
Before going out to take further notes, I witness alittle scene. While I was taking up all my things, paper, pencil, cigarettes, Reb Bòruch was buttering bread for the children to take with them to Cheder. They had each two slices of bread and butter and a tiny onion as a relish.
"Now go!" he says; he does not want them in the public house. But the little orphan is not satisfied. He hunches his shoulders and pulls a wry face preparatory to crying. He feels a bit ashamed, however, to cry before me, and waits till I shall have gone; but he cannot tarry so long and gives vent to a wail:
"Another little onion," he wants. "Mother always gavemetwo!"
The sister has come running into the tap-room, she has caught up another onion and gives it to him. "Go!" says she also, but much more gently.
The mother's voice sounded in her words.
——
We go from house to house, from number to number. I can see for myself which houses are inhabited by Jews and which by non-Jews; I have only to look in the window. Dingy windows are a sure sign of "Thou hast chosen us," still more so broken panes replaced by cushions and sacking. On the other hand, flower-pots and curtains portray the presence of those who have no such right to poverty as the others.
One meets with exceptions—here lives,nota Jew, but a drunkard—and here again—flowers and curtains, but they readHazefirah.[63]
The worst impression I receive is that made upon me by a great, weird, wooden house. It is larger, but blacker and dirtier than all the other houses. The frontage leans heavily over and looks down upon its likeness—also an old, blackened ruin—upon an old, dried up, bent and tottering Jewess, who is haggling with her customer—a sallow, frowzy maid-servant—over an addition to a pound of salt. The beadle points the old woman out to me:
"That is the mistress of the house."
I was astonished: the Jewess is too poor for such a house.
"The house," explains the beadle, "is not exactly hers. She pays only one-sixth of the rent—she is a widow—but the heirs, her children, do not live here—so she is called the mistress."
"How much does the house bring in?"
"Nothing at all."
"And it's worth?"
"About fifteen hundred rubles."
"And nothing is made by it?"
"It stands empty. Who should live there?"
"How do you mean, who?"
"Well, just who? Nearly everybody here has his own house, and if any one hires a lodging, he doesn't want to have to heat a special room. The custom here is for a tenant to pay a few rubles a year for the heating of a corner. Who wants such large rooms?"
"Why did they build such a house?"
"Ba!—once upon a time! It isn't wanted nowadays."
"Poor thing."
"Why 'poor thing?' She has a stall with salt, earns a few rubles a week. Out of that she pays twenty-eight rubles a year house-tax and lives on the rest—what should a Jewess need? What can she want more? She has her winding-sheet."
I gave another look at the old woman, and really it seemed to me that she was not in need of anything. Her wrinkled skin appeared to smile at me: What should a Jewess need?
——
I went from house to house in their order of number, with a note-book in my hand. But from No. 41 the beadle led me to 43.
"And 42?" I ask.
"There!" and he points to a ruin in a narrow space between 43 and 41.
"Fallen in?"
"Pulled down," answers the beadle.
"Why?"
"On account of a fire-wall."
I did not understand what he meant.
We were both tired with walking, and we sat down on a seat at the street side.
The beadle explained:
"You see—according to law, if one house is not built far enough away from another, the roofs must be separated by a fire-wall. What the distance has to be, I don't know;theirlaws are incomprehensible; I should say, four ells or more.
"A fire-wall is with them a charm against fire. Well, this house was built by a very poor man, Yeruchem Ivànovker, a teacher, and he couldn't afford a fire-wall.
"Altogether, to tell the truth, he built without a foundation, and out of that, as you will hear presently, there came a lawsuit, at which his wife (peace be upon her) told the whole story, beginning after the custom of women-folk with the sixth day of creation. This is how it happened:
"Malkah had not spoken to her husband for about fifteen years. She was naturally a sour-tempered woman,—God forgive me for talking against the dead,—tall and thin, dark, with a pointed nose like a hook. She rarely said a word not relating to Parnosseh—she was a huckstress—and nobody wanted her to do so. Her look was enough to freeze you to the bone. All the other huckstresses trembled before her—there was an expression in her eye. So, you see, Yeruchem was quite content that she should be silent—henever said a word toher, either.
"For all this silence, however, they were blessed with two boys and three girls.
"But the desire to become householders made them conversational. The conversation was on this wise:
"'Malke!' (No answer.)
"'Malke!' (No answer.)
"He Malke's and she doesn't stir.
"But Yeruchem stands up and gives a shout:
"'Malke, I am going to build a house!'
