Part 2

I did not then appreciate his piety or the splendid tenor voice in which he recited the prayers, or the many virtues which now I know he possessed. At that period I knew him only as a hard teacher and guardian. My mind never was with the prayers which I could not understand; the discordant service did not interest me and the synagogue became a place of torture. My eyes wandered mechanically up and down the walls. I knew how many cracks they had and how many rivulets of moisture came down from where the roof had leaked. I could tell the exact number of spindles in the railing of the gallery which divided the women from the men, for I must have counted them a thousand times. Whenever my uncle caught my wandering eyes he brought me back to the prayer-book by poking me in the ribs, at times very forcibly. His own children were of a different type. They throve on studying Hebrew; they sang with their father and knew all the pianissimos and fortissimos of the hymns of praise. And they were always held up to me as shining examples to follow, especially by my grandmother, who took great pride in them and invariably gave them the largest ginger cakes on Sabbath afternoons. That did not increase my love for her or for my cousins, or did it make me a better student of Hebrew and of the Talmud at whose threshold I was then standing. I still preferred the willows and the whistles, the goslings and the goose girl to my uncle, my grandmother, my cousins, and the Talmud.

And yet the bond between me and my former playmates was broken; for I knew I was a Jew. The Gentile boys knew it, even the geese, I thought, must know it, for the ganders seemed to hiss at me: "_Schid, Schid._" The goose girl, the poor drunken mason's daughter--half-starved creature that she was--knew it also; although I think she remembered our childhood's friendship the longest.

IV

THE NEW TEACHER

He was expected in the omnibus, the one public conveyance of which the town boasted and which connected us with the still far-away railroad.

Long before the old omnibus was due, boys of my age, the first Jewish children to be taught by a teacher trained and employed by the government, were out on the highway to meet it. So eager were we to behold the new master of our educational destiny that we wandered a good many miles upon the wretched highway to the Oresco Hill, famed, because at its foot passengers had to dismount, and were lucky if they did not have to help push the ungainly vehicle to the summit.

It was spring time, and having since then experienced such spring days on that spot, I can now understand why the little man who was following the omnibus looked so long through his spectacles at the encircling Carpathians. Then his glance swept the exquisite blue of the sky with its fleecy clouds and at the top of the hill he stood silent; while the omnibus slid down the steep incline with its one other passenger, the teacher's bride, whom he had brought from a far-away German city.

I did not understand the teacher when, with his eyes still fixed on our town in the distance, he said in beautiful German: "Boys, this is a wonderful scene." I did understand that his wife was wonderfully lovely, and while I was the first one to see her, I was not the last to feel the warmth of her glance and the distinct pleasure which her smile brought to those who found favour in her eyes, and alas! they were many.

The first day in school, always an event in one's life, was remarkable to those of us to whom it meant release from the one-sided, hard and harsh Jewish school, and a real entrance into life.

Imagine what it meant to children to decipher difficult Hebrew characters without vowel points, which were finally sounded by the lips and were in a large measure meaningless and unconnected with life. Imagine such children hearing a teacher speak and teach in German, soft and musical; having the day's work open with a song, a really gladsome song about winds and flowers and blue skies and all the other things around them--things of which they had been as unconscious as if they had not existed.

There were charts with letters and pictures and at ten o'clock, before we had a chance to grow weary, a generous recess. Our teacher taught us games and simple gymnastics; he took us to the woods and on top of the hills, revealing to us the glory of the present, much to the chagrin of my uncle to whom the past alone was sacred. Chanting his psalms, my uncle climbed Mount Zion and rejoiced in the beauty of Lebanon, but never lifted his eyes to the beauty of the Oresco Hill, and never realized that the Carpathians also were God's footstool.

The teacher had no easy time of it; neither in the school where not all his pedagogic methods were appreciated, nor out of it where they were neither appreciated nor approved. Our home was one in which his methods were both approved and appreciated, for our mother was a liberal spirit, far more cultured than learned; consequently the teacher was a frequent visitor in our home and a welcome guest at our table, sharing with us his petty trials and his great ones. His petty trials were those that every truth bringer must experience; his great trials were in his home and the first real tragedy which I experienced, I shared with him and felt as deeply in my way as he felt it in his.

In my boyhood the Jewish community was practically free from scandals arising from domestic infelicity. Although marriages were arranged by the parents with the aid of the _Schadchen_--marriage broker--the family life was regarded as sacred, and something as good as love, if not love itself, grew with the passing years. I knew of only one divorced couple and of no woman who had borne a child out of wedlock. Changes came, however, with changes in the character of the upper class. The town had an influx of Hungarian officials vastly out of proportion to its population. These officials were the children of a bankrupt, aristocratic, landowning class, who in this way were taken care of by the government at the expense of the people's tax account and of their moral fibre.