"Malke could resist no longer, she raised an eye, and opened her mouth.
"'I thought,' she said afterward, 'that he had gone mad.'
"And itwasa madness. He had inherited the narrow strip of land you have seen from a great-grandfather, and not a farthing in money. The wife's trash, which was afterwards sold for fifty-four gulden, used to be in pawn the whole year round, except on Sabbaths and holidays, when Yeruchem took them out on tick.
"When the desire calls the imagination to its help—who shall withstand?
"No sooner has he a house, than all good things will follow.
"People will place confidence in him, and he will borrow money to buy a goat, and there will be plenty in the home. He will let out one room as a drink-shop, and he, God helping, will keep it himself. Above all, the children will be provided for. The little boys shall be sent one way or the other to a rabbinical college, the girls shall be given a deed as their dowry, promising them, after his death, half as much as the boys will get, and the thing's done.
"'And how is the building to be paid for?'
"He had an answer ready:
"'I,' said he, 'am a teacher, and thou art a huckstress, so we have two Parnossehs: let us live on one Parnosseh, and build on the other.'
"'Was there ever such an idiot! We can't make both ends meet as it is!'
"'God helps those who help themselves,' said he, 'here's a proof of it: the teacher, Noah, our neighbor,has a sickly wife, who earns nothing, and six little children, and it seems they are well and strong—and he lives on nothing but his teaching,'
"'There you are again! He is a great teacher, his pupils are the children of gentlefolk.'
"'And why do you think it is so? What is the reason? Can he "learn" better than I do? Most certainly not. But God, blessed be His Name, seeing that he has only one Parnosseh, increases it to him. And then, another example: Look at Black Brocheh! A widow with five children and nothing but a huckstress—'
"'Listen to him!Thatone (would it might be said of me!) has a fortune in the business, at least thirty rubles—'
"'That is not the thing,' he gives her to understand, 'the thing is that the blessing can only reach her through the apples. The Creator governs the world by the laws of nature.'
"And he manages also to persuade her that they can economize in many ways—one can get along—
"And so it was decided: Yeruchem gave up taking snuff, and the entire household, sour milk in particular and supper in general—and they began to build.
"They built for years, but when it came to the fire-wall, Malkah had no wares, Yeruchem had no strength left in him, the eldest son had gone begging through the country, the youngest had died, and there was a fortune wanting—forty rubles for a fire-wall.
"Well, what was to be done? A coin or two changed hands, and they moved into the new house without building a fire-wall."
He took possession with rejoicing. He was a member of the Burial Society, and the community gave him a house-warming. They drank, without exaggeration, a whole barrel of beer, besides brandy and raisin-wine. It was a regular flare-up, a glorification.
But the bliss was short-lived.
A certain householder quarrelled with a neighbor of Yeruchem, with Noah the teacher. Now Noah the teacher had once been a distinguished householder, a very rich man. Besides what he had inherited from his father, he disposed of a few tidy hundreds. He had carried on a business in honey. Afterwards, when there was the quarrel relating to the Lithuanian rabbi, they got his son taken for a soldier (he is serving in the regiment to this day, with a bad lung), and he himself got involved in a lawsuit for having burnt out the rabbi.
Well, it was a great crime. One is used to denouncing, but to heap sticks round a house on all sides and set fire to it, that's a wicked thing.
Whether or not he had anything to do with it, the lawsuit and the son together impoverished him completely, and he became a teacher. Being so new to the work, he hadn't the knack of getting on with the parents, one of them took offense at something, removed his child, and sent him to Yeruchem instead.
Noah was deeply wounded, but he was a man of high courage; he hung day and night about the office of the district commissioner, and used both his tongue and his pen. Well, in due time, up came the matter of the fire-wall, and down came the senior inspector.
Noah meantime had been seized with remorse. He did all he could to prevent the affair from being carriedon. A coin or two changed hands, and the affair was hushed up.
All might yet have been well, but for a fresh dispute about "blue." Yeruchem was a Radziner,[64]and wore blue "fringes,"[65]and Noah, a rabid Belzer,[66]called down vengeance.
The dispute grew hotter, up crops the fire-wall, and the law was called in a second time.
There was a judgment given in default, and the court decided that Yeruchem should erect a fire-wall within a month's time, otherwise—the house was to be taken to pieces.
There wasn't a dreier. This time Noah had no remorse; on the contrary, the quarrel was at its height, and there was nothing to be done with him. Yeruchem sent to call him before the rabbi, and he sent the beadle flying out of the house.
When Malkah saw that there was no redress to be had, she seized Noah by the collar in the street, and dragged him to the rabbi like a murderer.
There was a marketful of Belzers about, but who is going to fight a woman? "He who is murdered by women," says the Talmud, "has no judge and no avenger." Noah's wife followed cursing, but was afraid to interfere. At the rabbi's, Malkah told the whole story from beginning to end, and demanded either that Noah should build the fire-wall, or else that the matter should be dropped again.
Our rabbi knew very well that whichever party hedeclared to be right, the Chassidîm on theotherside would be at him forthwith, and he wormed himself out of the difficulty like the learned Jew that he was.Hecouldn't decide—it was a question of the impulse to do harm—bê-mê. There was no decision possible—the case must be laid before the Rebbes.[67]
Noah naturally preferred the Belzer Rebbe, Yeruchem had no choice, and to Belz they went.
Yeruchem, before he left, made his brother-in-law his representative, and trusted him with a few rubles which he had borrowed (people lent them out of pity).
But it all turned out badly.
The brother-in-law spent the money on himself, or (as he averred) lost it—Malkah fell ill of worry.
Yeruchem, it is true, gained his fire-wall with "costs," before the Rebbe, but he and Noah were both caught on the frontier,[68]and brought home with theétape.[69]
When Yeruchem arrived, Malkah was dead, and the little house pulled down.
——
And don't imagine Tishewitz to be the world's end. It has a Maskil, too, and a real Maskil, one of the oldstyle, of middle age, uneducated and unread, without books, without even a newspaper, in a word a mere pretense at a Maskil.
He lets his beard grow. To be a Maskil in Tishewitz it is enough only to trim it, but they say "he attends to his hair during the ten Days of Penitence!"
He is not dressed German fashion, and no more is the Feldscher, also a Jew in a long coat and ear-locks.
Our Maskil stops at blacking his boots and wearing a black ribbon round his neck. He has only sorry remnants of ear-locks, but he wears a peaked cap.
People simply say: "Yeshurun waxed fat and kicked."
He does well, runs a thriving trade, has, altogether, three children—what more can he want? Being free of all care, he becomes a Maskil.
On the strength of what he is a Maskil, it is hard to tell—enough that people should consider him one!
The whole place knows it, and he confesses to it himself. He is chiefly celebrated for his "Wörtlech," is prepared to criticise anything in heaven or on earth.
As I heard later, the Maskil took me for another Maskil, and was sure that I should lodge with him, or, at any rate, that he would be my first entry.
"For work of that kind," he said to the others, "you want people with brains. What do you suppose he could do with the like ofyou?"
And as the mountain did not go to Mohammed, because he had never heard of him, Mohammed went to the mountain.
He found me in the house of a widow. He came inwith the question of the wicked child in the Haggadah: "What business is this of yours?"
"Mòi Pànyiye![70]what are you doing here?"
"How here?" I ask.
"Very likely you think I come from under the stove? That because a person lives in Tishewitz, he isn't civilized, and doesn't know what is doing in the world? You remember: 'I have sojourned with Laban?''[71]I do live here, but when there's a rat about, I soon smell him."
"If you can smell a rat, and know all that is going on, why do you want to ask questions?"
The beadle pricked up his ears, and so did the half-dozen loungers who had followed me step by step.
There was a fierce delight in their faces, and on their foreheads was written the verse: "Let the young men arise"—let us see two Maskilîm having it out between them!
"What is the good of all this joking?" said the Maskil, irritated. "My tongue is not a shoe-sole! And for whose benefit am I to speak? That of the Tishewitz donkeys? Look at the miserable creatures!"
I feel a certain embarrassment. I cannot well take up the defense of Tishewitz, because the Tishewitz worthies in the window and the door-way are smiling quite pleasantly.
"Come, tell me, what does it all mean, taking notes?"
"Statistics!"
"Statistic-shmistik!We've heard that before. What's the use of it?"
I explained—not exactly tohim, but to the community, so that they should all have an idea of what statistics meant.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughs the Maskil loudly and thickly, "you can get the Tishewitz donkeys to believe that, but you won't get me! Why do you want to put down how a person lives, with a floor, without a floor! What does it matter to you if a person lives in a room without a floor?Ha?"