Some sixty officials in a town of four or five thousand inhabitants could not find much to do, although the county court was located in our town. In fact, the type of officials sent us would not have done anything had there been anything to do. They brought the Hungarian gypsies with them, those purveyors of pleasure, par excellence; gambling was introduced and that which was much worse and which never comes into any community without polluting the guiltless and further polluting the guilty. The county judge was the greatest offender in all directions; every vice which could be originated he developed and those which he could not originate he imported. No woman was safe if he set his heart upon her and he used all the powers of a judge and all the artifices of a trained courtier to gain his ends. He had no difficult task with the teacher's wife. Her husband was a small, wizened, near-sighted Jew; the judge was a Magyar of the finest physical type, and to those who know the type, that is sufficient. Moreover, the teacher gave him the opportunity and he took it. The teacher was one of the first of the Hungarian Jews to feel the charm of the larger life, and wherever he found it possible to break down the narrow walls of Jewish social life he made the most of it. For this purpose he planned a May day celebration, to be held in the near-by forest.

The Jewish young men to whom the teacher had come as a sort of liberator, although they were too old to go to school, were drawn into the plan, which included marching to the forest in the morning, a picnic dinner and exercises by the children, to which the dignitaries were to be invited. The festivities were to end in a dance for the invited guests who were all the young officials and the judge.

It was a great day, ushered in by a cloudless, fragrant May morning. The gypsy band led the procession, followed by the gaily-clad children and a wagon load of refreshments in charge of the beadle who had a great reputation for ministering to the palate and neglecting his work in the synagogue.

On reaching the pine forest we found a clearing decorated in the national colours, a band stand and long tables for the dinner. It was a new world, out-of-doors, which opened like Paradise to us Jewish children, shut in since our birth in a small, dusty town. We ate with ravenous appetites, went through the exercises to the satisfaction of our exacting teacher, the rabbi, the president of the congregation and the rest of the Jewish dignitaries--and as the Hungarian officials, headed by the judge, appeared, we sang the national anthem, baring our heads, a grievous offense in the eyes of the conservative Jews. Our teacher made a great speech; I still remember certain eloquent words which I then heard for the first time: "Patriotism, Fraternity, Humanity."

It was a speech that fired one's blood. He closed by calling for three cheers for the judge, after which he received the congratulations of everybody, including my orthodox uncle. Wine was passed and the judge proposed a toast to the king, another to the rabbi, one to the teacher and one to our great country; toasts enough to shake the temperate Jews somewhat out of their sober atmosphere and to carry the teacher quite off his feet. He embraced everybody, drank more and more and when the dance began it was he who led his young wife to the judge for the first waltz.

I do not know how long into the night the dance lasted; it ended scandalously. The Magyar officials taunted the Jewish youths, made the gypsies play anti-Semitic songs and finally remained victors in the field, consuming the fat _kosher_ geese, the no less _kosher_ wine, and did not scruple to kiss the _kosher_ maidens who were still half children and delighted in the attention they received.

The next day was a gloomy one at school. The teacher whipped us; he even whipped me, his favourite, until my back was blue. At recess he did not play with us; in fact, he never played with us again.

Many months after, as I was going to school, I found my way blocked by a great crowd in front of the judge's house; Jews and Gentiles alike pressed around the entrance gate in front of which stood the teacher with a bundle of pillows in his arms. His cries of anguish and the terrible curses, which he called down upon the judge, rang in my ears for weeks afterwards. He pulled the bell at the gate until he broke the wire; he beat upon the iron bars with the handle of the gate which he had wrenched from it; he broke all the windows of the house within reach, with the stones he threw, and when no one from within responded, he laid his bundle on the step and left it there.

I knew nothing then of the mystery of life, but felt the awe of it while scarcely understanding what it meant; at least I could not have explained it to any one.

I had known for some time that the teacher was in deep trouble; in fact, I had caught a sentence here and there from my elders which hinted at a terrible disaster.

Here, then, was the tragedy. "This is your brat, yours, yours! Keep it and may it grow up to curse you and damn you as it already has cursed and damned me!"

Those were the last words I heard him speak. There was no school that day or the next or the next. Fishermen found his body upon the shores of the river where it had been washed up by the waves.

They buried him in an obscure corner of the God's Acre, with his head as near the highroad as possible. There was no public funeral for he was a suicide and there is no stone to mark his grave. Yet he is not forgotten; because he was the first man who opened for me a window into this beautiful world and who showed me the rivers and the mountains. Through him I received my first uplift towards "Patriotism, Fraternity and Humanity," and learned that those of us who believe in them must pay the price.