It matters, I tell him, because people want to show how poor the Jews are; they think—
"They think nothing of the kind," he interrupted, "but let that pass! Why should they want to know exactly how many boys and how many girls a man has? and what their ages are, and all the rest of the bother?"
"They suspect us of shirking military duty. The books, as of course you know, are not correct, and we want to prove—"
"Well, that may be so, for one thing—I'll allow that—but—about licenses! Why do you note down who has them—and what they are worth?"
"In order to prove that the Jews—"
But the Maskil does not allow me to finish my sentence.
"A likely story! Meantime, people will know that this one and the other pays less than he ought to for his license, and he'll never hear the last of it."
Scarcely had he said so, when the heads in the window disappeared; the beadle in the door-way took himself off,and the Maskil, who had really meant well all along, stood like one turned to stone.
The population had taken fright, and in another hour or two the town was full of me.
I was suspected of being commissioned by the excise. And why not, indeed? The excise knew very well that a Jew would have less difficulty in getting behind other people's secrets.
I was left to pace the market-square alone. The town held aloof. It is true that the Maskil dogged my footsteps, but he had become antipathetic to me, and I couldn't look at him.
The faces in the Gass became graver and darker, and I began to think of escaping. There are too many side-glances to please me—there is too much whispering.
It occurred to me to make a last effort. I remembered that the rabbi of Tishewitz had once been our Dayan, and would remember me, or at least witness to the fact that I was not what they took me for.
"Where does the rabbi live?" I inquire of the Maskil.
He is pleased and says: "Come, I will show you!"
No one who has not seen the rabbi of Tishewitz's dressing-gown would ever know the reason why the rebbitzin, his third wife, though hardly middle-aged, already wears a large pair of spectacles on her nose. The dressing-gown looks as if it were simplymadeof patches.
"If only," complains the rabbi, "the town would give me another two gulden a week, I could get along.Asö is gor bitter!But I shall get my way. Their law-suitsthey can decide without me; when it is a question of pots and pans, any school-teacher will do; questions regarding women, of course, cannot be put off; and yet I shall get my way, I'm only waiting for the election of the elders; they can't have an election without a rabbi. Imagine a town—no evil eye!—a metropolis in Israel, without elders! And if that won't do it, I shall refuse to try the slaughtering-knives—I've got them fast enough!"
It was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own grievances, but on the Maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened to our tale.
"Nonsense!" he said, "I know you! Tell the fools I know you."
"They run away from me!"
"Ett![72]They run away! Why should they run away? Who runs away? After what? Well, as you say they run away, I will go out with you myself."
"In what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove.
"Give me my cloak," answers the rabbi.
"Give you your cloak! I've this minute taken it apart."
"Well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. We will go to-morrow."
I give him to understand that it is only noon, that I should be sorry to waste the day.
"Nu, what shall I do?" answers the rabbi, and folds his hands. "The rebbitzin has just started mending my cloak."
"Call them in here!"
"Call them? It's easy enough to call them, but who will come? Are they likely to listen to me? Perhaps I had better go in my dressing-gown?"
"It wouldn't do, rabbi!" exclaimed the Maskil, 'the inspector is going about in the Gass.
"For my part," said the rabbi, "I would have gone, but if you say no—no!"
It is settled that we shall all three call the people together from the window. But opening the window is no such easy matter. It hasn't been opened for about fifteen years. The panes are cracked with the sun, the putty dried up, the window shakes at every step on the floor. The frame is worm-eaten, and only rust keeps it fastened to the wall. It is just a chance if there are hinges.
And yet we succeeded. We opened first one side and then the other without doing any damage.
The rabbi stood in the centre, I and the Maskil on either side of him, and we all three began to call out.
The market was full of people.
In a few minutes there was a crowd inside the room.
"Gentlemen," began the rabbi, "I know this person."
"There will be no writing people down!" called out several voices together.
The rabbi soon loses heart.
"No use, no use," he murmurs, but the Maskil has got on to the table and calls out:
"Donkeys! Theymustbe written down! The good of the Jews at large demands it!"
"The good of the Jews at large," he says, and he goes on to tell them that he has gone through the whole chapter with me, that there is no question of a joke, that I have shown him letters from the Chief Rabbis.
"From which Chief Rabbis?" is the cry.
"From the Chief Rabbi in Paris," bellows the Maskil, "from the Chief Rabbi in Paris (no other will do for him), from the Chief Rabbi in London—"
"Jews, let us go home!" interrupted someone, "nisht unsere Leut!"[73]
And the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had come together. We three remained—and the beadle, who came close to me:
"Give me something," he said, "for the day's work."