V

THE THREE WISE MEN

It was a bitter winter in the valley of the Waag. Motionless in its crooked bed lay that swift river, whose roar and rush neither the drought of summer nor the cold of winter had silenced within the memory of a generation. Only the roofs of the peasants' cottages were visible above the all-conquering, drifted snow, as for days, men, women and children battled with it in the attempt to release one another from its embrace.

No one asked: "Is this a Jew's house or a Magyar's isba?" "Is it the home of a Roman Catholic or a Protestant, to which we are making a path?" The common danger broke down ancient barriers, even as the snow filled the valleys, and the frozen river united isolated shores. As the older people became one in their common danger, so the children became one in the pleasurable excitement which these changes brought into the routine of their lives.

There was no school, no church and no synagogue service, and as we coasted down great mountains of snow, piled high by the patient toilers, we forgot the antagonisms to which so early in life we had fallen heir. I shared freely the sleds of the Gentile boys whose fathers were skillful in making them, and they shared as freely my luncheon, which the more provident Jewish home provided.

While sandwiched on a sled between two Gentile boys, one of them, my brother by vaccination, called my attention to the fact that Christmas was at hand, and that as chief choir boy, it was his prerogative to train the three wise men who go about on Christmas Eve from house to house, singing carols and gathering such gifts as may be bestowed upon the celebrants.

The boy on the back of the sled was to be one of them, and as the third boy was snow-bound in an isolated farmhouse, and not likely to be liberated before Christmas Eve, it was proposed that I should take his place. I accepted.

In a very vague way I knew the meaning of Christmas; it came in the dreariness of our winter, unrelieved by Jewish holidays, and the Christmas trees, the candles, and the happy children had long ago aroused my childish envy. Realizing that all this was not for me, I was content to see the twinkling lights, and hear the merry laughter of the children from afar, never even asking why I could not have a share in those things. Consequently it came about that when the sled reached the bottom of the roadway and I was released from my close fellowship with the Gentile boys, I was initiated into the duties of a wise man and duly accepted the post with all its obligations. Being a Jew, the financial responsibilities of the affair were thrust upon me. These consisted of purchasing paste, pins and several sheets of gilt paper for crowns and a huge star. My room was made the studio in which the various symbols were to be designed and manufactured.

It is safe to say that I was fairly unselfish in the matter, inasmuch as I could not hope to share in the returns from this enterprise, which would be largely in food which I did not need and could not have eaten had I needed it. Of course, being a wise man and wearing a crown were in themselves compensations worthy the sacrifice I was making, which at first consisted merely in diverting a few pennies from my small allowance, but which grew beyond my calculations, the more I entered into the experiences of a wise man.

While I provided the material things, as behooved my station in life, the acolyte provided things spiritual, and in a snow cave dug by our united efforts, he taught me my part in the dramatic performance of the "Three Wise Men." Incidentally I learned how to sing a Christian hymn and had my first lesson in Latin; and of both there were more, later in life and under less trying circumstances.

I spent the day before Christmas in feverish excitement, mumbling my part in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, as it was not safe for me to be heard by my family, reciting: "Christo nostro infantia"; three words of the hymn which I have never forgotten. When evening came, I had the difficult task of smuggling the Gentile boys into my room and then converting those ragamuffins into kings from Eastern lands. Their ill-smelling sheepskin coats were hidden in my bed, and the red garments of the acolytes, readorned by gilt paper, were thrown over the scanty clothing which remained. Then with gilt star, sceptre and crowns, we started out into the bitter cold to seek the Child in the Manger. I carried the star, and being cast for the part of the wise man from the land of the Moors, my face was blackened with stove-polish, generously applied by my brother by vaccination.

We made straightway for the home of the _Pany_, at the edge of the town. It seemed a fairy palace to our unspoiled eyes. As in a dream I climbed the broad stairway leading to the upper chambers, although I was very conscious of the unusual garments I wore and in whose folds my ungainly feet were entangled.

Our welcome was not such as royal guests might expect, and very reluctantly we were led into the drawing-room where, nearly touching the high ceiling, stood the lighted Christmas tree from which hung glittering things that fairly dazzled us.

I had been told that in Catholic homes we would be greeted, according to custom, in the following manner: "You royal sirs, our visitors, what is the cause that brings you thus?"

Instead of that, the rough, jeering voice of the _Pany_ said: "Get done with your mummery, you lousy brats!" The two Gentile boys, born to obey such commands, fell upon their knees and recited:

"Oh! do not be afraid of us, Your royal, Eastern visitors. To worship, we have come from far, Led by a wondrous, shining star; For we have heard this glorious thing That to the Jews is born a king."

Then came the Latin hymn with its chorus, in which I was supposed to join lustily; but throughout which I was silent.

"Eya! Eya! Virgo Deum genuit quern divina voluit potentia." ...

It was a corrupt Latin and out of tune, which the boys sang; and when they had finished, they rose, conscious of the fact that there was something wrong with them or their audience, and there was. I was in the thick of a desperate fight with the _Pany's_ son who was trying to throw me. Ordinarily, he would not have had a difficult task; but my wounded, royal pride had given me unknown strength, and majestically I held my ground.

"Get down, you dirty peasant!" the lad cried viciously, while I, loudly protesting that I was not a peasant, fought him back until, coming to close quarters, we rolled on the floor, I holding him down with my hands and knees.

"Enough of this, you impudent fellow!" the angry voice of the _Pany_ said, as he lifted me roughly from the badly damaged form of his scion. "Enough of this! Get out of here!"

I was ready enough to go; but fate willed otherwise.

"Why didn't you kneel?" the _Pany_ asked, as I picked up my demoralized crown and the star, which in the scuffle had been ruthlessly torn from my mother's yardstick, on top of which it had guided our footsteps.

"Because I am a king and not a peasant, and I won't kneel to any one."

Loud laughter greeted this speech, for it betrayed my race and religion. Mockingly, the _Pany_ took me by the back of the neck.

"Ah, so!" he said; "that's your new business, being a king. Now, you dirty little _Schid_, get out of here, quick!" And down the broad stairway, which a few minutes before led me up to Paradise, I stumbled onto earth again.

With tears streaming down my blackened face and the acolyte's garments half torn from my body, I tried to find my way out of the lower hall, the other two kings having basely deserted me--when a woman's hand reached out to me in the dark. A very gentle touch it was, and it drew me into a warm and beautiful room. Then I saw that the woman was the _Pany's_ sister, an "old maid" known all through the town for her piety and good works. She washed my face with warm water, and arranged my dress so that I would be better shielded from the cold; she filled my pockets with nuts and such sweets as she knew I could eat, and as she led me out, she kissed my forehead and said: "Our Lord was a little Jewish boy, just like you." Then she kissed my lips and said, "In His name."

I ran home through the increasing cold as fast as my feet could carry me, into my room and to bed, but spent a restless night. I dreamed of the _Pany's_ son and of his sister, feeling kicks and kisses alternately. Then I travelled, far and farther, following the star, looking for the crib and the Child, but never finding them.

That Christmas morning I shall never forget. The maid found my bed full of vermin which had crawled out of the boys' sheepskin coats, and the towels and toilet articles were a mass of stove-polish. It was a day of intensest suffering under punishment of various kinds, yet through it all I felt the kisses of the _Pany's_ sister on my forehead and on my lips.

I was neither a Wise Man nor a king, yet I was wiser than I had been and I was as proud as a king, for I had not knelt at the _Pany's_ command and I had whipped his son.

VI

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HUNGARY

Ten o'clock in the morning was the one tense hour of the day, for the omnibus was due to arrive and, with it, everything which connected our town with the outside world. Although most of the villagers expected neither letters nor friends, every one who had even a moment of leisure stepped to his front door when the omnibus came, and tried to catch a glimpse of the sleepy passengers who had spent a torturing night in the sombre, springless vehicle. In front of the Black Eagle Inn, congregated town loafers, children and the aged, who alone had leisure to watch the passengers alight.

This was an exciting procedure, for the omnibus was high, and its one window served also as exit, so that the passengers' feet protruded through the small opening first, the bodies being drawn carefully after. It was a mirth-provoking performance, and as laughter was an indulgence not often experienced in our sober environment, all who could afford the leisure and the laughter awaited the daily diversion at the Black Eagle Inn.

On a certain Sabbath morning I had absented myself from the synagogue. It was a June day of rare beauty with a warm, wooing, gentle wind, calling the boy in me back to the creek, the willow-trees, the goslings and the Gentile boys and girls. While nature with its willows and its goslings had no objection to my "cutting" the synagogue service, its Gentile and ungenteel children objected seriously, and I was driven back to the dusty street, with its cobblestone pavement. There was nothing to do except go to the synagogue or join the crowd of loafers around the Black Eagle Inn, and I chose the latter, although at great peril; for to be caught loafing on the Sabbath, during the hours of morning service, was sure to bring dire consequences. The clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels were already heard, proceeding from a cloud of dust which came nearer and nearer as the omnibus swayed into sight. Its emaciated, weary horses responded to the whip of the driver as they made one last, brave effort at a gallop; then stopped at their accustomed place, steaming from heat and too weary even to whisk the gathering flies from their backs.

"How many passengers have you?" some one called to the driver.

"Three-quarters of a man," he replied, laughing coarsely.

The crowd stood for a moment speechless, as the leather curtain was thrown back and a wooden leg appeared; then carefully feeling for the foot-rest, came a real leg and foot. In due time the back followed, covered by a dusty blue coat, and the man stood before us--three-quarters of a man indeed; for above the wooden leg hung an empty coat sleeve.