I gave him a few ten-kopek pieces, he slipped them into his pocket without counting them, and was off without saying good-bye.
"What doyousay, Rabbi?" I asked.
"I don't know what to say, how should I? I am only dreadfully afraid—lest it should do me harm—"
"You?"
"Whom else?You?If you don't get any statistics, it will be of no great consequence, for 'He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep!' I mean the two extra gulden a week."
The rebbitzin with the large spectacles has come out from behind the stove.
"I told you long ago," she says, "not to interfere in the affairs of the community, but when did you ever listen to me? What has a rabbi to do withthatsort of thing? Kohol's business!"
"Nu, hush, Rebbitzin, hush!" he answers gently; "you know what I am, I have a soft heart, it touched me, but it's a pity about the two gulden a week."
Sad and perplexed in spirit, I came down from the rabbi, with the Maskil, and into the street. There we came across the beadle, who assured us that, in his opinion, we should be able to go on with the work to-morrow.
The whole Tararam[74]had been stirred up by two impoverished householders, who were now in great misery; one, a public-house keeper, and the other, a horse-dealer.
The Maskil, for his part, promises to talk the matter over with the townspeople between Minchah and Maariv, and if he doesn't turn the place upside down, then his name is not Shmeril (such a name has a Maskil in Tishewitz!). They may stand on their heads, he said, but the notes must be taken. "The very authorities that forbade will permit."
Well done! It is evident that the Maskil had studied in a Cheder, in the great world one meets with other Maskilîm.
I go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. At my host's they still have services, the mourning for his wifenot being ended. Between Minchah and Maariv, we get on to politics; after Maariv, on to the Jews. The greater part are dreadfully optimistic. In the first place, it's not a question ofthem, secondly, plans will not prosper against "Yainkil,"[75]he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw, now it goes up and now it goes down;[76]fourthly, God will help; fifthly, "good Jews" will not allow it to happen.
The old song!
"Believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good Jews,' if they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating Tachanun,[77]Messiah wouldhaveto come!"
"But the Kozenitz Rebbe, may his memory be blessed,didstop," suggested another.
"'One swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' Who talks of their imposing a prohibition on All-Israel?"
There are times when one must set one's self against things—defend one's self.
"If they were to issue a prohibition," says someone, ironically, and with a side-glance at me, "the heretics would take to praying, if only for the sake of saying Tachanun, so that Messiah shouldnotcome."
The company smile.
"But where is the harm," asks someone else, "if the great people don't agree among themselves?"
The company gave a groan. Doubtless each remembered how many times he had suffered unjustly on account of the want of unity, and the surest proof of Tishewitz having greatly suffered by reason of dissensions is, that no clear explanation was given as to who was at fault that the great were not at one, so fearful were they of provoking a fresh disagreement.
I put forward that poverty had more to do with the differences than anything.
There is nothing to trade with, people go about empty-handed, seeking quarrels to while away the time with; the proof is that in larger towns, where each goes about his own business, there is quiet.
If someone, I opine, would throw into Tishewitz a few thousand rubles, everything would be forgotten.
"To be sure, we know wealth is everything!" exclaims somebody. "If I had only hadsomuch brains, I could put all Tishewitz into my pocket to-day. It was just a toss-up—I had only to say the word."
"True! True!" was heard on all sides. "It is an actual fact."
The man who had only required to havesomuch brains, or a little determination, to become rich, looked like poverty itself: lean, yellow, shrunk, "wept out," and in a cloak that had its only equal in the dressing-gown of the Tishewitz rabbi.
Thereupon came the Maskil.
Of course, he laughed.
"Reb Elyeh, you must have bought the lucky number an hour before the drawing!"
"Listen to his cheek!" says Reb Elyeh. "As if he couldn't remember the story!"
"May my head not ache," swears the Maskil, "for so long as I have forgotten—if ever I heard the lies at all."
"Lies!" retorts Reb Elyeh, much hurt, "is that so? Lies? According to you, other things are lies as well."
I interfere and ask what the story may be.
"You've heard of the Tsaddik of Vorke of blessed memory?" begins Reb Elyeh.
Of course!
"Naturally,Kind und Keit[78]knew of him. And you will have heard that there came to him not only the pious men of the nations of the world, but even 'German' Jews, even Lithuanians, knowing fellows that they are. May I have as much money as I have seen Lithuanians at his house! There is even a story about a discussion a Lithuanian had with him. A Lithuanian must always be showing off his acumen! He asks a question about the Tossafot onVows. The Rebbe, of blessed memory, explains a bit of the Mishnah to him upside down.
"'Well, I never, Rebbe!' exclaims the Lithuanian, 'why, the Tossafot onNew Yeardealing with the same subject says exactly the opposite of your words.' Well, what do you say to that? It was a miracle the Rebbe did not seize and strangle him on the spot. But that is not what I was driving at. The 'Vorker' treated the Almighty like a good comrade.
"'Lord of the world (and he sat down in the middle of the room)! Would it not have been enough to torment the Jews with persecutions? Now one cannot even sit and study in peace.'
"Someone, it would appear, answered him from 'up there.'
"'So,' he said, 'that is another thing altogether! I give in; good pay puts everything straight. But, Lord of the world! a little of it here as well!'
"Again one could see in his face that he heard a response, and he answered:
"'Well, if not—not! You are solvent, we will wait!'
"But that is not what I was after. His chief concern was whatever was connected with circumcision. In the matter of circumcision he was steel and iron. In that he would take no denial from the Powers above. And, indeed, they waited for his word up there! Scarce had he given a sign, when the thing he wanted was done and established. He said, that before going to a circumcision, when he merely began to think of the Mohel-knife, the quality ofFear[79]straightway diffused itself through his being, and then there could be no doubt all would go as he wanted, for 'the will of those whofearHim He executeth.'
"He was very sorry that people had become aware of this peculiarity of his. He knew that on this account he would not perform the ceremony here much longer, that he would be called to join the Heavenly Academy. His relations to the upper world having become known, the very stability of the world was endangered. It ought to have remained a secret.
"Well, people had become aware of it. I, too. And even sooner than others, because the treasurer, Mösheh,was my first wife's brother-in-law, and he it was who let out the secret. For this he was deprived of his place for half a year, but his distress was so great, the Rebbe had compassion on him, and restored him to his office. But that doesn't belong to the story either.
"Enough that I knew it.
"Well, 'and he kept the thing in his heart.' I waited, for I was not going to plague the Rebbe about a trifle. I waited. I was living just then a mile outside Vorke. My first wife was alive, and she did not fare badly, though it was difficult to make both ends meet. But I earned whatever it was by my match-making, and my wife supported us by means of her stall. And not only us, but also she provided for a married couple, my eldest daughter and her husband, who was an excellent scholar. What, then, was lacking?
"And it came to pass on a day that my son-in-law was away at the Ger Rebbe's, there was a fair in the town, and my daughter was in child-bed. It went hard with her, a first baby. Beile Bashe, the midwife, was at her wit's end, and this was the third day of her pains. No cupping, no blood-letting seemed to help—things were very bad. And I hear that the Rebbe is coming to a circumcision.
"What do you think? 'There sprang up light for the Jews!' We were all overjoyed. It put new life into us. We pray that God will preserve her another day and a half, because people were only let in an hour before the ceremony. But meanwhile things got worse and worse, she was near death.
"An hour or two before the ceremony, however, shegrew easier, or so it seemed to me. She came to herself, opened her eyes, urged her mother to go to the fair, and called me to her bedside. A foolish woman, they are all alike—they blame us for it.
"She doesn't like Shmülek, she says, she never liked him, she didn't want him from the very first. She can't stand him and had better die. She had sent her mother out on purpose, because she was afraid of her. She, peace be upon her, was a terror to the children—she wanted to slap her daughter on her wedding-day.
"I, of course, gave her to understand that all women are the same, that some even make a vow never to live with their husbands again; that the sin-offering is there on that account—some even swear that—'but no one may be held responsible for what he utters in pain and grief.' But she keeps to it, she bids me farewell, she needs no vows, no oaths, she says, smiling. I am going out, she says, like a candle.
"Well, I listen to her and can see all the while that she is better. She is quite clear again in her mind, and it only wants half an hour to the circumcision. And she looked quite pretty again.
"I sit by the bed and talk to her—even the midwife had gone to buy a cradle at the fair. I look at the clock—it is time to go. I look at her. Upon my word! Quite well! And yet I do not want to go and leave her all alone, and nearly alone in the town.
"The fair, you see, comes once a year, and lasts three days, and it means Parnosseh for the whole twelvemonths. So, you see, there was no one left at the Rebbe's even—every soul was off to the fair.
"Well, I wait a bit.
"But in half an hour things got suddenly worse. She snatches at my hand, falls back on the pillows, makes grimaces. Bad!
"She begins to moan. I call for help, no one answers. There is a great noise from the fair—nobody hearsme. Among a thousand men and women—and we might have been in a wilderness. I want to pull away my hands, go and call somebody, but she holds them tight.
"Two, three minutes pass, it grows late, things are bad. I tear away my hands and I run thither. The circumcision was at the further end of the town. I fly along roads, over bales of merchandise, I fly and fly! It is all too long to me. It was July and yet I shivered with cold as I ran—there, there is Tsemach's house, where the ceremony has taken place."
———
"My heart beats as though I were a malefactor; I feel thatthere, at home, a soul is about to escape. There I am at the first window! I will not wait for the door, I will break a pane and get in that way. I run up to the window, I see the Rebbe is really in the room, he is walking up and down, I am about to enter like a housebreaker. I gather my remaining strength—there is a cry in my ears: Father, father! I leap."
The narrator was out of breath. He takes a rest, lowers his eyes, which are full of large tears, and ends quietly with a broken voice:
"But it was not to be! There was a heap of manure and stones before the window—I fell, and nearly broke my neck. I have a mark on my forehead to this day. When they brought me in to the Rebbe, he motioned me away with his hand.
"When I got home (howI got there, I don't know), she was lying on the floor—either she fell out of bed dying, or I pulled her out tearing away my hands."
The listeners were silent, a stone weighed on our hearts.
The Maskil soon recovered himself.
"Well," he said, "blessed be the righteous Judge! Where are the riches?"
The narrator wiped his eyes with his sleeve, gave a sad smile and continued:
"Yes, I only wanted to show you what one means when one says, it was not to be. There came trouble after trouble—my wife died—the stall went to the bad because it was kept by a man—I was left alone with the children, and there wasn't a crust—I married again—I took an elderly woman on purpose, because I thought she would do for the stall, but I was taken in. There was a baby a year. Meanwhile our fairs fell off, and for a whole twelvemonth the stall wasn't worth a pinch of powder.
"I determined to make an end of it—to give up the match-making, grow rich, and sit and study.Aï—how does one grow rich? I wrote to the brother-in-law of my first wife, to the treasurer, and asked him for God's sake to tell me when next there was a circumcision.
"I got a message before the month was out, and hastened to Vorke. I stop nowhere, but go straight to the Rebbe."
"And—a larger manure heap?" laughs the Maskil. The narrator gives him a vicious look.
"The Vorke Tsaddik," he said, "went in for ritual cleanliness, his whole religion was ritual cleanliness."
"Only see," remarked the Maskil, "how he looks at me! Rascal! When you came here first, who helped you? A Vorke Chossid? or perhaps your cousin the Tsaddik? or was it I?ha!You would have died of hunger long ago if it hadn't been for me!"
And he turns to me:
"And what do you suppose he is now? He teaches my children, and if I were to take them away from him, he would have no Parnosseh left!... not a crust of bread...."
The other stands silent with downcast eyes.
The Maskil disgusts me more and more, although he made a sign to me with his eyes a little while ago, to the effect that he had exerted himself on my behalf, and with his hands, that to-morrow there will be taking of notes.
I turn to the other:
"Well, my friend?"
"See for yourself," says he to the Maskil, "our note-taker is more of a Maskil than you, on the face of him, andhedoesn't make game of things ... one might say, on the contrary. Rambam[80](lehavdîl) did not believe in magic ... but at any rate, he answers seriously ... a Jew should have manners ... to make fun of things is not fair ... man, it cuts to the heart!"
"Well, well," says the Maskil, more gently, "let us have the rest!"
"I will make it short," says the poor Jew. "I come in without a ticket of admission, nothing to speak for me, without even a money-offering, but that would have been no help at such a time, only his face was terrible! My feet shook under me! I stood there without opening my mouth. He, may his merits protect us, took great strides up and down.
"Suddenly he saw me and gave a roar like a lion.
"'What do you want?'
"I was more terrified than ever and scarcely answered:
"'Riches!'
"It seemed as though the Rebbe had not quite understood.
"'Riches?' he asked, and his voice was like thunder.
"'If only ... Parnosseh!' I answer in a lower tone.
"'What, Parnosseh!' he cried as before.
"'Only not to die of hunger!'
"The Rebbe hurried up and down, stopped suddenly and asked:
"'What else?'
"I thought I should drop dead! It seemed to me (I don't know, but it seemed to me) as if someone else, and not I, had control of my tongue, and it replied:
"'I want Yòsef to be a learned man!'
"'What besides?' I hardly escaped alive, and he, may his merits protect us, died the following week.
"Well? What lay between me and the riches? A hair's breadth! it was my own fault. If I had stood up to him and kept to it! Well!"
"At least," I inquire, "is your son learned?"
"Hewouldhave been," he replies in a broken voice, "only he won't learn ... even a Rebbe can't help that ... hewon'tlearn—what can one do?"
"And the moral," interposes the Maskil, "is that one shouldn't keep rubbish heaps under the window, that you can do nothing without money, and, above all, that one shouldn't be frightened of any Rebbe!"
In one second the livid-faced Jew had flushed scarlet, his eyes shot fire, his person lengthened, and the room resounded with two slaps received by the Maskil.
———
I fear that his first request will equally go unfulfilled: he will yet die of hunger.
———
A LITTLE BOY
The innkeeper's pretty little boy, with his shrugs and pouts, and his curls full of feathers, haunts me.
Now he stands before me with a small onion in his hand, and he cries—he wants two; or I hear him at evening prayer, repeating the Kaddish in his plaintive child-voice, so tearfully earnest that it goes to my very heart. When the Chossid slapped the Maskil, the child turned pale and green with fright, so that I took him by the hand and led him out of the room.
"Come for a walk."
"A walk?" he stammers.
The pale face flushes.
"Do you never go out for a walk?"
"Not now. When my mother, peace be upon her, wasalive, she used to take me out walking Sabbaths and holidays. My father, long life to him, says it's better to sit at one's book."
We were already in the long entrance passage. A "Shield of David" shone redly from a lamp some way off. I could not see his face, but the thin little hand trembled as it lay in mine.
We stepped out into the street.
The sky that hung over Tishewitz resembled a dark blue uniform with dim steel buttons.
My companion found it like a curtain[81]sewn with silver spangles.
Perhaps he is dreaming of just such a blue satin "prayer-bag," with spangles, some day to be his own. In five or six years he may receive it as a gift from his bride.
The little town looks quite different by night. The rubbish heaps and the tumbledown houses are hidden in the "poetical and silent lap of darkness."
The windows and door-panes look like great, fiery, purple eyes. By the hearth-sides pots of boiling water must be standing ready for the potatoes or the dumplings.
The statistics give an average annual expenditure of thirty-seven and a half rubles a head—about ten kopeks a day. Now calculate: school fees, two sets of pots and pans, Sabbaths and holidays, an illness, and a wonder-working Rebbe—besides extras. You see now why there is not always a meal cooking, why the dumplings are of buck-wheat without an egg, and why the potatoes are not always eaten with dripping. Many of the houses arestone-blind. In these it is a question of a bit of bread with or without a herring, and perhaps grace without meat. In one of those houses must live the widow who requires so little, beating her hollow chest through the long confession. Perhaps she measures her winding-sheet, or thinks of her wedding dress of long ago with its gold braid, and from her old eyes there drops a tear, and she whispers, smiling, into the night: "After all, what does a Jewess need?"
My motherless companion is thinking of something else. Hopping on one little foot, he lifts his face to the moon, swimming with a silly, aristocratic air in and out of the light clouds.
He sighs. Has he seen a star fall? No.
"Öi," he says, "wollt ich gewollt, Meshiach soll kimmen!" (How I do wish the Messiah would come!)
"What is the matter?"
"I want the moon to be made bigger again. It is so dreadfully sad about her! She committed a sin, but to suffer so long! It will soon be six thousand years."
Altogether, two requests! one of his earthly father for a second little onion, and one of his Father in Heaven, for the enlargement of the moon.
A wild impulse seized me to say: "Let alone! Your father will soon marry again, you will soon have a step-mother, become a step-child, and have to cry for a bit of bread! Spare the little onion, forget about the moon ..."
It was all I could do to refrain.
We left Tishewitz behind, the spring airs blew towardus from the green fields. He drew me to a tree, we sat down.
He must have sat here, it occurs to me, with his mother. She must have pointed out to him the different things that grew in the narrow plots belonging to the townspeople. He recognizes wheat, rye, potatoes.
And those are briars.
Nobody eats briars, do they?
Donkeys eat briars.
"Why," he asks, "did God make all creatures to eat different things?"